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Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

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Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#911

Post by DontchaKnowit »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #882
slifin wrote: post #803

The US dollar is the world's reserve currency So countries keep huge stores of dollars in their reserves because they need it for trade Then what happens is the US starts the money printer to pay for US government services This inflates the dollar and means that everyone who holds the dollar has lost value Including Americans who are paid for their labour with dollars and do not own assets So wealthy Americans/compan…

i think of it as prices of good inflating, not the dollar itself.

Theres literally 0 difference

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#912

Post by lumost »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #904
_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

> The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perception matters, because selective numbers don’t tell the whole story. Well saying "the economy is good" or "the economy is bad" out of context is simply moronic. Good for whom? Bad for whom? It's no secret our entire society is stacked to favor investors and owners rather than workers. The market certainly trea…

I also wonder how much the USD's role as the reserve currency plays into this. If I build a home for 1 MM USD today which used to cost 150k USD in 2008 - this looks like economic growth, despite the home largely being the same between the two periods.

Certain categories of the CPI have experienced extreme inflation over the last 16 years, this gets reflected in the wages of the economically mobile and in turn raises the GDP - however we don't really price housing into the CPI in a sensible manner, and due to USD dominated trade - imports and products which compete with imports don't inflate.

The discrepancy between PPP and nominal (USD) GDP seem to be telling a story.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#913

Post by tlogan »

_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

We currently lack comprehensive metrics to effectively capture critical factors that normal people consider when asked “is economy doing well”. Here’s what we need:

Home Rent Affordability: Analyzing affordability by profession and location to reflect real-world dynamics.

Home Price Affordability: Assessing how accessible homeownership is across regions.

Education Costs: Understanding the burden of education expenses on families.

School Quality: Measuring the actual quality of education available.

Healthcare Cost Affordability: Evaluating access to essential healthcare without financial strain.

Drug crisis.

Crime.

Vacations and similar things.

Developing such metrics would provide a more accurate picture of economic well-being and social equity.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#914

Post by beepbopboopp »

_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

Th

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#915

Post by tjwebbnorfolk »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #904
_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

> The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perception matters, because selective numbers don’t tell the whole story. Well saying "the economy is good" or "the economy is bad" out of context is simply moronic. Good for whom? Bad for whom? It's no secret our entire society is stacked to favor investors and owners rather than workers. The market certainly trea…

True, it's moronic if you expect to discuss the details of a complex economic system. But in a political context, the finer details aren't interesting

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#916

Post by rustyzig »

dannyobrien wrote: post #908

Just to throw in another opinion, one that I think will be guaranteed to annoy the majority of commenters so far: This piece argues that the US isn't doing that well economically in absolute or historical terms, but only looks like that way because the popular point of comparison, Europe, is doing even worse: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/12/04/us-economy...

Isn't that the general understanding? As I understand it, everyone was expecting the world to fall into a recession on the heels of the COVID situation and everything that came with that. Which much of the rest of the world effectively has (or at least close to it), as expected. The surprise is that the US is still doing okay.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#917

Post by codexb »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #863
_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

I'm not saying the economy is good. But according to polling, many folks who said the economy was "poor" before the November election now believe it's doing great. All in a very partisan fashion, of course: https://jabberwocking.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/blog_mi...

Just to clarify, thats a poll about future "expectations" about the economy. Many of the people that voted for Trump based on his economic policies now have good expectations for the economy because they expect him to implement those policies.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#918

Post by alwa »

tlogan wrote: post #913
_1tem wrote: post #588

If you go to the doctor with a problem and get a blood test and they say that everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, then you don’t say: “well the numbers are right, I should feel fine”. Rather you try to find what the numbers aren’t capturing, because you know something is wrong. Same with the economy. The perception of the economy being bad is really pervasive as demonstrated by the last election, and perc…

We currently lack comprehensive metrics to effectively capture critical factors that normal people consider when asked “is economy doing well”. Here’s what we need: Home Rent Affordability: Analyzing affordability by profession and location to reflect real-world dynamics. Home Price Affordability: Assessing how accessible homeownership is across regions. Education Costs: Understanding the burden of education expenses…

Luckily smart people have resources and a mandate to study each of those questions at scale. You might be interested in the work that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/) does on the economic side of labor conditions, and that the Census department’s American Community Survey (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs) does on the demographic and social side. Both of these groups study questions like those you asked in ways designed to be broadly comparable over time.

The Housing and Urban Development department calculates fair market rents at the county level to support their rent assistance programs (e.g. [0]), although that starts to get at part of the complexity: for your metric do you care about the economic cost or the amount families actually have to pay after assistance?

On the NGO side, groups like the NBER (https://www.nber.org/) disseminate more exotic socioeconomic studies, and there are others.

And of course you can find a mountain of data at data.gov, the federal portal for such things.

I think the harder part (and the part the policy community specializes in) is grappling with the nuances of those kinds of numbers. What do such high-level observations actually mean in something as complex as a continent-wide collection of 10^9 people, and how much human messiness polluted their measurement?

[0] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr.html

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#919

Post by notatoad »

commandlinefan wrote: post #877
matthewdgreen wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the economy is good. But according to polling, many folks who said the economy was "poor" before the November election now believe it's doing great. All in a very partisan fashion, of course: https://jabberwocking.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/blog_mi...

Not to put words in your mouth, but this comment seems to imply that politicians successfully painted a negative picture of the economy that didn't reflect reality and used that to win the last election. While I wouldn't put that past them, why was it successful this time and not every time? Nobody even tried to pretend the economy was bad when Clinton, Bush or Obama were up for re-election, because it obviously wasn…

when clinton, bush, or obama were elected, the opposing party was much less willing to engage in bad-faith arguments and outright lies for their own gain.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#920

Post by March_Hare »

loftsy wrote: post #696

I long for a US-like entrepreneurial attitude here in the UK. Business people here think that they are playing zero sum games. Everyone looks to the govt for funding and direction. I am reflecting on Deepmind. This company saw the AI revolution before anyone else. London based. They did an amazing job. Sold to Google. The problem is that long term the growth and money now goes back to the US. Maybe the UK is just too…

I'm sure it's not nothing, but to what extent does it matter that Alphabet is headquartered in the US? Deepmind seems to still be based in Kings Cross - and London benefits.
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