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Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

economist.com

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Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#121

Post by decimalenough »

Animats wrote: post #94

Protectionism is failing to revive manufacturing Yes. The rare earths situation is embarrassing. This has been a political football for years now, but the efforts to fix it aren't working very well. First, you need a mine site and a mine. The US has a big one at Mountain Pass, California, and it's producing. But in the past twenty years, it's gone bankrupt twice and has been through three owners, because there were a…

Rare earths are not actually all that rare, they're just present in very low concentrations and require tons of processing with nasty chemicals to extract. Those startups etc aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs for kicks, they're mostly mired in bureaucratic approvals and/or lack of finances due to a very justified fear of those approvals. Throw in the wild price fluctuations and it's much easier to just buy everything from China, which already has everything in place.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#122

Post by matwood »

lm28469 wrote: post #66
baxtr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not perfect but probably the best we have. People forgot or simply don’t realize how much worse life was just a couple of decades ago (in terms of nutrition, access to knowledge, clean water, material wealth).

It's utter trash, it was good when we had industry focused economies instead of service focused ones. Everybody mocked Russia for having the same gdp as Spain. As it turns out your economy is much stronger when it's focused on heavy industries, steel, mining, oil, &c. Than when it is focused on tourism and other services One produces value, the other generates money, when shits hit the fan you need energy, the drunk…

Pointing to Russia as a functioning economy is comical.

Industry focused economies are going to continue to come under pressure due to automation. The US for example has a lot of industrial output, but shrinking industrial jobs. And that’s a good thing. Sending people into coal mines should never be a long term plan.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#123

Post by djtango »

vanviegen wrote: post #89
huhkerrf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget that Millennials are the first generation to be poorer than their parents in a long time... This is simply not true. At some point, we do need to rely on data other than "lived experience," which compares one's quality of life at 22 to someone's quality of life at 50. "Younger Americans (millennials and Gen Zers) owned $1.23 for every $1 of wealth owned by Gen Xers at the same age." "Younger Americans…

If they ever want to own a house they won't need just 23% or 35% more wealth, but more like 200% and 1000% respectively. You do need to start at lived experience to know which data to look at.

Exactly - people have it backwards, when data diverges from lived experience you don't tell lived experience to shut up cuz' dataa you go back and check your models and your data collection. And you check and you check and you check. Einstein was famously wary of Quantum Mechanics rather than taking the findings at face value, and I guarantee that economic data is a hell of a lot less rigorous and more complicated than particle physics. Not to mention the data is political...

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#124

Post by Nursie »

jdasdf wrote: post #106
Nursie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am not a supporter of Nigel Farage and his many different parties in the UK ('Reform' just being the latest incarnation), and I don't believe his policies offer any real answers. But what the rise of Reform does show us is the utter disillusionment with the mainstream parties of the UK, who have spent the last several decades afraid to make meaningful changes. They tell people they can't have what they want…

>People wonder where all the money is going and there's no particularly good answer. The answer is welfare. That is the original sin of all of this, and the one people refuse to acknowledge. You need to let people fail.

That's about 25% of UK government spending. 33% if you include pensions.

The UK does have an issue with a lowering number of people in productive work and ever more on various kinds of disability payout, it's true, but this -

> You need to let people fail.

Doesn't really follow.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#125

Post by instagraham »

There's a quote by Mahatma Gandhi that resonates whenever I see contrasting debates about this economic indicator or that:

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

India's IT outsourcing-led GDP growth can benefit many almost-poor and poor people by giving them access to more spending by the "middle-class" (a very debatable minority in India) and the rich. But it will not benefit the poorest - social welfare schemes do that, but anti-homeless measures cancel it out. Access to formalised lending can do that, but anti-immigrant schemes and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of getting an id-card in India will negate that. And banks won't give you a loan if you're poor (so they go to loansharks).

You can have all the Apples and the Facebooks of the world in California, but putting spikes in places where homeless people could sleep makes Gandhi's talisman stand out far better than any macro-economic indicator.

Inflation can be positive or negative but if you're living in a place with less supply than demand, your rent will go up by far more than the price of eggs. This will hurt you completely independently of the price of eggs.

All this to say - if you care about the poorest, you'll find little to cheer about. But should you care about the poorest? Is that a good measure of healthy economic growth? Is economic growth the only priority after 1991?

You can be poor and destitute in a capitalist dystopia and you can be poor and destitute in a communist dystopia. This is why I hate the language of the Cold War so much - we lose an infinite amount of nuance with terms like "Capitalism" "socialism" "communism" and "GDP"

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#126

Post by Nursie »

jacquesm wrote: post #115
Nursie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am not a supporter of Nigel Farage and his many different parties in the UK ('Reform' just being the latest incarnation), and I don't believe his policies offer any real answers. But what the rise of Reform does show us is the utter disillusionment with the mainstream parties of the UK, who have spent the last several decades afraid to make meaningful changes. They tell people they can't have what they want…

It shows you that, but it also shows you the success of propaganda.

Yes, that is the other side of the coin, that people are not just attracted to change because of loss of faith in the mainstream, but actually going over to support the populists.

And this is not aimed at you, but I do see all too often that people in the more mainstream spaces look at that side of the coin exclusively. "They're supporting reform because they're racist/stupid/brainwashed/propagandised". Sure, sure, those are definitely factors. But the opportunity to do that brainwashing and propagandising is there for a reason.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#127

Post by 4ggr0 »

Animats wrote: post #94

Protectionism is failing to revive manufacturing Yes. The rare earths situation is embarrassing. This has been a political football for years now, but the efforts to fix it aren't working very well. First, you need a mine site and a mine. The US has a big one at Mountain Pass, California, and it's producing. But in the past twenty years, it's gone bankrupt twice and has been through three owners, because there were a…

why go to the trouble of building and maintaining mines in your expensive western country if you can just take all the minerals from african mines, while also getting the profits of these mines. no worries about salaries, no one cares when workers die by the dozens, ...

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#128

Post by Nursie »

neilwilson wrote: post #100
Nursie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am not a supporter of Nigel Farage and his many different parties in the UK ('Reform' just being the latest incarnation), and I don't believe his policies offer any real answers. But what the rise of Reform does show us is the utter disillusionment with the mainstream parties of the UK, who have spent the last several decades afraid to make meaningful changes. They tell people they can't have what they want…

You might want to read https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/00213624.2025.2... Which will disabuse you of the notion that we are "high on debt". "high on savings" perhaps. We can always afford to make things better. Afford is never the issue. Political will to take on the vested interests is the issue.

It's not my contention really that the UK or other nation can or can't afford to do things differently, it's more that that is the constant refrain coming from mainstream politics, along with a multitude of other excuses for relative inaction.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#129

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jdasdf wrote: post #106
Nursie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am not a supporter of Nigel Farage and his many different parties in the UK ('Reform' just being the latest incarnation), and I don't believe his policies offer any real answers. But what the rise of Reform does show us is the utter disillusionment with the mainstream parties of the UK, who have spent the last several decades afraid to make meaningful changes. They tell people they can't have what they want…

>People wonder where all the money is going and there's no particularly good answer. The answer is welfare. That is the original sin of all of this, and the one people refuse to acknowledge. You need to let people fail.

In the UK at least the biggest portion of welfare goes to the state pension.

It’s hard to deal with that when people have been paying into the system for their whole working lives on the promise that they will be looked after in old age.

It’s hard to see how you can fix this whilst pensioners continue to vote whilst young people don’t.

Re: Do not mistake a resilient global economy for populist success

#130

Post by toenail »

BrenBarn wrote: post #54
EZ-E wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a good measure of meaningful growth? Genuinely asking. I imagine all measures have pros and cons.

I said meaningful measure of economic health, not growth. :-) But I'm not sure. The book "Mismeasuring our lives" gives five recommendations for developing improved measures: 1. Look at income and consumption rather than production 2. Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth 3. Emphasize the household perspective (with this they seem to be focusing on more meaningful measurement of in-kind services and int…

> even a decrease in GDP could result in most people being better off if it occurred because of wealth redistribution

Which mechanisms exist to redistribute wealth fairly?

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