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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

#221

Post by zmgsabst »

epolanski wrote: post #178
zmgsabst wrote: post #24

Populism is best understood as the general public asserting elites have “broken the deal” that legitimizes their rule — and the public withdrawing their assent from the regime. They are correct that the technocratic managerialists on the past century have failed — and failed in a way damaging to the state/nation. (For US and EU at least.) In so far as we’re all discussing that (and have been for several years), they’…

This is all so vague. We come from decades if not a century of spectacular growth and yet "technocratic managerialists have failed", what, where, how? The United States comes out of 25 years of unprecedented growth, in spite of two major economical recessions and has outpaced the majority of advanced economies.

You’re using top line numbers to make that assertion, but gains are not evenly distributed.

There’s prolific ink spilled on the failures of technocratic managerialism over the past 40 years as gain become decoupled — and particularly over the past decade as the breakdown has reached critical mass.

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

#222

Post by mschuster91 »

eecc wrote: post #84
mschuster91 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s because that so-called bubble has been ballooning in size for three decades now, and almost nobody still believes that it will “burst” in any meaningful sense. That's because Boomers live far longer than prior generations thanks to medical advances. The housing bubble will collapse (at least outside of the megalopolises) once the Boomers finally start to die en masse due to their over-representation in demog…

Well, that rent and the debts incurred to finance consumption is also keeping the profits up and thus stonks valuations

The problem is, people more and more can't manage to pay these rents, so they're either cutting back on any absolutely not necessary spending or going homeless outright. For now, there are enough desperate people that still have some money to pay rent... but retail, no matter which industry, is feeling the impact of people having no spending money hard.

Without the AI bubble artificially propping up the GDP, it is most likely the US economy is in a recession [1].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/ai-infrastructure-boom-masks...

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

#223

Post by jdasdf »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #216
jdasdf wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. They weren't paying "into the system". They were being taxed. Treat it for what it was, and stop feeding the pyramid scheme.

I had a promise that if I paid NI then I would receive the state pension. It might have been better not to make that promise but you can’t blame people for accepting it.

Perhaps if people were burned for trusting electoral promises, they would be more mindful of their sustainability.

Stop justifying pyramid schemes.

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

#224

Post by Retric »

rsynnott wrote: post #198
Retric wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re buying stock in a company not a market, and a company doesn’t need to be based in a country to profit from that country. Plenty of companies listed on foreign exchanges make the majority of their money from the US market etc.

> You’re buying stock in a company not a market I mean, we're talking about index funds, where you essentially are buying a market.

A set of Stocks != a market.

For one thing you’re only buying public companies, that in and of itself is a significant difference.

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

#225

Post by falloutx »

roenxi wrote: post #93
bojan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That progress in India comes as an excuse to weaken their democratic institutions. The fallacy is that Modi is to praise - the progress comes mostly because of enormously positive global trends developed in the past decades, the ones that are now being threatened. > Couple decades ago there were rather isolated Yugoslav Wars. A bit of nuance, they ended in 1999, however the whole thing is still influencing Europe neg…

Progress in India is due to policy in India. The idea that India can handwave it's successes and failures on external forces might have been well justified in 1955, but in this century they get to choose. Best hope for the anti-Modi-policy crowd is maybe it isn't Modi's policies specifically. In fact, in the vast majority of cases (including North America, South America, Europe, East Asia, India & South-East Asia) pr…

Whats the point of this progress which is completely destroying nature and giving people all kinds of cancer, India's oligarchy is more destructive than any other country on Earth. Indians used to be the most naturalist people in the world and now look at the state of the country.

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

#226

Post by Retric »

epolanski wrote: post #152
Retric wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re buying stock in a company not a market, and a company doesn’t need to be based in a country to profit from that country. Plenty of companies listed on foreign exchanges make the majority of their money from the US market etc.

You can buy "into a market" by investing in a ETF following the MSCI EM or SP500. In any case not sure what's your point about single stock companies in a discussion about market indexes.

> You can buy "into a market" by investing in a ETF following the MSCI EM or SP500.

Nope. A more accurate description is saying you’re buying into a specific subset of a Market by buying shares of specific companies. Hand waving them as if they are the same thing doesn’t actually make them the same thing.

The MSCI EM, SP500, etc etc are simply a collection of public companies not the market of a given country. Which is why index funds all behave in fundamentally different ways than the actual markets we’re talking about.

Now if you do want more exposure to the upsides of a growing economy there are options, it’s just not a simple as buying an index fund.

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

#227

Post by baxtr »

dgb23 wrote: post #204
baxtr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this as well. I haven’t found a good cure for this other than diversifying globally.

Many global indexes are also traded in USD. Ironically last year has been good for those who held EUR based or CHF based indexes.

Still not helpful if you need to pay your bills in EUR?

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

#228

Post by graemep »

Earw0rm wrote: post #162
lm28469 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Depends if you look at Spain in isolation. On its own? Sure. (Although to be fair to Spain, they've invested heavily in solar and high-value agriculture in recent years). But seen as part of a system with Germany and perhaps the UK (no longer part of the EU, but was better for both when they were), it's a valuable part of quality-of-life in the overall economic bloc. Where would you rather live? Spain, easy. Who woul…

> Who would win in a war? Russia, easy.

Really? Russia has not even done all that well against Ukraine, a much smaller economy.

What sort of war? I agree Spain could not successfully invade Russia, on the other hand Russia could not invade Spain either. No working aircraft carriers so their air force would be operating from very distant bases (even if they were allowed to pass over the countries in between), limits on ability to land large numbers of troops, etc.

> no longer part of the EU, but was better for both when they were

I do not understand why you even mention that as the EU does not have a military, NATO is relevant and the UK is in NATO.

Its a matter of opinion. I think the UK is at least as well off (growth has been similar to comparable economies like France and Germany since Brexit) without even seeing the long term benefits AND the EU is better off as the UK was a major impediment to the political integration the Euro zone needs.

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

#229

Post by lm28469 »

matwood wrote: post #122
lm28469 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Pointing to Russia as a functioning economy is comical.

idk man, France's economy minister said he would bring "russia on its knees" economically, 3 years later it's still not anywhere close to being a reality, the minister isn't here anymore tho.

Put half of the sanctions on spain and it would fold in a month

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

#230

Post by graemep »

theozaurus wrote: post #23
p0pularopinion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to see it positive. With the AI bubble, I finally habe a tangible example to point to when I say that GDP growth is a bad indicator for economic success

The book the 'Growth Delusion' has some great examples on this as well. To quote the FTs[1] review of the book. "The official protocols define the scope of GDP as measuring all monetised activity between willing parties in a given period. It is a pragmatic definition, but leads to some counterintuitive results. The sale of stolen goods for cash contributes positively to GDP, for example — so theft is good for growth.…

The UK is just starting official statistics that include the value of household self supply. I do not know whether there is good enough historical data to compare it with.
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