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The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

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Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#231

Post by codedokode »

mrb wrote: post #122
dogma1138 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses PPP for measuring growth, GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either. The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

" GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. " Still, if PPP GDP increases, with all else being equal (eg. stable population) it would imply the standard of living is increasing. That is why PPP GDP captures a more accurate measure of the real world. Said another way, what truly matters isn't "GDP growth", but changes in purchasing power/quality of life.

PPP is a misleading figure. If your PPP-adjusted income is 2 times higher than someone's else does it mean that you can buy 2 times more MacBooks or trips to Korea?

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#232

Post by e4e5 »

rafaelero wrote: post #110
kryptiskt wrote: post #40

The economic engine of the Eurozone, Germany, keeps stepping on the brakes because they are so obsessed with their competitiveness and running huge trade surpluses. If the German consumers would finally be allowed to a bigger share of all the gains from their productivity it would be good for the whole of Europe as the biggest problem is weak demand. But no, we can't have that because then their trade surplus would s…

US wages have not followed US productivity for the last 50 years as well.

I don't understand this argument. If everyone has become more productive, why would wages rise? Wouldn't we see that as inflation then? I think the rise of productivity is more seen in the growth of the GDP

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#233

Post by klardotsh »

Alupis wrote: post #176
Supermancho wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of your entry-level jobs were supposed to be for highschool and college kids working part time. This is some soft language hiding some bad assumptions. "supposed to be" - what does this mean? because it's a lot more interesting...low skilled jobs, are probably what we're going to be talking about. However, it's not the 1950s anymore. eg Staffing a movie theater is not a part-time job (which you would know if y…

> If you have a fulltime job, the minimum wage is intended to allow you to survive This is the issue - the idea that minimum wage is supposed to be "livable" is a modern notion. Unskilled labor probably shouldn't be livable. If someone can be trained to replace you in a few minutes (i.e. unskilled labor), then the truth is your labor is not worth a lot. We need more people moving up into skilled labor. It's really ha…

Your entire argument is predicated on the idea that anyone should be incapable of paying rent, which you might find is not a universally-agreed upon opinion, or even an opinion some find worth the keystrokes it was written with.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#234

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #70
mepian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the good ol' trickle-down economics.

It's very difficult to argue in good faith "trickle-down" economics was/is a failure. A rising tide obviously raises all ships, including the nation's poorest. To create vast wealth generally requires vast resources, which requires vast amounts of people. Behemoths the size of Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Google, et al employ significant chunks of the population - and not just directly. Trickle-down doesn't mean every…

[deleted]

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#235

Post by gruez »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #14
midasuni wrote: post #5

All “growth” in gdp seems to go to rich people. Normal people have seen stagnant wages and increased costs from the owners. Why should I care if gdp isn’t increasing when I don’t see any gains whether it does or not?

The way real wages are tracked also undersell this trend. In theory since 2008 real wages have been increasing... in practice, housing and other costs like childcare have increased astronomically during that period negating any real gains.

>In theory since 2008 real wages have been increasing... in practice, housing and other costs like childcare have increased astronomically during that period negating any real gains.

That's categorically not true. Adjusting for inflation, wages today are up 6.8% compared to 2008.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#236

Post by ljlolel »

janalsncm wrote: post #158

This is a bit of a frame trap. Here’s another metric: ==2021== Life expectancy in EU: 80 Life expectancy in US: 76 ==Rolling back to 2008== Life expectancy in EU: 79 Life expectancy in US: 78 What’s the point? Maybe GDP isn’t the most important indicator. The US can double it’s GDP by making healthcare more expensive and extracting every last dime from the elderly, but can it actually improve quality of life for peop…

Most of the gap is actually people doing pension fraud due to overly generous state benefits.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#237

Post by htfu »

dogma1138 wrote: post #216
htfu wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Real GDP, chart is nominal...

? I’m replying to your statement: > This swing is the main driver of this whole thing and means that yes, PPP is superior for looking at growth. It is technically incorrect on every level. As GDP PPP fundamentally is unsuitable for calculating growth. The GDP of Greece pre crash was $355B today it’s $219B, it’s GDP PPP pre-crash was $341B today it’s $389B if you think the Greek economy grew over that period or that t…

I'm saying given the choices of "US economy doubled! Eurozone completely stagnant" (nominal) and "both grew, US somewhat more" (PPP), PPP is by far a more accurate model of what has actually transpired.

That is all.

What it may or may not say about Greece is utterly irrelevant because that's not what I was talking about.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#238

Post by unmole »

HWR_14 wrote: post #226
dogma1138 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses PPP for measuring growth, GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either. The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

Isn't PPP per capita a better measure of quality of life than nominal GDP per capita? I care about what I can buy. Obviously, nominal GDP per capita matters for international vacations.

> Isn't PPP per capita a better measure of quality of life than nominal GDP per capita?

No.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#239

Post by RoyalHenOil »

qeternity wrote: post #67
genocidicbunny wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But she decided that life really wasn’t very exciting and she had no opportunity for growth whatsoever Dirty little secret in the US is that for very many people, there's no opportunity for growth whatsoever either. It's a relatively small section of society that even gets access to that opportunity. A lot of people in the US would trade their 'exciting' life of working 80+ hours a day to barely be able to pay the…

Ah yes, spoken like someone who has never lived outside the US. I’m American but I’ve been an expat most of my adult life. I love the rest of the world. But Americans simply do not realize how good they have it.

As an American who immigrated to Australia, but still travels back home a lot to visit friends and family, this is not my take at all. Moving overseas revealed to me how much lower income Americans are getting a raw deal. Yes, it could be a lot worse, but it could also be a lot better (especially considering that the US could handily afford it).

I don't think Australia is the nicest country to live in by any means, but it's far better to be middle class or lower class here than in the US.

Re: The US economy and the EU were the same size in 2008, the US is now nearly 2X

#240

Post by dogma1138 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #226
dogma1138 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses PPP for measuring growth, GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts. PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either. The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

Isn't PPP per capita a better measure of quality of life than nominal GDP per capita? I care about what I can buy. Obviously, nominal GDP per capita matters for international vacations.

No, GDP PPP doesn’t measure what you can buy it measure how much things cost.

It doesn’t know how much money you have, it doesn’t measure the purchasing power of individuals. It also is based on a basket of 3000 fungible goods and services without accounting for value of quality or outcomes; as explained already in this thread.

It doesn’t take into account median income, income and wealth inequality, unemployment rates or any other factor that probably matters more than how much a bag of potatoes or a new highway costs.

Bulgaria has a worse GDP PPP per capita than Russia and many other far worse places. Guyana has a better GDP PPP per capita than France or Canada.

Greece’s GDP PPP per capita and in general is now higher than its pre-2008 crash, its nominal GDP however is still nearly half of what it was.

Youth unemployment is nearly at 40% with overall unemployment at 10-11% which is still masked by the fact that many people were still able to retire early over the past decade as they were still eligible for the 60 year retirement age (and earlier for certain occupations).

None of these factors alone can be used to extrapolate how well people are doing it take far more in-depth and even somewhat subjective analysis.

For example Norways GDP PPP per capita is about 30% higher than that of Finland however the average Norwegian is probably not better off than the average Finn especially not by “30%”.

Using GDP PPP per capita or otherwise as a rebuttal for economic stagnation due to lack of GDP growth is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worse.

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