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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

scythe wrote: post #297
dogma1138 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rat…

>It doesn’t know how much money you have, it doesn’t measure the purchasing power of individuals. No per-capita metric does this. You have to use things like the median wage to capture the purchasing power of individuals. For example, Equatorial Guinea's GDP/c is among the highest in Africa, but due to insanely high inequality and oppression, people are better off in Senegal or Rwanda. Guyana, which recently discover…

[deleted]

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

#312

Post by dmoy »

dougmwne wrote: post #73

Here’s a better comparison. The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience. Plus there’s a slower growth rate even in the good times. https://freedomandprosperity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/... That said, these numbers are very misleading and do not show well what a person’s life looks like in the US. By my own anecdotal estimation, in the EU low and medium in…

> For example in some parts of Spain the wealth tax is high enough that it would be impossible to live off investments as the safe withdrawal rate is so low that you would need millions to fund a modest income.

What are the numbers there? I heard of the wealth tax above €3 million, but is there more?

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

#313

Post by jfim »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #291
scaredginger wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand that you've just linked the numbers that are being criticised without addressing the criticisms?

What piece of the CPI adjustment formula are you arguing is so flawed that is negates any "real" gains of wages? And why do you believe the markets haven't caught on and started following a better metric? To bring things back a bit, the argument was that > housing and other costs like childcare have increased astronomically during that period negating any real gains Yet, gruez is downvoted while citing CPI-adjusted w…

The CPI only includes OER (owner equivalent rent), not housing prices. OER is also a lagging indicator due to it being calculated on current rental expenses, not market rate rents (eg. when people move and their rental expenses get adjusted for the market).

A study by the San Francisco fed in 2022 [0] calculated that based on Zillow market data, the rent component of the CPI is to increase by about seven percent each year in 2022 and 2023:

> Our model confirms that an increase in current asking rents or current house prices can push up the CPI rent index for a typical MSA for as long as 24 months into the future. Given the currently elevated levels of Zillow asking rent inflation and Zillow house price inflation averaged across all MSAs, the model predicts that CPI rent inflation will increase by about 3.4pp for both 2022 and 2023, relative to its historical average rate of 3.7%.

[0] https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...

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

#314

Post by zerodensity »

ljlolel wrote: post #236
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.

Why do you think that?

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

#315

Post by bjornasm »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #304
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…

These stats drive me up the wall because the US is more diverse than every single European country . The life expectancy in California is 81 and in Alabama it’s 74. That’s the difference between the UK and like, Latvia. This matters because when you look at these crude aggregate stats, people naively assume that it means that everything is a bit worse but the actual American story is usually more like broad prosperit…

What a weird way of framing it. The USA is compared with EU, so it doesn't matter if USA is more diverse than single european countries. As you point out, EU is also very diverse.

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

#316

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

TMWNN wrote: post #202
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #179

Was the UK included then excluded from the data? Perhaps explains the stagnation in the data How much does the FED has printed vs the ECB? How much of EU's economy was affected by the US extraterritoriality legislation? https://www.rferl.org/a/1095057.html https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1665370246126125060

> Was the UK included then excluded from the data? Perhaps explains the stagnation in the data The chart says "Eurozone". Either you 1) didn't read the chart, or 2) don't know that the UK was never a part of the Eurozone. If 1), read the discussed thing the next time before discussing it. If 2), never speak about economics in public again.

I confused myself with the EEA

I love when someone correct me because I don't like carrying incorrect knowledge with me

Your hostile and condescending tone however wasn't needed

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

#317

Post by dogma1138 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #251
codedokode wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If I earn $100k somewhere in Eastern Europe, then deducting all taxes and recurring costs like health insurance, rent or mortgage, from what’s left I may be able to buy more MacBooks or trips to Korea than someone from San Francisco. It is misleading to compare just a few imported goods to make conclusions as well.

You’ll be surprised at how much housing costs in Eastern Europe these days…

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

#318

Post by bjornasm »

nemo44x wrote: post #296
Kapura wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, do you mean by "The USA offers you more potential?"

More opportunity. More capacity to improve your lot in life. More luxury. More space. It goes on. There’s a reason millions more people from the EU live in the USA than the other way. Or why there’s a line 100s of millions long to come to the USA. Nowhere is perfect but as a world traveler I’d say the USA is pretty great. What I have found most interesting over the last 20 years is that the conversation has moved fro…

>There’s a reason millions more people from the EU live in the USA than the other way. Or why there’s a line 100s of millions long to come to the USA.

That the EU has 100million more inhabitants, a history of relocating to the US or american culture and language being extremely present all over western society?

>Nowhere is perfect but as a world traveler I’d say the USA is pretty great.

"Nothing is like home" - news at 11.

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

#319

Post by Supermancho »

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…

> We need more people moving up into skilled labor.

Need? No. Would it be better for society? Maybe. This is not really something that people disagree with. Dispensing with the repetition will save the distraction.

> the idea that minimum wage is supposed to be "livable" is a modern notion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage - back to 1604, or earlier or later; what does it matter?

> Unskilled labor probably shouldn't be livable.

Why? Arguing the economic consequences are not a reasoning.

There will always be humans who are incapable of skilled labor (of any note) beyond newly educated students. eg The Calculator profession and other forms of industrial collapse as well as immigrants (legal or otherwise) and the disabled. It's not clear what you think is the obvious way to keep these people alive. Welfare/socialism or pretending they don't exist, relegating them to a slave class, or exile?

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

#320

Post by dogma1138 »

scythe wrote: post #297
dogma1138 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rat…

>It doesn’t know how much money you have, it doesn’t measure the purchasing power of individuals. No per-capita metric does this. You have to use things like the median wage to capture the purchasing power of individuals. For example, Equatorial Guinea's GDP/c is among the highest in Africa, but due to insanely high inequality and oppression, people are better off in Senegal or Rwanda. Guyana, which recently discover…

Exactly, your GDP PPP can be double that of the US and it does you absolutely squat if the median wage is 10 times lower.

I swear I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen this low level of topical knowledge in a post on HN as this one.

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