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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

#431

Post by beebeepka »

dogma1138 wrote: post #200
kranke155 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people who lived in the USSR in the 1970s and missed it.

Good for them, I know plenty others who didn’t including my entire family. That still isn’t the point, the quality of life in the USSR wasn’t a close 2nd to the US in fact when the USSR economy started to fall apart in the late 70’s and 80’s it too switched to PPP because hey our bread is cheap even if you need to stand in line to get it. And Guyana today isn’t a better place to live in than France or Canada, and Bul…

With climate change, today's Russia will end up the best prime estate in the world. Unless we flood them and turn it all to shit once we're driven up there due to draught, famine, war

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

#432

Post by thomasz »

FredPret wrote: post #344
dogma1138 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP PPP in the US is identical to the nominal GDP in the US since the purchasing currency in the US is the US dollar. > What I meant to write is: if the PPP GDP increases in the EU faster than in the US, with all else being equal (eg. stable population) it would imply the standard of living is increasing faster in the EU than in the US. No it doesn’t mean anything of the sort in fact high nominal GDP to GDP PPP ratio…

US economic performance is all the more OP if you take into account that it's a huge country of 350m people and has a diversified economic base. For a tiny banking nation or petrostate to be rich is unsurprising. But when it's half a continent, the world really ought to take out their notebooks and go into full copycat mode - at least as far as economic policy and attitudes are concerned.

Unfortunately, we are not allowed to print the world reserve currency like there is no tomorrow, and we do not possess the qualities of the US that make them the natural haven for capital in times of global turbulence.

That being said, the policy of austerity implemented during the Euro crisis was pretty catastrophic and arrested growth prospects for a whole generation.

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

#433

Post by scarby2 »

hibikir wrote: post #420
jandrewrogers wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to see a European brick and mortar house survive a Magnitude 8 earthquake, which is a requirement in San Francisco. The US used to have lots of brick and mortar construction, just like Europe. After those buildings were all destroyed by strong earthquakes, they switched to steel and wood, which can survive a strong earthquake. Europe style construction is not allowed in much of the US because it demonstrably…

And yet, most residential construction is basically the same, whether it's going to be built in Palo Alto, upstate NY, Kansas, south Florida or Portland. Most of those don't have anything that even resembles strong earthquake risk. American housing is built the way it is not due to extra interest in safety, but because it's cheap to build under US prices. You can call it better or worse than Europe, but it sure isn't…

>And yet, most residential construction is basically the same, whether it's going to be built in Palo Alto, upstate NY, Kansas, south Florida or Portland

This was the case but it's not really true any more. Building codes have become more stringent and risk specific. This hasn't changed anything around earthquakes though as as building a single story wood building that stands up to an earthquake is easy, building one that withstands a hurricane is harder.

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

#434

Post by yorwba »

FredPret wrote: post #326
conjecTech wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Size is denominated in terms of some measure. You don’t eat dollars, and you can’t build a house out of one. GDP has doubled, but so have US prices. Does that mean the economy is actually stronger? Using PPP simply chooses to denominate GDP in terms of things other that fiat currency.

PPP is usually meant to compare economies and control for differences in cost of living, not comparing time periods. Inflation is when you compare the same economy in two time periods. Furthermore, economic growth is measured in "real" dollars, aka, excludig inflation. If US prices doubled as you say, then their economy is therefore now four times as large in the new, inflated dollars. None of this has anything to do…

Economic growth is best measured excluding inflation, but the chart in the tweet uses "current prices" aka the 2008 values are in 2008-dollars and the 2023 values are in 2023-dollars, including all the inflation that happened in between. (I've seen actual economists get confused by this meaning of "current", mislabeling a "current dollars" chart from 2019 as being in 2019-dollars, even though it wasn't inflation-adjusted at all.)

Using the World Bank's figures in 2015-dollars https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?location...

GDP 2008 US: 16.38T EU: 13.19T US/EU: 1.24

GDP 2022 US: 20.95T EU: 15.21T US/EU: 1.38 (2023 not yet available)

Ratio of ratios: 1.11, so the US has increased its lead by about 11%, which is not nothing, but also less dramatic than it looks to me in the "current prices" chart.

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

#435

Post by IceHegel »

GDP as the prime measure of national prosperity is nothing short of a joke. This indicator is really just a proxy for unchecked consumption. It fools us into thinking we're tracking economic health. If you allow yourself to imagine, say, a population addicted to drugs, you would find that GDP would surge with every consumed dose. Especially in the US, we've allowed our economy to become so consumption-oriented, it's alarming.

The health of the people is the supreme law (Salus populi suprema lex esto).

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

#436

Post by ikekkdcjkfke »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #377
nonethewiser wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a history of relocating to the US or american culture and language being extremely present all over western society? Well these just reinforce his point

This history suggests there was opportunity at one point, at least. The culture/language being widespread doesn't say anything about the USA being better. How does that reinforce his point?

The startup culture started there

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

#437

Post by scarby2 »

themitigating wrote: post #429
hibikir wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, most residential construction is basically the same, whether it's going to be built in Palo Alto, upstate NY, Kansas, south Florida or Portland. Most of those don't have anything that even resembles strong earthquake risk. American housing is built the way it is not due to extra interest in safety, but because it's cheap to build under US prices. You can call it better or worse than Europe, but it sure isn't…

What is the advantage of using stronger building materials? Say brick vs wood frames.

It's not necessarily about strength but brick buildings will survive both fire and water much better than wooden buildings, they don't burn or rot. Brick buildings generally last hundreds of years with minimal maintenance (assuming no earthquakes).

Wood buildings can last hundreds of years but require far more upkeep.

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

#438

Post by troupo »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #57
troupo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is dramatically better, but it already was dramatically better 10 years ago, and in the developed countries a lot of those improvements stagnated or are slowly rolling back due to stagnant wages, insane costs of living etc.

The world is getting almost noticeably better by the day - due to all the progress people make every day, building on top of past progress. If you're staying "stagnant" and the world is getting better, you're better off. Even if you're declining, you can be better off. If you think poor people in the US and Europe have it rough today, you should read up about what it was like to be a normal person in the 1600s in Eur…

> If you think poor people in the US and Europe have it rough today, you should read up about what it was like to be a normal person in the 1600s in Europe.

The fact that we're better off than people in the 1600s does not contradict what I wrote.

> The average lower middle class family today has it better off than nobility in the 1700s.

But in many countries is worse off than a couple of decades ago.

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

#439

Post by derelicta »

amrocha wrote: post #424
nonethewiser wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By my own anecdotal estimation Well here is an actual study that found the poorest 20% of Americans consumed more goods and services than the average people from affluent countries. Including Europe. https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than... This matches my anecdotal observations of everything being smaller in Europe, people owning less, and energy being so expensive.

Consumption is a terrible proxy for quality of life. It's also terribly USAian of you.

don't you know CONSUM = HAPPY ?
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