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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

#561
post #456

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…

> All of this is deep in the political psyche that wants to cut down the tall poppies. What you call "cut down tall poppies" others call "correcting thousands of years of aristocracy-fuelled unfairness". European wealth has much older roots. In a few centuries, Americans will likely reach a similar political point.

> What you call "cut down tall poppies" others call "correcting thousands of years of aristocracy-fuelled unfairness". European wealth has much older roots.

What does taxing _income_ of upper-middle class high-earners (who are probably coming somewhere from Eastern Europe and are not related to Habsburgs or something) have to do we dealing with _generational_ wealth of old-money families? In fact, descendants of well-off parents seem to do just fine. If anything they basically becoming landed gentry considering how unattainable housing has become.

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

#562
post #60
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where buy estate easily? Somewhere on Belarus border? Or on Adriatic see shore? I mean Europe is big and economic differences really huge.

all over the south is where people prefer. For americans, it s cheap

Ok. Spain and Portugal isn’t that expensive. But in other hand the climate there is about to get too hot for comfy living.

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

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US’s secret sauce is that is an empire that can, will and does constantly project its massive military and clandestine power around the world to further its interests at all times, while never having to deal with any of its blowback. And then americans laugh at the EU welcoming refugees you created in the first place, or pretend the EU is socialist while laughing at its massive energy crisis caused by its complet…

pretty certain it's the germans that decided to use the russian gas meanwhile the US was pretty upset about the idea

The US has been trying to sabotage German energy markets for a while:

https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2021/01/germany-rejects-u-s-sa...

It finally got its wish with the destruction of the NS2 ..

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

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it would imply the standard of living is increasing. In USA, GDP includes the explosion of numbers of hospital admin staffers, energy prices doubled, and production of munitions which are given to Europe. That GDP does not increase my quality of life.

This reminds me of an old "ad" (not sure it was ever placed anywhere) questioning a similar tendency [1]: > For years, economists have defined the economic health of a country by its gross domestic product. Trouble is, every time a forest falls, the GDP goes up. With every oil spill, the GDP goes up. Every time a cancer patient is diagnosed, the GDP goes up. Is this how we measure economic progress? Economists must l…

Eisenhower put it well.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech#The_...

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

#565
post #442
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a myth at German universities, that programming is too practical. So basically you brew there computer scientists with couple internships where they see how programming works.

> There is a myth at German universities, that programming is too practical. Am I understanding this correctly that students don't get programming assignments?

They do, but at least 15ys ago at university of Karlsruhe (which they laughably renamed to KIT at that time) people could circumvent most of the programming tasks. I looked up the current curriculum a couple of months ago, and they at least seem to have expanded from "3 weeks Java embedded into another course" to a full-blown one semester long programming course.

If you ask me, they should make programming the fabric of almost all exercises/tasks, be it in math, cs or sth else along the lines. This would, however, require professors who are in to that kind of stuff and most preferred singing powerpoint-karaoke.

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

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>That being said, the policy of austerity implemented during the Euro crisis was pretty catastrophic and arrested growth prospects for a whole generation. It was an austerity policy in name only given government debts have only continued to increase since then. There's a demonstrated correlation between high government debt and lower growth.

Nah, that’s demonstratively wrong dogmatism. Obviously it’s not a good idea to take three times your national GDP in debt to build three oversized airports next to each other because your family owns your nations construction business. But letting education and infrastructure collapse and watch a whole generation grow old without any chance meaningful workforce participation and without a chance at having a family is pretty devastating too.

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

#568
post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a myth at German universities, that programming is too practical. Am I understanding this correctly that students don't get programming assignments?

This is false. In Germany there are Universitäten and Hochschulen. Hochschulen are more practical, at one of these you have programming assignments or projects in nearly every subject. Universitäten are more about the theory but they still have some programming assignments, maybe one subject every semester. At some Unis CS is just a part of the Mathematics department so that is also a factor which makes them even mor…

That is the theoretical construct in the German system. However the differences are fading and to me it does not seem to be like German universities, as actors of (self-proclaimed) highest art in their topics, are doing very well.

Btw: Though I enjoyed Maths much more than CS, I wouldn't have understood Linear Algebra without watching the MIT Open Courseware thingy by Gilbert Strang. I think that's saying a lot about the German art of teaching (at least at that time).

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

#569
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PPP is not a good measure for comparing the strength of different economies. The more appropriate comparison is looking at the growth in GDP with conversion to USD using the conversion rate at that time. Additionally starting in 2000 (ca. time of introduction of the euro) makes more sense than 2008. Using the data from https://stats.oecd.org/ gives you the following: EUR/USD in 2000: $0.92 EUR/USD in 2022: $1.072 US…

Compared on the measure of “ability to produce US dollars “, the US has vastly outstripped everyone else /s

others' demand for those dollars also wildly exceeded expectations!

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

#570
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

>> it would imply the standard of living is increasing. In USA, GDP includes the explosion of numbers of hospital admin staffers, energy prices doubled, and production of munitions which are given to Europe. That GDP does not increase my quality of life.

> That GDP does not increase my quality of life

It sure as hell does for the millions employed thereby, as well as those who catch their spending.

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