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Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

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Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#771

Post by Guthur »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #686
Guthur wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you borrow that money is even better because they just created the money for you to add to the GDP, and now it will have lots of sweet service fees and interest in top of that. And on a side note because US dollars are the reserve currency and only created in one country they can go shopping around hovering up every asset and resource.

The US produces a lot of things others want to buy, including stability and security, and that is why non Americans want USD and hence others give Americans purchasing power.

They are not given a choice mate, the US has shown itself quite willing to unilaterally dispose of any government it feels to not be doing exactly what they want. And is on record to at least plan to kill it's own citizens to justify such actions.

The narrative that we all have peace because of the US is well and truly broken, the propoganda can't cover the smell, it stinks to bad.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#772

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

jasode wrote: post #684
DanielHB wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Like how much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. What percentage of the GDP is all that infrastructure (sewage, heating, power plants, power transmission, car production, road maintenance)? Sure that create jobs, especially lower-skilled jobs which are important for society. But at the same time they didn't really need to exist. It feels…

> much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. [...] , but it doesn't create value. The "value" is for the citizens that prefer suburbs style living. People who prefer dense city living with mass-transportation and walkable errands like European cities or downtown NYC/Chicago are missing the fact that there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburb…

You're watching people respond to price pressures and calling it their unforced preferences. This is like saying "obviously people prefer to be childless", or, possibly soon, "apparently people prefer to eat only rice and beans". The outcome arises from a coordination failure that individual actors cannot resolve just by making best-responses within a market.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#773

Post by kristianc »

jasode wrote: post #684
DanielHB wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Like how much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. What percentage of the GDP is all that infrastructure (sewage, heating, power plants, power transmission, car production, road maintenance)? Sure that create jobs, especially lower-skilled jobs which are important for society. But at the same time they didn't really need to exist. It feels…

> much of the US GDP is tied to their suburb-living car-dependent lifestyle. [...] , but it doesn't create value. The "value" is for the citizens that prefer suburbs style living. People who prefer dense city living with mass-transportation and walkable errands like European cities or downtown NYC/Chicago are missing the fact that there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburb…

> People who prefer dense city living with mass-transportation and walkable errands like European cities or downtown NYC/Chicago are missing the fact that there's another group of people (possibly the majority) that actually prefer the suburbs. Yes, I know it seems illogical.

That’s because American cities do their best to make themselves as car-dependent and unpleasant in downtown areas as possible. Of course American college kids want to move out to the suburbs, because American downtowns are not nice places to live. Offer people the choice to live in nice central walkable neighbourhoods like in Europe and they tend to take it.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#774

Post by jumping_frog »

Guthur wrote: post #641
hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

And if you borrow that money is even better because they just created the money for you to add to the GDP, and now it will have lots of sweet service fees and interest in top of that. And on a side note because US dollars are the reserve currency and only created in one country they can go shopping around hovering up every asset and resource.

Consider this scenario. Dollar holds value for the next 1 year. FED prints dollar. It gives them to BlackRocks of the world. And these vehicles go shopping around the world in emerging markets buying up ownership. Similar to Cantillon effect, others and emerging market are left holding the bag.

Here’s How America Really Runs Britain | Aaron Bastani meets Angus Hanton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK7DINiVuPA

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#775

Post by slibhb »

hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

> If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP.

Yes they do. How do you visit her? What do you do while you're together? Eat some food? There's almost no way your visit doesn't register on GDP.

In reality, economic growth makes peoples lives better in simple, concrete ways. Ironically, we've started to question this only because we've become so rich due to so much growth that we're no longer dealing with "simple" problems (hunger, cold, etc).

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#776

Post by crazygringo »

hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

That doesn't really matter if all you're doing is measuring the relative change in GDP though, and the amount of activity that doesn't register on GDP isn't increasing.

In other words, if you assume non-GDP activity is constant, then GDP does genuinely and accurately reflect economic growth.

Indeed, this is one reason why economists recommend GDP as a useful measure of growth in a country year-over-year, but not for comparing different countries' GDP directly -- the ratio of activity not counted as GDP may be quite different between countries.

Now, if you think that a massive social transformation is underway of non-GDP-registering activities to GDP-registering activities -- e.g. people used to care for their grandmas, now all those people have gotten jobs to pay for care assistants to do it instead -- then yes GDP will show "false growth" in productivity.

But that really doesn't seem to be a major factor. We really are seeing massive amounts of innovation in the economy that improve people's lives. Economists don't just look at GDP -- they look at lots of measures that all tell the same story. Productivity really is going up. GDP growth may not be 100.00% accurate, but it is mostly.

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#777

Post by adammarples »

valval wrote: post #744
hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

I also like the example where if you break someone’s window and they fix it for $300, that’s at least an extra $300 in GDP.

But they would have spent the 300 on something else

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#778

Post by Reimersholme »

vv_ wrote: post #725
caseyy wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets acr…

> There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. It might be possible, but it’s not easy and is rarely done outside a few select countries, such as Switzerland. I’ve received offers from recruiters in Poland and Germany, but most of them seem to be trying to cut labor costs since hiring a foreign worker is often cheaper than employing a domestic one. However…

[dead]

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#779

Post by dartos »

crazygringo wrote: post #776
hunglee2 wrote: post #590

GDP is a measure of the marketisation of society. If I go visit my grandma over the weekend, my activities do not register on GDP. If I hire a care assistant for $800 per day to do so, that's $800 to national GDP. The encroachment of the market into society correlates with record levels of mental and physical health crisis. US life expectancy has declined over the past three years, even as 'the economy' has surged ah…

That doesn't really matter if all you're doing is measuring the relative change in GDP though, and the amount of activity that doesn't register on GDP isn't increasing. In other words, if you assume non-GDP activity is constant, then GDP does genuinely and accurately reflect economic growth. Indeed, this is one reason why economists recommend GDP as a useful measure of growth in a country year-over-year, but not for…

> We really are seeing massive amounts of innovation in the economy that improve people's lives

Name some?

The issues people care most about atm seem to be getting worse (housing prices, cost of living, etc)

Re: Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

#780

Post by TheJoeMan »

_1tem wrote: post #658

For some reason I can’t help but think of the analogies of our current situation to the last years of the Soviet Union, when on paper it looked like a juggernaut albeit with decrepit leaders, but the numbers were lies, more lies and statistics. The elites were filthy rich but the situation on the ground was unraveling - basic services were starting to fail (analogies to Private Equity ruining everything in America fr…

Perhaps you're onto something regarding the "vibesession"... right now, if I had to call a plumber, I would feel immense dread. I would undoubtedly be fleeced with no recourse and still receive substandard work. What's the difference between this and the socialists where you figured you'd get crap service for "free"?
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