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

https://twitter.com/scienceisstrat1/status/1680959906969444352

by Dig1t • 3 years ago

346 632 3 years ago

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umeshunni2• 3 years ago

The entire article is worth a read: https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-poorer-inflation-econ...

Aloha• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/nzdtv

mensetmanusman• 3 years ago

Brexit.

dustincoates• 3 years ago

While Brexit may have had an impact, it's important to note that this refers to the Eurozone and not the EU, so it's not as simple as an explanation as the loss of the UK.

Slightly unrelated: anytime I see an article about dollars impending tumble as the world's reserve currency, I remember an article I read back in 2008 claiming the Euro was overtaking the dollar, because… rappers were flashing them in their videos. I'd be interested to see how much you could align different currencies in rap videos with currency strengths.

JOnAgain• 3 years ago

Did they actually not control for U.K.? They just subtracted the 6th biggest economy and ran a sensational headline?

next_xibalba2• 3 years ago

They did. Perhaps GP was referring to the economic impact of the decoupling.

sefrost• 3 years ago

The UK was never in the Eurozone.

seydor6• 3 years ago

UK had less growth than eurozone

https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/images/graphs/EU-vs-UK-gro...

dralley2• 3 years ago

I'd rather this be displayed on a line chart than a pair of bar graphs. 2008 is an oddly specific year, a year when the US was in the midst of the housing market collapse and ensuing chaos.

Yes, Europe was impacted too, but this chart doesn't show how much, relatively speaking.

pratik661• 3 years ago

So was Europe. However, most European countries have not grown much since then. 2008 is an important year in divergence between the two

slibhb3• 3 years ago

The housing crisis is interesting. Post-crisis, Europe adopted austerity measures and the US went the other way. I bet that explains this gap more so than (from the article) unions and Europeans being lazy.

Gibbon1• 3 years ago

It felt like Germany and France recapitalized their banks on the backs of hard hit countries with little power to fight back. Where the US recapitalized it's banks by loaning them a bunch of funny money from the Fed.

The latter probably worked out better.

panick21_2• 3 years ago

What matters far more is that Eurozone adopted tight money policy, while the US didn't. People love to focus on Fiscal policy and even many economist got drawn into that. But the reality is that monetary policy actually sets aggregate demand.

Doing fiscal austerity isn't bad if your monetary policy keeps AD stable. Doing the opposite and spending more is also not really bad as long as monetary policy is correct.

The US had bad monetary policy that was partly responsible for the recession of 2008/2009 but corrected it eventually. The Eurozone never corrected in and held to an extreme tight monetary policy for years and at the same time doing austerity.

And that simply can't work, if your AD is collapsing, trying to save enough to pay back huge nominal debt is simply impossible.

Yanis Varoufakis who was Finance Minister in Greek proposed debt payments indexed to NGDP, so that if AD was going down they would have to have less debt payment. But this was rejected by

Countries with their own currency, like Sweden, Switzerland and so on did better despite having many of the same pressures and not going on fiscal spending spree.

I think it does make some sense for the government to invest in infrastructure during a recession. But not because of the Keynesian thinking of pushing up AD, but rather because it just make sense invest in infrastructure and its slightly cheaper during a recession.

midasuni5• 3 years ago

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?

talldatethrow• 3 years ago

Does all growth go to the same rich people, or do more people become rich?

dralley2• 3 years ago

A little of column A, a little of column B. But the wealth distribution across percentiles continues getting worse.

ceejayoz• 3 years ago

See the chart at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonh....

TeMPOraL3• 3 years ago

Yes, but: in case of the latter, does the amount of people becoming rich outpace population growth? Is it even greater than the rate of growth in the sub-population of those already rich?

carlosjobim2• 3 years ago

More people become poor. Haven't you noticed?

jmeister• 3 years ago

For example, if you’re looking at static inequality, Europe appears to be more egalitarian than the United States—their wealth is more evenly distributed across the population. But Taleb uses some statistics of dynamic inequality that propose America may be fairer than Europe. In Europe, more than a third of the five hundred wealthiest people inherited their wealth from family dynasties that have lasted for centuries. Compare this to the US, where 90% of the wealthiest five hundred people entered that list less than thirty years ago.
Here’s another statistic on dynamic equality in America: 10% of Americans will spend at least one year in the top 1% of income earners, and more than half of all Americans will spend at least a year in the top 10% of income earners. Since what we’re trying to do is allow the market to reward those who contribute to society, greater turnover among the rich in the United States is a sign of fairness.

https://www.shortform.com/blog/types-of-inequality/

https://medium.com/incerto/inequality-and-skin-in-the-game-d...

alfalfasprout• 3 years ago

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.

gruez3• 3 years ago

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

slibhb3• 3 years ago

The economy doubling in size helps most people even if the resulting wealth is unevenly distributed. Goods, services, technologies, jobs, etc are good.

Retric• 3 years ago

Hardly, 99% of the population can be worse off with a sufficiently uneven distribution despite 2x GDP growth. Read up on countries hit by the “resource curse” where dictators suddenly don’t care about the productivity of most of their citizens.

Also, extremely uneven economic distributions tend to be bad for large segments of the population due to inherently limited resources like desirable beach front property as well as artificially limited resources like city apartments.

notfromhere3• 3 years ago

No it doesn't. Growth in the economy has to increase real wages, and real wages need to keep pace with housing, food, healthcare, etc increases in order to be meaningful.

More jobs are only good if they actually provide a living wage.

Sterm2• 3 years ago

If it did US life expectancy wouldn't lower today than it was in 2008.

mepian• 3 years ago

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

louthy• 3 years ago

Something D O O economics

FpUser• 3 years ago

Not when more and more people can no longer afford place to live and lots of other things for which prices have skyrocketed.

seydor6• 3 years ago

while it's true and it s very unequal the difference has become so big that even the poorest americans are richer than most europeans.

gitfan863• 3 years ago

Yes but so many Americans are on Instagram and Tiktok that they feel poor since they are inundated with stories about people doing better than them.

Sharlin2• 3 years ago

And what do those "riches" buy them? Decent healthcare? A reasonable social safety net? Not having to work three slavery-like jobs without paid vacations or maternity leave or…? The ability to stay out of prison given the incredible incarceration rates in the US?

josselex• 3 years ago

This is not true if you look at actual data: https://nitter.it/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#m

onlyrealcuzzo4• 3 years ago

What about:

- Your access to mRNA vaccines

- Your access to cleaner air due to electric car adoption

- Ditto for energy security and renewable sources of electricity

- Your chance of dying in a car going down due to new safety features

- Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces

- Your much improved ability to work from home, cutting out ~2 hours of commuting each day

By every metric, the world is DRAMATICALLY better today for virtually everyone than it was in 1960, and the same from 1960 to 1900, and so on.

The pace things are improving is exponential.

If you think we're all worse off, maybe you're depressed. Or maybe you actually are worse off - but most people aren't...

troupo2• 3 years ago

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.

actuallyalys2• 3 years ago

These are technology developments, not GDP. Of course, technology developments are part of why GDP grows, but it's possible for tech to improve for everyone while only a minority reaps the economic gains.

gitfan863• 3 years ago

The media and politicians know that negativity drives attention. People that pay attention to that and do not think for themselves come away thinking that the world is in terrible shape ( The climate is beyond fixable, The LGBTQ+ are out to get your kids )

staticman22• 3 years ago

"- Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces"

If things were improving "exponentially" like you claim, our lifespan would be accelerating and these "miraculous" treatments would allow us to live 100s of years. What's actually happening is our lifespan is not increasing, and in some years has been decreasing.

>maybe you're depressed

But if these "miraculous" "exponential" medical improvements were real, we would expect to see less and less people who were depressed every decade. Instead, depression rates have been increasing.

One might also suggest if the world were DRAMATICALLY better as you claim, depression rates would be going down, not going up.

midasuni5• 3 years ago

35 year olds on 90%ile income jobs can’t afford to live on their own. Millions are worse off compared to even the 1980s because the productive gains are going to the wealthy.

TeMPOraL3• 3 years ago

- Your access to mRNA vaccines

Ain't disputing that, but that's an outlier because it's a government provided thing, at least where I live.

But look at the rest of those things from a POV of people from lower and middle classes:

- Your access to cleaner air due to electric car adoption

Yeah someday, maybe; right now it only means my perfectly good car is no longer good, and I have to somehow find money to replace it - and since this tech is new, there aren't many cheap used replacements available.

- Ditto for energy security and renewable sources of electricity

Energy security? That's not what TV says. Renewables? You mean like those PV scam companies popping up everywhere? Or government forcing me to replace my cheap heat source with an expensive one?

- Your chance of dying in a car going down due to new safety features

Feels like a pretty remote risk at this point (if it weren't, people wouldn't be driving at all). But sure, nice that safety improves over time, even if I'm always 10-20 years behind on the features.

- Your access to crazy advanced cancer treatments that are making progress at almost miraculous paces

US: what access? Can't exactly afford it.

EU: what access? The queues are so long I'll die before my appointment comes up.

- Your much improved ability to work from home, cutting out ~2 hours of commuting each day

That's thanks to COVID dragging the market kicking and screaming into this new reality, and with the pandemic over, the businesses are trying to decide which jobs to force back into office, and which to offshore. Neither is really a win.

(Also, it was hardly an ability - everyone was forced into it. Commute doesn't look all that bad compared to two working parents and all the kids trying to simultaneously remote-work and remote-learn in an apartment not sized for this.)

By every metric, the world is DRAMATICALLY better today for virtually everyone than it was in 1960

What about it no longer being possible for most couples to live on a single income?

maybe you're depressed

Funny you should mention depression - yes, support for dealing with it is better than ever, but it's also not accessible to most.

grayfaced• 3 years ago

But in the period of the article (2008) things aren't as rosy as you paint. Car fatalities are up on a per mile basis. Life expectancy is flat (and turning down recently). Electric outages are up. Work-from-home is counter balanced by some pretty awful working standards for others (amazon).

By your metrics, it'd be hard to argue that things aren't getting worse in last decade. I'm not arguing things are worse now, just that you chose bad measures.

bamboozled2• 3 years ago

The pace things are improving is exponential.

You're off your tree.

Coal usage is at an all time high while the climate is collapsing. We're living on an exponential growing crisis is maybe what you should be saying.

noelherrick3• 3 years ago

I understand your point - whenever people ask what era I would like to born in (that's not the future), I always say now. I really like mRNA vaccines, the discovery and proliferation of mindfulness/meditation/mental health, antibiotics, supercomputers strapped to our wrists, etc. Even things like food have gotten better than from when I was a kid (that one could be personal).

However, just because it's good, doesn't mean it couldn't be better. I think this all the time - why can't the rich be rich without inflicting cruelty and suffering on people? You can have your millions, just give us healthcare, housing, public transit, vacation time, and fair pay, and stop dumping chemicals in the water, torturing animals, warming the planet, addicting folks to opioids, and promoting guns and the use of personal vehicles.

We don't have to imagine or fantasize about improvements the US could make - we have an example right in front of us with many social democracies in Europe. When a car backfires, the French don't assume it's an active shooter. When a Dane gets into an accident, they don't take a taxi to hospital. When your CEO gets trolled on Twitter and decides to fire 70% of the staff, you don't have to worry about it because you have an employment contract, and he simply can't.

We have to do better.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

I hear this or something similar all the time and I don't get it. Everyone with a 401k, IRA, etc. sees these gains.

stevenwoo• 3 years ago

Piketty breaks this down in historic terms for all countries for which data is available in Capital and Ideology, tldr, a very small percentage of people have gotten much richer than everyone else for the last 200+ years, it's just gotten extreme after progressive taxes and regulations were rolled back in countries circa the Reagan/Thatcher years. I dunno if it's still up but the web page for the book had all the data.

seydor6• 3 years ago

as i read somewhere. people don't realize that the gap between US and france is as big as between france and greece.

I think this is finally being noticed everywhere, and expect that EU will change radically as an institution by the end of the decade

xeeeeeeeeeeenu• 3 years ago

The title is wrong. The chart shows the eurozone, not the EU.

fvdessen2• 3 years ago

And yet with all that money you can’t buy European quality of life in the USA

FredPret3• 3 years ago

Quality of life includes time off and having nice stuff. Both continents have something to offer, but the US is definitely getting better, faster

monero-xmr3• 3 years ago

My sister in law is from Spain, had a guaranteed government job at a state run hospital (or some affiliated org) for life, and could retire in her 50s. She chose to bail and come to the US. She hated her boss (who could never be fired), the work was boring, the take home pay was awful, and she lived in a village where she grew up in a tiny apartment.

Sure she had enough to eat and wasn’t going to be homeless. But she decided that life really wasn’t very exciting and she had no opportunity for growth whatsoever, just waiting for her boss to retire so she could take over her similarly boring job. But hey she could take double the vacation that an average US employee gets!

badpun2• 3 years ago

The stats look much better if you compare the number of hours worked. When accounting for that, US is at the level of Scandinavian countries. Obviously, Spain is still seriously lagging.

genocidicbunny3• 3 years ago

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 bills for the boring job your sister left.

But hey she could take double the vacation that an average US employee gets!

Uh, if she could take vacation _at all_ she was already head and shoulders above a huge chunk of the workforce in the US.

balozi• 3 years ago

The US is great as long as you are not poor. You don't have to be rich, just don't be poor.

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

And if you are poor and United States, just don't be to disorganized to be able to make use of all the government programs to support you.

Sadly, there are a large number of people who cannot do that whether from drugs, trauma, natural inability, etc.

legitster5• 3 years ago

Arguably it's probably worse to be poor in Europe than in the US. The amount of cash assistance a homeless, jobless person gets in France is almost half of the same benefit in the US.

But it's hard to get a 1:1 comparison because the data in Europe on things like homelessness is shockingly poor. Most of the major European cities have strong dispersion/anti-camping laws. Because homelessness is kept more out of sight in Europe, it doesn't draw as much attention.

seydor6• 3 years ago

you can move to europe, buy real estate easily and live above the local's means because US income is so much higher. In fact thousands of americans are doing it in the past few years

EDIT: Also, a large part of "quality of life" has more to do with the structure of european country populations. They are old , cohesive and mostly conformist societies that tend to help each other in times of need, something that the US, which is individualistic country made of immigrants can never do. This creates a more safe environment to live, but it is not an excuse for lackluster economic performance.

lnsru3• 3 years ago

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

082349872349872• 3 years ago

I once corresponded with someone whose ambition was to open a vegan breakfast restaurant: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelettes"

legitster5• 3 years ago

Really depends on how you define quality of life.

nemo44x5• 3 years ago

Life is fine in Europe and very nice in many ways but if you have any type of skill/smarts/ambition then the USA is really better to many people.

My evidence of this assertion is that millions more EU citizens emigrate to the USA than the other way. If Europe was that great then skilled Americans would be lining up to go. But they aren’t and in fact skilled people from all over the planet cone to the USA in droves.

mardifoufs3• 3 years ago

Migration stats disagree with you.

darth_avocado• 3 years ago

Does this account for PPP though?

Zigurd• 3 years ago

Nope. Looks very different when you do. Even more so when you look at longevity, violence, leisure, etc.

oezi• 3 years ago

GDP per capita please.

kcb• 3 years ago

Eurozone population is very similar to the US.

qeternity2• 3 years ago

Eurozone is substantially bigger by 5-7% depending on how you measure.

nforgerit7• 3 years ago

German here. Austerity? Over-regulation? An oligopoly of tech-incompetent local enterprises? Just guessing here.

As a student in 2007, I started being an avid follower of what Big Tech was doing and was flabbergasted that local tech enterprises didn't seem to notice or change anything. In CS at university they didn't teach programming (only as an aside) but all the funny theoretical OOP fluff that the community rightfully started ditching and frowning upon.

Given software is slowly eating everything, I am not surprised in the result. Probably 7/10 of my fellow CS students will not be remotely able to explain how a given software works under the hood.

Aperocky3• 3 years ago

In CS at university they didn't teach programming

That's quite alarming.

lnsru3• 3 years ago

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.

partiallypro3• 3 years ago

Germany is an economic lion held back by its inability to digitize (even when it does it's half measure still attached to the past) and its development of deep relationship with untrustworthy countries (Russia being the prime example.) Trying to buy the 49 Euro Ticket can be done online but still requires approval by a human and an IBAN. That's my current favorite recent example of Germany making absolutely no sense relative to its peers.

RandomLensman3• 3 years ago

The Bahn app has a human approver in the loop when buying the 49 Euro ticket?

lispm2• 3 years ago

Strange, I bought mine via an app and paypal.

anticodon2• 3 years ago

Yeah, this kind of article would never fail to mention Russia and Putin. But what is never mentioned:

1. Germany has no energy sources. USA had blown up the pipelines delivering cheap energy from Russia that German industry needs badly (so, German industry has been closing and has declining output since), also in just as brain-dead move Germany closed all its nuclear plants.

2. USA is deliberately suffocating German economy. First, dieselgate. Then, "fine" for Deutsche Bank for "provoking crisis of 2008". Then making Germany loose access to cheap energy and providing money to German industrial companies that want to move their plants from Germany (where they have no future due to lack of energy and other resources that were imported from Russia) to USA.

locallost• 3 years ago

None of the above. The true reason is that Germans are too conservative to invest in tech. You cannot have startups without investors and Germans will keep money in the bank, buy real estate, even invest in index funds, but startups give them too little of a guarantee of a return. You can remove overregulation, whatever it may consist of, but there will still be no funding at least not when compared to the US.

But German economy is actually fine, moving slow and steady is their way and it works for them. I also don't really think universities should spend so much time on "programming", they are not vocational training programs. I wrote software and got paid for it before I studied, and didn't go to a university to learn that. If there's one thing German society can do with young people it's to teach them to take more risks. But programming can be learned from a book.

Aperocky3• 3 years ago

That would have been true for most majors.

The universities and colleges around the world have not adopted to the new reality where knowledge up to Master Degree level is essentially freely available to everyone with an internet connection.

But colleges are still needed - if only for human reasons. And that's where I believe they should emphasize. A place where young people discover what they want to do and weigh their options. Instead of being assigned a major and mostly determined coursework.

kryptiskt• 3 years ago

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 shrink. Never mind that all the other EU countries are supposed to absorb a big part of that trade surplus while being scolded for not being as frugal as Germany.

rafaelero4• 3 years ago

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

e4e5• 3 years ago

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

refurb4• 3 years ago

Why limit your analysis to wages alone? That’s cherry picking a number.

Look at real total compensation growth over that time.

The idea that the average worker is not better off now versus 1970 is not a reasonable take.

blibble• 3 years ago

if the euro didn't exist and the currencies were freely floating this would adjust itself automatically

it's almost as if forcing completely disparate economies onto a one-size-fits-none currency with a single interest rate and no fiscal transfers was a monumentally stupid idea

landemva4• 3 years ago

The monetary union is flawed. It won't last another decade unless they somehow federalize the member state debt.

KingOfCoders5• 3 years ago

Germany has slowed down because the productivity gains from 20 years ago ("Agenda 2010") have run out of steam (Merkel didn't do anything for productivity for 16 years), more recently consumer demand has decreased because Germany was hit by high gas costs (everyone heats with gas) and the current government increased costs for consumers (e.G. everyone needs to replace their gas heating - driven by the minister for the economy, madness! - who is a vice chancellor and therefor minister for economy but needs to play to his green base and does environment policty instead of economics) - so consumers have a very negative view of the future and are very cautious with their money.

Dropping German consumer demand has nothing to do with competitiveness and trade surpluses.

NikxDa• 3 years ago

Just to be clear here, the law you are referencing has been stopped and isn't passed yet. Mentioning it as if it were a fact is misleading, in my opinion.

devjab• 3 years ago

The economic engine of Germany was always sort of interesting to me. Where we in Scandinavia went full aboard the outsourcing of the production, Germany kept theirs. They did so in a way that was very “inflated” from a Scandinavian point of view, because it relied to heavily on very low paid labour, which obviously couldn’t be maintained forever. You can say the same about our outsourcing adventures now that the world has changed, but at one point it seemed reasonable to pool production together so multiple buyers of things like vaccines could contract the same factories. Well, maybe that was also kind of stupid, but anyway, Germany kept a lot of their industrial might going and unless you looked too closely at how they did it, it looked good.

It’ll be interesting to see how that strategy works now that we live in a new geopolitical reality. Unlike us in Scandinavia who will have to start from scratch, sort of, Germany already has the means of producing and an infrastructure in place to expand it rapidly. It’ll take some readjusting, but once the non-EU competition gets hindered political means, there is no reason the wages shouldn’t increase. Especially because the steam was already running out of the cheap labour schemes.

Maybe it’ll turn out Merkels bet on keeping industry was even further reach than we thought.

derstander• 3 years ago

I don’t like this figure, nor the article it was copied directly from in the WSJ (which I believe was recently discussed here, archive link = https://archive.li/nzdtv).

Why don’t I like it? “Source: International Monetary Fund” !! Fantastic. That’s like quoting a scientific breakthrough and saying Source: MIT. Which of the many artifacts they’ve recently released did it come from? I scrolled through the first three or four pages of IMF pubs, checked all of the titles that I thought may have contained the figure or similar data but no dice.

Is it too much to ask for a standard citation including the publication title and date, too?

I went looking because another comment suggested that maybe Brexit made the Eurozone numbers look particularly bad. But I don’t think that’s the case: the WSJ article particularly calls out UK citizens as similarly being worse off.

But after all that looking I couldn’t ultimately tell you whether or not the Brexit hypothesis is correct.

mrtksn3• 3 years ago

IMHO the west as a whole will need to re-consider its metrics.

Europe, not only Eurozone, lag in absolute numbers of economic activity but the life quality is not that different from the US and arguably it’s even better depending on what is important for you. An appendicitis generates more economic activity in the US but Europeans die les from it.

On the other hand, Europe does lag on post soviet era tech(that’s anything seen mainstream adoption since 90’s) and the contenders for US are China, Taiwan an India.

China, Taiwan, and India might be at the frontlines on some tech but their societies are facing political and demographic problems in much different ways than the west.

I’m afraid our world is poised for a dramatic change as every country is screwed in a different way and people see no easy way out.

Aperocky3• 3 years ago

The existing metrics are already the fairest.

i.e. Life expectancy, work length, income, spending, etc.

Metrics has to be objectively measurable, otherwise they would have a huge subjective bias. Some people can be happy and enjoy life in almost any circumstances - but that is much harder to measure across societies and you'll end up with scams like "happiest country on Earth".

legitster5• 3 years ago

I was recently talking with a friend who moved to Germany and loved it. But now that he is raising a family he is planning on moving back to the states.

There's definitely a quantity/quality difference. Things in Germany are just nicer. But at a certain point, the "niceness" of things doesn't matter to you much anymore when you are trying to raise a family of 4 in a 800 sq ft apartment.

mrtksn3• 3 years ago

Europe is densely populated in general but there are villages all over the place where you can have a large house like in an American suburb.

I think cultural expectations are more defining, for example Turks are frustrated with the healthcare in Europe because they expect to see a specialist ASAP even for the smallest thing and they want antibiotics for it. In Germany you won’t get all the antibiotics you want unless you actually need it and you won’t be seen by a professor just because you feel like. Germany will try to make you live healthier life through preventative medicine, Turkey will try to give you a 5 minutes access to a doctor and infrastructure quickly.

I’m hearing about Americans complaining on similar stuff. IIRC Americans feel neglected during pregnancy in Germany despite that the US infant mortality rate is almost twice the German one.

ginko• 3 years ago

If there's one thing I wouldn't want to do in the United States it would be raising a family. Seems like there is absolutely zero freedom for children there.

rafaelero4• 3 years ago

Nobody said GDP equals quality of life, what are you talking about?

ChatGTP9• 3 years ago

What is the point of GDP as a metric then? Who is the economy serving? Why have an economy if it's not improving quality of life to some extent.

GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product

woooooo• 3 years ago

It tends to get thoughtlessly assumed, rather than argued or asserted.

dougmwne4• 3 years ago

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 income people live a better life than in the US and have more livable wages, relaxed work culture, and enjoy a strong safety net. The missing GDP growth seems to show up in the upper middle to high incomes where it is extremely hard to pull away from the pack and acquire wealth. Things like early retirement and FIRE are almost unheard of in EU countries. Stock investing seems much less common. People mostly seem focused on more conservative investments like real estate that has a lower yield and liquidity than equities. Luxury spending seems limited to small consumer outlays like fashion or travel, not large wealth building outlays like McMansions. It is really, really uncommon to hear of someone making more than 100k USD and taxes in most countries take a bigger bite. There are even significant wealth taxes in some countries. 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.

All of this is deep in the political psyche that wants to cut down the tall poppies.

steveoscaro• 3 years ago

Very interesting comment. I've read it a few times.

nonethewiser8• 3 years ago

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.

amrocha2• 3 years ago

Consumption is a terrible proxy for quality of life.

It's also terribly USAian of you.

raverbashing• 3 years ago

20% of Americans consumed more goods and services than the average people from affluent countries

I wonder how much of those are things like "credit protection fees", "check printing fees", CC anual fees (of multiple CCs) or just paying hundreds of dollars for a medical consultation even after copay, etc

everything being smaller in Europe, people owning less

Your car does not need to be a d*ck measuring contest, and public transport usually works

piaste3• 3 years ago

This is an odd set of numbers. Italy is higher than Norway; Portugal is higher than Denmark. It suggests that whatever they are measuring is not very intuitive.

cjrp2• 3 years ago

Maybe that says more about the availability of consumer credit though?

dmoy2• 3 years ago

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?

miguelxt• 3 years ago

The €3 million one is a new "temporary" tax since this year from the central goverment. "Impuesto al patrimonio" has existed for long and it depends on where in Spain you live. It's not applied in the region of Madrid, and the it kicks from a net worth of €400k in Aragón. In all regions your main residence is exempted.

For a net worth of €4m, you'll pay €60k in Aragón to €22k in Vizcaya to €0 in Madrid.

scythe4• 3 years ago

The thing that really hurt the Eurozone was the 2011 - 2013 recession that the US did not experience.

This is true, but understated in a crucial manner. By global standards, the greatest enduring strength of the US economy has been its ability to recover from downturns. More than anything else, that has pulled it ahead of competitors time and time again. When the early '80s financial crisis hit Japan with a lost decade, Volcker (PBUH) pulled the US out of the doldrums and back into a growth phase within three years. When the Asian financial crisis hit at the same time as the dotcom bust, the US recovered more efficiently than the erstwhile "Asian tigers". When the 2007 financial crisis went worldwide, aggressive measures by the Fed and a willingness to risk inflation restored growth faster than in Europe. When COVID hit, economies around the world dived, but even with political divisions running at their highest since 1876, the US again restored growth more quickly than almost anywhere else — now growing at competitive rates with China.

There are a variety of theories about this, but one iniquitous postulate I've heard is that the US makes it a lot easier for companies to do layoffs — not a happy proposition for those directly affected, but what could be worse for an economy than having thousands of people working on something that just isn't working? Many worker protections — for health, safety and family — have become more popular with economists recently, but when the subject of being able to fire people comes up, there is still a sort of grim understanding transmitted in whispers: paying someone who isn't making progress makes us all worse off in the long run.

Of course we can also trace the roots of some profound social malaise — including the collapse of whole cities — to the cutthroat nature of employment in America; there is no free lunch.

pasabagi5• 3 years ago

I'm not sure about your 'iniquitous postulate'. If such a correlation existed, you would expect all countries with weak employee protection to enjoy economic growth that is better than their peers. That doesn't seem to be true. If you look at the employment protections of the UK[0], and compare them to the US[1], they seem fairly similar. And yet, the UK has very low worker productivity, worst-in-class economic growth, etc.

The problem with taking general economic lessons from the US is that the US is in a unique, and uniquely advantageous economic position.

dougmwne4• 3 years ago

A lot of that ability to pull out of recessions is due to a central bank that can lower rates more than other countries without risking inflation. I suspect this is due to the USD’s status as world reserve currency, if we print too much there’s a whole global market for dollars. If we inflate a little bit, we take not just from our own citizen savers but from governments and citizens all over the world. It’s like we get to tax the whole planet and spend at home.

modo_mario• 3 years ago

Those other countries do not have a world reserve currency. Them adjusting monetary policy is not big enough to contribute to something like the arab spring, their imports aren't in essence subsidized by their nation peers, etc.

toyg• 3 years ago

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.

danjac• 3 years ago

Given actual vs perceived social mobility in the US compared to Europe, it could be argued that the US reached that point some time ago:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

dougmwne4• 3 years ago

Sure, I am aware. And if you let the aristocracy go on for too long eventually they claim divine right.

It is possible that some European countries have over corrected though.

caskstrength2• 3 years ago

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.

hellofelicia• 3 years ago

European old money is doing just fine. It's the middle class taxed to death on every additional 10 bucks yes still not rich enough for "tax optimization" that is being fucked over.

troad• 3 years ago

Here's a better comparison.

The moment I saw the article headline, I knew the comments would be full of people running defence with fuzzy claims of qualitative wellbeing.

"Yes, our economy may objectively be underperforming, but look at the Life Quality Index, invented at the University of Copenhagen, which divides the number of UNESCO sites in a country by the number of different pension schemes...

The hard truth is - less prosperity means less money for nurses, less money for teachers, less money for infrastructure. Worse health outcomes, worse educational outcomes, worse transport and logistics. A decreasing quality of life. Less prospects for children. Increasing emigration.

Europe devotes a disproportionate amount to social spending compared to the US, so it remains competitive despite its shrinking economy, but this won't continue forever. Eventually, Europe's economy will become so relatively small, that even its outsized social spending will begin to be dwarfed by the spending of US states. It's been the case for some time that Portuguese professionals are leaving to go drive trucks in the US, and now doctors in the UK are getting poached en masse by Australian states. How long until German engineers can have a better life working as taxi drivers in China?

I like Europe and I wish it would right course, but there is an aggressive myopia on this continent when it comes to how quickly the rest of the world is moving past them, and how very bad that will be for Europe in the mid-to-long term. Europe's slide into irrelevance will be a net loss for us all, but most of all for the quality of life of Europeans themselves.

mariojv3• 3 years ago

I think it's definitely less common in Europe, but I did want to mention that there are European FIRE communities.

See this one for Spain: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpainFIRE/ or Bogleheads Spain: https://bogleheads.es

The wealth tax also makes FIRE harder, but there are exemptions that make it more manageable.

Here is information about the wealth tax in Valencia: https://atv.gva.es/es/ipatrimoni

Let's use a married couple in Valencia with 2M euro in index funds as an example.

They get 500K allowance each to subtract from their taxable base. Subtracting the 1M total exemption for the couple, their taxable base would be 1M euro for the purposes of the wealth tax. On the remaining 1M, they'd pay 10,595.71 for the first 668,499.75, and 1.12% on the remaining 331,500.25, for an additional 3,712.80. This puts their total yearly wealth tax at 14,308.51, or about 0.7% of their total 2M portfolio.

Generally, 4% is seen as a safe withdrawal rate for a properly managed portfolio for a 30 year retirement. Subtracting 0.7%, that'd give them a 3.3% safe withdrawal rate on their 2M portfolio, which gives them after-wealth-tax money of 66K to play with. Let's say half of what you're pulling each year is taxable for capital gains. With a 20% capital gains tax, that ends up being about 60K. This is a pretty good income for Valencia.

Estimated cost of living for a family of 4 there is about 28K: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Valencia

That gives them another 32K after tax for travel, luxuries, etc. Not to mention, you also get an exemption of 300K (individual) for your primary residence. There are also some other limits on the tax like it not being able to exceed 60% of your total income.

In the US, with a withdrawal rate of 4% on the 2M and no wealth tax, you'd get 80K. After 15% capital gains on half of what you're pulling each year, 74K. Subtract $1400/month or ~$16K for good health insurance for a family of 4 and it's a basic tie, not accounting if you have to actually hit a deductible. In Spain you will just get free public healthcare if you're a citizen.

It's definitely harder to build that level of wealth because of salaries there, but I don't think it's fair to say that it's completely impossible to FIRE there.

mariojv3• 3 years ago

Replying to this because I can't edit the comment anymore.

I overestimated the tax by a lot, I misread the chart and was adding the "Cuota" (sum of previous row taxes) from 1 row below what I should have.

They only pay 3,108.51 on the first 668,499.75. This puts the total tax at about half of my estimate, so only a ~0.35% drag on their 2M portfolio.

It's a very progressive tax, basically goes up 10X for really rich folks (>10M they take 3.5% of total wealth).

bsder• 3 years ago

"An aging population that values its free time set the stage for economic stagnation."

I mean, the outrage! How dare they!

When are we going to get over this obssession that your value is your job? Eh?

A vast number of unskilled labor jobs being able to provide solid employment for the vast majority of people are not coming back. AI is going to eat a bunch more jobs. These jobs are not coming back.

Either we're going to figure this out together or human society is in for a very bad time.

legitster5• 3 years ago

Before you go too far down the road of politics and policies, but the biggest lever affecting the economic differences comes down to age.

The EU is aging rapidly. Whereas the US had a minor baby-boom with Millenials - there was no equivalent in the EU. So even without any slowdown in labor productivity or even reduction in QOL, the ratio of people participating in the workforce is much lower in Europe.

neverrroot2• 3 years ago

Could the energy policy and the costs of electricity for the industry have contributed to this outcome in the eurozone?

Just as an example, Germany has the highest electricity prices in the world (20% higher than second place Italy), and starting April, switched to being a net electricity importer, after it shut down the last remaining nuclear power plants.

yodelshady4• 3 years ago

Yes, it can and does.

Go to a chemicals conference these days and half the research is on managing blackouts. In the best case your plant, which is the same CAPEX in Europe as it is the US, is producing 25% less.

There's only so much sugar-coating you can do. The atmosphere's like a funeral.

neverrroot2• 3 years ago

Thanks, this is something I will look into.

Unfortunately the people who downvoted me must be thinking differently. Would have loved so much to hear their reasoning and POV on the matter, especially if they disagree with my hypothesis, I’m always willing to learn.

mrb3• 3 years ago

Note this chart shows nominal dollars, not PPP-adjusted. The EU has certainly kept up with the US when looking at PPP GDP from 2008 to 2022:

US grew from $14.8T to $25.5T

EU grew from $14.3T to $24.3T

What that means is that the prices of goods are inflated in the US compared to similar goods in the EU. That's all.

Want something interesting? Look at China who grew from $10.0T to $30.3T over the same period (!)

Sources: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...

freetime22• 3 years ago

Thank you. Twitter is terrible when it comes to cherry picking stats out of context.

tnel772• 3 years ago

Ironically posted as a reply to a comment cherry picking stats.

dogma113815• 3 years ago

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.

aaomidi• 3 years ago

Completely depends on what you’re measuring.

To me, economy isn’t an abstract thing to be measured without taking people’s quality of life into perspective. That just feels too much like stats for the sake of stats.

The PPP based measurement is way more interesting.

flangola74• 3 years ago

We don't care about size of economy, we care about aspects of daily life of the average person.

mrb3• 3 years ago

"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.

htfu3• 3 years ago

In 2008 the dollar was historically cheap (70% of current), now it's pretty expensive. This swing is the main driver of this whole thing and means that yes, PPP is superior for looking at growth. Not ideal, but much better.

Cheap imports are great for consumers, but a currency losing 20% certainly doesn't mean its economy has magically contracted 20%. If anything a weakish currency stimulates internal economic activity as it's good for exports.

The US economy is also not nearly "twice that of the EU", in nominal terms either - it's about 50% bigger. The (silly) chart is for the eurozone.

Seriously, the US always had a somewhat bigger/stronger economy, but a cheap dollar at the time made nominal almost equal, which was misleading. Now, the US still has a slightly bigger economy, and has had better growth, while the price of the dollar makes it look like a massive difference, which is also misleading. The true output difference is high single digit. Why are you pretending otherwise?

HWR_144• 3 years ago

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.

rayiner2• 3 years ago

I think Americans would disagree with the implication that the US has done particularly well over the last 15 years, even though going by nominal dollars that seems to be the case.

LudwigNagasena3• 3 years ago

GDP PPP can increase whilst your economy contracts.

So can GDP.

PPP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either.

Why isn't it a good measure? Why is it worse than pure GDP?

The economy of the US is still twice that of the EU and its global purchasing power has also pretty much doubled.

The GDP of the US is twice of that of the EU. How does paying $2000 for a 50 sq. feet box makes your economy bigger?

soligern• 3 years ago

Why isn’t it a good measure? It costs maybe $0.50 to get a reasonable full meal in India, you’re not going to get anything close to that in the US. In second tier cities in India, people can rent a reasonable studio for $50/month, you’re not getting that anywhere in the US. Why shouldn’t that be a relevant metric?

theonlybutlet• 3 years ago

For this purpose you're not measuring growth but rather comparing it against someone else who uses a different currency.

throwaway4good• 3 years ago

Sorry mate - I think you got that one turned on its head.

The common (and relevant measure) is real gdp growth or growth minus inflation. (And per capita if that is your concern.)

jhoechtl• 3 years ago

GDP isn’t a good measure for population’s wealth or quality of life especially for developed economies either.

The GDP wa invented by a russian working for US bureau of statistics during the great depression. It was a helpful measure to compare performance of different US evonomic sectors. It favors deficit spending to saving.

It is a very inadequate measure for people wealth in any developed economy.

hef198982• 3 years ago

I am by no means an economic expert, but I shared this chart yesterday, GDP 2008-2022 in current international dollar:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...

Now, I have no idea what thebdifference between constant USD, current USD and the international versions are, and wpupd be happy if someone cpuod explain it since the differences are huge, but measured in curren international USD, the EU and US GDP charts move more or less in parallel with the EU one being a little bit lower. But of course, a chart that shows a huge delta developing makes for much better headlines, and more eyeballs on the article...

EDIT: Just played around some more, the numbers only allow for sensationalism whem using current USD, taling any other constant value the story is a lot different. And the root cause seems to be two periods, 2012 - 2014 when the EU GDP growth was significantly below US growth (it was negative for the EU in 2012 and 2013), and 2020 (EU -5.7, US -2.8). So, if everything it is old news, or worse just a wrong representation of data to justify headlines and narratives (looking at you WSJ, not some Twitter thread).

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2...

GDP chart in constant 2015 USD:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?location...

solardev• 3 years ago

Explain?

paganel3• 3 years ago

No one uses PPP for measuring growth,

I've just started to read Graham Allison's Graham Allison (supposedly based on this article [1]) and the exact opposite remark is made at the beginning of that book, i.e. that one should use PPP numbers instead of nominal GDP numbers when looking at the quality of life.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/un...

selectodude3• 3 years ago

The EU is an export-based economy, so that's great that people in the EU can drink cheaper beer and pay less in rent, but if they want to buy imports, they're absolutely poorer.

anonzzzies• 3 years ago

Even though I can afford it, I mostly do not need new imported stuff and second hand you can get a lot of things (mostly everything besides Apple stuff) at bottom prices. Many people unfortunately dump stuff after new shiny comes out and some even give them to me for free. My iPhone was a gift from a friend who bought the latest. It’ll go for many years still. My nreal (xreal) now was a gift because another friend didn’t like it and couldn’t be bothered to sell it.

But obviously I can live without these things and for vital things, like laptops, washing machines, dish washers or tvs (not really vital), they cost peanuts second hand.

next_xibalba2• 3 years ago

The WSJ article [1] from which this chart is derived does account for both inflation and purchasing power when comparing incomes.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-poorer-inflation-econ...

jcfrei• 3 years ago

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 GDP in 2000: $10.25T, 2022: $23.31T, growth of 227%

EU GDP in 2000: 7.86€ T, 2022: 15.81€ T(27 countries, excluding UK), converted to USD:

EU GDP in 2000: $7.23T, 2022: $16.94T, growth of 234%

Growth in the EU from 2000-2008 has probably (didnt crunch the numbers on this) been higher than in the US and then lower since around 2010. Also take into account that while growth has been slow (or even non-existent) in France, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain those countries make up less than half of the population of the EU. Eastern european countries on the other hand have grown very strongly thanks to starting from a very low base.

dogma113815• 3 years ago

GDP figures are calculated using CID, specifically in order to prevent exchange rates from indicating false growth or contraction like you’ve demonstrated.

What’s worse you’ve committed a double sin, you’ve used figures which were already normalized using the constant international dollar and applied exchange rates to them.

danielheath• 3 years ago

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

peyton• 3 years ago

What that means is that the prices of goods are inflated in the US compared to similar goods in the EU. That's all.

Other way round. PPP is a consumptive measure.

metacritic12• 3 years ago

Except your conclusion of US inflation being huge doesn't square out in the data:

Eurozone inflation 2008 to today has been 33%

US inflation 2008 to today has been 42%.

This doesn't square with your implication that the US inflation is double the EUs.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPHPTT01EZM661N

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL

Rexxar• 3 years ago

Indeed, another way to see this is that's just forex valuation change.

2008 was the peak of EUR value after subprime crises in USA. And the "nearly two times" is more like 1.60 which is explained by the value of the euro coming back from 1.6$ to the more sustainable long term value of 1$.

(usd/eur chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2548/euro-dollar-exchange-rate-h...)

cesarvarela• 3 years ago

Technology is sold in US dollars, and prices are mostly the same globally, so yes, food has kept the same, but technology, which drives growth and innovation, is further away. i.e., the Apple Vision Pro will cost twice as much (in GDP terms for what it is worth) to Europeans, reducing the chances of the next big company building on it to be located in Europe.

fhe• 3 years ago

I have always wondered to what extent GDP (price-adjusted or not) reflects standard of living. By different sources, GDP per capita for Britain is only 60% that of the US, but visiting these two countries I don't see much of a difference in standard of living.

jltsiren• 3 years ago

If you make $50k/year and work for living, you are probably middle class. If you make $250k/year and work for living, you are probably still middle class. That's more or less the same thing.

Differences in income have a surprisingly small effect on quality of life. If you make more money, you can still afford the same luxuries. Just more of them and more often. You are likely buying bigger and better versions of fundamentally the same things. You probably spend your money less efficiently, buying all kinds of minor conveniences.

And if everyone around you makes more money, your expectations go up, and your spending will be even less efficient.

woliveirajr• 3 years ago

Why not use the price of BigMacs and how many an average worker can buy?

unstatusthequo• 3 years ago

Nobody believes China’s numbers, anyway. Take whatever they say and halve it. Then multiply by 1/3 of pi. Or pick a random number you like from roulette. Any of those could be more accurate than China’s actual numbers.

frankreyes• 3 years ago

$1 is still $1 when for example you travel to another country or buy stuff online. Just like CPI, PPP is biased to an average and meanwhile the extremes are getting worse. The poor are getting poorer and the rich, richer. If you have zero bananas and I have two, on average we have 1 each.

ramesh31• 3 years ago

Apple was worth 2 trillion last year. This year it's worth 3 trillion. Five years ago, there had never been a US company worth 1 trillion before. Something is broken.

slimebot80• 3 years ago

100%

sonicshadow5• 3 years ago

Lazy thinking

cypress662• 3 years ago

Apple's P/E is around 30. Which is a bit high but completely within reason. Very low compared to inflated stocks such as NVDA at 230 P/E

Apple is just crazy profitable.

dataflow• 3 years ago

What about their respective debts?

cpursley• 3 years ago

This is only going to get worse unless Europe starts building reactors, yesterday. Energy is everything and the cheap reliable stuff is now gone.

hsuduebc22• 3 years ago

As a European I have sometimes feeling that we are skanzen of the world. Don't get me wrong. It's much better than to be battleground like before.

sva_• 3 years ago

skanzen

Outdoor museum?! I couldn't really find a definition for this term.

hsuduebc22• 3 years ago

Basically. It is conserved for the purpose of conservation where change is not desirable.

These outdoor museums are actually preserved villages where people live in these old conditions because they feel good that way. Somehow like today's Europe. Progress is limited and regulated or stopped.

TMWNN2• 3 years ago

skanzen

Highly relevant: "The Evitable Conflct" <https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/24zvhe/the_world_di...> by Isaac Asimov

nemo44x5• 3 years ago

What is Europe’s purpose in the world today? This was easy to answer for hundreds of years but I have no idea today.

janalsncm3• 3 years ago

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 people? [1]

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?location...

sonicshadow5• 3 years ago

What's the point of living an extra few years either? I'd rather die at 70 after having lived a healthy life, than 80 and suffered the last 10 years

zerodensity3• 3 years ago

You say that now. I bet you are going to be dancing by a different tune at 70.

landemva4• 3 years ago

Your body, your choice.

wizofaus• 3 years ago

I'm fairly sure in countries where the life expectancy is lower you're more likely to suffer in your final years.

YetAnotherNick• 3 years ago

I think suffering is based on life expectancy and not fixed. Life expectancy was 50 years not a long back, but still people suffered last 5 years or so of their life.

rjh29• 3 years ago

A larger percentage of people are dying young. It's an average...

Loocid• 3 years ago

Why do you assume you'll suffer from 70-80?

mr_toad• 3 years ago

Low life average life expectancy is usually caused by people dying young. Gun violence, automobile accidents, obesity, an opioid epidemic…

afterburner3• 3 years ago

Just moves the suffering years to 60-70.

cypress662• 3 years ago

Most of that life expectancy gap is due to obesity I'd guess.

LilBytes• 3 years ago

And a strong difference in quality health care outcomes for people of all ages.

umeshunni2• 3 years ago

Most of it is due to the opioid crisis in the US afaik.

scythe4• 3 years ago

Obesity has also increased in the EU.

ffhhttt15• 3 years ago

Also race is a significant factor due to reasons..

A white person living in well-of state has about the same life expectancy as those living in the highest rated European countries.

hackeraccount• 3 years ago

I doubt that. Obesity is why I'd die at 70 instead of 80 and be sick as dog the last 10 years of my life.

I suspect what's driving down life expectancy is me OD'ing on fentanyl at 30 or getting killed in a shoot out at 20 or dying in a car crash at 10.

Short version of what I think is going on - young people dying lowers life expectancy a lot more then old people dying a bit earlier then they might have.

ljlolel2• 3 years ago

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

zerodensity3• 3 years ago

Why do you think that?

nemo44x5• 3 years ago

That’s a poor metric. The USA offers you more potential. It’s up to you.

The USA also has a higher percentage of young people and more of them are dying from drugs. That skews a metric line that. Do it by cohort and it’s different.

Kapura• 3 years ago

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

AbrahamParangi• 3 years ago

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 prosperity with some truly awful outcomes for anyone who falls through the (very wide) cracks.

bjornasm2• 3 years ago

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.

ChatGTP9• 3 years ago

Have you been to Europe? It's really diverse.

failuser2• 3 years ago

EU has a bunch of states that have been in the Soviet Block not so long ago, even 3 countries from the USSR. This is way more diverse than USA at least as far as the economics go.

lionkor3• 3 years ago

more diverse than every single European country

by what metric?

zooi• 3 years ago

The stats comparison is of the US and the whole of Europe.

The difference between states is big but you go on to say that it's as big as the difference between two European countries. Your comparison only points out Europe is as least as diverse as the US and still has a significantly higher life expectancy.

arp242• 3 years ago

These stats drive me up the wall because the US is more diverse than every single European country.

Are you seriously to claim that the EU is a single country? Or that there are no differences between EU countries? That link actually has a table of all EU countries, and it ranges from 72 to 83. This is actually a LARGER difference than in the US: where it ranges from 74 to 82.

You need to read what's actually being said before climbing up the walls.

throwawaylinux5• 3 years ago

What is a "frame trap", and why do people get irrationally upset by the US doing well at something or the EU doing poorly?

This post is about GDP growth. What has life expectancy got to do with it, and how are you contributing to any discussion? Has anybody here said that "GDP is the most important indicator"?

ChatGTP9• 3 years ago

I actually think it's the opposite, I always see Americans getting really snarky about Europe, I could go back and find plenty of examples but I have better things to do.

Personally I think average Americans have a hard time imaging a world where there is more to life than money.

Ultimately whenever I see these "murica" centric posts, I remember them flying in emergency medical supplies from China and everybody being upset about how the worlds greatest super power didn't have enough supplies for their own medical staff.

Stay humble.

janalsncm3• 3 years ago

The post is ostensibly about GDP growth. However, if you read the comments both here and on Twitter you’ll see that we humans are quick to jump from cold economic facts of GDP into more broad points about economic stagnation.

My point is to suggest that maybe top line numbers don’t tell the whole story. Maybe in a society where wealth is hyper-concentrated, the heuristic coupling of GDP growth and social progress breaks down.

Flip the US and EU, it makes no difference to me. My point is that GDP is a poor metric for most things we should care about, and maybe we should get off the paperclip maximization train and onto the well-being maximization train.

seydor6• 3 years ago

So they live less and STILL make twice the income?

thatguy0900• 3 years ago

People retire and not only don't have an income, they can take money back from the government. Especially if you live in a place where the government actually has some safety nets set in place for you. If your goal is maximum money earned per person per year you probably want them to die at like 65 or something.

failuser2• 3 years ago

Those are different people. The ones who die early don’t have disposable incomes that are high. At least on average.

afterburner3• 3 years ago

The EU has better social support.

However, the US dodged the austerity fad bullet in the 2010s. A lot of the EU really fell for it hard.

Austerity is a fantastic way to inhibit growth.

walthamstow• 3 years ago

Austerity means to spend less on public services and infrastructure. Doesn't that mean the US was in near-constant austerity prior to Biden and the IRA?

HDThoreaun• 3 years ago

The US life expectancy is low because Americans engage in riskier behavior like getting fat and opioids. Why is that a bad thing? If people want to do things that lowers their life expectancy they should be allowed to.

WhereIsTheTruth2• 3 years ago

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

TMWNN2• 3 years ago

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.

WhereIsTheTruth2• 3 years ago

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

yodelshady4• 3 years ago

The title and tweet both say "EU".

habosa• 3 years ago

The US is the best place in the world to accumulate wealth.

Unfortunately that does not make it the best place to live.

evantbyrne2• 3 years ago

Quality of life varies significantly based on where you are in the US. There are definitely smaller cities that offer high standards of living–if that's your speed.

omarelb• 3 years ago

What cities would that be? Asking for a friend ;)

gumballindie• 3 years ago

The eu is germany’s playground. Until that changes the economy will stagnate or even shrink.

Also does this comparison factor in uk’s departure?

eduction• 3 years ago

Bad chart - EU membership has fluctuated but they don’t control for this.

Mentally visualize adding in 3.1 trillion to EU 2023 to control for Brexit and the difference becomes a lot less stark (though still interesting).

bhewes• 3 years ago

Eurozone does equal the EU. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden are not part of the Eurozone but are part of the EU.

moneywoes• 3 years ago

Does Britain leaving the EU affect this number?

joejag• 3 years ago

yeah, by about 3.131 trillion USD

wanderingmind• 3 years ago

Not even an amateur economist, but intuitively, it feels like there is a very delicate balance needed in taxation. Higher taxation (likely Eurozone) is needed to support the poorer sections of the society. However too high, it kills innovation and growth and in turn the whole pie size. Too little taxation (likely US), pumps innovation and growth but destroys support for poor but also hinders investments in infrastructure needed for these innovations to thrive.

I'm not going to comment on the correct levels, as I have no clue, but one thing that feels certainly wrong is complexity of taxation. This gets exploited by a small percentage of people while leaves a large percentage afraid to venture.

croes2• 3 years ago

National debt

2013 16.83 trillion dollars

2023 32.33 trillion dollars

2013 13.19 trillion dollars

2023 14.5 trillion dollars

doublextremevil• 3 years ago

I guess this shows that deficit spending works to increase GDP, but we already knew that.

mardifoufs3• 3 years ago

So, the US grew but kept its GDP to debt ratio relatively similar to Europe's? That's awesome actually.

croes2• 3 years ago

Gini coeeficient

USA 41.5

EU 29.6

Debt is often used as a justification for spending cuts, often targeting the middle and lower classes

It's a weakth shift. The EU could double it's debt and give the money to the companies and would be on the same level as the US, GDP and debt wise.

local_crmdgeon• 3 years ago

It’s weird that every single comment is an excuse or a denial.

People are weird about Europe.

KingOfCoders5• 3 years ago

The US calculates inflation ~1% lower than others (chained dollars), this accounts for ~15% of the difference.

KingOfCoders5• 3 years ago

Does this take Brexit into account?

KingOfCoders5• 3 years ago

If the "EU" mentioned in the tweet in 2008 does include the UK and the "EU" mentioned in the tweet in 2023 does not include the UK, then the EU is smaller by ~15% - the size of the UK economy.

TheRealPomax• 3 years ago

It also took fascism way further than Europe, so it kinda balances out.

asynchronous• 3 years ago

…did you just say Europe, the literal birthplace of fascism, took it less farther than the US?

mardifoufs3• 3 years ago

Lol. Lmao. right wing parties in Europe regularly get 40% of the vote. And they would make Republicans seem like bleeding heart, diverse liberals in comparison. Marine lepen's party regularly calls for not just closing border but sending back uppity french citizens if they are Muslims lol. Europeans online just really like to ignore their own problems, it's almost amazing.

derelicta2• 3 years ago

Yup, other Europeans laughing at America while Fascism has reached new highs on the old continent is the real joke

krageon• 3 years ago

In the US you have young, silly fascism: cops killing anyone who isn't their preferred skin colour in the street. It's all very hateful and not palatable, even for folks that don't think further than the current incident.

In the EU you have older, more refined fascism: a political party subtly (or not so subtly) intimating an entire group of people is a huge problem, a return to "strong leader" values, etc. It's perhaps a bit more seductive, and deliberately so: public perception would be more poor if it was as violence-heavy as it is in the US.

You have to remember the EU is where fascism came from. It was a huge deal before WW2 and in essence it has never really left, it has just gotten better at rebranding.

Eventually you will see the hot new fascism trends in the EU transported to the US as well, it is how fashion works.

N.B.: I'm not a fan (of fascism or other regressive policies), which is perhaps not obvious. I just wanted to make clear that while the US has many problems and they are horrible, most of them are just "well the EU is doing this now so why aren't they???" and you can sort that out by waiting a generation or two. It's how the two areas started out (for ease of dialogue I'm ignoring how the US actually started out, that's a can of worms for another day), after all.

IceHegel• 3 years ago

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).

misja1113• 3 years ago

Does this take into account that the UK left the EU in the meanwhile?

leipie• 3 years ago

I was wondering the same thing. EU no longer included the UK. Which should have a sizeable economy.

yodelshady4• 3 years ago

It either does not or mislabels the chart. The chart refers to Eurozone.

misja1113• 3 years ago

Oh I missed that. If it's really about the Eurozone, then the UK was never in it in the first place.

FreshStart• 3 years ago

Baseballstats wankery for a handful of obsessed, cause owning. How much of the population is positively affected by the "growth". Cancer has growth rates too..

thevania• 3 years ago

interesting, but where is all that "prosperity" going in the US then? the one percent?

what i imply is that its not like an ordinary US citizen has 2x better quality of life than an ordinary EU citizen, I would strongly suggest that is far from the truth as i worked and lived in both US and EU and earned top dollar in both

Tade03• 3 years ago

The title is misleading. The Eurozone does not include the entire EU - there are quite a few countries with their own currencies(notably Czechia, Poland, Romania), which coincidentally saw some of the highest growths in the region during the last two decades.

Meanwhile some Eurozone countries like Greece, Italy and Spain actually saw a decline.

Hard not to draw such conclusions when your set includes all the troubled countries and none of the fast growing ones.

imtringued3• 3 years ago

which coincidentally saw some of the highest growths in the region during the last two decades.

That isn't some coincidence. The biggest beneficiary of the Eurozone relies on the suffering of its less successful members and this is ultimately reflected by the fact that poorer countries in the Eurozone don't catch up with the rest of the EU and in fact the opposite happens. Meanwhile for EU countries outside the Eurozone it is smooth sailing because they don't have to suffer for the benefit of a country that is role playing as the hero of the Eurozone.

Tade03• 3 years ago

Oh believe me the biggest beneficiary's influence goes way outside the Eurozone.

With this I'm glad my country doesn't qualify - I'll take that any day vs having monetary policy tied to that of a very different economy.

ffhhttt15• 3 years ago

I think it’s more about western vs eastern Europe.

EE countries which adopted the Euro did quite good as well. For instance growth in Poland lagged significantly behind Estonia or Lithuania in the last 10 years or so.

hgomersall2• 3 years ago

And yet, I'd far rather live in the EU than the US.

hknmtt• 3 years ago

The "economy" directly reflects the amount of paper money you print. There, i solved the mystery for you.

kotsman• 3 years ago

As a European, I am reading this and my reaction is mixed. I can’t deny all the “inefficiencies” happening in Europe, but what you see in the streets of Sf, you only see in the worst suburbs of European capitals

MilaM• 3 years ago

I would not be surprised if a large share of this growth could be attributed to the enormous expansion of domestic oil and gas production. The timeframe also coincides with the beginning of the shale gas and oil boom. If my understanding of GDP is correct, onshoring of energy production should have a direct effect on economic activity as measured by GDP.

Aerbil313• 3 years ago

This is all pointless as a measure of happiness, or rather peace in one's life. The obsession to materia of modern man is showing in the thread here.

mpweiher• 3 years ago

This appears to largely be an artefact of the USD/EUR exchange rate.

In 2008, a euro was worth ~$1.60, now it's around 1:1

Fredej• 3 years ago

Or is the exchange rate an artefact of the size of their economy?

panick21_2• 3 years ago

The US would be a spectacularly successful country for its most of the population if its land use/transportation policies were not such total shitshow.

A lot this growth just doesn't reflect in most people quality of live, mostly because of health care and land use.

Tons of people are richer, but a lot of the extra consumption goes to health care and cars (suburban living).

bluelightning2k• 3 years ago

I searched "Brexit" and was stunned not to see this in the comments.

One of the biggest economies in the World leaving the designation of the EU surely is relevant here.

Wildgoose• 3 years ago

This tweet talks about the "Eurozone", (those countries sharing the Euro), rather than those countries belonging to the EU.

Furthermore, any EU figures will have been badly skewed by the UK having left the EU since 2008. Comparisons should take this into account.

capableweb• 3 years ago

And the link in the subsequent tweet talks about "Europeans", apparently not knowing that European Union != Eurozone != Europe

The following diagram might be worth sending to the author(s): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_Europe... ("Euler diagram of supranational European Bodies")

sgt• 3 years ago

But if the tweet is about the Eurozone, then the UK would surely not have been included in the first place? They never had the Euro.

wunderland• 3 years ago

The US has worked hard to engineer a recovery for the global financial crisis that counters any efforts for greater cooperation across Europe. Merkel believed strongly in a peaceful partnership for the Eurasian continent (which included Russia) and the US saw this as an economic threat greater than that of China’s rise. We’re living through the results of American intervention in Europe.

throwaway2037• 3 years ago

I have written about this before on HN. Forget about GDP or PPP. What really matters for quality of life is local currency median income. If it is rising at a good rate above inflation levels, then your quality of life is getting better. Nothing else really matters at the ground level.

cman14446• 3 years ago

I understand that "at the ground level" that's all that matters. But these statistics are very useful for examining the economic heft of an entire country in the context of geopolitics. Of course if you don't care about things like that (like most people don't and have no reason to in their everyday lives) then you're correct it doesn't matter.

Every once in a while big things happen though (world wars break out, trade deals are signed, etc.) and in those cases it can pay to have the largest GDP.

LatteLazy• 3 years ago

Of course, if the average person is not 2x as rich in the US (or 0.5x as rich in the EU) then that would indicate this is a terrible measure for actual wealth. Let alone happiness etc. And that is the average person, since people naturally get richer as they age, any individual trying to decide needs to have gotten much much richer (4x plus) just to have gotten an average share...

vogon_laureate• 3 years ago

Yeah we know. Americans also have 2X the obesity rate as EU, significantly more than that in mass shootings, lower average life expectancy, significantly more CO2 emissions from electricity production and with 2x the energy usage and electricity consumption per capita, 30% less renewable electricity production, 3X the murder rate, and we reserve the word “football” for the ball game that mostly involves kicking one with your feet.

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

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