U.S. GDP grew at a 4.9% annual pace in the third quarter, better than expected
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
But at some point, I don't know if it is the narrator or someone in the story, but they say something to the effect of: "Everyone wants to be king of the hill, but there aren't enough hills to go around. The US is particularly great at creating more hills."
"Everyone wants to be the king of the hill. That's international. But the number of aspiring kings always dwarfs the number of available hills. So in this country, we build more hills. We're geniuses, in fact, at building more hills."
Still though particularly in places like Appalachia or rougher cities, its terrifying. America is realky liberty or death with few in-betweens
Because the US government has a money printer and an insatiable appetite for debt. The day will come for us, our kids, or our grandkids where it catches up to us.
I don't think your non-sequitur bears even a passing resemblance to the subject.
I think the whole point of the thread you're replying on is mentioning the individualism and personal freedom that's the US's cultural basis, and that has a profound impact on the well-being of those who feel the need to be the best of what they do, regardless if what that might be.
A while ago I stumbled upon an Instagram account of a middle-age man who had a bunch of videos of him juggling random stuff in his back yard, and he made it his point to stress that he was the best at what he did and he made a whole career out of it. Such a random thing, and I'm sure there weren't that many competitors for the title of best pillow juggler, but that fit definitely the description of someone making his own hill to be its king.
I guess it is possible that maybe in a generation or two Europe, Russia, China can fix their problems, get a solid working class and challenge the US.
But it really feels like the entire planet is sinking right now and the US is the best of the worst.
Maybe we need some aliens or something.
The natural born citizens dissatisfied with the US are generally not comparing the US to a developing country or a country with an ongoing war on their soil, which is where most immigrants come from.
Instead, they are comparing it to other developed countries and focused on specific conditions that matter to them, like housing, transportation, environment, violence, etc.
> Yes there are problems in America, but how many of those problems are the result of an apathetic, nihilistic American population and not the foundational systems America is built on?
The criticism of these problems is far from apathetic, and it's an important part of how we begin to remedy them. For example, we aren't going to wish away gun violence by ignoring it.
The biggest current threat to the US isn't this criticism, but rather the attack on its democratic foundations happening now. However even that is not coming from apathy, though its goals are very nihilistic in the short term and oligarchic and theocratic in the long term.
When I hear people complain online about the US, it is very common for them to have a deep understanding of problems in the US, but very superficial understanding of problems in other developed nations. European countries also have lots of problems with housing, healthcare, the environment, racism, the rise of the far right, etc. There are some problems that are uniquely american, like mass shootings.
Being an informed citizen isn't just understanding the problems in your country. If you wan't to be a part of positive change, you need to understand what's working and what's not working in other comparable countries as well.
To the contrary, plenty do care about it in the sense of being opposed to further immigration from developing countries. "Demographic anxiety" is a term often used to describe this.
Also, both natural born citizens of recent immigrant ancestry and those natural born for many generations care because anti-immigrant sentiment is a canary for a broader xenophobic trends.
When pressed, almost everyone has an opinion on immigration policy.
Even as a Canadian who immigrated to the U.S. (who unfortunately lives in Canada again now), I didn't realize how good I had it until I had given up my U.S. residence
We live in a world where a large subset of people have fooled themselves into believing that there's some other place without problems. If where you live has any problems, then it must be an awful place to live - so their thinking goes.
This group, for whatever reason, don't seem to weigh the pros and cons of every other place and see that most places are either hardly any better or MUCH worse.
Italy, Spain, France, and England were great for hundreds of years before the US, and they're still pretty damn good - all things considered. The odds that the US goes from the global leader for two hundred years and turns to a sh*t-hole in our lifetimes is pretty unlikely.
But somehow ~40% of the country convinces themselves this is true based on who the current president is - and, honestly, it seems like not much else.
This reads like a straw man. Just because some place arguably has issues that does not mean that it it just as bad as the one you're living on, or that your life won't improve your life by adopting or emulating the good examples.
Healthcare is a great example. I'm convinced that the average US citizen has absolutely no idea of the critical positive impact on quality of life and well-being that socialized healthcare has on all citizens, directly and indirectly. It goes way deeper than not risking going bankrupt for being in a car accident, or being able to treat your nagging minor health issue without having to tap a credit line. It affects things like being confident that your loved ones will have all the care they need if something bad and unfortunate happens to them, regardless of who you are ir where your career is at the moment.
Just because you adopt a change doesn't mean you'll adopt an outcome.
Proposing sweeping changes is easy - making them work is hard and prone to making things even worse instead.
"Apathetic" is not really a word I'd use to describe most Americans I know, especially the working class. "Informed but powerless" is more like it. Nihilism is the likely result of this sort of learned helplessness from a lifetime growing up in an unresponsive democracy. From the get-go, our foundational systems emphasized wealth over democracy. It was a system designed to empower a certain type and class of people, to liberate them from the English Crown's influence, but not really a democracy for all. Through our history, we've consistently encouraged wealth creation and resource exploitation/monopolization over democratic participation, and where democratic advances were made, they happened against strong headwinds and strong oppression from the wealthy. Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners... this has never been a society friendly to the common person.
"It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy."
Not that it should come at the expense of exploitation, and Smith would likely agree. He was critical of rent seekers and slavery and was very much interested in the well being of common people.
His observation, I believe, it also applicable at a smaller scale when looking at companies. Growing companies are great to work for with lots of excitement, perks, and new opportunities, even for average or mediocre employees. Stagnant companies are difficult and melancholy, not much advancement, raises are small or non existent. Declining ones are miserable as everyone is fighting for survival.
America was not founded for the common people. It was founded by the exceptional people who risked everything to come to this hostile continent in search of freedom from oppression. Freedom from serfdom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from religious persecution. Freedom to live how they wanted to!
America's population has forgotten its morals and what it means to be American. We are like the fat people in wall-e floating in our bubble, complaining at our minor inconveniences, and not knowing where we're going. We are fucked unless we turn this ship around.
Nope, and in fact the American Dream is exactly this - it's saying that if you work hard / are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources (the more you have the higher chances you have), you too can rise above the common person and join the ruling class of
> Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners
Of course this is out of reach for most people, and for the vast majority of people, as soon as they climb out of the common class, they immediately look down upon the common people, since they are now above the peasants. This is human nature. Everyone who complains about the rich will do the same thing as the rich as soon as they become rich
The number of opportunities in tech and the speed with which new ones arise can't be compared.
Look at the latest trend - AI. Not only did the initial boost come from openAI (US) its adoption by the biggest tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple etc - all American and all investing Billions.
But that's not even the most 'special' aspect of the US ( I'm sure SAP will jump in big into AI ) It's the hundreds of startups that are either starting or pivoting into the trend.
Now, this doesn't mean that this latest iteration of AI will be world-changing, it could turn out to be a complete bust. But it's this constant churn, the striving to be on the cutting edge, the rise and fall of dreams that makes the US 'special'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany
The US is one of the most attractive places for capital in the world, which encourages a great deal of immigration to the US.
Trends matter. I think the US is today the best place in the world to be born in.
I have far less certainty for americans 2 generations away
Will that still be true for people born here fifty years from now? I have my doubts.
Excepting refugees, AFAICT U.S. immigration policy purposely selects for people who have the ability, aspiration, and often wealth to be able to be able to successfully pass through the process.
So for any other given country, you could just as easily rephrase your question to ask whether that given country's problems are the result of apathy/nihilism/etc. of the majority of people who don't end up emigrating to the U.S.
To me that seems like a fatuous question. If you think the same, then realize it's no less fatuous than the one you asked.
Edit: Hm... maybe "fatuous" is the wrong word. To me it just seems like a very general question about human civilization masquerading as a question about a specific country's population. I think there's a name for this when it comes up in say, a debate, but I can't remember what it is.
I don't really see this though replace nihilistic with narcissistic and you may be on to something. It's not a belief in nothing, it's a belief in "I."
We are losing the ability to disagree and still keep it civil for one because of identities being so tied to the -ism of the day and no one accepting that they may be wrong about something every once in a while.
The same drive to be independent and "self-made" is becoming a weakness. It's going to an extreme where every man is an island.
If I was to be reincarnated as a random person in a given country, I wouldn't pick the US though. Even as a skilled worker who can decide where to work, I prefer some European countries for healthcare, vacations and culture. That being said, I feel Europe is declining and it feels the US could become a better choice in the near future.
Healthcare and vacations in the US are often reasonable for the developed world if you are, e.g., a highly-paid tech worker or other elite worker or, in some jurisdictions, a public sector worker (especially one with many years in, for vacations)
For the other, oh, 80% of the US working population, though, that's not true.
To put it into perspective, in Germany you might make 4k/month as a highly educated, highly skilled worker with years of experience. Even if you work remote (most don't) you won't be able to find a decent small house even in the middle of nowhere below 500k.
That only leaves you with immigrants from beyond the EU. Most of those who have any skills are going to try to get into the US. The ones that can't are probably going to try and get residency / citizenship in canada and get in via a TN visa.
Europe is left with the remainder, and unskilled migrants from cultures which frankly have a much harder time integrating into a western one. Over the long term it's a pretty dire situation.
The birth rate in the US is 1.64, the EU average is 1.53. So this is almost equally true for the US, a country historically built on the backs of immigrants.
Neither can the US with social security, pensions and 401ks. All ponzi schemes created on infinite growth with the future generation paying off the last. The rate of pension bailouts by the Feds has been increasing even now.
On top of that, tech emerging as a big industry which forms a big part of the whole economic output of a country, has led to Europe losing out to US. Although only China through thier protectionism has been safe from that.
You can see this in the commentary about UK politics, where they don't have money to fund NHS and NHS wages haven't grown which has bogged down their healthcare system. Most of the manufacturing ecosystem is completely degraded. Productivity is at a complete toss as well, as they are not even able to build high speed rail well now, which for a social net country like UK should be of paramount importance.
To combat this, they have increased taxation, either through freezing slabs or moving down tax slabs. This penalises people in high wage professions and it leads to loss of competitiveness.
We can't build high speed rail either -- we can't even keep our low-speed rail running well -- and our answer to expensive healthcare is typically just "let them die, we can replace them" (immigration too, except we don't have to give our immigrants anything, just wink and pretend we hate them).
At the end of the day no society has it all figured out yet, but I'd love to live in a place with social services and a less hostile democracy so that all the citizens can work together to figure out next steps, instead of being dragged kicking and screaming by the rich. It's just a more collectivist mindset, not necessarily better or more right in any way.
It is not because of welfare that there are less startups in Europe and it is not because of welfare that the big companies in Europe prefer to be more conservative with their spending on R&D. It's cultural. It's people being more financially conservative and risk averse.
I'm a relatively well paid software engineer in the UK, and I don't recognise this at all. I would be very happy to be taxed more to have a better health system. I wouldn't see this as being penalised, but something I'd vote for.
I have plenty of disposable income; if I had a bit less I'd probably spend less on buying expensive tech gadgets from American companies, investing in international shares or taking foreign holidays. It would be better for the country if that cash was diverted towards the NHS. I think overall it would make the country more prosperous. A sick workforce is an inefficient workforce.
Having a bit less cash would not make me less keen to start a company or change employer for more cash. In fact it would probably do the opposite.
Tax and wealth distribution needs a fundamental rethink going into the next few decades - I really don't have high hopes that the current approaches will work. As you say, they are predicated on high growth scenarios which western nations are no longer experiencing at a macro level.
We do have the money to fund the NHS. Successive Conservative governments have made the choice to defund the NHS, along with public health, and social care. And they did all of this on top of Brexit.
> The eurozone economy grew about 6% over the past 15 years, measured in dollars, compared with 82% for the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data. That has left the average EU country poorer per head than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report this month by the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based independent think tank. If the current trend continues, by 2035 the gap between economic output per capita in the U.S. and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report said.
> The European Union now accounts for about 18% of all global consumption spending, compared with 28% for America. Fifteen years ago, the EU and the U.S. each represented about a quarter of that total.
> Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, wages have declined by about 3% since 2019 in Germany, by 3.5% in Italy and Spain and by 6% in Greece. Real wages in the U.S. have increased by about 6% over the same period, according to OECD data.
Keep in mind a lot of this is exchange rates. If you look at GDP PPP, while falling slightly behind, the EU has mostly kept up with the US: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?locat...
Now nominal value is more important on a global influence scale so the usual figures still mean a lot, but it's way more nuanced than most peopl think.
- heatlhcare isn't what it used to be. Sure, it's free but it can take months to see some doctors, or even a dentist.
- retirement: the pension system isn't good. Most people will get less than 1.5K a month, and not before 64. The effects of the various pension reforms aren't visible yet but they will increase old people poverty.
- safety: this is political and people hold strong opinions on this, but my feeling is that poverty is on the rise, there are more and more unemployed young refugees...
More speculatively, I think Europe lacks natural resources and this is going to bite us more than the US.
Edit: I'm rate-limited so to answer the apparent question everyone has: I live in Texas; it's not exactly friendly regarding Medicaid, but I don't know what it takes to qualify.
https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2023-08-16/medicaid...
People have this fantasy that the social safety net takes care of people that can't take care of themselves, but that's really not the case. It is extremely easy to lose benefits and hard to get them in the first place for various services, with very long waiting lists for some things.
I suppose I'm actually rather fortunate to some degree; a lot of my issues could likely be resolved with a hip replacement, and I'm told the latest ones are very robust and can lead to nearly full natural function, but I haven't quite built up the courage to replace part of my skeleton with metal and plastic. As I say, I'm rather happily employed these days, but I've also been throught the odd layoff, so I know how precarious things can be.
I don't know if Single payer is a good solution in a country of our size but I am willing to try anything compared to what we have today.
One got a full CAT Scan and a full neurological consult, and a EEG due to a history of seizures, all for free and within a week.
https://millerestateandelderlaw.com/medicaid-out-of-pocket-c...
Seems can vary by state too
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/cost-sharing/out-pocket-co...
The USA is pretty bad (compared to most rich / developed countries) in general at giving opportunities to the broader population. Check the studies on intergenerational mobility to see that the USA ranks pretty badly there. It's not surprising to me given the inequality of the education system and how segregated it is (in terms of social class, parent educational level, etc).
You bring an interesting point though: "as an immigrant". Maybe the USA IS pretty good at giving opportunities to certain kind of immigrants (even if it isn't for the broader population). I haven't seen any study about it, but I'm sure there are analysis.
I look at Spain's labor market and I see a country that is massively failing: Triple the unemployment rate. People out of college there, with good majors, that end up making far less than what they'd to at McDonalds in the US. Young adults can't afford housing either, but not because they have massive student debt, or high healthcare costs, or extreme housing prices, but because salaries are pretty sad. My brother does bioinformatics and has a Ph.D, and he'd make 4x what he does, today, doing the same job in the massive, booming metropolis that is... St Louis, Missouri. He lives with our retired mother, and they can barely make ends meet.
Ultimately the higher growth advantage for the US is long lasting too: If your GDP growth is 0.5% higher than your neighbor, every single year, compound interest makes the difference very stark after a few decades... and a place like Spain already starts 30% poorer.
So yes, I'd still argue that the US is ahead in many areas. The riskiest issue is the difficulty of reforms: Good luck reforming higher education or healthcare, even though other countries have working systems that are better. But even though all it takes to see the advantages of change is to look a little bit, progress seems very difficult, as there's just so much money and power on the line in keeping the status quo. But that might be the theme of the last couple of decades in all democracies: Unwillingness to reform in the face of dysfunction.
I left states several years ago and regretted that decision ever since.
Yes, this is what the US brand sells. And for you it worked. Your sample has a survivor bias so to speak.
That aside, let's question the founding assumption: that the goal in life is to "get ahead". And that to "get ahead" the best way is to have the most opportunities. Perhaps this is why so many Americans (note: I was born, raised and live here) are unhappy, uncomfortable and unsatisfyied? That is, "getting ahead" isn't what it's cracked up to be? That after running on the rat wheel for so long and seeing so little in return, they're frustrated?
My point is, the natural born experience is not the same as the immigrant experience. To be promised something and getting little is not the same as having little and then everything is a bonus.
Yes you can get ahead here. Yes there is opportunity. The question is: how much joy and happiness will that bring? Will it last? Or is this a false construct that eventally reveals itself?
I think the answer to your question depends on the person and their personality. Many people get happiness and satisfaction from achievement, and the result of their work. For example, many people get happiness from achievements in sports, others in business.
A few years ago, I was writing a lot of proposals for government work, and I was winning a lot of them, even when competing against large defense contractors. So much so that my company didn't need any more work. But I was enjoying the satisfaction of winning that I wanted to keep going. My friend (who was also partnered with me on those proposals) and I were reflecting on that, and we agreed that the validation that came with winning was what really was motivating us, more so than the money.
Will it last? Again, I think it depends on the person. I think most high achievers get long term satisfaction from what they do. Not everyone, sure. But I don't think it's a false construct because some don't.
they're also aware that American Exceptionalism relies on comparing America to the most poorly run and suffocatingly authoritarian countries on the planet, and ignoring that the developed world exists at all
people are aware that the US is a great starting point to go to those other developed nations. Getting a job in the US and moving to somewhere in Western Europe is a great privilege, greater than being born somewhere else and going straight to Western Europe, greater than being born in Western Europe without inheritance
people are aware that the US could uniquely solve all of its own problems, and have all of the 21st century advances of the developed world, but it simply doesn't solve those problems and lacks consensus
try not to misunderstand what US Citizens are aware of
Unsurprisingly , my wife’s love for USA knows no bounds - she’s one of the most patriotic immigrants you’ll ever meet
Sweden is kind of the opposite, and it really decimates the opportunities available here. Perhaps not so much in quantity, but in quality.
Also, with interest rates this high and the economy steaming along. That means inflation is going to keep rising as well.
None of that says too much GDP growth by itself means higher rates.
I don't understand, these types of comments are relative. Which countries are we comparing? Why the US over another country, for example, Canada? France? Sweden? Japan? Thailand? Have people tried these out (I know people who have!)?
The only reason I can think of Why the US over another place is is the amount of wealth and the amount of land in the US is staggering, and the appeal of that makes people feel wealthy themselves by way of association. It's a glamorous lure.
Or is it because of less government restrictions and oversight? Which has its downsides as well.
I feel, as my primary residence, that the US is a cutthroat place to live. Those that speak well of it usually have been lucky.
Those freedoms are defended by individual power. All power in the world derives from force. The benefit of private gun ownership is a much higher level of individual power and thus the ability to defend that freedom vs the continuous encroaches of government. Mass shootings are an unfortunate side effect, but one worth accepting. I'd rather have a few thousand gun related deaths a year than hundreds of thousands or millions die when a too powerful government takes power.
This is why MAGA made no sense to me. America is great already. It's not perfect and has a lot of things that need to be fixed. But MAGA is starting from behind.
And you can always change jobs (albeit at the risk of restarting the green card process).
Chicago for all the shitting on it gets for it's high murder rates actually has dozens of neighborhoods that are larger than most towns, suburbs and cities, that have seen zero homicides for several years, which places them well below the national rate and makes them exceptionally safe.
And I'm not some crime apologist. Look at my post history. I'm as conservative as they come. Just following the data.
The US is great if you want to "get ahead" (and manage to do so), but if you just want a peaceful, boring life, this is not the place to be. We treat our society like a zero-sum game. Between our terrible healthcare, education, school safety, infrastructure, public transportation, politics, insane housing costs, corrupt judges, stances on drugs and abortion, it really feels like a hellhole where either you're rich or you're worthless. I'd much rather prefer somewhere in Europe, especially Scandinavia, or maybe Canada or East Asia. But it's not easy to emigrate.
Even this framing is itself pretty terrible: Our GDP outpaced expectations, so that must be good, right? Hardly. That just means the rich get richer, leaving everyone else even further behind.
Life actually seemed way better for millions of working class folks during COVID, when the economy was tanking and government simply propped it up, and suddenly workers everywhere had a lot more respect and negotiation power, and unions grew for the first time in decades. It was the first time in my life I saw our society come together to work together, instead of trying to massively exploit the poor. Then a couple years after COVID and that all goes away, whether it's WFH or mass layoffs.
I would say the US only makes sense IF you are strongly competitive/entrepreneurial and libertarian, not if you are community-minded and just want to live a normal life under a functioning democratic society. "Pro-business" usually means "anti-democratic" in our society, by disproportionately empowering capital ownership rather than democratic participation and process.
Sigh. You're painting with a huge black and white brush.
This and being a community is not exclusive. Asian countries are some of the worst zero-sum countries, simply by virtue of resource/person, yet simultaneously being very community focused.
People behave in zero-sum way for one thing and in a community way for another.
What's stopping you?
This is delusional. Aside from government enforced job loss, firings of people with differing views, and forcing low status occupations to continue working crazy hours and burn out, I guess labor won? Maybe? Needing unions to fight for higher wages caused by stupid economic policy is hardly a win
> We treat our society like a zero-sum game.
In my experience, Americans are some of the least zero-sum thinking people, perhaps driven by the natural geographic advantages of the country. In other parts of the world, a zero-sum attitude is the norm, not the exception. It's suffocating if you live in it. I regard this as one of America's greatest strengths.
As for some of the things you find dissatisfactory with the US:
> politics
I'm sure many people everywhere think their country has uniquely dysfunctional politics, just like how people in every city claim that their city has the worst drivers. Belgium went without a government for years. The Taiwanese parliament breaks out in fistfights every now and then.
> insane housing costs
I don't know how things are in Scandinavia, but Canada or any part of East Asia are absolutely much worse by this metric. Look up median multiples in different countries; you'll find that the US is very favorable, especially among developed countries.
A middle-class family being able to afford to own a house happens more in the US than virtually any other place.
> corrupt judges
I'm not really sure what you mean. Do you find the US judiciary to be more corrupt than in other countries?
> stances on drugs and abortion
What do you find terrible about these? Drug laws are relatively lax in general in the US, and especially in certain states. Many Asian countries punish drug users and traffickers very harshly.
On abortion, you might be surprised to find that most Western European countries are much more restrictive than the liberal American states.
> the rich get richer, leaving everyone else even further behind
The real median personal income[0] has been on a broadly upward trend. The great majority of Americans make more money than their parents; more than half of people born to parents in the bottom quintile of incomes end up in a higher quintile; and conversely, more than half of people born to parents in the top quintile end up in a lower quintile[1].
In Europe, some of the very richest have remained the very richest for literal centuries[2]. In the US, you'd be hard-pressed to find people on the Forbes 400 list whose grandparents were also on the same list.
> Life actually seemed way better for millions of working class folks during COVID, when the economy was tanking and government simply propped it up
Your argument is that life seems better when the government prints money and hands it out to people? Surely you understand that there's a very sharp limit to how far that can go.
> if you just want a peaceful, boring life, this is not the place to be
I don't know where in the US you are, but it's a huge country with very diverse lifestyles to be found. Where I live, in a midsize Southern city, my barber, who has no college education or inheritance, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife and children. Their house is very modest, but they are saving up to build a bigger one. This seems the definition of a "peaceful, boring life".
If you want this kind of life on a median or below income in some of the most desirable cities in the country, I grant you that's going to be very tough. But that is the case anywhere in the world. People constantly tread water just to get by in big, competitive cities.
> I also spent several weeks in a few other countries -- enough to get a very basic feel for their society and services
Being on vacation in a country is very different than living there.
Ultimately, different people value things differently, and you may very well find yourself happier in another country. I'm just pointing out that it's very easy to view other countries with rosy glasses, and that the view of the US as "a hellhole where either you're rich or you're worthless" is by many objective metrics untrue.
[0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
[1]: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_a...
[2]: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11691818/barone-mocetti-floren...
Why does it necessarily mean that?
The reality is that US politics is utterly fucked up, but the US economy is by far the strongest in the world, it might be the most resilient economy in all of human history, it's continually astounding how it manages to surge forward, overcome obstacles and grow. If you are a US citizen, you have access to this economy in ways that other people don't.
So let me throw out a couple examples of this.
* Energy. A shale revolution is now well underway in North America, what this translates to is energy independence and some of the cheapest oil on the planet being well within the USA's grasp. But what you will hear Americans talk about if you bring this up is the POLITICAL problem of how we can't regulate emissions and the climate apocalypse is going to cook us all. Look I'm not saying that climate change isn't a serious problem. It is. But keeping with my theme here, it's going to cook India a lot sooner than it cooks the USA. And the ECONOMIC benefits to the US of the shale revolution are enormous.
* Home-shoring. The amount of money going into rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity right now is staggering, we're in the early stages of an enormous boom and a resurgence of stuff that's made in the USA, including very high tech companies like TSMC building factories in the US. Again people want to talk about the POLITICS with China and how messy they are, but ECONOMICALLY, the US is going to benefit from a ton of manufacturing growth over the next decade.
* Demographics. In the long run, economically, China's doomed, Japan's doomed, the outlook for much of Europe is bleak because they're not having kids. The US still has kids at a somewhat decent rate and has tons of immigration. So again everyone will want to argue about the POLITICS of illegal immigration, but the fact of the matter is, ECONOMICALLY the US will benefit greatly from its demographics.
* Tech, rocket ships, you name it - in virtually all bleeding edge industries, the USA is #1 or #2.
Betting that the US economy will win (even just in a simple form like using your spare cash to buy the S&P 500 and hold it, something that billions of people in this world can't easily do), just keeps on being the right call, almost continuously since WW2.
I'm not saying the politics aren't totally fucked up. They are. I'm not saying the wealth this economy creates is distributed fairly. It's not. But especially online the discussion is way way way way way skewed towards "look how bad these awful US political problems are" meanwhile the one big advantage you have as an American is you have direct access to this unbelievable economic machine, you are actually a member of it, you can buy and sell things in it (and that is how we get to why the entrepreneurial stuff is important!).
However, my only regret was that I did not leave sooner, it did not work out for well for me on the balance, IE I did make money, but my quality of life was less than middle class people have where I live now.
Edit : loving the battle with the down and upvotes but seriously I'd rather have more back and forth with actual data.
Sources:
0. Growing up very poor in the USA, immigrating somewhere else.
1. The change over time https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-decline-of-upward-mobil...
2. Comparisons globally https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/social-mo...
As far as the comparisons globally, they're ranking countries based on "education, access to technology, healthcare, social protection and employment opportunities" which has the implicit assumption baked in that those 5 metrics are proxies for social mobility. They might be, but why not actually measure the thing you care about? Social mobility to me means changing social classes based on income. Something like moving from a 25k/yr household to a 75k/yr household, or moving from a 75k/yr household to a 200k/yr household, maybe another jump up to 500k or a million/yr.
It seems to me that there is a much more equal distribution of incomes and outcomes in the countries you linked. That makes me think it would be much harder to go from being middle class to upper class in those countries than in the US, simply because almost everybody is part of the middle class. Thus, I think if you measured what most immigrants (and what I) actually care about when we hear about "social mobility," then the countries you mentioned would have great social mobility into the middle class, and basically no other social mobility.
And anecdotally, pretty much anyone I know who isn't the child of a doctor or lawyer is doing better than their parents.
[1]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/millennials-just-wealthy-pare...
- No universal healthcare
- No universal mental healthcare
- Millions of homeless and functionally housing-insecure people
- Crazy people in government who don't want it to function and who supported the insurrectionists
- Absurdly gerrymandered Congressional districts that put the thumb on the scale for one side
- Grotesque corruption of dark money in politics
- Supreme Court justice who pals around with and takes gifts from a billionaire, oh and sexually harassed women
- Like a third-world country, women don't have a federal right to choose what happens to their own bodies
- No meaningful climate change policy
- Massive income inequality
- An inability of the average family to purchase real estate
- A doddering old man sleepwalking the US into a new era of terrorism in 2026-2029 by taking the side of a brutal, corrupt authoritarian and an inability to apply the nuance to the Middle East conflict
Apart from mythological ideals, what specific benefit do US citizens have that British or EU Schengen citizens lack? I want to know if it's net better in say Finland or Sweden for average people because it's not very nice here.
1. Natural resources
2. The American dream of entrepreneurship and immigrant success.
3. The work-is-sacred American professional-managerial class.
Stable countries decay due to 3 things. First, import pressure can ruin a nation as all its productivity gets extorted out of it by a pseudo-colonial exporter. Natural resources solve this. Second, general lethargy causes productivity to die. But the secularozed protestant work ethic keeps the gears running. Lastly, productive nations can still lose if they miss technological revolution, which can often happen overnight. But the American dream ensures that no one tries to disrupt like Americans, and the most disruptive foreigners are drawn in such that their aha-moment still occurs here.
It's honestly, perfect.
But, don't let that distract you from freeloaders who ride this wave of American productivity. The housing industry, cartelized middle men, lobbyists & bloated executives might still be net negative.
The US isn't just productive. It is productive beyond the wildest imagination of the rest of world. But, that tends to not show up in the numbers or in practice, because a just as large industry of grifters keeps it from cashing it its productivity.
The US wins, not by being more efficient or effective. But by sheer brute force.
Productivity has a specific meaning in economics, i.e. labor productivity (GDP per hours worked). What I think you are referring to here is output, i.e. GDP.
You can learn more about this here and see the latest country data: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
I think the stat to look at here would be median GDP per hour worked, on a per-capita basis. Calculating the median is of course difficult, but it would account for large, person-less streams of money that passively flow through without actually being "productive" in the "creating something new" sense.
I’d love to read a deep dive on how those numbers came to be.
Classic video by a legend we lost far too early- https://youtu.be/ILn85WKo0Qk?si=83X9ptWPH2ZpHsp3
Oh yes it does.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/13/from-strength-...
People just ignore the numbers.
Yes yes, airplanes, missiles, etc. but the impact of this physical distance cannot be overstated.
Healthcare, maybe. Although, breaking down US live expectancy by demographic or even just by states and comparing with the corresponding European breakdown shows that most of the worse outcomes in the US are not due to healthcare.
A big part of this is more lower skill workers in construction. Controlled immigration would be a great start.
Like, you can expect to straight up own a house during your lifetime without inheriting it or striking it rich.
Affordability is far, far worse.
Americans don't save - haven't for 30 years - this isn't anything new. The savings rate was only 5.2% because people were getting handed free private money as the public debt swelled.
> credit card debt is at the highest amount ever in history
It should be. Dollars are down 30% from pre-pandemic. It'll likely go much higher.
> and auto loans are experiencing the highest delinquency rate in 30 years.
Not surprised. Car prices led inflation during the pandemic, and despite that, sales went through the roof.
Americans don't plan for a rainy day. Student loan payments resumed, incomes are down (mostly because government transfers are down, not wages).
Something's got to give.
Looks like car payments were the first to go. Will they be the only thing? Who knows! Stay tuned.
This sentiment scares the crap out of me, and explains a lot of frustrations I felt through the pandemic. I've complained [0] before about feeling like I was getting screwed by making "reasonable" or even fiscally conservative choices throughout the pandemic and it's recovery. It's a topic I have complicated feelings on: I don't want my fellow citizens to be "punished" for being reckless, both because I don't like the idea of punitive reformation and because punishing basically everyone would do Bad Things to the economy, but the feeling of "something's got to give" has been hanging over me for years.
Everyone seems over-extended, but anyone who "plays it safe" just gets taken advantage of by everyone else. It feels like a microcosm of peoples' reaction to climate change in a lot of ways; we see older generations reveling in the spoils of just not caring and know that if we're going to do anything about it _we_ will have to give up luxuries they've enjoyed for years--and that there will be plenty of others who will just take up the "slack" we're creating by cutting our emissions.
Maybe I'm just projecting my own FOMO, but I see a _lot_ of the sentiment of "they got theirs, why shouldn't I get mine?" when it comes to saving money or climate change or even just post-COVID travel. There's no sense of communal responsibility or "we're all in this together."
However, if it starts to shrink - and you're leveraged to your neck in debt - buckle up.
E.g., if I'm one of the few who pays all of the taxes I'm supposed to, does that just make me a self-righteous chump?
Or is there much point in me properly disposing of household lead, fiberglass insulation, etc. when 99% of other users of the landfill ignore the rules?
It's also worth noting that the intuitive relationship of "savings is low, ergo times are hard" doesn't really fit the data. For example, during the bubble years prior to the '08 mortgage crisis, the savings rate declined significantly. When the crisis hit, the savings rate went up and stayed up afterwards.
Car repo rates are an extremely reliable signal for an impending economic crisis. Problem is, right now, the signal has been active for an unusually long period. Maybe it's just the previous administration's "free" money drying up?
Inflation adjusted?
The numbers I see coming out about the state of the economy just seem more and more out of sync with reality on the ground. Legit 5% GDP growth should mean a booming economy with people feeling good, yet people are struggling to cover their basic needs and pessimism seems high. I work remote so I see this in both the bubble of the tech world and in the "real world" outside of tech
The US deficit spending this year is 6.6% of GDP. Last year the deficit spending of $1.4 Trillion was 5.5% of GDP. In other words, if there were no growth except that caused by government deficit spending, and that government spending was a wash - $1 of government spending for $1 of economic growth - you'd expect an annualized GDP growth of 1.1%.
Further, GDP growth fueled by deficit spending is still legit GDP growth, the same way that taking out a loan to remodel your home still creates a legitimate growth in your home's value. That remodeling may not have been the optimal investment, it might not even be a profitable investment, but it still is an investment.
In that case, the $1.7 Trillion deficit is 6.1% of GDP, so actually a half-percent lower than your calculations.
That feels like a super bold claim that needs a lot of justification. Sorry I won’t just go with the hokey household metaphor.
The fact of the matter is the feelings of public are the feelings of the rich propagandists who, on principle, don’t want a leftist in power, regardless of whether he’s good for the economy or not.
People care about the job market, the cost of living, direction effects of inflation on buying goods and services. When people say they economy sucks they mean they can't buy a car right now because the bank will only give them an ass interest rate even with great credit and the price of groceries has skyrocketed.
I've believed for awhile now the stock market has been a poor measure of the economy because its become decoupled from the "real" economy, ie: the things I listed above.
A common and easily mocked media meme. On the New York Times Pitchbot humor account, an hour ago: "We're not in a recession. So why does it feel like we are?"
Feelings are more present and real. It's a mistake to expect that anyone will ignore their feelings. The question is how to get upstream of those feelings.
I had a big anger problem when I was a kid - my dad told me that if someone can make you angry, they control you. It's hard to tell someone they are being controlled while they are angry though.
Sometimes people are happy to be angry because it makes the world simpler. All I have to do is be angry, and this guy will fix things for me. And maybe that guy fixes things, or fixes one thing, but later things get worse again, because just being angry and trusting someone to fix things doesn't work.
Humans are very smart animals, but the world is very complicated.
The numbers are meaningless, even if they are accurate, which I sincerely doubt. GDP is up 5%? My salary hasn't gone up 5%, but my grocery bill has gone up way more than 5%. Health insurance costs went up more than 5%. Maybe all those increases in prices are boosting GDP, but wages aren't keeping up. Maybe the numbers are hand-waving nonsense.
People know whether they are doing okay or not. GDP is a blunt instrument metric of little value except as a broad comparison. But noting that it "happens during a Democrat presidency" is quite telling.
Good luck gaslighting the working class into believing their day to day situation is something it's not. "Don't believe your lying eyes. Your grocery bills and rent and gas and car and healthcare didn't go up, and you're closer to owning a house than before! It's the bad people telling you otherwise. Trust Us. Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad."
These are the good times that the government should use pay to pay off debt by taxing more and spending less.
I don't put much stock in your feelings about the economy. My feeling is, I see people shopping at the mall, I see them filling the bars, and I see them buying new cars. The problem some people may be having is that they over-extended themselves and now owe too much. For example, while their real wages have actually gone up, they may have underestimated how much inflation would erode the real value of their nominal wage increases (I did this, in fact). So they took out loans they thought would be easy to pay, at interest rates that were higher than they were used to, and found that they had made the wrong bet. The disatisfaction, imo, is all about disappointed expectations, not the actual living conditions people have. I got a 20k raise, but now it feels more like a 12k raise, and meanwhile I took out a loan for a kitchen remodel.
A one time expense of 8% GDP for a 4% growth is great. That means it would get paid back in two years, or faster if you consider compounding.
The problem is determining if the 8% spending is related to the 4% growth (and how much.
Another way to to frame the whole topic is that the US government spends %40 of GDP in taxes, plus another 8% borrowed, per year. Even this could be a good deal, but it comes down to how much of the growth is causes by govt spending, which types of spending, and if the growth is permanent.
That 8% debt would generate 4% more economic output this year, next year, the year after, the year after that, etc...
If your 8% debt only generates 0.5% of extra growth once, and then we get back to a baseline 3.5% growth, the additional economic output will equal the debt in 16 years and continue generating economic output afterwards.
But it's also completely unclear why, as a government, you should care about the ratio of debt to growth. The two numbers are of an entirely different nature. That economic output corresponds to things produced by the economy. The 8% debt corresponds only to who has control of which money pile (in particular, it includes the promise that the government will redirect a large chunk of money to the lenders in the future, which you might or might not find problematic). It doesn't take anything away from the total sum. So by shuffling money around, you have created real economic output. That's great!
The percentages don't appear comparable here. They also don't allow for future multiplier effects from the spending.
No agenda, just holding that sentence up to a little scrutiny.
Not that comparing those two numbers is at all meaningful.
I agree that GDP is a poor measure of “on the ground” experience, but not sure what that has to do with deficit spending.
the main argument that the economy is doing well is that "the labor market is strong" and unemployment is low, but how many jobs are tied to government deficit spending via contracts or direct employment? If that spending is cut back, I'd imagine the jobs numbers will quickly start to decline
The higher interest rates haven't had time to dig into corporations yet, but the consumer really is faltering (e.g: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/10/21/ame...)
Once the consumer buckles and spending drops then the GDP should drop, pulling the US into a recession, that should cause rounds of severe across-the-board layoffs (not just isolated to tech) which then cause housing to buckle. And at some point commercial real estate should detonate as the loans there hit their maturity dates and roll over.
But, that doesn't mean the the economy overall is seeing growth so we can hold all three things can be true.
For the question you're interested in, you'd want to look at other measures like the deficit as a share of GDP. Which is trending badly in large part due to lower revenues (variety of non-ideological reasons).
Besides regional differences, it’s also the case that more and more economic activity is being captured by fewer and fewer people. So, if the richest billionaires grow their stash fast enough, the rest of the country will probably feel less dynamic.
People will never “feel good” about the US economy again.
How much deficit did we add last year? The year before? OK, two years ago means they are Covid numbers, so... five years ago?
How much did the economy grow in those years?
I'm not sure that you can say anything as simple as "the growth is because of the deficit". I suspect (but I don't currently have the numbers) that there have been lots of years when the US ran a large deficit and did not grow.
What are those numbers?
Remember: the nation's largest propaganda machine is dedicated to making people believe the economy is in shambles, because a booming economy fueled by government spending in green energy and protecting families falsifies their ideology.
Is it so hard to believe that people's negativity is often not about hard numbers and facts?
Like this: https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-perso... TL;DR: 71% say economy is bad and 51% say it's getting worse, while for 60% people in the same poll their personal financial situation is just fine. There are many similar polls, all point to the same thing.
Because growth likely means inflation in this case, so that causes uncertainty.
I think a lot of people feel bad about the economy because they are told to feel bad about the economy.
Which, if your job is hiring people, might be the case because wages are going up for those on the lower end.
Perhaps you're a pessimist.
We just raised GDP by $2 trillion!
Obviously, the US government deficit spending is somewhat better than building dynamite statues (but only somewhat) and we can expect some degree of returns, but I highly doubt that the spending is efficient enough to outpace raising debts and the crowding out effect of the private sector.
I don't think there is any growth in US that Europeans have to be jealous of. Any "growth" is just more wealth for billionaires, at a high cost to individuals.
Health spending accounts for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy [1]. Between 2000 to 2020 health expenditure tripled from 1.4 trillion to 4 trillion, at a 4.2% annual growth rate. This is projected to accelerate, grow at 5.3% and reach 6.8 trillion by 2030. [3]
It is mostly health-care, which grows faster than the economy. Then higher rents, high cost of food, the numbers go up! Almost all sectors are monopolies/oligopolies with pricing power, they can extract more and more. Of course, the numbers will go up. But I doubt anybody is happier.
Family health insurance through work now costs $24,000 a year (note: this is just insurance, not the total cost!). Job-based health insurance are up 7% from last year: https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthcare/family-health-insuran...
A lot of new construction is hospitals. I have two new hospitals coming up where I live, in a one mile radius.
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...
[2] https://www.oecd.org/health/health-spending-set-to-outpace-g...
[3] https://www.cms.gov/files/document/nhe-projections-forecast-...
Here in Spain health spending is so high that you have to pray to the gods to see a GP. Usually you end up having to go to the ER for any kind of problem because there are no appointments available for weeks.
Food and rent have skyrocketed these years. The official inflation numbers are a joke, they are like... 5%? When food has gone up in average by at least 50%.
Not sure about insurance.
Instead of trying to explain away official statistics by talking about things you see on your drive to work, consider updating your priors instead.
For example, having an appendicitis in US increases the GDP by $10K but in most of Europe it barely moves the needle, thus Europeans lag in GDP metrics for the same healthcare.
Fresh, healthy produce as standart? Maybe good for people but destroys the GDP statistics. If Europeans embraced the idea that healthy stuff is for the rich and charge for it accordingly, they too can extract much more numbers from the tomatoes and have nicer GDP.
This is as % of GDP, but it's a good stand-in for inflation. Deficits are going down since 2020.
Perhaps if they can make housing an even bigger drag, it will pull everything back in the next few quarters. But we are not there quite yet.
There’s only so many luxury bags and apparel that can be sold. Europe needs to come to grips with their risk adverse investing culture because there’s a great pool of talent there. But it isn’t being utilized well.
And the Yemen conflict is nearing a negotiated end. Soon you can stop worrying about Belgian economic support for Saudi war crimes.
The US government is running a deficit that is equivalent of the GDP of Spain, while Americans life expectation is similar to third world countries. I don't see this as wealth generation.
The US choses to have too many suburbs which incurs a huge cost to maintain so many streets, and typical US states are completely brankrupt, so federal government needs to constantly save and help (like Biden's Build Back Better campaign and infrastructure package).
Because of this, US will always have a huge GDP that will just keep growing, but whether this is really better for the citizens, I have my own fair of questions.
It's very cheap to get some running shoes and go running and stay healthy, but some countries think they need protein powers, gatorade and Crossfit gyms in order to maintain a "healthy" lifestyle, maybe even take some testosterone, that all become GDP numbers, that's why GDP is a useless metric when comparing countries.
Don't extrapolate too much based on a single quarter metric (albeit an important one). That's the HN way.
What if we extrapolate based on the last 3 quarters?
Though we should account for a likely re-evaluation down 10% based on other recent quarters.
I don't know. If you assume rich people hold assets that are vulnerable performance wise to the exposure of equities, rich people are currently taking a bath given that the S&P is basically flat (except for dividend reinvestment) past 30 months (SPY was $411.49 on Apr 9, 2021, today it is $412.55)
Having cash and taking advantage of treasuries and other loans is providing pretty solid returns as well.
The rich people’s accountants have this covered for the most part, I think they will be fine.
“Going forward, the consumer’s not going to spend at the same rate, the government is not going to spend at the same rate, and businesses seem to be slowing down their spending as well,” Arone said. “This suggests this might be the peak GDP figure, at least in the next few quarters.”
These figures are from before things like student loan repayments kicked in.
After elections we will all of a sudden have troubles and talk of recessions will be back on the table.
SF is the bellwether: prop C and friends chased many big companies away and the tax base was beginning to erode but locals (who greatly desire the exodus of the "Bridge and Tunnel" folks continues to find new villains).
Ultimately, if you stagnate you die. And the old love to stagnate, and Americans have the curse of deifying the old while having elderly who are hopelessly selfish.
SF is not stagnating by any measure.
What specifically are the rich nervous about? Outside of complete economic collapse they've got far less to worry about than everyone else. If they're worried about economic collapse they're essentially worried about becoming like the rest of us... not anything worth advocating for here.
gdp-numbers are basically just mirroring inflation. It is not growth if it decimates companies market caps.
They shouldn't be worried about losing some % of net worth in the stock market and/or increased union activity. They should be worried about civil unrest.
There's no free bread and the commoners are getting fed up with the circus.
A quick look through the last 8 quarters shows it's slightly biased in favor of revising upward (comparing advanced vs. second estimates).
I'm curious what aspects of inflation you think are not covered by CPI. I see lots of pessimism from people that is not because of their own experience or any numbers that they can point to, and I'm always curious why. For me, it's housing. I want to move to a bigger house but there's almost nothing on the market, and the very few houses in the market at absolutely astronomical prices relative to mortgage cost.
There's no good way to force down housing costs without signaling to sellers that the prices are simply too high (because no one can afford the mortgage).
There are costs associated with making it more difficult to move, of course, but the pessimism about being unable to afford loans is the very thing driving down inflation; so I actually consider that mood on the ground to be a positive signal for the economy.
1. Source? A quick search suggests not.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/fre....
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-capital-gains-not-included-in-...
2. If this were true, shouldn't we be seeing meteoric rise and fall in gdp during the pandemic, when the s&p 500 grew 40% within the span of less than 2 years?