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kelseydh

America has already been living in a decline of living standards relative to Europe for many decades.

EU vs US Comparison

Life expectancy EU: 82 yrs US: 78 yrs

Infant mortality (per 1,000) EU: 3.3 US: 5.6

Poverty rate (below 50% of median income) EU: 15% US: 18%

Public debt EU: 81% of GDP US: 120% of GDP

Top 1% wealth share EU: ~25% US: 40%

Student debt EU: ~€0 US: $40k

Homicides (per 100k) EU: 2 US: 5

Prison population (per 100k) EU: 111 US: 531

Women in workforce EU: 71% US: 57%

Workplace deaths (per 100k) EU: 1.63 US: 3.5

Source: OECD, Eurostat, CDC

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All of those are true, yet the US's (PPP-adjusted) per capita GDP was over 37% higher than the EU's in 2024 [0], and GDP growth has significantly outpaced the EU for years. Basically, whenever there was a choice between anything and economic growth, the US chose growth. Other places made different choices. You can argue about which choices were better, and how the results are distributed, but the difference in salaries for most people using this site are even more stark.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

Counter to your point, what's most striking from that chart is how comparably similar both Europe and the United States are in their GDP per capita growth.

I wouldn't bank too much on those high salaries for U.S. tech workers. The U.S. tech industry has been in a contraction since the post-COVID hiring boom: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

As AI tooling improves, tech workers are finding their opportunities for high-paying prosperity fizzle out. Non-AI tech jobs are going the way of the rust belt and most tech professionals have seen their pay flatten. https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/02/05/tech-salaries-stag...

The labor market is cratering, but tech worker pay remains higher in the US than anywhere else on the planet.

What does GDP give me?

If I work for a megacorp and they sell more widgets while paying me the same amount then GDP goes up. This is not actually a direct measure of human flourishing.

But they can't sell more widgets if nobody has any money to buy them.

Sure, you could model a pretend economy where only the wealthy ever buy stuff, but that's not how the US economy works, and Consumer Confidence has a massive influence over our GDP - so when our GDP goes up, it's often hand in hand with our population buying more widgets with extra money, even as they complain that they don't have the cash for "necessities" (I.E. burrito taxis, vanity pickup trucks, and owning a house with two spare bedrooms with a <30 minute commute to their workplace).

Note: I'm not saying that low-income Americans don't genuinely struggle, just that there's a mismatch between the Americans that are genuinely low-income and the Americans that perceive themselves as low-income because they need to save a little to make major purchases or need to tell themselves no sometimes.

> you could model a pretend economy where only the wealthy ever buy stuff

In the United States, the top 10% of income-earning households are responsible for approximately 50% of all consumer spending.

And yet we see all of these better outcomes on metrics more directly tied to human flourishing in countries that have worse per-capita GDPs.

GDP is meaningless. Look at Ireland: one of the highest GDPs in the world yet none of the people feel that wealth in their day-to-day lives.

> All of those are true, yet the US's (PPP-adjusted) per capita GDP was over 37% higher than the EU's in 2024 [0], and GDP growth has significantly outpaced the EU for years.

And? So what? What has that gotten the US?

Lower life expectancy, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher (violent) crime, and generally much less happiness with life:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

Getting more GDP/money is not the goal in itself: money is a tool to get other things (health, happiness, etc).

> And? So what? What has that gotten the US?

Its billionaires are richer. Does anything else really matter?

Most of their numbers were about the quality of life. It's absolutely absurd to say,

> Well you're twice as likely to be killed, more likely to be sick and obese, will die earlier, are more likely to be in poverty under a tech baron, have a poisoned ecosystem, your babies or wife may die or your kids die in school, or they'll go in insane debt to go to their higher education, and if you're not a white man you're basically less human and risk becoming a part of the permanent ~~slave~~ criminal caste... But think of the moderately higher salary potential!!!!

> You know, as long as the economy grows forever and nobody calls any of your debts.

High GDP per capita does not immediately mean that people are rich. As one other commenter noted, Ireland has a very high GDP per capita, but your average Irish person is not living rich

So we chose growth, and now are trying empire, because of memes about our supposed strength on paper, pushed by unserious “conservatives” who can’t form a cohesive argument about anything?

We stand a good chance of this totally destroying us, because the “technocracy” set actually believe their own Paper Divisions are unstoppable and the legal mind of “stick your fingers in your ears and say NAH NAH NAH” to be unassailable.

What an embarrassing ending to the American story this all is, eh?

Maybe whatever comes next will be more serious and will choose differently.

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