This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they have access to the history books and have a pretty good view into how Western leadership thinks.
If the US is benchmarked against Europe then all is well. The problem is that Europe is now a distant 3rd in terms of economic power - it can't face up to China. Arguably, if we put China in its own category and India into "Asia" then the EU might be pushing towards 4th. Everyone is still ahead of Africa I suppose.
The EU is number one in quality of life and that’s all that matters to me. If we work just hard enough to maintain and maybe even improve it, other countries can do their pissing contest.
That's what the chinese thought in the 18th century :).
A fun quote for the europeans here:
"Our land is so wealthy and prosperous that we possess all things. Therefore, there is no need to exchange the produce of foreign barbarians for our own." - The emperor at the height of Qing China
I’m an American living in France for the past two years and cannot wait to move back to the USA. The taxes are so extreme and salaries so low that no one can even invest in the stock market. If I stay here, I will be able to leave virtually nothing to my kids when I die. The EU can take its 5 weeks of vacation and go fuck itself.
On the other hand, it's absolutely fantastic to have a young daughter and have her virtually not impact our finances at all for many years, between clothes/toy gifts from friends, gov subsidy, free healthcare, free education and low levels of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses on after-school activities, plus knowing I won't burden her financially either as I happily live out my retirement on a decent pension.
I may not leave her a lot of inherited wealth, but she may also not really need any to have options.
(That said, my personal frame of reference for why this is better and wonderfully stress-free is years lived in South Korea--that ultra-low fertility rate has reasons--, not so much the US.)
How would your situation change if you didn’t have to account for US income tax while living abroad? Does it offset at all due to agreements with France?
Leaving money to your kids isn't a bad inclination or anything but I don't see why it's the be-all end-all. Maybe my parents will leave me some money when they pass, or maybe not, I'm certainly not expecting or planning on anything. I hope they spend what they can to enjoy their life while they're alive.
It can't be overstated how much of this is cultural. Quality of life is simply less materialistically driven in Europe.
If Americans give up on home ownership and luxury items, they too can enjoy a European quality of life; living in an 800sqft rental and enjoying a rich social life.
The symbol has become "a unifying thread and call to arms" as yellow vests are common and inexpensive, easy to wear over any clothing, are associated with working-class industries, highly noticeable, and widely understood as a distress signal.
Rise of far right parties across Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, France and many other countries is another clear signal that EU's quality of life may not be great for everyone there.
Pole here, what "far right" parties are you referring to? If it's PiS then they were ousted in the elections last year with a 30-year record breaking voter turnout of 75%.
As for the other party that fits this description they're their own worst enemy, as they're an amalgamation of groups which don't really have common interests aside from a few talking points.
Being number one doesn't say it's good for everyone here. It says more about how bad it is in the rest of the world.
Also, here in The Netherlands the yellow vests were mostly conspiracy theorists who would pull something to protest against out of thin air. That movement died down pretty quickly.
Protests here are almost always against (perceived) government overreach. In most countries even being able to protest is considered a luxury. That's why you don't see that many in the US.
Well being loopy isn't too good for economic success so that's a factor? Though for sure I've met some incredibly loopy people that had some great dice roll streaks.
But there are a lot of other factors in the problem and making it an economic issue really obscures some of the more important factors.
Intellectual laziness, idle brains, idle hands, toxic memes and bad actors making bad use of them.
Though it has very much decreased in recent years due to rampant inflation. My real wage has decreased since increases have been lower than inflation. For unemployed and low earners it is even worse.
Life in the EU is amazing for me, and probably for you too, as well as many others enjoying it here. However, we can't overlook the struggles of those who are turning to radical populist parties.
I don't think the far-right is fueled by economic stagnation, but I do think that, were we living in an economic golden age, people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of foreigners on "their" streets.
If their kids could afford to buy houses nearby, they'd probably be a bit more OK with it. But when their own kids are priced out and told they don't have the relevant skills (thanks to education provided by the government unequally) for the new jobs, it's easy to point fingers at the new people in town.
And those people don't have to be foreign or a different race: just see the anti-tech waves that have rolled through the Bay Area in the past, directed more based on attire and mode of transport than race. And a lot of people here would agree those new workers are to blame for a lot of Bay Area problems, but it's easier to dismiss others as bigoted than wrestle with the reality of winners and losers behind each statistic.
That is just because of inequality those populists feed on, while at the same time being rich. However, being unconvential, having a sound media strategy, and no doubt being helped by (foreign?) disinformation - they quickly gain a foothold in an era of unlimited social media.
However, I often think about that drawing where three people are at a table. A blue-collar worker (mine worker or construction worker), a black sad looking black person (immigrant), and a rich guy in suit.
The blue collar worker has a single cookie on his plate, the immigrant no cookies at all, and the rich guy a plate full of cookies. The rich guy with his plate full of cookies, looking at the worker, points to the immigrant. “He wants your cookie”.
People prefer jobs, not handouts, but handouts is what your scenario implies--wealth distribution from the rich to the workers. This is where the academy has led liberal/left parties astray. Yes, inequality is at the root of discontent, but the academy over stresses inequality of outcomes rather than of opportunity; and while inequality of outcomes matters, people gauge their success by looking to their neighbors and social circles, not to groups far removed from their physical and social geography. Likewise, modern economic theory says that tax + redistribute is the most economically efficient solution to addressing inequality, but it falls short for the same reasons.
It's a very difficult sociopolitical problem, and it has as much to do with psychology as it does headline statistics. Contemporary media dynamics has much to do with the psychological aspect, but it's also corrupting the way people think about these issues across the ideological spectrum.
>I don't think the far-right is fueled by economic stagnation
It's fueled by the double standards of those in power who redistribute our tax euros/dollars their way, since it's easy for them to be generous with other peoples' money.
We're being told healthcare and education is lacking funding and doctor and kindergarten spots are scarce and need longer and longer waiting times due to state coffers being empty, but at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants and refugees and their families, and giving billions in aid to Ukraine.
You're right that people wouldn't care you're giving billions away to foreigners and foreign causes if all of their domestic issues would be solved, but since that's not the case and since we're living in troubled economic times when resources are scarce, voters expect their rulers to take care and prioritize them first and foremost, before acting generous with others using their money.
So obviously taxpayers are pissed with this arrangement they didn't vote for, and would rather see those state billions coming out of their taxes being spent on their own issues, not on the issues of foreigners.
You can only gaslight people so long before they lash out voting anyone else but you including the political extremes. The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid and fascist from your ivory tower.
No, it's just an inspid rant. Let's pick a spot at random:
But at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants
Do you honestly think the government is literally simply "housing" all the authorized immigrants? As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? And literally paying their grocery bills, each and every week? Do you actually think that's what's happening?
Remember, the rant wasn't referring simply to new arrivals, but literally to all the "millions" who have been here for decades. With the tacit approval of US society at large, for the simple reason that (authorized or not) the vast majority form an indispensible part of its workforce, doing the hard work that most Americans refuse to do.
I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess. But for whatever is happening, I just don't get these weird, distorted and emotionally manipulative narratives.
You're commenting from a US perspective but the person you're responding to was commenting from a European perspective.
In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant.
I don't know what the solution is, as an immigrant to the UK myself I find it difficult to judge or comment, but you need to keep in mind that Europe has a welfare model quite different from your US. We typically pay more taxes and have a higher expectation of public services. When those services are deteriorating, people look for someone to blame.
Immigrants are an easy target.
In reality, it is much more to do with the aging population and fewer in the workforce, but that doesn't mean that we're also not paying a lot of money for asylum seekers.
> I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess.
Yes, you are. That's a large part of the problem.
In my neighborhood, they've moved these migrants into what are essentially concentration camps. (They've used the local military buildings to do it, and in many cases, yes, they're feeding and clothing them with state tax dollars.) We're happy some of these families are getting a chance at a better life. We're happy to see some of them working jobs at the local grocery market. We're not happy to see crime rise precipitously in the local areas near where they're housed. (B & E, stolen cars, kidnapping attempts of local girls...) We're not happy to be told that classrooms are now jammed full of students, many of whom can't speak English, guaranteeing worse outcomes for our children.
It's unlikely that the same people working at the market are the ones committing the crimes, but this population was brought here because of the administration's policies favoring open borders over the security, safety, and hard work of the citizens its supposed to protect.
If "it's a mess" why is it a mess? If it's costly, why is it costly? To whom does the cost accrue? What are the costs?
Your phrase was of the form "I'm not saying... But..." The "but" is a denial of what preceded it. The "weird" narratives are the reasons why it is a mess, the reasons why it is costly. When you deny those, and use your "of course, of course... but" it comes off as a denial of the problem.
It depends on the country. I know that in the UK this actually tends to be the case last I checked. I was reading this from a UK perspective (western) not a US . I don’t know how much housing the US provides
Actual estimates for the total number if illegal migrants (including children) in the UK top out at around 800,000. Yet the commenter above said that your government was paying to house and feed "millions" of them. Last we checked, "milions" means >= 2,000,000.
Do you still think that what the commenter is saying "actually tends to be the case" in the UK?
Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal.
How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house vs getting emotional and changing the goalposts. I suspect the number is not millions, but this does not include medical care or other humanitarian care.
The GBP/EURO/USD spent is in the billions and the cost was the premise, not necessarily the number of people. If OP exaggerated, correct it and move on to the substance of the argument. It doesn’t make their entire post insipid (your words)
Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal.
I meant "unauthorized". It was just a typo, honest.
How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house
It was the conflation of "refugees" with "illegal immigrants" in the commenter's post that I took issue with. The two categories might sound the same but are entirely different.
In particular the latter category definitely do not receive subsidized subsidized housing or benefits the way actual legally recognized asylum seekers, aka "refugees" do.
This exact attitude is what gets the right wing growing.
> As in, literally writing checks to their landlords?
In some EU countries (where I'm from), yes. A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent.
But thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation.
A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent.
And are they there ... illegally? Or legally?
Are there, in fact, per what you said, "millions" of illegal immigrants being housed and fed in the EU on public subsidy?
I know you said "illegal immigrants and refugees", so I misquoted you slghtly. But the bigger point is -- why conflate the two, when the numbers and overall situations are obviously entirely different? (In particular - while legally recognized asylum seekers might be eligible to obtain housing subsidies, illegal migrants quite definitely cannot).
To be charitable, one can assume there was no manipulative intent, and you were just being careless. But if so, then you'll have to acknowledge that that's why your missive appeared, at first glance, to be well, a rant.
The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid
It isn't the concerns of the voters, but the relentless cognitive distortions we keep hearing about push-button topics such as this one (generally promoted by ideologues and pundits, rather than the voters themselves) that are, for want of a better term, stupid.
(And on the subject of stupid, my initial response contained a horrible typo -- should have said "unauthorized", rather than "authorized").
This is part of the illusion that it is as if our politicians let anybody in. Not a single politician would welcome even one more asylum seeker.
The immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe. It is the failure of our societies to help the countries like Syria, Afghanistan, etc to be liveable. We are paying the price for this failure.
> Not a single politician would welcome even one more asylum seeker
There were absolutely pro-migration politicians, e.g. Merkel.
> immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe
Europe continues to have generous refugee obligations, protections and benefits. There also isn’t a robust deportation regime, in part because there isn’t anywhere to legally deport them to. That’s probably what these voters take offence to. (I unfortunately don’t see any non-radical solutions.)
In Portugal, illegal immigrants have lots of rights. For example rights now the government is struggling with having enough medics and ambulance drivers to meet demand. To the point several people died waiting for ambulance because no driver was available.
Yet, the government gave 100% free treatment to 48k immigrants that had no information. Many of then pregnant women from Asian countries with complicated situations that coat lots of money. Some illegal immigrants even got right to have treatments with medicines that cost millions.
The actual "far right" is much smaller than they'd have you believe. It is very small. It's just that the term is abused to create fear.
I don't think that the economy in general is key, though high immigration does dampen wages and that is mostly felt at the lower end of incomes. I think what we're seeing are the social and cultural consequences of very high immigration from countries of completely alien cultures and whose people do not assimilate in Europe. This has been going on for decades now but completely ignored by successive governments and that only hardens people's reaction against it. This is compounded by the apparent powerlessness to act "because whatever treaty/law" that we seem to have shackled ourselves with...
'Scare quotes' is not the only use of the double quote.
In this case it seems that the author is pointing out that the incumbents do not in fact have any inferred or conferred ownership of these public spaces.
I think that is the most likely interpretation, but it doesn't seem like a reasonable interpretation of what was said literally in context. From a local v. foreigner perspective the roads are literally their roads. Locals do have an inferred and conferred ownership of public spaces in their capacity as the public. The foreigners don't own the streets, the streets are commons property to the locals.
I decided to treat it as a minor typo and read it as 'people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of "foreigners" on their streets' instead. Ie, the foreigners aren't really foreigners, just citizens of non-aboriginal ethnicity.
> I do think that, were we living in an economic golden age, people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of foreigners on "their" streets.
I don't fully know what's going on in Europe, but in the US we have several TV news networks dedicated to making you upset about the increased prevalence of foreigners. And they've been doing it for 30+ years, so it's working, no matter how good the age is or isn't.
In Europe the terrorist attacks and crime is real though, that doesn't happen much in the US but in Europe it happens quite a lot since the immigrants are different. So there is no need for any propaganda to get people to turn against unlimited immigration, what they see on every news station paints the same picture.
>In Europe the terrorist attacks and crime is real though, that doesn't happen much in the US but in Europe it happens quite a lot since the immigrants are different.
The news in western EU never cover the bad parts of illegal immigration, only the rosy part, so the people turning against immigration aren't doing it due to what they see on the news but mostly due to what they, rightfully or wrongly, perceive themselves .
Not sure about the EU, but in the UK the support for the far-right is highest in areas with the fewest numbers of immigrants. It's not about peoples personal perceptions, as the areas with relatively high numbers of immigrants are invariably also the areas where there's low support for the far right.
Exactly and the fact that, for example, West and Central Africa are waking up [1] to the fact that France has been scamming them out of untold billions, probably trillions is going to shift power significantly.
This is happening now. Senegal are following Chad in cutting ties with French military.
When you boil it all down, the economy mostly is about ownership and use of resources, and those are naturally limited. So if we're talking about doing well in terms of having greater claims to the world's resources, then it essentially is zero sum.
That's only a very small part of the economy though. Prices for raw materials are low because it's easy to mine etc vast quantities nowadays and there is a lot of competition in global commodities. Most minerals are found in a LOT of places all over the world.
Most parts of the global economy are. If you're selling cars for example, there's a fixed amount of drivers on the road you can sell cars to, so if you're VW, you're now competing with cheaper cars from Asia for those same drivers.
You can't create new drivers out of thin air to expand the market demand for cars. Once the market is saturated, without having any moat, you enter in a race to the bottom.
And that's what Germany's economy is discovering right now and why Europe's share of global GDP has been declining for the past 20 years.
>"Most parts of the global economy are. If you're selling cars for example, there's a fixed amount of drivers on the road you can sell cars to, so if you're VW, you're now competing with cheaper cars from Asia for those same drivers.
You can't create new drivers out of thin air to expand the market demand for cars. Once the market is saturated, without having any moat, you enter in a race to the bottom."
Your assumption of 'no new car drivers' is obviously wrong. The constantly decreasing price of automobiles has been increasing the number of people who can afford them. https://www.pd.com.au/blogs/how-many-cars-in-the-world/
This is exactly where manufacturers like SAIC, BYD, and Dongfeng are winning. Building cheaper cars than were previously available and selling them in countries where "premium" brands like BMW, Toyota, Ford, Fiat, Volvo, GM, etc... don't try very hard to compete.
Head to any country without a domestic auto industry to protect and see what new cars people are importing. Sure there will be some rich people buying the brands you recognize, but call an UberX and they're going to show up in a Chinese brand you've never heard of. Or some zombie brand like MG.
If other countries are doing better, they will want to buy status symbols as well. This is how Germany profited from China developing in the first place. As long as markets continue to develop, chances will continue to appear.
Also, we shouldn't care about Europe's share of global GDP. We should care about how the poor people in our countries are doing. Like I said, we should maintain or improve our quality of life. Producing cars is just a means to an end.
Because of the travle game(1) I learned that it was/is common for the leader of the former French colony to send hundreds of thousands in bribes to the president of France...
(1) Travle posted here on hn months ago, but unfortunately a Webapp that downloads so I can't give you a url
It's crazy how so many people don't get this basic economic fact and think public welfare in EU just rains from the sky for free. No, EU welfare state is not some magical hack nobody else thought of, it's just paid from the working class' wages and then redistributed to those in need.
Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life? Billionaires and corporations certainly aren't gonna pay for it out if their profits, so the working class has to. But if the working class has no more high paying wages anymore due to stagnating growth , then your welfare budget also goes bye-bye.
You can't just vote yourself more welfare and higher public sector salaries and pensions out of thin air without an economic growth to back that up. I mean, you technically can, but it doesn't end well as was proven every single time this was tried.
Well paying job just mean that the primary distribution mechanism of wealth is through having a job, rather than only creating only jobs that are necessary. That's grossly inefficient. I rather pay people to stay at home rather than gunk up our industries with make-work, or worse actively making things worse.
Innovation is important sure, but also efficient use of resources, including cramping down on negative externalities. That increases welfare and quality of life, ideally with no need to spend an extra dollar.
Stop thinking in terms of dollars. Think in terms of stuff - that's the actual wealth. You can move dollars around with or without jobs, but somebody has to make the stuff. Someone has to grow the food. Otherwise, you have dollars but not food, and you can't eat dollars.
So the thing about jobs is, we really need jobs that actually produce stuff. We don't just need jobs, we need somebody to create the wealth. First it has to exist, then we can worry about how it gets distributed.
So if you have a bunch of people who are not necessary, then the best thing to do is not to let them starve (which is also immoral), nor to give them pointless jobs (which is soul-destroying), but to find something useful for them to do.
That's some idealistic stuff that's not gonna happen. The real world doesn't work like that.
Yeah it's ineficient but it's the one we got right now. You're not gonna change it with your comments and beliefs. Meanwhile rent is due next month and you need to pay up by using these "ineficient" mechanisms set in place by powers higher than you.
Idealistic? So what? I am just pointing out the contradiction of people's thought. I perfectly know well it's not how things should work but how it works right now, but if people believed silly things I am going to point it out.
You are welcome to point out flaws in my thinking.
> Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life
I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that there is no innovation whatsoever in the EU. Falling behind the US doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing. I think a lot of people in the EU would be fine with being 3rd on "productivity" if it was enough to maintain a high standard of living and decent competitiveness.
>I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that there is no innovation whatsoever in the EU.
I never said that. Please follow HN rules and reply to the strongest interpretation of one's argument, not the weakest.
The EU economy was at the same level as the US economy 15-20 years ago., now it's only half the US. The EU missed out on all the major technological innovations in that time and therefore missed out on a lot of income for welfare while welfare expenses only grew due to ageing population and increasing cost of living.
>Falling behind the US doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing.
No, it means less money for welfare. Especially with an ever increasing ageing population. If you want to take care of all of those people at a high quality of life, it's gonna cost you, and we don't have that kind of money anymore.
So you either get Europeans to accept slowly sliding into poverty due to declining welfare and rising CoL, OR, you need to bring in more money to the state somehow. Previously it was done in Europe via slavery and theft through colonialism, but since that conveyor belt of free money is gone and what's left to bring in more money is innovation in highly profitable high-growth industries where EU is almost absent. No, ASML, Airbus and some struggling German mittlestand companies can't support a whole continent like they did in the 1980's.
>I think a lot of people in the EU would be fine with being 3rd on "productivity" if it was enough to maintain a high standard of living and decent competitiveness.
They would be fine, if those losses would come out of the pockets of tax dodging corporations, but they're not, they're being eaten up by the working class and the taxpayer who still expects the same welfare quality like in the good ol' days when the EU economy was as strong as the US.
Do you you see how this level of welfare is unsustainable without matching economic growth?
> Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life
Without presumes with none, and you're saying it like it's true.
> The EU economy was at the same level as the US economy 15-20 years ago., now it's only half the US. The EU missed out on all the major technological innovations in that time
Really, all major technological innovations? Why is the leading music streaming provider Swedish (Spotify)? Leading and most advanced airplane manufacturer European (Airbus)? Why are there so many fintechs which are a decade ahead of US counterparts (Revolut, Monzo, MyPOS, SumUp, Bunq, Qonto) and why is finance-related tech so much ahead - you can pay contactless pretty much anywhere in most of the EU and UK, you can accept card payments with your phone and just an app, all banks have to have an API with Oauth to be able to aggregate accounts and whatever? Also I'd like to add advancements in nuclear fusion. Also I haven't experienced healthcare in the US, but from what I've seen it doesn't look like there's anything even close to the seamlessness of Doctolib in France.
The EU is indeed falling behind, IMO mostly due to lack of capital, risk/gambling averseness, and the much smaller individual markets. But to say it has missed all innovations, or that it has no innovation is simply untrue. We need more of them, we need to invest into more of them, because there's a lot of potential that needs to be nurtured and grow.
I didn’t read that whole comment but wow, you must be delusional. If you think that European companies in the last 20 years hold a candle to American companies in the last 20 years delusional.
Only if you want to be a sticker and take things literally while deliberately ignoring the context to score a cheap shot gothca, then sure, it then means without.
> Leading and most advanced airplane manufacturer European (Airbus)?
Because of government intervention, and moat of a highly regulated and expensive to enter industry that keeps new players out. Why is SpaceX ahead of EU aerospace companies?
>Why is the leading music streaming provider Swedish (Spotify)?
Spotify wasn't even profitable until recently and only made it where it is today, due to to massive capital investments form the US, not from EU investors.
>Why are there so many fintechs which are a decade ahead of US counterparts
Are they also ahead in earnings/profits too? Because you fund welfare with taxes on profits and on wages. You can't tax innovations that bring you no money.
That's where
While you keep blabbering on about Airbus, Monzo and Spotify , have a look at the top 100 companies in the world by market cap and see how many are from the EU and how many from the US and that's case closed. AIrbus, Spotify, etc are the rare exceptions, not the norm for Europe.
“A system of non-competition clauses enforced by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) workforce suppliers is allegedly trapping aerospace professionals who work at ESA’s facilities across Europe in a professional dead-end street” [1].
Europe is absolutely riddled with this crap, and it tends to come top down from the EU.
Road infrastructure in the United States might as well be a form of digging holes and then refilling it back up again. Grossly inefficient when we could invest the infrastructure money into world class public transit.
I think you fail to grasp just how big the US is. Driving from Chicago to Minneapolis is ~430 miles/ 6.5 hours depending on weather and traffic. Every 10 miles or so there is an exit and usually some small town. Every 50 to 100 miles a bigger town.
As I recall, after the Chicago suburbs you hit Rockford, Janesville, Madison, Baraboo, Tomah, Eau Claire, Menominee, and Hudson before you get to the St Paul collar communities.
So 9 stops on on a single track running between two major cities, with only 1600 more miles to Seattle. And while the distance between stops increase, the population greatly decreases as you head west.
Now road construction could be better. Because while Illinois has 300k lane-miles of road, it seems like they only have 200k of asphalt and 100k under construction at any given point in time.
I think you fail to grasp just how big the US is. Driving from Chicago to Minneapolis is ~430 miles/ 6.5 hours depending on weather and traffic. Every 10 miles or so there is an exit and usually some small town. Every 50 to 100 miles a bigger town.
Why do people trot this out every time? Driving or traveling across the US isn't particularly relevant to most people's life experience. Ok, I'll bite.
Yes, the United States is big, but some areas are more dense than other and would need good heavy investment in public transit infrastructure. For example, the north eastern corridor would in particular benefit from investment in true high speed rail.
There's also the need for investment in freight infrastructure, especially if we want to take off more trucks off the road. This is a safety benefit too. Less vehicles on the roads just mean less people risking their neck.
Now let's talk more local public transit.
Atlanta for example, really need to expand heavy rail. Traffic there is one of the worst in the country. MARTA at time outpaces cars, even with all the stops they have to make. Rather, a lot of time is eaten up just waiting for the train. A more frequent schedule would help here, but Georgia would need to actually contribute funding to make this possible. If they extend it more into the surburb, I would have less of an incentive to move. As now, I am considering moving because of how frequent I commute into Atlanta.
> I can drive nearly 200km on any given weekend to visit friends
In a typical vehicle that's about 50kg of CO2. 100kg if it doesn't include the return leg.
Not having a dig at you, but this is a big part of our problem. We believe that because we can do something, we are entitled to do it. Not only that, but we've structured our society in such a way that it's actually necessary for people to do these harmful things just to get by like commuting distances that would have been considered absurd 100 years ago. They are still absurd.
This is a bit misleading as those countries tend to have the vast majority of the population crowded into a handful of cities that are fairly close together and then a vast untamed wilderness where close to nobody lives. It's easy(ish) to have rail between Oslo and Bergen, less practical to extend that rail to Oldervik.
I have had this niggling feeling for a long time that money (and capitalism) gets increasingly more divorced from reality, particularly as money is printed and these astronomic speculative stock market valuations are created based on some optimistic future scenario.
This is not some pearl clutching moralistic argument, but a practical observation based on:
- Transfer of ownership is not necessarily possible. You can't buy a technologically sensitive company because of regulations. Even if you can buy a foreign firm, transferring the talent, operational base etc. might not be possible. A CEO can't sell off his share of stocks even if they're worth billions because the loss of investor confidence.
- Physical limitations on quantities of goods. There is a finite supply of real estate. If everybody in the world wanted a new car suddenly (and had money for it), car prices would go through the roof, and only a small fraction would actually get it.
Imo capitalism is not flawed in the way that it is incapable of handling these situations, but it is very flawed in that money is an increasingly poor proxy for the abstract concept of value.
This flawed nature of capitalism has been long since endemic (and dare I say integral) to the system, much more value has existed on paper than in reality (see banks), but I think there might be a breaking point at which the system might collapse and hyperinflation would set in.
It is precisely because individuals suck so much at correctly perceiving the allocation of value that free market economies ("capitalism") completely blow centrally planned ones ("socialism") out of the water.
So the fact that you think money is divorced from reality is a very normal, mundane misconception.
All "capitalist" economies have very large amounts of central planning for them to function (not to mention state subsidies and other protections from failing to make money), and use taxation and the national debt for that. Socialism plans centrally to the same extent that capitalist economies do, but also has the state owning the infrastructure that the economy relies upon. So it doesn't need to tax for that purpose. Socialism in that sense has never actually been practiced historically though, in the same way as there has never been "capitalism" in the sense of no central planning or regulation. Luckily.
You're taking my argument in the direction I never intended, then taking the dicothomy to the extreme, and then claiming victory unsupported by evidence.
- I never wanted to contrast 'capitalism' and 'communism' or whatever. I merely wanted to point out that the fundamental absurdity of capitalism requiring infinite growth in a finite system has been resolved by having the growth of wealth coming from speculation on future unrealized value. Since I (or anyone else) can't predict the future, it might happen that things do not come to pass as they were expected and that future value might not be realized. Money is divorced from reality, it derives its value from the collective trust and belief by the people participating in the system that it can be exchanged for goods and services. In a system of rational and impartial actors, that belief is backed by chiefly existence of said goods (which is the real size of the economic pie) and less by the speculation of future potential that might or or might not happen. So in summary my argument is not between communism or capitalism, but a captialism that is backed by real world value and one that is backed by future speculation. Even if the former can create less economic growth, we can be certain that growth is real.
- Central planning works. Great public works certainly are dreamt up and funded by governments yet they contribute enormously to the wealth of nations and enable a lot of value to be created. The moon landing was centrally planned and executed by a country whose per capita wealth was on par with modern day Poland, yet is considered the greatest achivement in history.
- There are no real 'centrally planned' or 'free market' economies, as all countries employ both concepts to some degree. But if we were to make a argument, we could say that the US belongs to the 'free market' camp and China belongs the 'centrally planned' camp. Both countries are doing extremely well, this very discussion is about finding which one is actually doing better.
Declining/Aging Population becomes the issue. Solutions will probably come from Biology/Nature.
Human Quality of life seems to flip the natural "evolutionary script" wrt to population growth. Shrinking population = shrinking landlords/bankers/labor/traders/military/scientists etc
In nature, where there is environmental instability/resource scarcity you see a Quantity over Quality reproductive survival strategy (which is similar to what we see poorer regions of the world) that fuels population growth.
On the flip side, where there is resource abundance and stability there is growth in population. But we don't see that happening in the richer/higher developed regions with humans.
Its like advanced human society/culture has worked out how to override biology.
We currently work around falling population(and the shrinking factors of production) with tech/automation, financial/military arm twisting and immigration which gives rise its own social and cultural instability.
Nature has found other population models though. Ants(Eusocial insects) have solved their population/survival issues by have a single Baby factory. There are theories that the Haplodiploidy it produces makes ant societies function smoother. While Meerkats have collective breeding model which is similar to what certain Feminists talk about when they say Make Kin not Babies.
It will take a couple generations of futzing about in unnecessary directions before we solve these issues. So patience with the people who don't know what they are doing is key.
I tend to agree to a certain extent. From my observation it seems that a certain amount of suffering in life creates strong motivation for overcoming it. If you just have a very happy life you don't have that strong motivation to change things.
>If you just have a very happy life you don't have that strong motivation to change things.
Or you see no way out, feel defeated and see that positive change is impossible or futile. It cuts both ways. Inaction doesn't always mean a rosy life.
The “populists” request that their tax dollars go to citizens rather than foreigners and the elites respond with musings about the reproductive strategies employed by ants.
Of course they can afford it, its just a cultural difference.
> Many Europeans cannot even afford proper AC in summer and heating in winter.
Basically nobody lacks heating in winter, that one is made up. The thing people lack is AC and its just because people aren't used to it so they don't see it as a need.
Edit: Saying this is like saying people can't afford shelter in USA, it is true and there are many homeless but it describes a tiny fraction.
Depends on whether you're talking about Europe the continent or eg the EU, though "many" if of course a vague enough claim to be technically true for any corner of the world.
But relateedly, US household energy expenditure is enormous compared to other countries and a lot of it is burning fossil fuels to run AC. There's a big money vs ethics tradeoff going the wrong way for emissions, more so from being a huge oil producer.
We haven't needed this for the most time. I'm not spending on AC for a few days per year where it's really hot while it's really not most of of the year.
Besides: I'd rather put sedum/green stuff on our flat roof, which also helps insulate a little bit in winter but really really helps in summer.
>If the economy falls behind then quality of life will follow at some point.
If only Europeans would accept this truth and wake up that something has to change yesterday.
What's happening to Greece is just the mining canary for what's gonna happen in much of the rest of EU later, if there's no preventive change of course.
Which country? This matters a lot. I doubt you are in Greece, or Italy, or Portugal.
Did you know on GBP PPP Warsaw and Budapest are now better places to live than Madrid, Lisbon and many other Mediterranean cities?
It’s crazy. Perhaps Berlin and Copenhagen are still ok, but even France is on a completely unsustainable path that will explode in the next 10-20 years.
When I hear "America’s economy is soaring," I can’t help but think it probably just means the rich are getting richer.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a communist. But it’s clear to me, especially when you look at how the middle class is struggling worldwide, that capitalism in its current form isn’t sustainable.
What we need is some kind of “Capitalism 2.0” or “Capitalism++”
PPP is an increasingly irrelevant notion in a globalized, digital, and immigration-friendly world. An iPhone or a Toyota Corolla costs the same in the US as it does in China. There is no remarkable arbitrage with real estate either - you're paying for the location and everything that comes with it. There is no secret city where the rent is low, there are plenty of well-paying jobs, you enjoy freedom of speech and can be reasonably sure the milk isn't tainted with melamine (tangent: due to strict US immigration policies and corporate RTO, the Bay Area comes close).
PPP suffers from the same problem that "basket of goods" CPI suffers from in that it doesn't account for differences in quality:
- of course a car costs more today than it did in 1980, it's a far better car
- of course a loaf of bread costs more in California than it does in India - I have certain guarantees about the pesticide levels in the wheat, the accuracy of the labeling, and my ability to seek damages from the legal system in case I chip my tooth on a stone, that I don't have in India
At best, PPP tells you something about the differences in cost of labor. But labor isn't everything you buy.
> An iPhone or a Toyota Corolla costs the same in the US as it does in China.
A maxed out iPhone costs RMB 13999 in China, which is about USD 1925. The same iPhone costs USD 1599 in the US. In Brazil it costs the equivalent of USD 2565. PPP is still very much relevant.
This is pretty laughable take, considering that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in 2020 that there are 600 million people whose monthly income is barely 1,000 yuan ($141), which no amount of PPP tricks can persuade anyone of reason that that that is somehow is overtaking US.
And that was from 2020. from 2020 to 2024, the Chinese economy has cratered, from losing 6.5 trillion in stock market, to losing 30 trillion in the real estate.
"Losing 30 trillion" is a very entitled view on decreasing real estate prices. Those 600 million people making 1000 CNY/month or less (and probaly another 300 million making a bit more) will be happy for a respite in being priced out of everywhere. This literally increases their purchasing power.
One thing this article doesn't touch on is the soaring government debt, which is now really quite big: 120%, and IIRC if you add municipal debt, it's more like 140%. That is high. It also seems like much of the recent growth has been fueled by this debt.
It's unclear how this is going to unwind. America can afford, apparently, to run their deficit hot, but not forever and without limit. So at some point they have to start cutting expenditure and paying that debt off. What happens then? Or will they somehow default on it? Or, will they manage to deflate it via growth. But it is a bit of a sword of Damocles hanging over the economy, like ZIRP over VC successes of the 2010s.
The crazy thing is just how much the debt increases in living memory. Under Clinton, it was as low as 60%, which is considered a really low level.
My theory is that other countries' trade is so closely tied to the US Dollar that when the Federal Reserve prints money it's not just diluting the US Dollar but all currencies. The US is effectively taxing the world, to pay for its own spending.
> My theory is that other countries' trade is so closely tied to the US Dollar that when the Federal Reserve prints money it's not just diluting the US Dollar but all currencies. The US is effectively taxing the world, to pay for its own spending.
Yes.
The BRICs economic group has been trying to launch their own currency for a while now. This is one of the reasons for it. Trump has threatened to impose 100% tax on them and on anyone else who ever tries.
My two cents: the U.S. owes much of its economic strength to its robust legal framework. It provides a system where complex business disputes can be handled and enforced effectively, creating trust and predictability for investors and entrepreneurs. This institutional strength is often overlooked but is critical for fostering innovation and long-term economic growth. Incidentally, recent Nobel laureates in economic sciences have focused on the role of institutions in shaping economic outcomes, underscoring how pivotal they are to success.
Saying Germany embraced the free market is not correct. Germany under Erhard had a social market economy (even during the "Wirtschaftswunder*, the economic miracle). While some free market principles were followed (price liberation, free trade) and it was certainly more market liberal than France at the time, it still came with substantial protection (universal healthcare, strong labor protections and unions, anti monopoly regulations etc.)
The situation back then was decidedly _not_ what the term "free market" (of the libertarian variety) would imply today.
Definitely, just wanted to make sure that no one who's passing by your comment thinks that post-war Germany had some gung ho modern definition style free market.
They served as bases to spread the American culture through music and cinema and later with the industry through the coal and steel community, to create a single and unified market
The US did not want to create competition, but to break monopolies and to create a unified market for its industrial complex
The remnants of that goal are visible today with Big Tech
My dad was part of the occupation of postwar Germany.
The bases were there to protect Germany against the Soviets.
I remember once on the autobahn around 1970, and a fighter came by hedgehopping at high speed. He was a few feet off the ground, and looked like just under Mach 1. The citizens didn't particularly like the noise and disruption, but they understood the need for the Air Force to train hard.
I also remember touring East Berlin (yes, East Berlin) in 1969. Going through Checkpoint Charlie and seeing the Wall is plenty convincing of the need for the US military being there.
France, on the other hand, didn't much care for the US military bases and wound up pushing them out.
BTW, the US Military was pretty thorough in making sure US personnel and military families behaved like guests in Germany, as they were invited guests.
Ever since the Berlin Airlift, the US was friends with Germany.
The Americanization of Germany came later. I recall visiting a shopping mall in Germany in the 2000's, and you could not tell you were in Germany rather than in any suburb in America. Shopping malls did not exist there in 1970.
>BTW, the US Military was pretty thorough in making sure US personnel and military families behaved like guests in Germany, as they were invited guests. Ever since the Berlin Airlift, the US was friends with Germany.
All the more sad that the chief component of Japanese animosity towards Japan-stationed US forces are sexual crimes, particularly in Okinawa where the Marines especially don't seem to know how to keep their dicks in their pants. There have been at least two incidents just this year if I recall, and that's just of the ones we know.
I really can't blame the locals wanting Americans to get the fuck out, security be damned.
That is indeed sad. Such crimes against the locals should be severely punished.
I found out many years later that if I had committed a crime like shoplifting in Germany, my father would have been cashiered. The military took their guest status very seriously. An officer who could not control his family was not fit to be an officer.
Not saying that is good, but you really have to analyze something like that in terms of rates, not anecdotes. Everywhere you put people there are going to be incidents.
I don't blame locals for feeling however they feel. It's their country.
The US places its military worldwide out of its own interest, not to protect anyone. That's a very rose colored glasses interpretation of the past and the present you have there.
It's the opinion of my father who was in the early occupation, and later was doing military planning work with generals and such - all focused on repelling possible Soviet invasion scenarios.
Protecting Germany's sovereignty also protected America's interests. They were aligned.
Germany (like France could and did) could have expelled the US military any time they wanted to.
Germany after the war was an occupied country, split up into various zones by their opponents in the war. There is no fundamental difference in the way the US or the SU setup their bases there. Sovereignty implies they had a say in whether or not the US army is stationed there, which I think is a ridiculous claim. Thus, as there was no sovereignty, there was no sovereignty to protect.
That in 1955 Germany had a realistic way of saying, we're a sovereign country and don't want US troops on our soil?
But that in the end has nothing to do with my original response, which was "the US sets up its bases out of its own self interest". Even if those interests align, it doesn't mean it's there to honor German wishes. If those interests had not aligned, the US would've still stayed there, this is as clear as the header of this page being orange.
When I lived near Luke AFB in the early 70's, Luke was training Luftwaffe pilots to fly F-104 Starfighters. I used to ride my bike onto the base and go to the flight line, and watch those lawn darts take off. They'd get halfway down the runway and light the afterburners! Freakin' awesome. Oh I wanted to be a pilot soo bad.
An F-104 was little more than a pilot strapped to a monster of a jet engine.
Meanwhile in the real world, when Washington DC talked Bonn listened. Still applies today to some level.
Edit: Public opinion can also be shaped, not least after the trauma of the Nazi period and in the midst of the Cold War. Actual influence behind the scene is usually not made known to public, and the influence of the US over Germany has been overwhelming.
Perhaps there was an aggressive imperialistic authoritarian empire next door that had split germany in two and run their half into the ground economically? No, it must be that America is bad and this country had no agency as you said
I lived in Germany from 68-71. The Germans wanted us there, because they were afraid of a Soviet invasion. Wanting the US military there is quite different from the US forcing themselves on them.
Not once living there did I ever get the impression that the Germans felt the US presence was forced on them. They appreciated that the US was there to keep the Red Army at bay.
Of course, sometimes they'd complain about the Americans having bad manners, usually justifiably, and sometimes they'd envy the wealth of the Americans. I even attended a German elementary school for a while, and nobody bullied me because I was an American. I was even invited by other students to their homes to play.
The US bases were of mutual benefit to the Germans and the Americans.
That manchester capitalism with different decorations rhetoric does not hold up to scrutiny. In particular when you hold it against current examples of economic colonialism like the chines lend & own campaign in Africa .
The army is provided by the local dictator or by playing different ethnic groups against one another.Britain never had enough soldiers to conquer India , but india had. Same for Russia .
I'm never able to get to the "so what?" with these. Productivity growth sounds nice, but then it mentions that there's more inequality, higher cost of living, and more workers struggle in the US than other developed countries. How do I reconcile this?
They make a point that eventually the other countries' economies would shrink and won't be able to afford those benefits, but also the US doesn't have those benefits even now.
I thought the question was "why should I care about productivity if it doesn't necessarily make my life better?". The article didn't really make the case that average workers were benefiting from this.
Yet, if you look at real wages over time, they're stagnating in pretty much every developed country. Productivity has gone up consistently while wages lag far behind. Where is all that value going to? Because it isn't certainly being left on the table.
Would you say that construction is way more productive today in USA than 40 years ago? It seems like stuff are more expensive and less productive at the same time today.
If you've ever tried to build a house in the US, you'll find out where the money goes. I have, and there's good reason why I am not in the construction business.
So you agree USA has problems? That is the point, the source of that inequality doesn't matter the inequality is still hurting you. There are seemingly less such problems in Europe.
Of course the USA has problems. I've pointed out several.
But inequality is not a problem. People wanting to make it big come to the USA. That's why the USA has the biggest, most successful, companies that drive the US gdp forward.
Inequality is only a problem for people who are envious.
Healthcare using regulations to block competition and line their pockets is a big source to that inequality, being forced to pay into that isn't envy.
But I get your point, inequality isn't a problem in itself, but seeing your money go to rich people for no good reason does feel very bad even if the problem is the corruption and not the inequality.
> Inequality is only a problem for people who are envious.
Or when you have to pass by homeless tent cities in your downtown. Or when you are the victim of crime because the kid pulling a gun on you is envious because their family is poor and you're rich.
Extreme inequality brings social strife in multiple layers, if you're individualistic you might not care for it but for a society it fosters resentment and erosion of social cohesion.
Not sure I understand how you're reconciliating it? Maybe I'm missing the link you are making with caring or not about other people being richer than oneself, how is that relevant here?
What I'm asking is more, what conclusion should I take from the article?
The issue is when others money means high costs for you, such as in healthcare or education or construction. A lot of stuff is really expensive in USA due to the high wages/profits and those workers not being any more productive, that directly hurts your quality of life unless you got an equivalent raise.
You mentioned healthcare, education, and construction. Those three all have very heavy government interference and regulation. It's unrealistic to blame those high prices on the free market.
Consider, on the other hand, the software industry. Essentially zero regulation. Yet the software, very high quality software, tends to be free!!!
Why is it that the most regulated, subsidized, and interfered with industries are the most expensive, while the least regulated, unsubsidized, free market industries are the most productive with the lowest prices?
> It's unrealistic to blame those high prices on the free market.
I didn't blame the free market, we talked about inequality nobody mentioned free market. That inequality is partially fueled by the unfree regulatory capture, things would be more equal if some regulations were removed.
Germany suffers from bad leadership in industry and government above all else. The lack of investment is downstream of that. And I guess upstream is their conservative mindset on how and who to appoint as leaders. Lots of nepotism and corruption and not a lot of competence.
To add to the other comments to which I agree: create a war in Europe that deeply affects the Germany economy, by raising energy prices. Help destroy their industry by provoking a war in the continent.
That's an excellent summary of the economic state of the world. This excerpt is depressing...
The challenge for other advanced economies is not just replicating America’s dynamism. It is to do so while retaining their cherished social safeguards.
For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7, coupled with the lowest life expectancy and the highest housing costs, according to the OECD. Market competition is limited and millions of workers endure unstable employment conditions.
The pessimistic take is that American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world, while other nations abandon consumer- and labor-friendly policies.
> cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world
That's a thing of the past. Check the consumer electronics produced today in China. Mobile devices, EVs, infrastructure, newer products are simply incredible, and I'd argue ahead of western technology on many fronts.
Cheap plastic stuff now gets produced in other less developed countries.
> American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk
Another POV is that the services and software that does the design, marketing, logistics, testing, certification and etc of the plastic junk is more valuable than the plastic junk, and all that stuff is made in the US. It’s still labor, sometimes it’s even bespoke one off software labor which might as well be manufacturing, the thing that it is not is factories. I don’t know why factories above all else are glorified. There is lots of labor in services.
It's also correspondingly easier to get another job. In Europe, making it hard to fire people means it becomes equivalently harder to get a job in the first place.
Yep, and crucially, getting a first job from which you can build a career is relatively (to the US) hard in places like Germany because companies are super risk averse.
The US economy is much more dynamic than Europe's and the US government is actually more willing to intervene (and can afford it because of US dollar).
In Europe it is austerity and general less support for economy-boosting policies.
There are a lot of perspectives. Eg. that the US due to it geopolitical situation hasn't seen any real adverse events in the past century. Ie. privileged on the risk side.
As other people also mention: The US' growth seems to be debt driven, which will also have to halt at some point.
However, it would not seem like it is US dynanisism that is the reason for the current success of the country - especially taken into account that it is a small subset (eg. the magnificent 7) and very high valuations that drive the current success.
All in all, my personal view is that there is significant risk in the US market currently - thus also high returns. But I do think that it is safer to harbour some money outside of the US.
Personally, I am happy to have US stocks in my portfolio, I am also happy not to live there.
No that is not how money works, it is one way money can work but it isn't how money works. Many economies are debt free, because there is no reason to go into debt to have money.
- Easy to do business
- Great economy, high salaries, and funding
- English native speaker, so you can speak with everyone and everyone can speak with you
The EU is in a deep hole, with socialism and green communism next.
Make no mistake, the US is a fantastic business. It makes a lot of money, and some people get fantastically rich while others toil for life and hover at the poverty line.
With a vastly higher percentage of its citizens in jail than any other developed country, much higher crime and violence than developed countries and many other very bad indicators it is, however, not a good country. It does not provide for or look after its citizens in the ways other developed countries do, and does not appear to be a healthy society.
> It does not provide for or look after its citizens in the ways other developed countries do
It's worth asking why.
> NATO nations have cut back on troops and military hardware since the Cold War. But Europe has cut far deeper than the US. Defense budgets have become a pot that could be raided to fund more pressing priorities, such as treating and caring for aging populations. As a result, much of Europe’s military has become, in the view of some US defense experts, a “Potemkin army” that is ill-prepared to wage and win a prolonged war.
If we take a look at the % of US forces stationed in Europe, and assume all of them are there only out of the goodness of the US' heart to protect Europeans, and subtract them from total US military costs, it isn't even a drop in the bucket. It's less money than the Pentagon doesn't know what happens to.
(This only covers the running costs; even an unfair assumption that the US would need less F-35s and troops if they weren't deployed in Europe, it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the $916 billion yearly budget).
Terrible place to be poor more like. Being poor is not enviable in any country, but you're better supported in some countries compared to others. Obviously this comes at a cost for the economy as a whole. At some point you need to think about what kind of society you want to live in.
I wouldn't necessarily make the assumption that welfare support "costs" the economy as a whole.
It's really expensive to support homeless population since they use up critical important resources such as emergency care, compared to just giving them a home. They may recover faster and become a productive member of society again.
For sure, it costs real dollars in a national budget, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing for the economy.
Nobody needs to work in USA either, but people do it anyway since the free stuff isn't comfortable enough. Its the same in Europe, people don't view the free stuff as good enough for them so they work to get more.
But then who's gonna be the delivery man who delivers your post/packages? Who's gonna be your teachers in school? Who's gonna be the baker making your food? Who's gonna be the builder and plumber building the shelter you live in? Who's gonna be the doctor healing you? If nobody needs to work.
They don't need to, they work anyway since we are still living in a capitalist nation where working pays off, that goes for both Europe and USA, you get supported by the state so you don't starve if you don't work but people still prefer working over not working thanks to the extra benefits you get.
Communist nations force people to work, there is no need for that in capitalist nations, people work for the extra rewards.
Yeah they do. I live in a socialist European country and if you refuse to work you'll end up on the streets and only live off charity of others or starve/freeze to death.
You won't get any state welfare if you're decaled medically fit to work and refuse to take work that get sent to you by the unemployment agency, like for example working in a warehouse or in an Amazon fulfilment center. Nobody would willfully take those shit jobs if they wouldn't have to work.
Yeah, there's some people who made a lifestyle out of gaming the system who choose not to work and still get welfare but that's a minority.
> You won't get any state welfare if you're decaled medically fit to work and refuse to take work that get sent to you by the unemployment agency
That depends on the country, but in the USA you get food stamps regardless of anything else so you wont starve. Then you can live on public lands in a tent or so, many do that in California.
Housing and healthcare costs are insane. When you're older, you need a lot more healthcare (and you won't have that nice insurance plan you had at your big company job when you were working), and housing keeps getting more expensive, which is a problem if you're on a fixed income. You could move to much cheaper locales (i.e. rural areas), but those are "healthcare deserts" where there's no competent doctors left and hospitals are all closing left and right, plus when you're infirm how exactly do you drive yourself? Living in a walkable city (or any city really) is much more doable when you're older for these practical reasons (less need to drive, healthcare providers close by), but then you can't afford the housing there.
Well, in Germany health care is affordable in terms of cost.
However, while 20 years ago you just went to a doctor when you were sick, these days you will wait hours and hours even at your family physician's crowded waiting room.
You need a specialist?
6 months if it's something serious like a cardiologist.
If you're on private health insurance, alright, only 3 months.
I don't know if this is specific to Germany, or similar in all of Europe.
But that is a change many people notice that I speak with.
In the US before Obamacare I could make an appointment with a specialist on the same week. Now it takes more than six months. Three different specialties that I know of and the only three I tried. Apparently we're catching up with Europe.
Americans are discovering that giving universal healthcare access to everyone means those who already had access, now have to wait longer to make room for everyone else. That's how it works.
Housing in US is in fact one of the cheapest... everywhere, measured as price per square foot as percentage of income. Several times cheaper than in many countries and at least somewhat cheaper than almost every single one, rich or poor, democratic or authoritarian.
It's just that "normal" housing in the US is what's only attainable to the very rich and only because they inherited it, in most of Europe let's say: even 1% won't be able to buy an equivalent of median new US single family house, in EU - that 1% probably owns a similar or somewhat better house but simply because they bought or built it generations before.
Got a source for this?
I'm only finding sources that vehemently disagree, and say the only countries worse for this are Portugal and Canada. Everywhere in the world is better.
That's probably because what you are googling is a ratio of price of average house to average income... Which only means that American houses are much much bigger and thus more pricey, because Americans have many times more disposable income per family than just about any nation in the world.
But if you compare the price of the SAME sized house to the average income, the situation is opposite. U.S. is the 3rd best after Oman and Saudi Arabia. It's just that Americans are not satisfied with houses even twice the size of what people in many rich countries are happy with.
American houses are large and unaffordable. The usual term for a situation like that is inefficiency.
Price per square foot is not a very useful metric, because neither utility nor construction costs scale directly with the size of a house. A 3000 square foot house is not 2x as good as a 1500 square foot house, and it should not cost 2x as much to build. Roughly speaking, walls are expensive, while making the rooms larger is cheap. And bedrooms are cheap, while bathrooms are expensive.
If it's so easy why isn't everyone in Europe doing this life hack?
Could it be that moving to a place with high salaries means that job market is more competitive with higher bar to entry, with more stress, and CoL and housing is proportionally higher so once you factor in housing, healthcare, childcare expenses etc you realize that unless you scored some FANG job that pays orders of magnitude more than the local median, you're more or less at the same wealth point as in the lower CoL locations?
Feels like the solution is to find the place when you can earn more than the median there and not just blindly move to the most expensive places in the world hoping that will make you rich.
> If it's so easy why isn't everyone in Europe doing this life hack?
Language barriers, mostly. USA doesn't have those, that is the biggest difference I'd say, language barriers is such a massive hindrance to movement even if you are legally allowed to.
Even if the work language is English you still have to live with all the signs etc being in a language you don't understand, and learning a new language is a massive undertaking.
However if you don't care about that then it is really simple. And lots of people are doing just that, people spending a few years working in a high wage place isn't uncommon at all.
And have no major health issues/accidents, and be quite lucky, and start with a lot of money in the first place, and be born in the right place in the country.
It's instructive to see what's happening in Britain right now where many people dare not take jobs or even join training schemes to improve their prospects - because they will lose their benefits. To quote from the Spectator: "A Channel 4 (TV) program Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work."
Getting money for living expenses as you study is the life of the average middle class student in USA, he didn't say it funded Musks ventures. The emerald mine made them rich compared to other Africans, but that doesn't say much compared to the average American.
Would there be any ventures if Errol didn't fund Elon's trip to the USA? That's the point, without the emerald mining funding there would be no Elon in the USA, no Elon taking risks in ventures, etc. It can't be looked at in a vacuum of "he didn't get direct money for his ventures", it was only possible for Elon to start ventures because of the emerald mines.
I'd invite you to give a counterpoint to what I posted, this type of post is not really in line with the guidelines of HN. You're a dad, act like an adult, please.
It's thanks to innovative business models, of course!
Increasing you investment efficiency with FTX. Reducing farmer idle time with Deere. Sharing your otherwise unused car with Uber. Revolutionising office productivity with technology, like those beer taps that WeWork had. Spending less time on your savings with Yotta. Not reading long emails with AI.
I wonder how high productivity actually turns out if you remove every scam that inflated GDP or earnings numbers.
https://archive.is/vt7sY
This is an interesting take, because it contrasts with GDP PPP [0] which is suggesting that America is in fact being overtaken by its rivals although it has managed to outpace the EU. China is claiming to already be ahead and India is well on track to gain absolute economic ascendancy relative to the US. And I expect that Asia is going to start developing some serious military muscle on the back of that because they have access to the history books and have a pretty good view into how Western leadership thinks.
If the US is benchmarked against Europe then all is well. The problem is that Europe is now a distant 3rd in terms of economic power - it can't face up to China. Arguably, if we put China in its own category and India into "Asia" then the EU might be pushing towards 4th. Everyone is still ahead of Africa I suppose.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/national-gdp-wb?tab=chart...
The EU is number one in quality of life and that’s all that matters to me. If we work just hard enough to maintain and maybe even improve it, other countries can do their pissing contest.
Enjoy it while it lasts, your social programs are a gift from the US historically subsidizing your defense.
That's what the chinese thought in the 18th century :).
A fun quote for the europeans here:
"Our land is so wealthy and prosperous that we possess all things. Therefore, there is no need to exchange the produce of foreign barbarians for our own." - The emperor at the height of Qing China
I’m an American living in France for the past two years and cannot wait to move back to the USA. The taxes are so extreme and salaries so low that no one can even invest in the stock market. If I stay here, I will be able to leave virtually nothing to my kids when I die. The EU can take its 5 weeks of vacation and go fuck itself.
On the other hand, it's absolutely fantastic to have a young daughter and have her virtually not impact our finances at all for many years, between clothes/toy gifts from friends, gov subsidy, free healthcare, free education and low levels of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses on after-school activities, plus knowing I won't burden her financially either as I happily live out my retirement on a decent pension.
I may not leave her a lot of inherited wealth, but she may also not really need any to have options.
(That said, my personal frame of reference for why this is better and wonderfully stress-free is years lived in South Korea--that ultra-low fertility rate has reasons--, not so much the US.)
How would your situation change if you didn’t have to account for US income tax while living abroad? Does it offset at all due to agreements with France?
Leaving money to your kids isn't a bad inclination or anything but I don't see why it's the be-all end-all. Maybe my parents will leave me some money when they pass, or maybe not, I'm certainly not expecting or planning on anything. I hope they spend what they can to enjoy their life while they're alive.
Leaving more money for your kids vs spending more time with your kids seems like a rough choice.
I invoke Poe's Law. Please explicitly mark your satire.
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the eu quality of life has a higher minimum but a far lower median
It can't be overstated how much of this is cultural. Quality of life is simply less materialistically driven in Europe.
If Americans give up on home ownership and luxury items, they too can enjoy a European quality of life; living in an 800sqft rental and enjoying a rich social life.
source?
I'm sure they'd think the same about you and would be glad you moved back to America, so just do it instead of whining about it online?
> The EU is number one in quality of life and that’s all that matters to me
Probably it is time for you to learn the plight of fellow Europeans then. The society is stewing for quite some time now, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests
The symbol has become "a unifying thread and call to arms" as yellow vests are common and inexpensive, easy to wear over any clothing, are associated with working-class industries, highly noticeable, and widely understood as a distress signal.
Rise of far right parties across Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, France and many other countries is another clear signal that EU's quality of life may not be great for everyone there.
Pole here, what "far right" parties are you referring to? If it's PiS then they were ousted in the elections last year with a 30-year record breaking voter turnout of 75%.
As for the other party that fits this description they're their own worst enemy, as they're an amalgamation of groups which don't really have common interests aside from a few talking points.
Being number one doesn't say it's good for everyone here. It says more about how bad it is in the rest of the world.
Also, here in The Netherlands the yellow vests were mostly conspiracy theorists who would pull something to protest against out of thin air. That movement died down pretty quickly.
Protests here are almost always against (perceived) government overreach. In most countries even being able to protest is considered a luxury. That's why you don't see that many in the US.
The idea that conspiracies could thrive under economic stress doesn't even occur..
Well being loopy isn't too good for economic success so that's a factor? Though for sure I've met some incredibly loopy people that had some great dice roll streaks.
But there are a lot of other factors in the problem and making it an economic issue really obscures some of the more important factors.
Intellectual laziness, idle brains, idle hands, toxic memes and bad actors making bad use of them.
Though it has very much decreased in recent years due to rampant inflation. My real wage has decreased since increases have been lower than inflation. For unemployed and low earners it is even worse.
Life in the EU is amazing for me, and probably for you too, as well as many others enjoying it here. However, we can't overlook the struggles of those who are turning to radical populist parties.
I don't think the far-right is fueled by economic stagnation, but I do think that, were we living in an economic golden age, people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of foreigners on "their" streets.
If their kids could afford to buy houses nearby, they'd probably be a bit more OK with it. But when their own kids are priced out and told they don't have the relevant skills (thanks to education provided by the government unequally) for the new jobs, it's easy to point fingers at the new people in town.
And those people don't have to be foreign or a different race: just see the anti-tech waves that have rolled through the Bay Area in the past, directed more based on attire and mode of transport than race. And a lot of people here would agree those new workers are to blame for a lot of Bay Area problems, but it's easier to dismiss others as bigoted than wrestle with the reality of winners and losers behind each statistic.
That is just because of inequality those populists feed on, while at the same time being rich. However, being unconvential, having a sound media strategy, and no doubt being helped by (foreign?) disinformation - they quickly gain a foothold in an era of unlimited social media.
However, I often think about that drawing where three people are at a table. A blue-collar worker (mine worker or construction worker), a black sad looking black person (immigrant), and a rich guy in suit.
The blue collar worker has a single cookie on his plate, the immigrant no cookies at all, and the rich guy a plate full of cookies. The rich guy with his plate full of cookies, looking at the worker, points to the immigrant. “He wants your cookie”.
People prefer jobs, not handouts, but handouts is what your scenario implies--wealth distribution from the rich to the workers. This is where the academy has led liberal/left parties astray. Yes, inequality is at the root of discontent, but the academy over stresses inequality of outcomes rather than of opportunity; and while inequality of outcomes matters, people gauge their success by looking to their neighbors and social circles, not to groups far removed from their physical and social geography. Likewise, modern economic theory says that tax + redistribute is the most economically efficient solution to addressing inequality, but it falls short for the same reasons.
It's a very difficult sociopolitical problem, and it has as much to do with psychology as it does headline statistics. Contemporary media dynamics has much to do with the psychological aspect, but it's also corrupting the way people think about these issues across the ideological spectrum.
>I don't think the far-right is fueled by economic stagnation
It's fueled by the double standards of those in power who redistribute our tax euros/dollars their way, since it's easy for them to be generous with other peoples' money.
We're being told healthcare and education is lacking funding and doctor and kindergarten spots are scarce and need longer and longer waiting times due to state coffers being empty, but at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants and refugees and their families, and giving billions in aid to Ukraine.
You're right that people wouldn't care you're giving billions away to foreigners and foreign causes if all of their domestic issues would be solved, but since that's not the case and since we're living in troubled economic times when resources are scarce, voters expect their rulers to take care and prioritize them first and foremost, before acting generous with others using their money.
So obviously taxpayers are pissed with this arrangement they didn't vote for, and would rather see those state billions coming out of their taxes being spent on their own issues, not on the issues of foreigners.
You can only gaslight people so long before they lash out voting anyone else but you including the political extremes. The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid and fascist from your ivory tower.
Well said. Better than I could put into words
No, it's just an inspid rant. Let's pick a spot at random:
But at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants
Do you honestly think the government is literally simply "housing" all the authorized immigrants? As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? And literally paying their grocery bills, each and every week? Do you actually think that's what's happening?
Remember, the rant wasn't referring simply to new arrivals, but literally to all the "millions" who have been here for decades. With the tacit approval of US society at large, for the simple reason that (authorized or not) the vast majority form an indispensible part of its workforce, doing the hard work that most Americans refuse to do.
I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess. But for whatever is happening, I just don't get these weird, distorted and emotionally manipulative narratives.
You're commenting from a US perspective but the person you're responding to was commenting from a European perspective.
In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant.
I don't know what the solution is, as an immigrant to the UK myself I find it difficult to judge or comment, but you need to keep in mind that Europe has a welfare model quite different from your US. We typically pay more taxes and have a higher expectation of public services. When those services are deteriorating, people look for someone to blame.
Immigrants are an easy target.
In reality, it is much more to do with the aging population and fewer in the workforce, but that doesn't mean that we're also not paying a lot of money for asylum seekers.
> I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess.
Yes, you are. That's a large part of the problem.
In my neighborhood, they've moved these migrants into what are essentially concentration camps. (They've used the local military buildings to do it, and in many cases, yes, they're feeding and clothing them with state tax dollars.) We're happy some of these families are getting a chance at a better life. We're happy to see some of them working jobs at the local grocery market. We're not happy to see crime rise precipitously in the local areas near where they're housed. (B & E, stolen cars, kidnapping attempts of local girls...) We're not happy to be told that classrooms are now jammed full of students, many of whom can't speak English, guaranteeing worse outcomes for our children.
It's unlikely that the same people working at the market are the ones committing the crimes, but this population was brought here because of the administration's policies favoring open borders over the security, safety, and hard work of the citizens its supposed to protect.
Yes, you are.
I'm not, and it's difficult to see what you think you might gain from this conversation style.
If "it's a mess" why is it a mess? If it's costly, why is it costly? To whom does the cost accrue? What are the costs?
Your phrase was of the form "I'm not saying... But..." The "but" is a denial of what preceded it. The "weird" narratives are the reasons why it is a mess, the reasons why it is costly. When you deny those, and use your "of course, of course... but" it comes off as a denial of the problem.
all the authorized immigrants
That should have read "unauthorized", and without the negating particle the rest makes very little sense.
It depends on the country. I know that in the UK this actually tends to be the case last I checked. I was reading this from a UK perspective (western) not a US . I don’t know how much housing the US provides
Ok, let's try the UK then.
Actual estimates for the total number if illegal migrants (including children) in the UK top out at around 800,000. Yet the commenter above said that your government was paying to house and feed "millions" of them. Last we checked, "milions" means >= 2,000,000.
Do you still think that what the commenter is saying "actually tends to be the case" in the UK?
Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal.
How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house vs getting emotional and changing the goalposts. I suspect the number is not millions, but this does not include medical care or other humanitarian care.
The GBP/EURO/USD spent is in the billions and the cost was the premise, not necessarily the number of people. If OP exaggerated, correct it and move on to the substance of the argument. It doesn’t make their entire post insipid (your words)
Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal.
I meant "unauthorized". It was just a typo, honest.
How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house
It was the conflation of "refugees" with "illegal immigrants" in the commenter's post that I took issue with. The two categories might sound the same but are entirely different.
In particular the latter category definitely do not receive subsidized subsidized housing or benefits the way actual legally recognized asylum seekers, aka "refugees" do.
>No, it's just an inspid rant.
This exact attitude is what gets the right wing growing.
> As in, literally writing checks to their landlords?
In some EU countries (where I'm from), yes. A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent.
But thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation.
A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent.
And are they there ... illegally? Or legally?
Are there, in fact, per what you said, "millions" of illegal immigrants being housed and fed in the EU on public subsidy?
I know you said "illegal immigrants and refugees", so I misquoted you slghtly. But the bigger point is -- why conflate the two, when the numbers and overall situations are obviously entirely different? (In particular - while legally recognized asylum seekers might be eligible to obtain housing subsidies, illegal migrants quite definitely cannot).
To be charitable, one can assume there was no manipulative intent, and you were just being careless. But if so, then you'll have to acknowledge that that's why your missive appeared, at first glance, to be well, a rant.
The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid
It isn't the concerns of the voters, but the relentless cognitive distortions we keep hearing about push-button topics such as this one (generally promoted by ideologues and pundits, rather than the voters themselves) that are, for want of a better term, stupid.
(And on the subject of stupid, my initial response contained a horrible typo -- should have said "unauthorized", rather than "authorized").
> And are they there ... illegally? Or legally?
Not relevant to the political question. The point is there is anger at the number of migrants European politicians let in.
This is part of the illusion that it is as if our politicians let anybody in. Not a single politician would welcome even one more asylum seeker.
The immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe. It is the failure of our societies to help the countries like Syria, Afghanistan, etc to be liveable. We are paying the price for this failure.
> Not a single politician would welcome even one more asylum seeker
There were absolutely pro-migration politicians, e.g. Merkel.
> immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe
Europe continues to have generous refugee obligations, protections and benefits. There also isn’t a robust deportation regime, in part because there isn’t anywhere to legally deport them to. That’s probably what these voters take offence to. (I unfortunately don’t see any non-radical solutions.)
The concern is the distorted and manipulative rhetoric.
Which in turn further drives and exploits the anger.
> the concern is the distorted and manipulative rhetoric
That’s a concern. The working poor’s concern is the labor competition from one side and welfare competition from the other.
In Portugal, illegal immigrants have lots of rights. For example rights now the government is struggling with having enough medics and ambulance drivers to meet demand. To the point several people died waiting for ambulance because no driver was available.
Yet, the government gave 100% free treatment to 48k immigrants that had no information. Many of then pregnant women from Asian countries with complicated situations that coat lots of money. Some illegal immigrants even got right to have treatments with medicines that cost millions.
The actual "far right" is much smaller than they'd have you believe. It is very small. It's just that the term is abused to create fear.
I don't think that the economy in general is key, though high immigration does dampen wages and that is mostly felt at the lower end of incomes. I think what we're seeing are the social and cultural consequences of very high immigration from countries of completely alien cultures and whose people do not assimilate in Europe. This has been going on for decades now but completely ignored by successive governments and that only hardens people's reaction against it. This is compounded by the apparent powerlessness to act "because whatever treaty/law" that we seem to have shackled ourselves with...
Why the scare quotes?
'Scare quotes' is not the only use of the double quote.
In this case it seems that the author is pointing out that the incumbents do not in fact have any inferred or conferred ownership of these public spaces.
I think that is the most likely interpretation, but it doesn't seem like a reasonable interpretation of what was said literally in context. From a local v. foreigner perspective the roads are literally their roads. Locals do have an inferred and conferred ownership of public spaces in their capacity as the public. The foreigners don't own the streets, the streets are commons property to the locals.
I decided to treat it as a minor typo and read it as 'people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of "foreigners" on their streets' instead. Ie, the foreigners aren't really foreigners, just citizens of non-aboriginal ethnicity.
> I do think that, were we living in an economic golden age, people would be able to ignore and excuse the increased prevalence of foreigners on "their" streets.
I don't fully know what's going on in Europe, but in the US we have several TV news networks dedicated to making you upset about the increased prevalence of foreigners. And they've been doing it for 30+ years, so it's working, no matter how good the age is or isn't.
In Europe the terrorist attacks and crime is real though, that doesn't happen much in the US but in Europe it happens quite a lot since the immigrants are different. So there is no need for any propaganda to get people to turn against unlimited immigration, what they see on every news station paints the same picture.
>In Europe the terrorist attacks and crime is real though, that doesn't happen much in the US but in Europe it happens quite a lot since the immigrants are different.
We're having some similar problems in the US, but not at the same scale. It used to be MS-13 was the big foreign crime boogeyman, now it's the Venezuelan gang "Tren de Aragua": https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/its-spreading-americas...
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/migrant-population-charl...
The news in western EU never cover the bad parts of illegal immigration, only the rosy part, so the people turning against immigration aren't doing it due to what they see on the news but mostly due to what they, rightfully or wrongly, perceive themselves .
Not sure about the EU, but in the UK the support for the far-right is highest in areas with the fewest numbers of immigrants. It's not about peoples personal perceptions, as the areas with relatively high numbers of immigrants are invariably also the areas where there's low support for the far right.
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Quality of life costs money, and if we're not competitive, sooner or later that money will run out.
Exactly and the fact that, for example, West and Central Africa are waking up [1] to the fact that France has been scamming them out of untold billions, probably trillions is going to shift power significantly.
This is happening now. Senegal are following Chad in cutting ties with French military.
[1] https://theconversation.com/cfa-franc-conditions-are-ripe-fo...
The economy is not a zero sum game. If other countries are doing well, all the better.
When you boil it all down, the economy mostly is about ownership and use of resources, and those are naturally limited. So if we're talking about doing well in terms of having greater claims to the world's resources, then it essentially is zero sum.
That's only a very small part of the economy though. Prices for raw materials are low because it's easy to mine etc vast quantities nowadays and there is a lot of competition in global commodities. Most minerals are found in a LOT of places all over the world.
"zero sum game"
As others allude to, natural resources are zero sum, they are a finite resource, once they are gone, they are gone.
So if an imperial power is mining resources from a 'colony', that 'colony' is being stripped of economic potential with very little to show for it.
They do not both gain economically, like some allude to when maybe it is two countries sharing manufactured goods.
>The economy is not a zero sum game.
Most parts of the global economy are. If you're selling cars for example, there's a fixed amount of drivers on the road you can sell cars to, so if you're VW, you're now competing with cheaper cars from Asia for those same drivers.
You can't create new drivers out of thin air to expand the market demand for cars. Once the market is saturated, without having any moat, you enter in a race to the bottom.
And that's what Germany's economy is discovering right now and why Europe's share of global GDP has been declining for the past 20 years.
>"Most parts of the global economy are. If you're selling cars for example, there's a fixed amount of drivers on the road you can sell cars to, so if you're VW, you're now competing with cheaper cars from Asia for those same drivers.
You can't create new drivers out of thin air to expand the market demand for cars. Once the market is saturated, without having any moat, you enter in a race to the bottom."
Your assumption of 'no new car drivers' is obviously wrong. The constantly decreasing price of automobiles has been increasing the number of people who can afford them. https://www.pd.com.au/blogs/how-many-cars-in-the-world/
This is exactly where manufacturers like SAIC, BYD, and Dongfeng are winning. Building cheaper cars than were previously available and selling them in countries where "premium" brands like BMW, Toyota, Ford, Fiat, Volvo, GM, etc... don't try very hard to compete.
Head to any country without a domestic auto industry to protect and see what new cars people are importing. Sure there will be some rich people buying the brands you recognize, but call an UberX and they're going to show up in a Chinese brand you've never heard of. Or some zombie brand like MG.
Except when you charge sky high taxes you can't lower your prices to have access to that wider market, can you?
If other countries are doing better, they will want to buy status symbols as well. This is how Germany profited from China developing in the first place. As long as markets continue to develop, chances will continue to appear.
Also, we shouldn't care about Europe's share of global GDP. We should care about how the poor people in our countries are doing. Like I said, we should maintain or improve our quality of life. Producing cars is just a means to an end.
Because of the travle game(1) I learned that it was/is common for the leader of the former French colony to send hundreds of thousands in bribes to the president of France...
(1) Travle posted here on hn months ago, but unfortunately a Webapp that downloads so I can't give you a url
Downvotes without comment are pathetic. Step up and make an argument. It's real, it's happening and Europe needs to wake up.
It's crazy how so many people don't get this basic economic fact and think public welfare in EU just rains from the sky for free. No, EU welfare state is not some magical hack nobody else thought of, it's just paid from the working class' wages and then redistributed to those in need.
Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life? Billionaires and corporations certainly aren't gonna pay for it out if their profits, so the working class has to. But if the working class has no more high paying wages anymore due to stagnating growth , then your welfare budget also goes bye-bye.
You can't just vote yourself more welfare and higher public sector salaries and pensions out of thin air without an economic growth to back that up. I mean, you technically can, but it doesn't end well as was proven every single time this was tried.
> I mean, you technically can, but it doesn't end well as was proven every single time this was tried.
Arguably, Japan has been doing this for two or three generations now. Despite a crazy debt, quality of life in Japan is still pretty great.
Well paying job just mean that the primary distribution mechanism of wealth is through having a job, rather than only creating only jobs that are necessary. That's grossly inefficient. I rather pay people to stay at home rather than gunk up our industries with make-work, or worse actively making things worse.
Innovation is important sure, but also efficient use of resources, including cramping down on negative externalities. That increases welfare and quality of life, ideally with no need to spend an extra dollar.
Stop thinking in terms of dollars. Think in terms of stuff - that's the actual wealth. You can move dollars around with or without jobs, but somebody has to make the stuff. Someone has to grow the food. Otherwise, you have dollars but not food, and you can't eat dollars.
So the thing about jobs is, we really need jobs that actually produce stuff. We don't just need jobs, we need somebody to create the wealth. First it has to exist, then we can worry about how it gets distributed.
So if you have a bunch of people who are not necessary, then the best thing to do is not to let them starve (which is also immoral), nor to give them pointless jobs (which is soul-destroying), but to find something useful for them to do.
That's some idealistic stuff that's not gonna happen. The real world doesn't work like that.
Yeah it's ineficient but it's the one we got right now. You're not gonna change it with your comments and beliefs. Meanwhile rent is due next month and you need to pay up by using these "ineficient" mechanisms set in place by powers higher than you.
Idealistic? So what? I am just pointing out the contradiction of people's thought. I perfectly know well it's not how things should work but how it works right now, but if people believed silly things I am going to point it out.
You are welcome to point out flaws in my thinking.
> Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life
I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that there is no innovation whatsoever in the EU. Falling behind the US doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing. I think a lot of people in the EU would be fine with being 3rd on "productivity" if it was enough to maintain a high standard of living and decent competitiveness.
>I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that there is no innovation whatsoever in the EU.
I never said that. Please follow HN rules and reply to the strongest interpretation of one's argument, not the weakest.
The EU economy was at the same level as the US economy 15-20 years ago., now it's only half the US. The EU missed out on all the major technological innovations in that time and therefore missed out on a lot of income for welfare while welfare expenses only grew due to ageing population and increasing cost of living.
>Falling behind the US doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing.
No, it means less money for welfare. Especially with an ever increasing ageing population. If you want to take care of all of those people at a high quality of life, it's gonna cost you, and we don't have that kind of money anymore.
So you either get Europeans to accept slowly sliding into poverty due to declining welfare and rising CoL, OR, you need to bring in more money to the state somehow. Previously it was done in Europe via slavery and theft through colonialism, but since that conveyor belt of free money is gone and what's left to bring in more money is innovation in highly profitable high-growth industries where EU is almost absent. No, ASML, Airbus and some struggling German mittlestand companies can't support a whole continent like they did in the 1980's.
>I think a lot of people in the EU would be fine with being 3rd on "productivity" if it was enough to maintain a high standard of living and decent competitiveness.
They would be fine, if those losses would come out of the pockets of tax dodging corporations, but they're not, they're being eaten up by the working class and the taxpayer who still expects the same welfare quality like in the good ol' days when the EU economy was as strong as the US.
Do you you see how this level of welfare is unsustainable without matching economic growth?
You said
> Without innovations and highly profitable industries generating well paying working class jobs, with what will you pay for that welfare and quality of life
Without presumes with none, and you're saying it like it's true.
> The EU economy was at the same level as the US economy 15-20 years ago., now it's only half the US. The EU missed out on all the major technological innovations in that time
Really, all major technological innovations? Why is the leading music streaming provider Swedish (Spotify)? Leading and most advanced airplane manufacturer European (Airbus)? Why are there so many fintechs which are a decade ahead of US counterparts (Revolut, Monzo, MyPOS, SumUp, Bunq, Qonto) and why is finance-related tech so much ahead - you can pay contactless pretty much anywhere in most of the EU and UK, you can accept card payments with your phone and just an app, all banks have to have an API with Oauth to be able to aggregate accounts and whatever? Also I'd like to add advancements in nuclear fusion. Also I haven't experienced healthcare in the US, but from what I've seen it doesn't look like there's anything even close to the seamlessness of Doctolib in France.
The EU is indeed falling behind, IMO mostly due to lack of capital, risk/gambling averseness, and the much smaller individual markets. But to say it has missed all innovations, or that it has no innovation is simply untrue. We need more of them, we need to invest into more of them, because there's a lot of potential that needs to be nurtured and grow.
> Really, all major technological innovations?
Here is the data: https://www.voronoiapp.com/markets/-US-vs-European-Stock-Mar...
If Europe is so innovative, why is US to EU stock market cap ratio is on a consistent upward swing by since mid 2000's?
I didn’t read that whole comment but wow, you must be delusional. If you think that European companies in the last 20 years hold a candle to American companies in the last 20 years delusional.
>Without presumes with none
Only if you want to be a sticker and take things literally while deliberately ignoring the context to score a cheap shot gothca, then sure, it then means without.
> Leading and most advanced airplane manufacturer European (Airbus)?
Because of government intervention, and moat of a highly regulated and expensive to enter industry that keeps new players out. Why is SpaceX ahead of EU aerospace companies?
>Why is the leading music streaming provider Swedish (Spotify)?
Spotify wasn't even profitable until recently and only made it where it is today, due to to massive capital investments form the US, not from EU investors.
>Why are there so many fintechs which are a decade ahead of US counterparts
Are they also ahead in earnings/profits too? Because you fund welfare with taxes on profits and on wages. You can't tax innovations that bring you no money.
That's where While you keep blabbering on about Airbus, Monzo and Spotify , have a look at the top 100 companies in the world by market cap and see how many are from the EU and how many from the US and that's case closed. AIrbus, Spotify, etc are the rare exceptions, not the norm for Europe.
> Why is SpaceX ahead of EU aerospace companies?
“A system of non-competition clauses enforced by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) workforce suppliers is allegedly trapping aerospace professionals who work at ESA’s facilities across Europe in a professional dead-end street” [1].
Europe is absolutely riddled with this crap, and it tends to come top down from the EU.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/esa-workers-face-a-maz...
Quality of life also doesn't cost money.
Road infrastructure in the United States might as well be a form of digging holes and then refilling it back up again. Grossly inefficient when we could invest the infrastructure money into world class public transit.
I think you fail to grasp just how big the US is. Driving from Chicago to Minneapolis is ~430 miles/ 6.5 hours depending on weather and traffic. Every 10 miles or so there is an exit and usually some small town. Every 50 to 100 miles a bigger town.
As I recall, after the Chicago suburbs you hit Rockford, Janesville, Madison, Baraboo, Tomah, Eau Claire, Menominee, and Hudson before you get to the St Paul collar communities.
So 9 stops on on a single track running between two major cities, with only 1600 more miles to Seattle. And while the distance between stops increase, the population greatly decreases as you head west.
Now road construction could be better. Because while Illinois has 300k lane-miles of road, it seems like they only have 200k of asphalt and 100k under construction at any given point in time.
I think you fail to grasp just how big the US is. Driving from Chicago to Minneapolis is ~430 miles/ 6.5 hours depending on weather and traffic. Every 10 miles or so there is an exit and usually some small town. Every 50 to 100 miles a bigger town.
Why do people trot this out every time? Driving or traveling across the US isn't particularly relevant to most people's life experience. Ok, I'll bite.
Yes, the United States is big, but some areas are more dense than other and would need good heavy investment in public transit infrastructure. For example, the north eastern corridor would in particular benefit from investment in true high speed rail.
There's also the need for investment in freight infrastructure, especially if we want to take off more trucks off the road. This is a safety benefit too. Less vehicles on the roads just mean less people risking their neck.
Now let's talk more local public transit.
Atlanta for example, really need to expand heavy rail. Traffic there is one of the worst in the country. MARTA at time outpaces cars, even with all the stops they have to make. Rather, a lot of time is eaten up just waiting for the train. A more frequent schedule would help here, but Georgia would need to actually contribute funding to make this possible. If they extend it more into the surburb, I would have less of an incentive to move. As now, I am considering moving because of how frequent I commute into Atlanta.
Without leaving town, I can drive nearly 200km on any given weekend to visit friends. It is common for me to go 50km.
With the suburb architecture of many US cities, local rail is nearly irrelevant outside the city center
> I can drive nearly 200km on any given weekend to visit friends
In a typical vehicle that's about 50kg of CO2. 100kg if it doesn't include the return leg.
Not having a dig at you, but this is a big part of our problem. We believe that because we can do something, we are entitled to do it. Not only that, but we've structured our society in such a way that it's actually necessary for people to do these harmful things just to get by like commuting distances that would have been considered absurd 100 years ago. They are still absurd.
Scandinavia is sparser than USA and as large as the larger populated states, still has asphalted roads and public stuff even up north.
This is a bit misleading as those countries tend to have the vast majority of the population crowded into a handful of cities that are fairly close together and then a vast untamed wilderness where close to nobody lives. It's easy(ish) to have rail between Oslo and Bergen, less practical to extend that rail to Oldervik.
American exceptionalism at its finest.
I have had this niggling feeling for a long time that money (and capitalism) gets increasingly more divorced from reality, particularly as money is printed and these astronomic speculative stock market valuations are created based on some optimistic future scenario.
This is not some pearl clutching moralistic argument, but a practical observation based on:
- Transfer of ownership is not necessarily possible. You can't buy a technologically sensitive company because of regulations. Even if you can buy a foreign firm, transferring the talent, operational base etc. might not be possible. A CEO can't sell off his share of stocks even if they're worth billions because the loss of investor confidence.
- Physical limitations on quantities of goods. There is a finite supply of real estate. If everybody in the world wanted a new car suddenly (and had money for it), car prices would go through the roof, and only a small fraction would actually get it.
Imo capitalism is not flawed in the way that it is incapable of handling these situations, but it is very flawed in that money is an increasingly poor proxy for the abstract concept of value.
This flawed nature of capitalism has been long since endemic (and dare I say integral) to the system, much more value has existed on paper than in reality (see banks), but I think there might be a breaking point at which the system might collapse and hyperinflation would set in.
It is precisely because individuals suck so much at correctly perceiving the allocation of value that free market economies ("capitalism") completely blow centrally planned ones ("socialism") out of the water.
So the fact that you think money is divorced from reality is a very normal, mundane misconception.
Money is obviously a poor proxy for value.
A bottle of water might be the same price as a litre of petrol, but the value is vastly different.
We don't pay for the value. We pay for the cost of acquisition (e.g. pumping the oil out of the ground).
All "capitalist" economies have very large amounts of central planning for them to function (not to mention state subsidies and other protections from failing to make money), and use taxation and the national debt for that. Socialism plans centrally to the same extent that capitalist economies do, but also has the state owning the infrastructure that the economy relies upon. So it doesn't need to tax for that purpose. Socialism in that sense has never actually been practiced historically though, in the same way as there has never been "capitalism" in the sense of no central planning or regulation. Luckily.
You're taking my argument in the direction I never intended, then taking the dicothomy to the extreme, and then claiming victory unsupported by evidence.
- I never wanted to contrast 'capitalism' and 'communism' or whatever. I merely wanted to point out that the fundamental absurdity of capitalism requiring infinite growth in a finite system has been resolved by having the growth of wealth coming from speculation on future unrealized value. Since I (or anyone else) can't predict the future, it might happen that things do not come to pass as they were expected and that future value might not be realized. Money is divorced from reality, it derives its value from the collective trust and belief by the people participating in the system that it can be exchanged for goods and services. In a system of rational and impartial actors, that belief is backed by chiefly existence of said goods (which is the real size of the economic pie) and less by the speculation of future potential that might or or might not happen. So in summary my argument is not between communism or capitalism, but a captialism that is backed by real world value and one that is backed by future speculation. Even if the former can create less economic growth, we can be certain that growth is real.
- Central planning works. Great public works certainly are dreamt up and funded by governments yet they contribute enormously to the wealth of nations and enable a lot of value to be created. The moon landing was centrally planned and executed by a country whose per capita wealth was on par with modern day Poland, yet is considered the greatest achivement in history.
- There are no real 'centrally planned' or 'free market' economies, as all countries employ both concepts to some degree. But if we were to make a argument, we could say that the US belongs to the 'free market' camp and China belongs the 'centrally planned' camp. Both countries are doing extremely well, this very discussion is about finding which one is actually doing better.
Declining/Aging Population becomes the issue. Solutions will probably come from Biology/Nature.
Human Quality of life seems to flip the natural "evolutionary script" wrt to population growth. Shrinking population = shrinking landlords/bankers/labor/traders/military/scientists etc
In nature, where there is environmental instability/resource scarcity you see a Quantity over Quality reproductive survival strategy (which is similar to what we see poorer regions of the world) that fuels population growth.
On the flip side, where there is resource abundance and stability there is growth in population. But we don't see that happening in the richer/higher developed regions with humans.
Its like advanced human society/culture has worked out how to override biology.
We currently work around falling population(and the shrinking factors of production) with tech/automation, financial/military arm twisting and immigration which gives rise its own social and cultural instability.
Nature has found other population models though. Ants(Eusocial insects) have solved their population/survival issues by have a single Baby factory. There are theories that the Haplodiploidy it produces makes ant societies function smoother. While Meerkats have collective breeding model which is similar to what certain Feminists talk about when they say Make Kin not Babies.
It will take a couple generations of futzing about in unnecessary directions before we solve these issues. So patience with the people who don't know what they are doing is key.
I tend to agree to a certain extent. From my observation it seems that a certain amount of suffering in life creates strong motivation for overcoming it. If you just have a very happy life you don't have that strong motivation to change things.
>If you just have a very happy life you don't have that strong motivation to change things.
Or you see no way out, feel defeated and see that positive change is impossible or futile. It cuts both ways. Inaction doesn't always mean a rosy life.
The “populists” request that their tax dollars go to citizens rather than foreigners and the elites respond with musings about the reproductive strategies employed by ants.
As a US citizen, I look with envy on the quality of life in many EU countries.
You can look closer, if you want. The EU is cheaper and cheaper for the American tourists.
And please make sure to visit some of the Eastern European countries, like Romania or Bulgaria too. They are part of the EU as well.
Where does this notion come from? Many Europeans cannot even afford proper AC in summer and heating in winter.
Of course they can afford it, its just a cultural difference.
> Many Europeans cannot even afford proper AC in summer and heating in winter.
Basically nobody lacks heating in winter, that one is made up. The thing people lack is AC and its just because people aren't used to it so they don't see it as a need.
Edit: Saying this is like saying people can't afford shelter in USA, it is true and there are many homeless but it describes a tiny fraction.
Depends on whether you're talking about Europe the continent or eg the EU, though "many" if of course a vague enough claim to be technically true for any corner of the world.
But relateedly, US household energy expenditure is enormous compared to other countries and a lot of it is burning fossil fuels to run AC. There's a big money vs ethics tradeoff going the wrong way for emissions, more so from being a huge oil producer.
We haven't needed this for the most time. I'm not spending on AC for a few days per year where it's really hot while it's really not most of of the year.
Besides: I'd rather put sedum/green stuff on our flat roof, which also helps insulate a little bit in winter but really really helps in summer.
Quality of life is the result of economic prosperity.
If the economy falls behind then quality of life will follow at some point. In fact quality of life is already not so great and decreasing.
>If the economy falls behind then quality of life will follow at some point.
If only Europeans would accept this truth and wake up that something has to change yesterday.
What's happening to Greece is just the mining canary for what's gonna happen in much of the rest of EU later, if there's no preventive change of course.
Which country? This matters a lot. I doubt you are in Greece, or Italy, or Portugal.
Did you know on GBP PPP Warsaw and Budapest are now better places to live than Madrid, Lisbon and many other Mediterranean cities?
It’s crazy. Perhaps Berlin and Copenhagen are still ok, but even France is on a completely unsustainable path that will explode in the next 10-20 years.
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When I hear "America’s economy is soaring," I can’t help but think it probably just means the rich are getting richer.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a communist. But it’s clear to me, especially when you look at how the middle class is struggling worldwide, that capitalism in its current form isn’t sustainable.
What we need is some kind of “Capitalism 2.0” or “Capitalism++”
PPP is an increasingly irrelevant notion in a globalized, digital, and immigration-friendly world. An iPhone or a Toyota Corolla costs the same in the US as it does in China. There is no remarkable arbitrage with real estate either - you're paying for the location and everything that comes with it. There is no secret city where the rent is low, there are plenty of well-paying jobs, you enjoy freedom of speech and can be reasonably sure the milk isn't tainted with melamine (tangent: due to strict US immigration policies and corporate RTO, the Bay Area comes close).
PPP suffers from the same problem that "basket of goods" CPI suffers from in that it doesn't account for differences in quality:
- of course a car costs more today than it did in 1980, it's a far better car
- of course a loaf of bread costs more in California than it does in India - I have certain guarantees about the pesticide levels in the wheat, the accuracy of the labeling, and my ability to seek damages from the legal system in case I chip my tooth on a stone, that I don't have in India
At best, PPP tells you something about the differences in cost of labor. But labor isn't everything you buy.
> An iPhone or a Toyota Corolla costs the same in the US as it does in China.
A maxed out iPhone costs RMB 13999 in China, which is about USD 1925. The same iPhone costs USD 1599 in the US. In Brazil it costs the equivalent of USD 2565. PPP is still very much relevant.
Each country has their own misleading way of calculating PPP. Some probably include the iPhone price.
PPP is useless misleading nonsense.
Shouldn't it cost less in China?
Why?
This is pretty laughable take, considering that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in 2020 that there are 600 million people whose monthly income is barely 1,000 yuan ($141), which no amount of PPP tricks can persuade anyone of reason that that that is somehow is overtaking US.
And that was from 2020. from 2020 to 2024, the Chinese economy has cratered, from losing 6.5 trillion in stock market, to losing 30 trillion in the real estate.
"Losing 30 trillion" is a very entitled view on decreasing real estate prices. Those 600 million people making 1000 CNY/month or less (and probaly another 300 million making a bit more) will be happy for a respite in being priced out of everywhere. This literally increases their purchasing power.
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One thing this article doesn't touch on is the soaring government debt, which is now really quite big: 120%, and IIRC if you add municipal debt, it's more like 140%. That is high. It also seems like much of the recent growth has been fueled by this debt.
It's unclear how this is going to unwind. America can afford, apparently, to run their deficit hot, but not forever and without limit. So at some point they have to start cutting expenditure and paying that debt off. What happens then? Or will they somehow default on it? Or, will they manage to deflate it via growth. But it is a bit of a sword of Damocles hanging over the economy, like ZIRP over VC successes of the 2010s.
The crazy thing is just how much the debt increases in living memory. Under Clinton, it was as low as 60%, which is considered a really low level.
My theory is that other countries' trade is so closely tied to the US Dollar that when the Federal Reserve prints money it's not just diluting the US Dollar but all currencies. The US is effectively taxing the world, to pay for its own spending.
As evidence that the US Dollar plays a large enough role for this to be the case, half of the banks bailed out in the TARP program were foreign to the US (https://www.europeaninstitute.org/index.php/ei-blog/106-augu...) and trading is US Dollars.
It seems like other people also buy into this. Eg. Trump.
I also think that the USD is currently under attack as the reserve currency and running these deficits is a way to protect its position.
We will see in a couple of years how things play out.
> My theory is that other countries' trade is so closely tied to the US Dollar that when the Federal Reserve prints money it's not just diluting the US Dollar but all currencies. The US is effectively taxing the world, to pay for its own spending.
Yes.
The BRICs economic group has been trying to launch their own currency for a while now. This is one of the reasons for it. Trump has threatened to impose 100% tax on them and on anyone else who ever tries.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-threatens-100-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-02/south-afr...
My two cents: the U.S. owes much of its economic strength to its robust legal framework. It provides a system where complex business disputes can be handled and enforced effectively, creating trust and predictability for investors and entrepreneurs. This institutional strength is often overlooked but is critical for fostering innovation and long-term economic growth. Incidentally, recent Nobel laureates in economic sciences have focused on the role of institutions in shaping economic outcomes, underscoring how pivotal they are to success.
> the improvement was largely down to reconstruction efforts partly funded by the US via the Marshall Plan
Most of the improvement was in Germany, which received far less MP money than Britain and France.
Postwar prosperity correlates with the level of free markets. Germany embraced free markets up until 1970, Britain and France did not.
Saying Germany embraced the free market is not correct. Germany under Erhard had a social market economy (even during the "Wirtschaftswunder*, the economic miracle). While some free market principles were followed (price liberation, free trade) and it was certainly more market liberal than France at the time, it still came with substantial protection (universal healthcare, strong labor protections and unions, anti monopoly regulations etc.)
The situation back then was decidedly _not_ what the term "free market" (of the libertarian variety) would imply today.
Nobody claimed it was a 100% free market. But it was quite a bit more free than the other MP recipients. And the results showed.
Definitely, just wanted to make sure that no one who's passing by your comment thinks that post-war Germany had some gung ho modern definition style free market.
They served as bases to spread the American culture through music and cinema and later with the industry through the coal and steel community, to create a single and unified market
The US did not want to create competition, but to break monopolies and to create a unified market for its industrial complex
The remnants of that goal are visible today with Big Tech
My dad was part of the occupation of postwar Germany.
The bases were there to protect Germany against the Soviets.
I remember once on the autobahn around 1970, and a fighter came by hedgehopping at high speed. He was a few feet off the ground, and looked like just under Mach 1. The citizens didn't particularly like the noise and disruption, but they understood the need for the Air Force to train hard.
I also remember touring East Berlin (yes, East Berlin) in 1969. Going through Checkpoint Charlie and seeing the Wall is plenty convincing of the need for the US military being there.
France, on the other hand, didn't much care for the US military bases and wound up pushing them out.
BTW, the US Military was pretty thorough in making sure US personnel and military families behaved like guests in Germany, as they were invited guests. Ever since the Berlin Airlift, the US was friends with Germany.
The Americanization of Germany came later. I recall visiting a shopping mall in Germany in the 2000's, and you could not tell you were in Germany rather than in any suburb in America. Shopping malls did not exist there in 1970.
>BTW, the US Military was pretty thorough in making sure US personnel and military families behaved like guests in Germany, as they were invited guests. Ever since the Berlin Airlift, the US was friends with Germany.
All the more sad that the chief component of Japanese animosity towards Japan-stationed US forces are sexual crimes, particularly in Okinawa where the Marines especially don't seem to know how to keep their dicks in their pants. There have been at least two incidents just this year if I recall, and that's just of the ones we know.
I really can't blame the locals wanting Americans to get the fuck out, security be damned.
That is indeed sad. Such crimes against the locals should be severely punished.
I found out many years later that if I had committed a crime like shoplifting in Germany, my father would have been cashiered. The military took their guest status very seriously. An officer who could not control his family was not fit to be an officer.
Not saying that is good, but you really have to analyze something like that in terms of rates, not anecdotes. Everywhere you put people there are going to be incidents.
I don't blame locals for feeling however they feel. It's their country.
>anecdotes
Just so we're clear, I'm talking about cold hard data and the rate is "too many".
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/09/10/okinawa-gover...
https://theintercept.com/2021/10/03/okinawa-sexual-crimes-us...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/09/sexual-assault...
Hey! soapland and the banana-show are a great time!
The US places its military worldwide out of its own interest, not to protect anyone. That's a very rose colored glasses interpretation of the past and the present you have there.
It's the opinion of my father who was in the early occupation, and later was doing military planning work with generals and such - all focused on repelling possible Soviet invasion scenarios.
Protecting Germany's sovereignty also protected America's interests. They were aligned.
Germany (like France could and did) could have expelled the US military any time they wanted to.
Germany after the war was an occupied country, split up into various zones by their opponents in the war. There is no fundamental difference in the way the US or the SU setup their bases there. Sovereignty implies they had a say in whether or not the US army is stationed there, which I think is a ridiculous claim. Thus, as there was no sovereignty, there was no sovereignty to protect.
See my other reply, with receipts.
That in 1955 Germany had a realistic way of saying, we're a sovereign country and don't want US troops on our soil?
But that in the end has nothing to do with my original response, which was "the US sets up its bases out of its own self interest". Even if those interests align, it doesn't mean it's there to honor German wishes. If those interests had not aligned, the US would've still stayed there, this is as clear as the header of this page being orange.
Germany could not have expelled the US military. Germany lost the war and was taken over by the US, they no longer had a say.
France made sure to avoid an US occupation government and rebuilt its own independent military. It could make a choice.
> they no longer had a say
"Sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany was granted on May 5, 1955, by the formal end of the military occupation of its territory"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Germany
When I lived near Luke AFB in the early 70's, Luke was training Luftwaffe pilots to fly F-104 Starfighters. I used to ride my bike onto the base and go to the flight line, and watch those lawn darts take off. They'd get halfway down the runway and light the afterburners! Freakin' awesome. Oh I wanted to be a pilot soo bad.
An F-104 was little more than a pilot strapped to a monster of a jet engine.
Meanwhile in the real world, when Washington DC talked Bonn listened. Still applies today to some level.
Edit: Public opinion can also be shaped, not least after the trauma of the Nazi period and in the midst of the Cold War. Actual influence behind the scene is usually not made known to public, and the influence of the US over Germany has been overwhelming.
Perhaps there was an aggressive imperialistic authoritarian empire next door that had split germany in two and run their half into the ground economically? No, it must be that America is bad and this country had no agency as you said
I lived in Germany from 68-71. The Germans wanted us there, because they were afraid of a Soviet invasion. Wanting the US military there is quite different from the US forcing themselves on them.
Not once living there did I ever get the impression that the Germans felt the US presence was forced on them. They appreciated that the US was there to keep the Red Army at bay.
Of course, sometimes they'd complain about the Americans having bad manners, usually justifiably, and sometimes they'd envy the wealth of the Americans. I even attended a German elementary school for a while, and nobody bullied me because I was an American. I was even invited by other students to their homes to play.
The US bases were of mutual benefit to the Germans and the Americans.
It can be both.
That manchester capitalism with different decorations rhetoric does not hold up to scrutiny. In particular when you hold it against current examples of economic colonialism like the chines lend & own campaign in Africa .
Without an army or control over territory, it cannot reach the level of colonization. African countries often default on their debts.
The army is provided by the local dictator or by playing different ethnic groups against one another.Britain never had enough soldiers to conquer India , but india had. Same for Russia .
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42311318
The headline is about America's rivals but then talks mainly about EU and other G7 economies.
Do Americans consider Europeans their rivals? Occasional competitors sure, but rivals?
Rival in the same way two American football teams are rivals maybe.
I'm never able to get to the "so what?" with these. Productivity growth sounds nice, but then it mentions that there's more inequality, higher cost of living, and more workers struggle in the US than other developed countries. How do I reconcile this?
They make a point that eventually the other countries' economies would shrink and won't be able to afford those benefits, but also the US doesn't have those benefits even now.
Anyone can elucidate me?
> How do I reconcile this?
I'm curious why you care that some people have more money than you do? If you want mo' moolah:
1. upgrade your job skills
2. minimize spending (like get a roommate, eschew restaurant food, buy a used car)
3. invest the money you save
If you really want to make big money:
1. start your own business
Income inequality is strong predictor of unhappiness in a population.
You ask why I care about income inequality? It's because I want more happiness in my community.
I thought the question was "why should I care about productivity if it doesn't necessarily make my life better?". The article didn't really make the case that average workers were benefiting from this.
The Law of Supply and Demand means that worker total compensation tends to track their productivity.
Yet, if you look at real wages over time, they're stagnating in pretty much every developed country. Productivity has gone up consistently while wages lag far behind. Where is all that value going to? Because it isn't certainly being left on the table.
It really doesn't, that's a crazy reach to make.
Would you say that construction is way more productive today in USA than 40 years ago? It seems like stuff are more expensive and less productive at the same time today.
If you've ever tried to build a house in the US, you'll find out where the money goes. I have, and there's good reason why I am not in the construction business.
Oh, and check this out:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/developer-martin-selig...
That's gotta hurt!
So you agree USA has problems? That is the point, the source of that inequality doesn't matter the inequality is still hurting you. There are seemingly less such problems in Europe.
Of course the USA has problems. I've pointed out several.
But inequality is not a problem. People wanting to make it big come to the USA. That's why the USA has the biggest, most successful, companies that drive the US gdp forward.
Inequality is only a problem for people who are envious.
Healthcare using regulations to block competition and line their pockets is a big source to that inequality, being forced to pay into that isn't envy.
But I get your point, inequality isn't a problem in itself, but seeing your money go to rich people for no good reason does feel very bad even if the problem is the corruption and not the inequality.
> Inequality is only a problem for people who are envious.
Or when you have to pass by homeless tent cities in your downtown. Or when you are the victim of crime because the kid pulling a gun on you is envious because their family is poor and you're rich.
Extreme inequality brings social strife in multiple layers, if you're individualistic you might not care for it but for a society it fosters resentment and erosion of social cohesion.
But I don't think you care about that in general.
Not sure I understand how you're reconciliating it? Maybe I'm missing the link you are making with caring or not about other people being richer than oneself, how is that relevant here?
What I'm asking is more, what conclusion should I take from the article?
Isn't caring about inequality mean complaining about people having more money than oneself?
The issue is when others money means high costs for you, such as in healthcare or education or construction. A lot of stuff is really expensive in USA due to the high wages/profits and those workers not being any more productive, that directly hurts your quality of life unless you got an equivalent raise.
You mentioned healthcare, education, and construction. Those three all have very heavy government interference and regulation. It's unrealistic to blame those high prices on the free market.
Consider, on the other hand, the software industry. Essentially zero regulation. Yet the software, very high quality software, tends to be free!!!
Why is it that the most regulated, subsidized, and interfered with industries are the most expensive, while the least regulated, unsubsidized, free market industries are the most productive with the lowest prices?
> It's unrealistic to blame those high prices on the free market.
I didn't blame the free market, we talked about inequality nobody mentioned free market. That inequality is partially fueled by the unfree regulatory capture, things would be more equal if some regulations were removed.
Because people have been liberated from the quagmire of handicrafts
Simple answer. The US don’t fear high debts like for instance Germany does.
Germany can't print the world reserve currency. They did for a bit towards the end of WW2 though but that time is passed.
Germany suffers from bad leadership in industry and government above all else. The lack of investment is downstream of that. And I guess upstream is their conservative mindset on how and who to appoint as leaders. Lots of nepotism and corruption and not a lot of competence.
To add to the other comments to which I agree: create a war in Europe that deeply affects the Germany economy, by raising energy prices. Help destroy their industry by provoking a war in the continent.
The only one provoking a war in Europe is Putin.
And the Germans destroyed their energy sector themselves.
That's an excellent summary of the economic state of the world. This excerpt is depressing...
The pessimistic take is that American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world, while other nations abandon consumer- and labor-friendly policies.> cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world
That's a thing of the past. Check the consumer electronics produced today in China. Mobile devices, EVs, infrastructure, newer products are simply incredible, and I'd argue ahead of western technology on many fronts. Cheap plastic stuff now gets produced in other less developed countries.
A quick skim of Amazon for literally any product would prove this comment entirely wrong.
Do they produce quality goods now? Sure. But it's also still where most of your just barely above garbage quality goods come from.
> American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk
Another POV is that the services and software that does the design, marketing, logistics, testing, certification and etc of the plastic junk is more valuable than the plastic junk, and all that stuff is made in the US. It’s still labor, sometimes it’s even bespoke one off software labor which might as well be manufacturing, the thing that it is not is factories. I don’t know why factories above all else are glorified. There is lots of labor in services.
> endure unstable employment conditions
It's also correspondingly easier to get another job. In Europe, making it hard to fire people means it becomes equivalently harder to get a job in the first place.
While it sounds great to add some zero-sum game to it, it is not entirely precise.
> For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7.
Had the job market been a zero-sum game like you propose, then the income inequality would not have been so dire in the US.
But said income would've been much lower - like in Europe.
Europe "solved" inequality by effectively limiting the upper range. Meanwhile the lower tier is just as low (or lower) than in the US.
People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania.
Yep, and crucially, getting a first job from which you can build a career is relatively (to the US) hard in places like Germany because companies are super risk averse.
This has been the case for decades now.
The US economy is much more dynamic than Europe's and the US government is actually more willing to intervene (and can afford it because of US dollar).
In Europe it is austerity and general less support for economy-boosting policies.
There are a lot of perspectives. Eg. that the US due to it geopolitical situation hasn't seen any real adverse events in the past century. Ie. privileged on the risk side.
As other people also mention: The US' growth seems to be debt driven, which will also have to halt at some point.
However, it would not seem like it is US dynanisism that is the reason for the current success of the country - especially taken into account that it is a small subset (eg. the magnificent 7) and very high valuations that drive the current success.
All in all, my personal view is that there is significant risk in the US market currently - thus also high returns. But I do think that it is safer to harbour some money outside of the US.
Personally, I am happy to have US stocks in my portfolio, I am also happy not to live there.
So the US economy is built on debt
All economies are built on debt... It's basically how money works...
No that is not how money works, it is one way money can work but it isn't how money works. Many economies are debt free, because there is no reason to go into debt to have money.
Europe has massive debts, too, and growing. But this is a downward spiral.
Edit:
Average government debt-to-GDP ratio in the EU was around 60% from 2000 to 2008. It is 88% now and worse in many major countries. No lie here...
> Europe has massive debts, too, and growing
This is a lie, take Sweden's debt for example it has been going down the past 20 years. Most of Europe doesn't see increasing debt, USA is an outlier.
https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/government-debt-to-gdp#:...
You are so lucky to be born in the USA:
- Easy to do business - Great economy, high salaries, and funding - English native speaker, so you can speak with everyone and everyone can speak with you
The EU is in a deep hole, with socialism and green communism next.
Make no mistake, the US is a fantastic business. It makes a lot of money, and some people get fantastically rich while others toil for life and hover at the poverty line.
With a vastly higher percentage of its citizens in jail than any other developed country, much higher crime and violence than developed countries and many other very bad indicators it is, however, not a good country. It does not provide for or look after its citizens in the ways other developed countries do, and does not appear to be a healthy society.
> It does not provide for or look after its citizens in the ways other developed countries do
It's worth asking why.
> NATO nations have cut back on troops and military hardware since the Cold War. But Europe has cut far deeper than the US. Defense budgets have become a pot that could be raided to fund more pressing priorities, such as treating and caring for aging populations. As a result, much of Europe’s military has become, in the view of some US defense experts, a “Potemkin army” that is ill-prepared to wage and win a prolonged war.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-nato-armed-forces/
>It's worth asking why.
Because taking care of people is not profitable. Why are people still looking for the answer when it's obvious?
If we take a look at the % of US forces stationed in Europe, and assume all of them are there only out of the goodness of the US' heart to protect Europeans, and subtract them from total US military costs, it isn't even a drop in the bucket. It's less money than the Pentagon doesn't know what happens to.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/article/307805...
(This only covers the running costs; even an unfair assumption that the US would need less F-35s and troops if they weren't deployed in Europe, it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the $916 billion yearly budget).
There's 365 million Americans vs. Europeans countries none have more then about 85 million.
No US state has more than 40 million people...
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The US is a great place to make a lot of money if you're lucky and successful, but a terrible place to retire.
Terrible place to be poor more like. Being poor is not enviable in any country, but you're better supported in some countries compared to others. Obviously this comes at a cost for the economy as a whole. At some point you need to think about what kind of society you want to live in.
I wouldn't necessarily make the assumption that welfare support "costs" the economy as a whole.
It's really expensive to support homeless population since they use up critical important resources such as emergency care, compared to just giving them a home. They may recover faster and become a productive member of society again.
For sure, it costs real dollars in a national budget, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing for the economy.
If you give people free food, free housing, and free medical care, who needs to work?
Nobody needs to work in USA either, but people do it anyway since the free stuff isn't comfortable enough. Its the same in Europe, people don't view the free stuff as good enough for them so they work to get more.
>Nobody needs to work in USA either
But then who's gonna be the delivery man who delivers your post/packages? Who's gonna be your teachers in school? Who's gonna be the baker making your food? Who's gonna be the builder and plumber building the shelter you live in? Who's gonna be the doctor healing you? If nobody needs to work.
They don't need to, they work anyway since we are still living in a capitalist nation where working pays off, that goes for both Europe and USA, you get supported by the state so you don't starve if you don't work but people still prefer working over not working thanks to the extra benefits you get.
Communist nations force people to work, there is no need for that in capitalist nations, people work for the extra rewards.
>They don't need to
Yeah they do. I live in a socialist European country and if you refuse to work you'll end up on the streets and only live off charity of others or starve/freeze to death.
You won't get any state welfare if you're decaled medically fit to work and refuse to take work that get sent to you by the unemployment agency, like for example working in a warehouse or in an Amazon fulfilment center. Nobody would willfully take those shit jobs if they wouldn't have to work.
Yeah, there's some people who made a lifestyle out of gaming the system who choose not to work and still get welfare but that's a minority.
> You won't get any state welfare if you're decaled medically fit to work and refuse to take work that get sent to you by the unemployment agency
That depends on the country, but in the USA you get food stamps regardless of anything else so you wont starve. Then you can live on public lands in a tent or so, many do that in California.
The free stuff isn't high living, but it's enough for quite a few. The poverty rate stopped declining when LBJ's welfare state went into effect.
If you give the bare minimum for survival, people still want to work to improve their living conditions.
Virtually no one wants to live on the bare minimum, no idea why you tend to create this rather absurd straw man...
How so? Healthcare? FIRE seems much more attainable in the US
Housing and healthcare costs are insane. When you're older, you need a lot more healthcare (and you won't have that nice insurance plan you had at your big company job when you were working), and housing keeps getting more expensive, which is a problem if you're on a fixed income. You could move to much cheaper locales (i.e. rural areas), but those are "healthcare deserts" where there's no competent doctors left and hospitals are all closing left and right, plus when you're infirm how exactly do you drive yourself? Living in a walkable city (or any city really) is much more doable when you're older for these practical reasons (less need to drive, healthcare providers close by), but then you can't afford the housing there.
> "healthcare deserts"
Well, in Germany health care is affordable in terms of cost. However, while 20 years ago you just went to a doctor when you were sick, these days you will wait hours and hours even at your family physician's crowded waiting room. You need a specialist? 6 months if it's something serious like a cardiologist. If you're on private health insurance, alright, only 3 months.
I don't know if this is specific to Germany, or similar in all of Europe.
But that is a change many people notice that I speak with.
In the US before Obamacare I could make an appointment with a specialist on the same week. Now it takes more than six months. Three different specialties that I know of and the only three I tried. Apparently we're catching up with Europe.
Also in the US before Obamacare many people couldn't afford to see a specialist at all. Trade-offs.
Americans are discovering that giving universal healthcare access to everyone means those who already had access, now have to wait longer to make room for everyone else. That's how it works.
Depends upon how much older you mean - at 65 in the U.S. you get Medicare which is not that bad.
Housing in US is in fact one of the cheapest... everywhere, measured as price per square foot as percentage of income. Several times cheaper than in many countries and at least somewhat cheaper than almost every single one, rich or poor, democratic or authoritarian.
It's just that "normal" housing in the US is what's only attainable to the very rich and only because they inherited it, in most of Europe let's say: even 1% won't be able to buy an equivalent of median new US single family house, in EU - that 1% probably owns a similar or somewhat better house but simply because they bought or built it generations before.
Got a source for this? I'm only finding sources that vehemently disagree, and say the only countries worse for this are Portugal and Canada. Everywhere in the world is better.
I'd love to see your source. It's curious how can one manipulate numbers so badly to arrive to this sort of result.
That's probably because what you are googling is a ratio of price of average house to average income... Which only means that American houses are much much bigger and thus more pricey, because Americans have many times more disposable income per family than just about any nation in the world.
But if you compare the price of the SAME sized house to the average income, the situation is opposite. U.S. is the 3rd best after Oman and Saudi Arabia. It's just that Americans are not satisfied with houses even twice the size of what people in many rich countries are happy with.
https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...
American houses are large and unaffordable. The usual term for a situation like that is inefficiency.
Price per square foot is not a very useful metric, because neither utility nor construction costs scale directly with the size of a house. A 3000 square foot house is not 2x as good as a 1500 square foot house, and it should not cost 2x as much to build. Roughly speaking, walls are expensive, while making the rooms larger is cheap. And bedrooms are cheap, while bathrooms are expensive.
Healthcare is just a word until you get into your sixties, then it is a lifestyle
> How so? Healthcare? FIRE seems much more attainable in the US
Much easier in Europe, go work in Switzerland or some high paying country then go retire in a low cost area with healthcare.
If it's so easy why isn't everyone in Europe doing this life hack?
Could it be that moving to a place with high salaries means that job market is more competitive with higher bar to entry, with more stress, and CoL and housing is proportionally higher so once you factor in housing, healthcare, childcare expenses etc you realize that unless you scored some FANG job that pays orders of magnitude more than the local median, you're more or less at the same wealth point as in the lower CoL locations?
Feels like the solution is to find the place when you can earn more than the median there and not just blindly move to the most expensive places in the world hoping that will make you rich.
> If it's so easy why isn't everyone in Europe doing this life hack?
Language barriers, mostly. USA doesn't have those, that is the biggest difference I'd say, language barriers is such a massive hindrance to movement even if you are legally allowed to.
Even if the work language is English you still have to live with all the signs etc being in a language you don't understand, and learning a new language is a massive undertaking.
However if you don't care about that then it is really simple. And lots of people are doing just that, people spending a few years working in a high wage place isn't uncommon at all.
If you save & invest for retirement, you'll be fine.
And have no major health issues/accidents, and be quite lucky, and start with a lot of money in the first place, and be born in the right place in the country.
My understanding is US healthcare is actually has the best outcomes, however Americans are sicker and those without insurance are obviously worse off.
America was populated by millions of immigrants, nearly all of them poor with little more than a suitcase.
Welfare and social programs did not make them successful. Opportunity did.
Even Elon Musk arrived with just a suitcase. He stayed in hostels because of lack of money.
You have a point!
It's instructive to see what's happening in Britain right now where many people dare not take jobs or even join training schemes to improve their prospects - because they will lose their benefits. To quote from the Spectator: "A Channel 4 (TV) program Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sickness-benefit-tra...
Elon Musk, whose father owned but a humble emerald mine, and was driven to school in a Rolls Royce? Or another, poor Elon Musk?
Since you know so much about this, how much did funding did Elon's father give him to start his businesses?
Maybe you need to read it coming directly from Elon's dad then? [0][1]
[0] https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine
[1] https://www.the-sun.com/news/7911051/elon-musks-dad-errol-em...
Getting money for living expenses as you study is the life of the average middle class student in USA, he didn't say it funded Musks ventures. The emerald mine made them rich compared to other Africans, but that doesn't say much compared to the average American.
Would there be any ventures if Errol didn't fund Elon's trip to the USA? That's the point, without the emerald mining funding there would be no Elon in the USA, no Elon taking risks in ventures, etc. It can't be looked at in a vacuum of "he didn't get direct money for his ventures", it was only possible for Elon to start ventures because of the emerald mines.
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I'd invite you to give a counterpoint to what I posted, this type of post is not really in line with the guidelines of HN. You're a dad, act like an adult, please.
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It's thanks to innovative business models, of course!
Increasing you investment efficiency with FTX. Reducing farmer idle time with Deere. Sharing your otherwise unused car with Uber. Revolutionising office productivity with technology, like those beer taps that WeWork had. Spending less time on your savings with Yotta. Not reading long emails with AI.
I wonder how high productivity actually turns out if you remove every scam that inflated GDP or earnings numbers.
Also, ask the poor how satisfied they are with the GDP.
Or ask farmers about the DRM technology that locks them out of their tools ...