From article – whether agreed or otherwise its an interesting perspective:
> There is no contesting the US’s abiding economic strength. In 1990, it accounted for 40% of the nominal GDP of the Group of Seven, a club of the world’s seven biggest advanced economies, including Japan and Germany. Today it accounts for 58%. The US has a higher GDP per capita than every country in the European Union except Luxembourg and Ireland, and the Irish figures are distorted by the shenanigans of tax-avoiding US multinationals. Georgia has a higher GDP per capita than Denmark.
> Admittedly, the comparison is less striking if you adjust for prices (“PPP-adjusted”) in each region rather than using market exchange rates: from 43% in 1990 to 51% now. PPP is a good measure of living standards. But if your goal is to measure geopolitical weight — what resources countries can command abroad and what clout they can wield on the global stage — then it is exchange rates set by markets that matter.
…
> The first is a pro-business culture. Different countries put a premium on different qualities — France on intellectual brilliance, Britain on gentlemanly style, Italy on la dolce vita. America loves business. Ambitious young people still dream of becoming tycoons. Successful tycoons continue to make money (and give it away) when their British equivalents would have retired to their country estates. Airport bookshops groan with books on how to grow rich and run companies.
…
> The second is that America is the land not just of the startup but of the scale-up. The “magnificent seven” companies driving the outperformance of the US stock market (Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) were all founded in the past half-century, most much more recently than that, and then achieved valuations of well over $100 billion. Europe can only boast one $100 billion-plus company that was founded in the same time period, Germany’s SAP.
That may be numeric true, but it sure doesn’t feel true.
Americans complain a lot more about declining wealth relative to previous generations than Europeans. And they struggle more – or at least seem to complain more – about education, upward mobility, health, housing, etc.
Seems like that plot isn’t capturing the whole story.
I seriously question the data on which this is based on, considering that the US started outpacing the EU only after 2010 according to this:
US responded better to the financial crisis and covid than the EU. But both are on continual downward trajectories for the foreseeable future.
I’d like to see how the US would have performed if the dollar wasn’t the reserve currency. Their inflation would certainly be higher.
This is not representative at all. The graph isn’t zeroed and it’s obviously using some non-standard definition of the EU, given the line for the EU isn’t discontinuous. The data is coming from the USDA as well.
It’s also a very questionable to represent this in US dollars, as it biases GDP towards the US. It should at least be INT$.
I don’t understand why the people in this group refuse to believe the US economy is stronger than the EU economy. There are many other data points other than this one that point to a similar trend.
The recession hit us pretty hard. We’re coming back tho don’t worry, the US has had stable economic growth and given what’s happening in Eastern Europe and China being less trusted internationally we’re in a position to capitalize on that.
A good example is in LNG where the US has become a significant supplier for Europe after Russia lost Europe’s confidence as a supplier. Then there’s Ukraine where pre-2014 US companies began investing in Ukraine and nearly had a partnership where American based companies would help to develop Ukraines barely exploited energy resources. It’s been thrown around that this is one of the motivations for Russia’s stacks on Ukraine as the regions they want (Crimea, Donbas, Luhansk) hold the majority of Ukraine’s natural gas reserves and a Ukraine that could exploit those resources could challenge Russia in that field especially in Europe. Not to mention deepen ties with the US as well which Russia can never stand for.
All that stopped dead when Russia took Crimea and Ukraine was deemed a bad investment because of the possibility of further problems with Russia. At any rate post-war with a Ukrainian victory that’s free to turn west and with reconstruction and economy as top priorities it’s likely the US has the capital and connection to invest in Ukraine in an even greater capacity.
That’s just what I found tho, who knows what the future holds.
But at least Europe have free healthcare!!!!!!!!!!!
Free, like people paying extremely high taxes on everything, compared to America, kind of free
Going down the toilet. And the EU even has more people than the US. Sad.
Isn’t this a good thing globally? It could mean wealth is more evenly spread in the world than it read before? Granted China has probably shifted this more than any other.
And this is a bad thing? Not an expert but it seems to me that having 10% of the world population be part of 60% of the economy, like in the 1970s, isn’t good for humanity. Making the poor richer is what the idea of good ol capitalism is all about anyway. The rise of China (mostly) and the rest of Asia/India and maybe some African countries, that is basically shown here, doesn’t sound as scary to me as it used to before I gave it some thought.
Why do we get reminded this daily? As a European we should integrate more and be more efficient to be able to stay relevant in the world.
Hmm the garden is getting smaller and smaller..
Does this take into account Brexit and the UK literally not being part of the EU anymore. Yeah, it was going downhill since 2000, but the line noticeably weakens around that vote.
My outside observation of EU from US is that EU folks do not want to work much compared to US folks. The price is mental health in US: no one is satisfied, most suffer from anxiety. But, anxiety increases the willingness to improve more. So, I guess, that’s a win from system’s perspective?
16 comments
[Source](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-15/america-s-era-of-bad-feelings-threatens-the-world)
From article – whether agreed or otherwise its an interesting perspective:
> There is no contesting the US’s abiding economic strength. In 1990, it accounted for 40% of the nominal GDP of the Group of Seven, a club of the world’s seven biggest advanced economies, including Japan and Germany. Today it accounts for 58%. The US has a higher GDP per capita than every country in the European Union except Luxembourg and Ireland, and the Irish figures are distorted by the shenanigans of tax-avoiding US multinationals. Georgia has a higher GDP per capita than Denmark.
> Admittedly, the comparison is less striking if you adjust for prices (“PPP-adjusted”) in each region rather than using market exchange rates: from 43% in 1990 to 51% now. PPP is a good measure of living standards. But if your goal is to measure geopolitical weight — what resources countries can command abroad and what clout they can wield on the global stage — then it is exchange rates set by markets that matter.
…
> The first is a pro-business culture. Different countries put a premium on different qualities — France on intellectual brilliance, Britain on gentlemanly style, Italy on la dolce vita. America loves business. Ambitious young people still dream of becoming tycoons. Successful tycoons continue to make money (and give it away) when their British equivalents would have retired to their country estates. Airport bookshops groan with books on how to grow rich and run companies.
…
> The second is that America is the land not just of the startup but of the scale-up. The “magnificent seven” companies driving the outperformance of the US stock market (Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) were all founded in the past half-century, most much more recently than that, and then achieved valuations of well over $100 billion. Europe can only boast one $100 billion-plus company that was founded in the same time period, Germany’s SAP.
That may be numeric true, but it sure doesn’t feel true.
Americans complain a lot more about declining wealth relative to previous generations than Europeans. And they struggle more – or at least seem to complain more – about education, upward mobility, health, housing, etc.
Seems like that plot isn’t capturing the whole story.
I seriously question the data on which this is based on, considering that the US started outpacing the EU only after 2010 according to this:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=EU-US
US responded better to the financial crisis and covid than the EU. But both are on continual downward trajectories for the foreseeable future.
I’d like to see how the US would have performed if the dollar wasn’t the reserve currency. Their inflation would certainly be higher.
This is not representative at all. The graph isn’t zeroed and it’s obviously using some non-standard definition of the EU, given the line for the EU isn’t discontinuous. The data is coming from the USDA as well.
It’s also a very questionable to represent this in US dollars, as it biases GDP towards the US. It should at least be INT$.
I don’t understand why the people in this group refuse to believe the US economy is stronger than the EU economy. There are many other data points other than this one that point to a similar trend.
The recession hit us pretty hard. We’re coming back tho don’t worry, the US has had stable economic growth and given what’s happening in Eastern Europe and China being less trusted internationally we’re in a position to capitalize on that.
A good example is in LNG where the US has become a significant supplier for Europe after Russia lost Europe’s confidence as a supplier. Then there’s Ukraine where pre-2014 US companies began investing in Ukraine and nearly had a partnership where American based companies would help to develop Ukraines barely exploited energy resources. It’s been thrown around that this is one of the motivations for Russia’s stacks on Ukraine as the regions they want (Crimea, Donbas, Luhansk) hold the majority of Ukraine’s natural gas reserves and a Ukraine that could exploit those resources could challenge Russia in that field especially in Europe. Not to mention deepen ties with the US as well which Russia can never stand for.
All that stopped dead when Russia took Crimea and Ukraine was deemed a bad investment because of the possibility of further problems with Russia. At any rate post-war with a Ukrainian victory that’s free to turn west and with reconstruction and economy as top priorities it’s likely the US has the capital and connection to invest in Ukraine in an even greater capacity.
That’s just what I found tho, who knows what the future holds.
But at least Europe have free healthcare!!!!!!!!!!!
Free, like people paying extremely high taxes on everything, compared to America, kind of free
Going down the toilet. And the EU even has more people than the US. Sad.
Isn’t this a good thing globally? It could mean wealth is more evenly spread in the world than it read before? Granted China has probably shifted this more than any other.
And this is a bad thing? Not an expert but it seems to me that having 10% of the world population be part of 60% of the economy, like in the 1970s, isn’t good for humanity. Making the poor richer is what the idea of good ol capitalism is all about anyway. The rise of China (mostly) and the rest of Asia/India and maybe some African countries, that is basically shown here, doesn’t sound as scary to me as it used to before I gave it some thought.
Why do we get reminded this daily? As a European we should integrate more and be more efficient to be able to stay relevant in the world.
Hmm the garden is getting smaller and smaller..
Does this take into account Brexit and the UK literally not being part of the EU anymore. Yeah, it was going downhill since 2000, but the line noticeably weakens around that vote.
My outside observation of EU from US is that EU folks do not want to work much compared to US folks. The price is mental health in US: no one is satisfied, most suffer from anxiety. But, anxiety increases the willingness to improve more. So, I guess, that’s a win from system’s perspective?