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>I think we're quite close. USA: 5% unemployment, GDP per capita of $55,000, 78.74 years life expectancy, Human Development Index: 8, etc. EU: 9% unemployment

>I think we're quite close. USA: 5% unemployment, GDP per capita of $55,000, 78.74 years life expectancy, Human Development Index: 8, etc. EU: 9% unemployment, GDP per capita $38,000, 78.82 years life expectancy, Human Development Index: 6 average, etc. Yeah, we're not "close." Meanwhile countries like the BRIC nations, especially authoritarian autocracies like China or Russia, with terrible inequality and 100x the problems the West has strangely get a free pass from these discussions. HN your bias is showing.

zepto 11y ago
I said it isn't going to be linear. {seriously - downvotes? This is HN - surely people can conceptualize non-linear processes such as dams being punctured by small holes that lead to a collapse, or the rapid collapse of an animal population when a new predator is introduced, or the disruption of incumbents when a new technology is introduced e.g. Nokia with the iPhone}
astazangasta 11y ago
This wealth is based on social cohesion, which can fall apart in a generation or two. Genghis conquered half of Asia and built an empire of great wealth and high culture, but lack of cohesion tore it apart not long after.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  >Genghis conquered half of Asia Are we really comparing this to a country that's nearly 240 years old and is a global superpower that has weathered everything from civil war, a major depression, defeating communism, a moon landing, inventing the internet and all the technologies you're using right now, the largest economy by GDP, the most powerful military in history, etc? This is like saying the The Who or The Stones should have broken up by 1970 because the Dave Clark Five did. I think youre purposely selling short the USA and citing election hysteria that happens every four years is far from convincing. If anything this kind of discourse is healthy and good in a democracy.
  - zepto 11y ago
    Yes - why not? Are you saying that civil war and defeating communism means that the US is immune to internal problems? There are many previous examples of societies that survived a civil war and defeated similar sized opponents, but later collapsed. Why not this one?
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    What's a better comparison? Tsarist Russia? The Ottoman Empire? Rome? What goes up must come down. Sometimes it is fast, sometimes slow.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    I'm not sure about defeating communism. I'd say communism was destined to defeat itself from its inception, and it did.
  - vixen99 11y ago
    - and heavily in debt to the rest of the world.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  I think there is a better (though still rather disanalogous) comparison between the US with the decline of the Roman Republic into the Principate. Some of the same arguments apply to the EU. In both cases a large (and roughly similar) number of people with different cultural splits (Red & Blue/North & South European) are increasingly feeling like their governmental structures are failing to represent them. Perhaps X00 million people is simply too many for our existing legislative structures to accommodate at this point in history.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    > Perhaps X00 million people is simply too many for our existing legislative structures to accommodate at this point in history. It's interesting. The US, and I assume the EU, has a mechanism for solving this. Simply devolve authority from the federal level to the state level. The states can, theoretically, better tailor solutions to their individual populace than the federal level can to the entire country. However, things only seem to ever go the other direction. Maybe I just don't see the things that are devolved? Or does it genuinely just not really happen? I suppose one could make an argument that marijuana legalization is an example of states taking back power from the federal government. They pass the laws regardless of the fact that it is still federally illegal and nothing is technically stopping the DEA from busting every single seller in, say, Denver for distribution.
jdmichal 11y ago
Except that's the "official" unemployment number. Here's how it's calculated, cribbed directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0]: * People with jobs are employed. * People who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work are unemployed. * The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. * People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. Think about those points very carefully. They mean that: * People who would like a job but have given up actively looking for one are not counted. * People who have a job but would take more work if available -- the underemployed -- are not counted. [0]: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  This is the way unemployment is calculated all over the world, so it does not affect the parent's point, which is comparative.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    Country A has 5% "official" unemployment. But 20% of the population has simply given up seeking employment, lives at home with their parents, and plays video games all day. Another 30% of the population is employed part-time and barely covers their bills, even though they would like full-time work. Country B has 5% "official" unemployment. Everyone who would like to work is either employed or seeking employment. And everyone who is employed is employed to their desired level. You argue that A and B are equatable for the purposes of this discussion, because the 5% "official" unemployment is calculated the same way. I argue that they are not, because things excluded from that calculation have a very real impact on the economic stability of the population.
    - snowwrestler 11y ago
      The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure. But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothetical. And anyway, unemployment has been measured the same way for decades. If the question is whether we stand on a societal precipice right now, then criticizing how unemployment is measured is not relevant. Of course it has shortcomings. But it has had the same shortcomings for a long time, so the shortcomings themselves are not proof that we stand on a precipice now.
ogrisel 11y ago
5% unemployment does not mean that the majority is happy with their employment(s) or not stressed by it. GDP per capita is an average and does not reflect how the wealth is distributed.
ThomPete 11y ago
The 5% is meaningless since it's based on how the government define it. Being unemployed means actively looking for a job. So there is a waste amount of people who are not in that statistics. Also a lot of the jobs people have don't pay for their basic expenses.

zepto 11y ago

I said it isn't going to be linear. {seriously - downvotes? This is HN - surely people can conceptualize non-linear processes such as dams being punctured by small holes that lead to a collapse, or the rapid collapse of an animal population when a new predator is introduced, or the disruption of incumbents when a new technology is introduced e.g. Nokia with the iPhone}

astazangasta 11y ago

This wealth is based on social cohesion, which can fall apart in a generation or two. Genghis conquered half of Asia and built an empire of great wealth and high culture, but lack of cohesion tore it apart not long after.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>Genghis conquered half of Asia Are we really comparing this to a country that's nearly 240 years old and is a global superpower that has weathered everything from civil war, a major depression, defeating communism, a moon landing, inventing the internet and all the technologies you're using right now, the largest economy by GDP, the most powerful military in history, etc? This is like saying the The Who or The Stones should have broken up by 1970 because the Dave Clark Five did. I think youre purposely selling short the USA and citing election hysteria that happens every four years is far from convincing. If anything this kind of discourse is healthy and good in a democracy.
- zepto 11y ago
  Yes - why not? Are you saying that civil war and defeating communism means that the US is immune to internal problems? There are many previous examples of societies that survived a civil war and defeated similar sized opponents, but later collapsed. Why not this one?
- astazangasta 11y ago
  What's a better comparison? Tsarist Russia? The Ottoman Empire? Rome? What goes up must come down. Sometimes it is fast, sometimes slow.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  I'm not sure about defeating communism. I'd say communism was destined to defeat itself from its inception, and it did.
- vixen99 11y ago
  - and heavily in debt to the rest of the world.
cmdkeen 11y ago
I think there is a better (though still rather disanalogous) comparison between the US with the decline of the Roman Republic into the Principate. Some of the same arguments apply to the EU. In both cases a large (and roughly similar) number of people with different cultural splits (Red & Blue/North & South European) are increasingly feeling like their governmental structures are failing to represent them. Perhaps X00 million people is simply too many for our existing legislative structures to accommodate at this point in history.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > Perhaps X00 million people is simply too many for our existing legislative structures to accommodate at this point in history. It's interesting. The US, and I assume the EU, has a mechanism for solving this. Simply devolve authority from the federal level to the state level. The states can, theoretically, better tailor solutions to their individual populace than the federal level can to the entire country. However, things only seem to ever go the other direction. Maybe I just don't see the things that are devolved? Or does it genuinely just not really happen? I suppose one could make an argument that marijuana legalization is an example of states taking back power from the federal government. They pass the laws regardless of the fact that it is still federally illegal and nothing is technically stopping the DEA from busting every single seller in, say, Denver for distribution.

jdmichal 11y ago

Except that's the "official" unemployment number. Here's how it's calculated, cribbed directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0]: * People with jobs are employed. * People who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work are unemployed. * The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. * People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. Think about those points very carefully. They mean that: * People who would like a job but have given up actively looking for one are not counted. * People who have a job but would take more work if available -- the underemployed -- are not counted. [0]: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts

snowwrestler 11y ago
This is the way unemployment is calculated all over the world, so it does not affect the parent's point, which is comparative.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  Country A has 5% "official" unemployment. But 20% of the population has simply given up seeking employment, lives at home with their parents, and plays video games all day. Another 30% of the population is employed part-time and barely covers their bills, even though they would like full-time work. Country B has 5% "official" unemployment. Everyone who would like to work is either employed or seeking employment. And everyone who is employed is employed to their desired level. You argue that A and B are equatable for the purposes of this discussion, because the 5% "official" unemployment is calculated the same way. I argue that they are not, because things excluded from that calculation have a very real impact on the economic stability of the population.
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure. But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothetical. And anyway, unemployment has been measured the same way for decades. If the question is whether we stand on a societal precipice right now, then criticizing how unemployment is measured is not relevant. Of course it has shortcomings. But it has had the same shortcomings for a long time, so the shortcomings themselves are not proof that we stand on a precipice now.

ogrisel 11y ago

5% unemployment does not mean that the majority is happy with their employment(s) or not stressed by it. GDP per capita is an average and does not reflect how the wealth is distributed.

ThomPete 11y ago

The 5% is meaningless since it's based on how the government define it. Being unemployed means actively looking for a job. So there is a waste amount of people who are not in that statistics. Also a lot of the jobs people have don't pay for their basic expenses.