3 ms·

> It just doesn't jive with the real world understanding most people have of their technology devices. Obviously the French are quite a lot poorer than the US,

• tims33 4y ago
  No, I definitely wasn't saying that. My point is that people are generally pretty oblivious of the vast majority of facts and features of their electronics devices.
  • InCityDreams 4y ago
    A lot less oblivious, now. In France.
• boudin 4y ago
  That's just not true
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    That the French are poorer? People in the US are about 50% richer when you account for purchasing power and things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
    • pseudojim 4y ago
      We're already way off topic, but it's 40%. And we're talking about two countries with significantly different tax rates and social contributions.
      • chrisseaton 4y ago
        > but it's 40% Eh? 42800 / 28571 = 1.498 > significantly different tax rates and social contributions Eh? "includes all forms of income as well as taxes and transfers in kind from governments for benefits such as healthcare and education"
        • Bud 4y ago
          You might want to actually read that Wikipedia page; those figures are very very heavily massaged in multiple ways, and not everyone would necessarily agree with how they are massaged. Suffice it to say, there's a large fudge factor here, much larger than the difference you are trying to point out.
          • chrisseaton 4y ago
            > those figures are very very heavily massaged in multiple ways One person complains they don't account for taxes and benefits, and another complains they do!
            • Bud 4y ago
              True. Fair enough. It's hard to figure out precisely what the right way to measure this is.
          • socialdemocrat 4y ago
            Yeah, I think when you start trying to cram that much stuff into a single number it will end up misrepresenting reality. People like the simplicity of single numbers for comparison, but it is about as sensible as describing a personality by a single number. I think I would rather show the median value for a variety of variables. Not everything makes sense to turn into dollars. How do you turn health care into dollars? What you pay for it is not a true reflection of the quality. US tends to look good when things are turned into dollars and a lot worse when real world metrics and outcomes are measured such as health, happiness, safety, stress, life expectancy, leisure time etc.
        • Rexxar 4y ago
          So 50% more in one direction, 33% less in the other. This is the eternal question of percentages misunderstandings between peoples. But this doesn't feel "quite a lot poorer" to me, just less rich that the number one.
          • deleted 4y ago
    • cdavid 4y ago
      Most of the difference is explained by the numbers of hours worked, since the GDP in purchase parity per hours worked is within 10 % between US and countries like France or Germany: see e.g. https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm. So those countries, implicitly or explicitly, made the choice so substitute income for more leisure. Whether that makes them richer/poorer depends on your perspective.
    • boudin 4y ago
      Nothing is that simple. If you look at poverty rate, there are more poor people in the united states. And if you look at purchasing power, some numbers will give you that the cost of a basket of good in comparison with income is exactly the same: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity and some numbers will differ. My point was that, people in France have a really similar lifestyle than in the US (removing the cultural differences) and saying that people are looking at things that can be fixed because they are poor is just not true.
      • chrisseaton 4y ago
        > And if you look at purchasing power But those numbers already account for purchasing power.
    • ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      You forgot about healthcare costs.
      • chrisseaton 4y ago
        No those are built into those numbers - did you read the page?
• Bud 4y ago
  The French actually are not "obviously" "quite a lot poorer", actually. Income is better distributed there and there are fewer criminal enterprises accumulating vast wealth. The median income in the US is barely higher than that of France. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
• Barrin92 4y ago
  >so values for things like repairability are going to be different every time someone refers to these gdp statistics I want to remind them that London and Paris (not the respective countries, the capitals!) are apparently poorer than Montana or South Dakota overall. I don't know who comes up with these numbers but if you've ever been in these places and think your average Parisian is in more need of repair and self-reliance than your average resident of Montana I'd be very surprised In fact the repair debate itself shows how silly this argument is, given that self-repair, involving no or little economic activity, renders you poorer by the accounting logic of our economic system.
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    Not GDP, income adjusted for purchasing power, taxes, and government benefits in kind.