5 ms·

> Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France. Damn...how does a country get so rich?

35208654 4y ago
Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason. Also, navigable waterways. Transporting goods by water costs 1/100th what it costs to transport over land. After the US established a corp of engineers to dredge our waterways to make them passable, the ability to transport goods increased substantially, making internal trade extremely cheap.
- crop_rotation 4y ago
  > Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason. This is not the reason. Post WW II Europe was able to rebuild and for a long time they had some of the biggest companies and for a long time EU as a whole was a bigger economy than the US. It's only in the last 2 decades where the US is significantly outpacing the EU. And there are no signs of slow down. WW II can not be the reason EU has few big tech companies. (relatively compared to the US, few exceptions always exist)
  - fkcgnad 4y ago
    I think it's just luck. In terms of big tech most of the US is like Europe. It's only silicon valley that has this type of innovation. But the innovation has been around a singular avenue of software. It is a mistake to think that software is the most important driver of economic growth.
  - smnrchrds 4y ago
    > for a long time EU as a whole was a bigger economy than the US. It's only in the last 2 decades where the US is significantly outpacing the EU. Interesting. I couldn't find a good graph showing this. Do you by any chance have a graph or a source?
    - revelio 4y ago
      I don't know when it was larger. However in the 1960s it was of equal size. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-domestic-product?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&country=USA~European+Union~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-domestic-product?ta... Starting in the 1980s US GDP inflected and EU did not. The gap appeared then and has got wider ever since. What happened in the 80s? Probably tech?
  - 35208654 4y ago
    They were able to rebuild… because the US funded it. The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. That’s about $187B in 2022 dollars. In addition to technology and trade. … followed shortly after Breton Woods, which secured trade for the rest of the world in exchange for not joining up with the Soviets.
- Paul-Craft 4y ago
  > navigable waterways. Not for much longer. But, hey, we created a lot of shareholder value along the way, right? https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-due-drought-climate/story?id=91737496 https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-...
pcrh 4y ago
Anyone who has spent time in both places will recognize this comparison as self-evidently flawed, probably for reasons underlying the statistical methods used. A comparison of the human development index between US States and European countries produces a result more in line with the lived reality: https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png
- areyousure 4y ago
  In case anyone is curious, as of 2021, 40 of the 50 US states have a higher Human development index than France. (France was chosen because as the OP and GP note, all 50 states have a higher average income than France.)
  - pcrh 4y ago
    It's intriguing. GDP per capita comparisons between the US and Europe would suggest that almost all of Europe should have a lower standard of living than the US. However, this is not the experience of people who have lived in both places, principally because one needs a greater income in the US for the same standard of living compared to most of Europe. Perhaps this reflects over-valuation of the US dollar? As to the Human Development Index, 2021 data places 13 European countries above the US as a whole [0]. This would be more in line with the experience of people living there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
    - jandrewrogers 4y ago
      I think you may be conflating “standard of living” with “quality of life”, they are not the same thing. While I think quality of life is typically better in Europe by many metrics, there is no doubt that the standard of living in the US is commonly higher. They are not as tightly correlated as I think people assume. EDIT: As an example, I split my time between Seattle and London. Cost of living is quite similar, but the median household income in Seattle is almost 3x London. That creates a large and very visible standard-of-living gap.
pxue 4y ago
Debt. So much debt.
- Quarrel 4y ago
  Another way to say this is foreign investment. So much foreign investment. China (and other big surplus countries) put a lot of money in to keeping the cost of things in the US low, due to their own mercantilist policies, directly at the expense of their own household sector.
  - pxue 4y ago
    I mean sure, one way is keeping yuan cheap against the usd. But the real issue is still the commoditization of debt.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

35208654 4y ago

Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason. Also, navigable waterways. Transporting goods by water costs 1/100th what it costs to transport over land. After the US established a corp of engineers to dredge our waterways to make them passable, the ability to transport goods increased substantially, making internal trade extremely cheap.

crop_rotation 4y ago
> Well, being the only country left with any manufacturing after a catastrophic world war is one major reason. This is not the reason. Post WW II Europe was able to rebuild and for a long time they had some of the biggest companies and for a long time EU as a whole was a bigger economy than the US. It's only in the last 2 decades where the US is significantly outpacing the EU. And there are no signs of slow down. WW II can not be the reason EU has few big tech companies. (relatively compared to the US, few exceptions always exist)
- fkcgnad 4y ago
  I think it's just luck. In terms of big tech most of the US is like Europe. It's only silicon valley that has this type of innovation. But the innovation has been around a singular avenue of software. It is a mistake to think that software is the most important driver of economic growth.
- smnrchrds 4y ago
  > for a long time EU as a whole was a bigger economy than the US. It's only in the last 2 decades where the US is significantly outpacing the EU. Interesting. I couldn't find a good graph showing this. Do you by any chance have a graph or a source?
  - revelio 4y ago
    I don't know when it was larger. However in the 1960s it was of equal size. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-domestic-product?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&country=USA~European+Union~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-domestic-product?ta... Starting in the 1980s US GDP inflected and EU did not. The gap appeared then and has got wider ever since. What happened in the 80s? Probably tech?
- 35208654 4y ago
  They were able to rebuild… because the US funded it. The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. That’s about $187B in 2022 dollars. In addition to technology and trade. … followed shortly after Breton Woods, which secured trade for the rest of the world in exchange for not joining up with the Soviets.
Paul-Craft 4y ago
> navigable waterways. Not for much longer. But, hey, we created a lot of shareholder value along the way, right? https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-due-drought-climate/story?id=91737496 https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-water-north-america-drying-...

pcrh 4y ago

Anyone who has spent time in both places will recognize this comparison as self-evidently flawed, probably for reasons underlying the statistical methods used. A comparison of the human development index between US States and European countries produces a result more in line with the lived reality: https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png https://i.imgur.com/jcHhVk4.png

areyousure 4y ago
In case anyone is curious, as of 2021, 40 of the 50 US states have a higher Human development index than France. (France was chosen because as the OP and GP note, all 50 states have a higher average income than France.)
- pcrh 4y ago
  It's intriguing. GDP per capita comparisons between the US and Europe would suggest that almost all of Europe should have a lower standard of living than the US. However, this is not the experience of people who have lived in both places, principally because one needs a greater income in the US for the same standard of living compared to most of Europe. Perhaps this reflects over-valuation of the US dollar? As to the Human Development Index, 2021 data places 13 European countries above the US as a whole [0]. This would be more in line with the experience of people living there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
  - jandrewrogers 4y ago
    I think you may be conflating “standard of living” with “quality of life”, they are not the same thing. While I think quality of life is typically better in Europe by many metrics, there is no doubt that the standard of living in the US is commonly higher. They are not as tightly correlated as I think people assume. EDIT: As an example, I split my time between Seattle and London. Cost of living is quite similar, but the median household income in Seattle is almost 3x London. That creates a large and very visible standard-of-living gap.

pxue 4y ago

Debt. So much debt.

Quarrel 4y ago
Another way to say this is foreign investment. So much foreign investment. China (and other big surplus countries) put a lot of money in to keeping the cost of things in the US low, due to their own mercantilist policies, directly at the expense of their own household sector.
- pxue 4y ago
  I mean sure, one way is keeping yuan cheap against the usd. But the real issue is still the commoditization of debt.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]