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I always found these sort of observations to be meaningless. 1 million to 1.5 million is far less than 100 to 1000. What's also the point of comparing the entir

I always found these sort of observations to be meaningless. 1 million to 1.5 million is far less than 100 to 1000. What's also the point of comparing the entirety of America to Western Europe? Why not do it by state then? The author almost gets it with their comment: > As a result, commentators and think-tanks have set about comparing the economies of some of Europe’s richest countries to those of America’s poorest states In any case, all of the free stuff Europe (and any place, for that matter) gives their citizens will come to an end real soon once the population bomb explodes on the world.

jstummbillig 3y ago
> What's also the point of comparing the entirety of America to Western Europe? Why not do it by state then? The point is, that it's simpler. Is complicating worth it?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  I mean, it's cherry picking, but OK. Luckily, the chart in the article doesn't aggregate so loosely by "Western Europe" and breaks it down by country.
- rafaelmn 3y ago
  Then compare it to EU ... People ragging on US tend to forget that inequality between EU members is larger than US states and they are of comparable size. So much for the egalitarian utopia.
  - LeanderK 3y ago
    but some of the EU members were literally communist countries not so long ago
    - rafaelmn 3y ago
      >30 years and the disproportionality is pretty consistent.
      - ajuc 3y ago
        It's not. EE countries were under 30% of EU's PPP GDP per capita, and are over 60% now.
      - Bayart 3y ago
        It's really not, the gap has been shrinking.
    - dghughes 3y ago
      Plus the wars they had to name a few: Balkan, WWI, Spanish Civil War, WWII. Add to that a few dozen other smaller wars. Quite a mess and quite impressive to overcome in such a short time and not hate each other.
    - lesuorac 3y ago
      Sure and according to the news California still is.
LeanderK 3y ago
I can't access the text because it's behind a paywall, but at least in the visualisation you see at least europes countries. And it's a headline, it can't reduce the complexity without loosing something. > 1 million to 1.5 million is far less than 100 to 1000 this is very simplified and if there's a continuing trend then the first has an an abundance of money and the second just has a bit. I don't think the critique is fair at all. These are statistics over a population, of course it's meaningless at first for the individual but that's just because of the noise. In the long run there's an impact.
Mistletoe 3y ago
What population bomb are you talking about? The one where the world is graying too fast like Japan? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po...
- endisneigh 3y ago
  The bomb that is the inverse correlation between GDP and birth rates.
ajuc 3y ago
By population bomb do you mean population growth (which isn't happening) or population decrease (which is)?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  The latter. Though it's not really even about a decrease or increase. Even if the population stays the same, the share of young to old will change drastically and with the way the modern economy is structured - it's gonna be ugly.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    That is true, but it hits developing countries more. Compare USA, UK, France (which are past the demographic transition and are having pretty decent demographic structure) with China, Korea, Japan (which are at various stages of that transition and are around or sub 1.0 growth (2.1 is replacement level) and almost no immigration). China and Korea will have it much worse than any European country did (in EU the worst countries are around 1.3 and it's caused by in-EU migrations as well as demographic transition - so the missing .3 from Baltic countries or Poland is reproducing in UK, Ireland or Germany).
cassepipe 3y ago
> In any case, all of the free stuff Europe (and any place, for that matter) gives their citizens will come to an end real soon once the population bomb explodes on the world. Presenting it as "all the free stuff" is a bit ideological I believe, it's not free stuff, nothing is free, it's indirect/socialized wage, and if you participate in the economy you are paying for it albeit indirectly. A population bomb would affect the whole economy, it doesn't matter whether what's lost is social perks or a wage loss i.e. weath redistribution. And it may be just as well that the safety net will remain the same while the wages take a hit instead. It really depends on politics, what is the easiest thing to remove/the more palatable to populations (who do vote).
hyperpape 3y ago
> Why not do it by state then? While state level differences are real, the entire US shares federal taxation and federal labor law, and has freedom of movement, constitutionally limited barriers to internal trade. It’s a very natural unit of analysis.

jstummbillig 3y ago

> What's also the point of comparing the entirety of America to Western Europe? Why not do it by state then? The point is, that it's simpler. Is complicating worth it?

endisneigh 3y ago
I mean, it's cherry picking, but OK. Luckily, the chart in the article doesn't aggregate so loosely by "Western Europe" and breaks it down by country.
rafaelmn 3y ago
Then compare it to EU ... People ragging on US tend to forget that inequality between EU members is larger than US states and they are of comparable size. So much for the egalitarian utopia.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  but some of the EU members were literally communist countries not so long ago
  - rafaelmn 3y ago
    >30 years and the disproportionality is pretty consistent.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      It's not. EE countries were under 30% of EU's PPP GDP per capita, and are over 60% now.
    - Bayart 3y ago
      It's really not, the gap has been shrinking.
  - dghughes 3y ago
    Plus the wars they had to name a few: Balkan, WWI, Spanish Civil War, WWII. Add to that a few dozen other smaller wars. Quite a mess and quite impressive to overcome in such a short time and not hate each other.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    Sure and according to the news California still is.

LeanderK 3y ago

I can't access the text because it's behind a paywall, but at least in the visualisation you see at least europes countries. And it's a headline, it can't reduce the complexity without loosing something. > 1 million to 1.5 million is far less than 100 to 1000 this is very simplified and if there's a continuing trend then the first has an an abundance of money and the second just has a bit. I don't think the critique is fair at all. These are statistics over a population, of course it's meaningless at first for the individual but that's just because of the noise. In the long run there's an impact.

Mistletoe 3y ago

What population bomb are you talking about? The one where the world is graying too fast like Japan? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po...

endisneigh 3y ago
The bomb that is the inverse correlation between GDP and birth rates.

ajuc 3y ago

By population bomb do you mean population growth (which isn't happening) or population decrease (which is)?

endisneigh 3y ago
The latter. Though it's not really even about a decrease or increase. Even if the population stays the same, the share of young to old will change drastically and with the way the modern economy is structured - it's gonna be ugly.
- ajuc 3y ago
  That is true, but it hits developing countries more. Compare USA, UK, France (which are past the demographic transition and are having pretty decent demographic structure) with China, Korea, Japan (which are at various stages of that transition and are around or sub 1.0 growth (2.1 is replacement level) and almost no immigration). China and Korea will have it much worse than any European country did (in EU the worst countries are around 1.3 and it's caused by in-EU migrations as well as demographic transition - so the missing .3 from Baltic countries or Poland is reproducing in UK, Ireland or Germany).

cassepipe 3y ago

> In any case, all of the free stuff Europe (and any place, for that matter) gives their citizens will come to an end real soon once the population bomb explodes on the world. Presenting it as "all the free stuff" is a bit ideological I believe, it's not free stuff, nothing is free, it's indirect/socialized wage, and if you participate in the economy you are paying for it albeit indirectly. A population bomb would affect the whole economy, it doesn't matter whether what's lost is social perks or a wage loss i.e. weath redistribution. And it may be just as well that the safety net will remain the same while the wages take a hit instead. It really depends on politics, what is the easiest thing to remove/the more palatable to populations (who do vote).

hyperpape 3y ago

> Why not do it by state then? While state level differences are real, the entire US shares federal taxation and federal labor law, and has freedom of movement, constitutionally limited barriers to internal trade. It’s a very natural unit of analysis.