4 ms·
The US has 3 unsurmountable advantages over everyone. 1. Natural resources 2. The American dream of entrepreneurship and immigrant success. 3. The work-is-sa
by screye 3y ago
The US has 3 unsurmountable advantages over everyone.
1. Natural resources
2. The American dream of entrepreneurship and immigrant success.
3. The work-is-sacred American professional-managerial class.
Stable countries decay due to 3 things. First, import pressure can ruin a nation as all its productivity gets extorted out of it by a pseudo-colonial exporter. Natural resources solve this. Second, general lethargy causes productivity to die. But the secularozed protestant work ethic keeps the gears running. Lastly, productive nations can still lose if they miss technological revolution, which can often happen overnight. But the American dream ensures that no one tries to disrupt like Americans, and the most disruptive foreigners are drawn in such that their aha-moment still occurs here.
It's honestly, perfect.
But, don't let that distract you from freeloaders who ride this wave of American productivity. The housing industry, cartelized middle men, lobbyists & bloated executives might still be net negative.
The US isn't just productive. It is productive beyond the wildest imagination of the rest of world. But, that tends to not show up in the numbers or in practice, because a just as large industry of grifters keeps it from cashing it its productivity.
The US wins, not by being more efficient or effective. But by sheer brute force.
- MattGaiser 3y ago> But, that tends to not show up in the numbers or in practice Oh yes it does. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/13/from-strength-to-strength https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/13/from-strength-... People just ignore the numbers.
- sbt 3y ago> The US isn't just productive. It is productive beyond the wildest imagination of the rest of world. Productivity has a specific meaning in economics, i.e. labor productivity (GDP per hours worked). What I think you are referring to here is output, i.e. GDP. You can learn more about this here and see the latest country data: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
- relaxing 3y agoSo the most productive workers in the world are.. those in Ireland? I’d love to read a deep dive on how those numbers came to be.
- bobthepanda 3y agoIreland GDP is notoriously difficult because a lot of companies incorporate and book their EU profits in Ireland for tax purposes. https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinationals-misleading/ https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinati...
- TulliusCicero 3y agoThat chart shows relative change since 2015, not current absolute productivity.
- refurb 3y agoTax evasion. Google creates Google Ireland to hold their IP, then Google Ireland "charges" Google Germany. The problem is, that GDP doesn't stay in Ireland. It flows to the US.
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoThe US does have one of the highest productivities in the world, especially once you discount tax haven countries.
- margalabargala 3y agoThat's tricky. GDP isn't the same thing as productivity, especially in the case of somewhere like Ireland where a lot of that GDP is produced by zero workers, it passively happens by virtue of companies routing their profits through there for tax reasons. I think the stat to look at here would be median GDP per hour worked, on a per-capita basis. Calculating the median is of course difficult, but it would account for large, person-less streams of money that passively flow through without actually being "productive" in the "creating something new" sense.
- carabiner 3y agoOur healthcare system is broken and no one can afford a house.
- 93po 3y agoEducation is also burdening 21 year olds with sometimes six figures of debt, and wages are wildly suppressed
- therealdrag0 3y agoHow are wages suppressed?
- ImJamal 3y agoAlmost everybody on HN who have been working for a few years can afford a house. You just might not be able to live in SF. Go move to Kansas and you too could afford a house.
- bequanna 3y agoThis can easily be fixed by changing policy with allows for the building more homes. The demand is there we're just not able to meet it A big part of this is more lower skill workers in construction. Controlled immigration would be a great start.
- TulliusCicero 3y agoOr making it easier to do multifamily housing that's partially/mostly prefab. Every once in a while you hear about this, apartments where you build it mostly off-site in a factory and then assemble the blocks on-site, supposed to be somewhat cheaper and much faster (for the last stage anyway), but for some reason it seems to stay experimental.
- bequanna 3y agoI've looked into this, actually. I was trying to develop some lots that were zoned multifamily and wanted to build some duplexes/triplexes. The quality tends to be lower, the floorplans are very limited, and there isn't much of a price advantage vs building on site.
- dehrmann 3y ago4. A (mostly) good border situation
- paulddraper 3y agoLol what counts as good
- screye 3y agoYep. The best geopolitical starting position in history. Classic video by a legend we lost far too early- https://youtu.be/ILn85WKo0Qk?si=83X9ptWPH2ZpHsp3 https://youtu.be/ILn85WKo0Qk?si=83X9ptWPH2ZpHsp3
- Solstinox 3y agoYou forgot two rather substantial oceans on each side and no comparable powers on its borders. Yes yes, airplanes, missiles, etc. but the impact of this physical distance cannot be overstated.
- therealdrag0 3y agoThat applies to Canada and Mexico and Argentina and Australia too though right?