5 ms·

That's an excellent summary of the economic state of the world. This excerpt is depressing... The challenge for other advanced economies is not just replicat

That's an excellent summary of the economic state of the world. This excerpt is depressing... The challenge for other advanced economies is not just replicating America’s dynamism. It is to do so while retaining their cherished social safeguards. For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7, coupled with the lowest life expectancy and the highest housing costs, according to the OECD. Market competition is limited and millions of workers endure unstable employment conditions. The pessimistic take is that American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world, while other nations abandon consumer- and labor-friendly policies.

WalterBright 2y ago
> endure unstable employment conditions It's also correspondingly easier to get another job. In Europe, making it hard to fire people means it becomes equivalently harder to get a job in the first place.
- dachworker 2y ago
  Yep, and crucially, getting a first job from which you can build a career is relatively (to the US) hard in places like Germany because companies are super risk averse.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  While it sounds great to add some zero-sum game to it, it is not entirely precise. > For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7. Had the job market been a zero-sum game like you propose, then the income inequality would not have been so dire in the US.
  - nickpp 2y ago
    But said income would've been much lower - like in Europe. Europe "solved" inequality by effectively limiting the upper range. Meanwhile the lower tier is just as low (or lower) than in the US. People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania.
    - tossandthrow 2y ago
      > People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania. Reducing this to employment mobility displays a lack of knowledge of history.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Why is it "dire"? Who is harmed by someone else having more money? BTW, all attempts at income equality have ended in miserable failure, some of them with millions of dead people.
    - tossandthrow 2y ago
      Please dive into the literature on inequality. You will discover that inequality in itself is problematic.
      - Aloisius 2y ago
        Having read literature on it, I still struggle to understand how most of the problems attributed to income inequality aren't really problems of poverty.
        tossandthrow 2y ago
        An example is that inequality usually materializes in higher asset prices: people with proportionately more money tends to buy assets, driving up the price. Now, the less well of people cannot afford housing anymore and are priced out. Ingerently this not because housing is expensive, but solely because of income inequality. You can insist it is because of poverty. But making both groups 10 times as well off would make no difference. The less we'll off people would still struggle to access housing. You can also say that poverty is a total consequence of income inequality. Now come and tell me again how inequality makes the world a better place. Edit: I take, as you have read the literature, that you perfectly know that the same is the case of capital and produce from that capital in general. And so you are perfectly enlightened now to understand that poverty is inequality.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
> American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk Another POV is that the services and software that does the design, marketing, logistics, testing, certification and etc of the plastic junk is more valuable than the plastic junk, and all that stuff is made in the US. It’s still labor, sometimes it’s even bespoke one off software labor which might as well be manufacturing, the thing that it is not is factories. I don’t know why factories above all else are glorified. There is lots of labor in services.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  What I was driving at there is that we have seen a general shift (probably due to market consolidation, monopolisation, etc) away from quality and customer satisfaction. The plastic goods are just one tangible artefact.
ossobuco 2y ago
> cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world That's a thing of the past. Check the consumer electronics produced today in China. Mobile devices, EVs, infrastructure, newer products are simply incredible, and I'd argue ahead of western technology on many fronts. Cheap plastic stuff now gets produced in other less developed countries.
- threetonesun 2y ago
  A quick skim of Amazon for literally any product would prove this comment entirely wrong. Do they produce quality goods now? Sure. But it's also still where most of your just barely above garbage quality goods come from.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
    Because that's what buyers want - cheap garbage.
- 7thpower 2y ago
  This is a fact that most in the US refuse to confront. China has mastered making high quality goods at scale. It does not matter how they got there, the fact is they did, and there are some pretty staggering military implications that are not really being discussed.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    If you look at most of the “Europoor! Americans have so much more money!” articles, you’ll notice two things coming out of them — most understate the importance of quality of life and avoiding rapid Chinese growth of the past decade despite its own problems. It’s like a weird “no, no, ignore everything around you, we are literally the best despite everything!”. I genuinely don’t know how I feel about this. I love parts of America. Half of my family lives there. But also, I have no inclination to move. Although I could make about 30% more, I have no idea how it would improve my life other than just more money in the bank. Unless I wanted to start a company, then yeah, probably bigger market and lax laws is advantageous… but other than that, it would be a huge downgrade from life perspective.

WalterBright 2y ago

> endure unstable employment conditions It's also correspondingly easier to get another job. In Europe, making it hard to fire people means it becomes equivalently harder to get a job in the first place.

dachworker 2y ago
Yep, and crucially, getting a first job from which you can build a career is relatively (to the US) hard in places like Germany because companies are super risk averse.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tossandthrow 2y ago
While it sounds great to add some zero-sum game to it, it is not entirely precise. > For all its economic power, the US has the largest income inequality in the G7. Had the job market been a zero-sum game like you propose, then the income inequality would not have been so dire in the US.
- nickpp 2y ago
  But said income would've been much lower - like in Europe. Europe "solved" inequality by effectively limiting the upper range. Meanwhile the lower tier is just as low (or lower) than in the US. People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania.
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    > People would still rather emigrate to the poorest state of the USA than Bulgaria or Romania. Reducing this to employment mobility displays a lack of knowledge of history.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Why is it "dire"? Who is harmed by someone else having more money? BTW, all attempts at income equality have ended in miserable failure, some of them with millions of dead people.
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    Please dive into the literature on inequality. You will discover that inequality in itself is problematic.
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      Having read literature on it, I still struggle to understand how most of the problems attributed to income inequality aren't really problems of poverty.
      - tossandthrow 2y ago
        An example is that inequality usually materializes in higher asset prices: people with proportionately more money tends to buy assets, driving up the price. Now, the less well of people cannot afford housing anymore and are priced out. Ingerently this not because housing is expensive, but solely because of income inequality. You can insist it is because of poverty. But making both groups 10 times as well off would make no difference. The less we'll off people would still struggle to access housing. You can also say that poverty is a total consequence of income inequality. Now come and tell me again how inequality makes the world a better place. Edit: I take, as you have read the literature, that you perfectly know that the same is the case of capital and produce from that capital in general. And so you are perfectly enlightened now to understand that poverty is inequality.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

> American FA*NG 'enshittification' and cheap Chinese plastic junk Another POV is that the services and software that does the design, marketing, logistics, testing, certification and etc of the plastic junk is more valuable than the plastic junk, and all that stuff is made in the US. It’s still labor, sometimes it’s even bespoke one off software labor which might as well be manufacturing, the thing that it is not is factories. I don’t know why factories above all else are glorified. There is lots of labor in services.

thomassmith65 2y ago
What I was driving at there is that we have seen a general shift (probably due to market consolidation, monopolisation, etc) away from quality and customer satisfaction. The plastic goods are just one tangible artefact.

ossobuco 2y ago

> cheap Chinese plastic junk will continue to eat the world That's a thing of the past. Check the consumer electronics produced today in China. Mobile devices, EVs, infrastructure, newer products are simply incredible, and I'd argue ahead of western technology on many fronts. Cheap plastic stuff now gets produced in other less developed countries.

threetonesun 2y ago
A quick skim of Amazon for literally any product would prove this comment entirely wrong. Do they produce quality goods now? Sure. But it's also still where most of your just barely above garbage quality goods come from.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
  Because that's what buyers want - cheap garbage.
7thpower 2y ago
This is a fact that most in the US refuse to confront. China has mastered making high quality goods at scale. It does not matter how they got there, the fact is they did, and there are some pretty staggering military implications that are not really being discussed.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  If you look at most of the “Europoor! Americans have so much more money!” articles, you’ll notice two things coming out of them — most understate the importance of quality of life and avoiding rapid Chinese growth of the past decade despite its own problems. It’s like a weird “no, no, ignore everything around you, we are literally the best despite everything!”. I genuinely don’t know how I feel about this. I love parts of America. Half of my family lives there. But also, I have no inclination to move. Although I could make about 30% more, I have no idea how it would improve my life other than just more money in the bank. Unless I wanted to start a company, then yeah, probably bigger market and lax laws is advantageous… but other than that, it would be a huge downgrade from life perspective.