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You can simply ignore it, but you can't wish China and the progress they've made out of existence. There are also Europeans who feel uncomfortable with the US

You can simply ignore it, but you can't wish China and the progress they've made out of existence. There are also Europeans who feel uncomfortable with the US having 1.5* Europe's GDP with less than half the population. It's an extant truth and it'll become even more blatant as many Western countries struggle to do basic stuff like build out infrastructure.

vladms 1y ago
Generally true, although population ratio seem a bit off (EU population is 75% of USA population and USA GDP is 1.5 of GDP EU). But GDP is not the only thing that matters. I personally (as European) care also about how the average people lives and in that matter I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. Also, worth mentioning EU has a lot of countries that grew a lot because there were so far behind (the ex-communist ones) which means it was playing "catch-up". There are advantages to not having lately a war on your territory (USA)...
- riku_iki 1y ago
  > I personally (as European) care also about how the average people lives and in that matter I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. GDP is projection of economy strength. If economy is weak, country will lose on competitive markets, and your lifestyle will become worse in the future.
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    >GDP is projection of economy strength. If economy is weak, country will lose on competitive markets, and your lifestyle will become worse in the future. Europe has been ahead of US on quality of life scores for decades, and has had lower gdp numbers the entire time. The man who invented GDP argued vigorously that it's a synthetic economic metric, and it shouldn't be used as a goal or measure of well-being, yet we insist on it because it's one of the few measures where the US is handily winning.
    - chrisco255 1y ago
      Quality of life scores are completely subjective. There is no scientific way to measure it and it involves thousands of vectors that differ in importance for each individual. There's no way to objectively balance it. GDP, while imperfect, is at least rooted in a quantitative value.
      - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
        I disagree. There are objective measures for wellbeing... You've got health measures like life expectancy, infant / maternal mortality, disability adjusted life years, BMI, cortesol, blood pressure, suicide rates, etc. Economic ones like labor market participation, un[der]employment, poverty rates, gini coefficients. Societal ones like crime rates, trust levels, civic participation, environmental metric, public transit accessibility, international test scores, human rights, marriage and actual vs wanted fertility rates. The list goes on. There are countless measures, just few that economists genuinely value.
        riku_iki 1y ago
        I googled some numbers for human development index, as the most developed/popular/reliable, and have following findings: - there is strong correlation between index and EU countries GDP per capita: countries with high GDP are at the top, and countries with low GDP are at the bottom - US index is higher than combined EU index, some EU countries with high GDP top US
        wing-_-nuts 1y ago
        I mean HDI includes GDP / capita as one of it's primary measures, so yes, the US does well if you double count the one metric where it outperforms Europe...
        riku_iki 1y ago
        Per wikipedia, it has per capita income, but not GDP.
  - Hikikomori 1y ago
    GDP and stock market does not reflect quality of life very well.
  - arp242 1y ago
    GDP is an extremely imprecise inaccurate rough measure of economic strength. Every country is unique and has its own set of footnotes and caveats. Even within the same country there are often huge differences (e.g. North of England is not the same as London, and California is not the same as Mississippi).
    - riku_iki 1y ago
      Sure, GDP is not totally accurate (not sure about extremely though), you feel free to bring better metric and we will check it.
      - arp242 1y ago
        You can't capture a complex reality in a single number.
        riku_iki 1y ago
        you can capture approximation/estimation, which is much better than ignoring reality completely.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  USA pop: abt 350 million EU pop: abt 450 million > I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. It's quaint to think that but compounding interest is a doozy. If your competitors are growing at 4% a year and you're growing at 1% a year, they will triple their economy over 30 years while your economy sees a meak 30% boost. At some point you'll find your economy an entire century behind in development. And you'll no longer even have power or influence over the decisions made at the grown ups table.

vladms 1y ago

Generally true, although population ratio seem a bit off (EU population is 75% of USA population and USA GDP is 1.5 of GDP EU). But GDP is not the only thing that matters. I personally (as European) care also about how the average people lives and in that matter I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. Also, worth mentioning EU has a lot of countries that grew a lot because there were so far behind (the ex-communist ones) which means it was playing "catch-up". There are advantages to not having lately a war on your territory (USA)...

riku_iki 1y ago
> I personally (as European) care also about how the average people lives and in that matter I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. GDP is projection of economy strength. If economy is weak, country will lose on competitive markets, and your lifestyle will become worse in the future.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  >GDP is projection of economy strength. If economy is weak, country will lose on competitive markets, and your lifestyle will become worse in the future. Europe has been ahead of US on quality of life scores for decades, and has had lower gdp numbers the entire time. The man who invented GDP argued vigorously that it's a synthetic economic metric, and it shouldn't be used as a goal or measure of well-being, yet we insist on it because it's one of the few measures where the US is handily winning.
  - chrisco255 1y ago
    Quality of life scores are completely subjective. There is no scientific way to measure it and it involves thousands of vectors that differ in importance for each individual. There's no way to objectively balance it. GDP, while imperfect, is at least rooted in a quantitative value.
    - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      I disagree. There are objective measures for wellbeing... You've got health measures like life expectancy, infant / maternal mortality, disability adjusted life years, BMI, cortesol, blood pressure, suicide rates, etc. Economic ones like labor market participation, un[der]employment, poverty rates, gini coefficients. Societal ones like crime rates, trust levels, civic participation, environmental metric, public transit accessibility, international test scores, human rights, marriage and actual vs wanted fertility rates. The list goes on. There are countless measures, just few that economists genuinely value.
      - riku_iki 1y ago
        I googled some numbers for human development index, as the most developed/popular/reliable, and have following findings: - there is strong correlation between index and EU countries GDP per capita: countries with high GDP are at the top, and countries with low GDP are at the bottom - US index is higher than combined EU index, some EU countries with high GDP top US
        wing-_-nuts 1y ago
        I mean HDI includes GDP / capita as one of it's primary measures, so yes, the US does well if you double count the one metric where it outperforms Europe...
        riku_iki 1y ago
        Per wikipedia, it has per capita income, but not GDP.
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  GDP and stock market does not reflect quality of life very well.
- arp242 1y ago
  GDP is an extremely imprecise inaccurate rough measure of economic strength. Every country is unique and has its own set of footnotes and caveats. Even within the same country there are often huge differences (e.g. North of England is not the same as London, and California is not the same as Mississippi).
  - riku_iki 1y ago
    Sure, GDP is not totally accurate (not sure about extremely though), you feel free to bring better metric and we will check it.
    - arp242 1y ago
      You can't capture a complex reality in a single number.
      - riku_iki 1y ago
        you can capture approximation/estimation, which is much better than ignoring reality completely.
chrisco255 1y ago
USA pop: abt 350 million EU pop: abt 450 million > I prefer the European style if that implies some difference in GDP. It's quaint to think that but compounding interest is a doozy. If your competitors are growing at 4% a year and you're growing at 1% a year, they will triple their economy over 30 years while your economy sees a meak 30% boost. At some point you'll find your economy an entire century behind in development. And you'll no longer even have power or influence over the decisions made at the grown ups table.