4 ms·
Each of those places (besides Delaware, kinda) has economies larger than a large chunk of the EU.
by lazide 9mo ago
Each of those places (besides Delaware, kinda) has economies larger than a large chunk of the EU.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoYeah, we've realized that, that's why we keep iterating on the union :)
- lazide 9mo agoMy point is rather than almost anything can be made smooth if you have enough $$ pointed at making it so. One of the biggest issues with small economies is that they don’t have the capital spent to make it easy to do things yet; which is friction that helps keep them small.
- yencabulator 9mo agoThis is so ridiculously contrary to a Northern European existence that it's just funny. US is ridiculously more bureaucratic with lots of back office papers shuffled around by humans. US tax filing is hard to even describe to someone who never lived there. Official procedures can be made smooth by valuing them being smooth.
- lazide 9mo agoYou just pay. All the problems are known and have workarounds, it just involves money. That’s my point. It doesn’t have to be nice or clean or smooth, if there is a known solution which someone can just throw money at, at scale. The harder problem with these smaller countries and economies, is people haven’t figured out how to do that yet. So you end up having to track down x or y random lawyer, then hope they don’t screw you, etc.
- yencabulator 9mo agoThat's a very American approach. Just enable a grift economy existing purely because the original thing was bad. The Nordic approach is to make the original thing better. The end result is less wasteful.
- lazide 9mo agoAlso smaller. The ‘waste’ also counts towards GDP, as long as the money keeps moving. Lots of people have built homes and families off it. What really slows an economy down is when money stops moving.
- yencabulator 9mo agoThat's an argument for U.S. healthcare insurance industry being a good thing. Uhh.. no?
- lazide 9mo agoIt certainly pads a lot of people’s wallets! Like anything, it’s about what trade offs, when, by whom, etc.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago> The ‘waste’ also counts towards GDP, as long as the money keeps moving. Honestly, that explains a lot. Vastly different perspective from what I'm used to, but useful insight into the US.
- lazide 9mo agoYup. It can be pretty brutal living it too. But most places are, frankly, in their own ways. Still way easier than India, for example, where the answer is often either the same or ‘try to scam your way around the problem’ if you can’t.
- tick_tock_tick 9mo agoHas it been effective though? The EU used to have a bigger GDP than the USA in 2008 now the USA is over 50% larger. Member nations are still dragging their feet on doing much of anything in the Draghi report and it's unclear if that will ever change.
- bootsmann 9mo agoThis is a commonly cited stat but it is mostly an exchange rate phenomenon that disappears when you adjust for purchase power. If you go by comparing GDP in dollars the EU recovered almost half this gap last year simply from the dollar dropping in value.
- ethbr1 9mo agoI was about to say... give dedollarization spurred by the current administration a couple more years and then compare GDP. Being the world reserve and trade currency artificially props up the value of that currency (beyond what it would otherwise be), which has the result of artificially boosting GDP to GDP comparisons.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago> Has it been effective though? At what specifically? At preventing another European war? Up until very recently, pretty good. No more world wars as of yet, but 80 years has past since the last, everyone with memories of how horrible it was, are almost gone, so I guess we're building up to another one. I'm hoping that at least Europe sticks together if it gets down to it. I'm not sure why GDP is such an important indicator to you, it's just the value of goods and services, what purpose is that supposed to serve? USA keeps getting a larger GDP you say, yet the population at large seems to be getting poorer, education and health care gets worse, and people finding it harder and harder to find somewhere to live. So what good does a high GDP actually give you in the world today?
- jandrewrogers 9mo ago> USA keeps getting a larger GDP you say, yet the population at large seems to be getting poorer People in the US may be many things but poor is not one of them. The median household income is ~$85k and the median household lives somewhere pretty inexpensive. The amount of money Americans can afford to waste on things they don't need is unmatched.