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Has 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

Has 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 ago
This 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 ago
  I 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.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    "Poor" isn't just "doesn't have N USD", purchasing power as just one example, matters so much more. But maybe it was a poor choice of words on my part, sorry.
  - mmooss 9mo ago
    Many people in the US have a huge problem with affordability, and can't afford healthcare and medication, education, housing, and sometimes food.
    - joe_mamba 9mo ago
      That's what government social programs like Medicaid and SNAP/EBT are for, accounting for about 800 billion in gov spending in 2025, and a total of 1,2 Trillion the US gov spend on welfare in 2025. That's exactly the opposite of being poor. If you want to see real poverty, go to countries that don't have any government welfare programs. In EU many workers also wouldn't be able to afford to live without taxpayer-funded government subsidies, tax credits or regulations forcing employers to not be able to pay minimum wages below a certain threshold (which is not coming out of shareholders pockets BTW but from the overall company salary budget pie, IE high earners) which also gets inflation adjusted yearly. The lower class is always subsidised in wealthy de-industrialized western countries, since the low-skill jobs that previously could support a family, either got automated or offshored to Asia, causing a loss of worker bargaining power, so your only chance of preventing mass riots is to subsidize the lower class here and there. It's a masked UBI with extra steps.
      - 9mo ago

bootsmann 9mo ago

This 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 ago
I 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.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  "Poor" isn't just "doesn't have N USD", purchasing power as just one example, matters so much more. But maybe it was a poor choice of words on my part, sorry.
- mmooss 9mo ago
  Many people in the US have a huge problem with affordability, and can't afford healthcare and medication, education, housing, and sometimes food.
  - joe_mamba 9mo ago
    That's what government social programs like Medicaid and SNAP/EBT are for, accounting for about 800 billion in gov spending in 2025, and a total of 1,2 Trillion the US gov spend on welfare in 2025. That's exactly the opposite of being poor. If you want to see real poverty, go to countries that don't have any government welfare programs. In EU many workers also wouldn't be able to afford to live without taxpayer-funded government subsidies, tax credits or regulations forcing employers to not be able to pay minimum wages below a certain threshold (which is not coming out of shareholders pockets BTW but from the overall company salary budget pie, IE high earners) which also gets inflation adjusted yearly. The lower class is always subsidised in wealthy de-industrialized western countries, since the low-skill jobs that previously could support a family, either got automated or offshored to Asia, causing a loss of worker bargaining power, so your only chance of preventing mass riots is to subsidize the lower class here and there. It's a masked UBI with extra steps.
    - 9mo ago