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>And economic performance of the US though Trump's first term was pretty good. Depends on your definition of "the economy". The Trump administration, like ma

>And economic performance of the US though Trump's first term was pretty good. Depends on your definition of "the economy". The Trump administration, like many before it and much of HN, defines "the economy" as only being the performance of the asset and stock appreciation for the existing assset holders("forget the Epstein files, the DOW is over 50,000" - Pam Bondi). While most working class people, like me and many others, define "the economy" as being how much month they have left at the end of their paycheck, after they paid for rent, bills and groceries, if they even have a job anymore and haven't been part of some mass layoff and are applying for jobs and getting rejected. For those people, "the economy" is very much NOT GOOD right now. "The economy" amazing if you own tonnes of F500 stocks and real estate though. Not if otherwise.

dismalaf 26d ago
Here's a chart to visualize: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US-EU-CA&start=2016 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... My definition of the economy is the actual definition lol.
- ozlikethewizard 26d ago
  GDP per capita is not an effective measure of the economic quality of the average person though. If growth is centralised in the hands of the few, then sure per capita goes up but most peoples access to increased wealth does not. Look at something like HDI instead, US actually down over the past ~decade: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/in...
  - dismalaf 26d ago
    The "standard of living" component of HDI is literally GNI per capita PPP (basically the same thing as GDP per capita, with a few minor adjustments). The other components are just life expectancy and educational attainment. The educational attainment one is interesting, all the countries at the top have free post-secondary... Does a PhD do more for the nation than an entrepreneur who creates a unicorn and hires 10k engineers? Also life expectancy is a lagging indicator...
    - PorciiVorbesc 26d ago
      >Does a PhD do more for the nation than an entrepreneur who creates a unicorn and hires 10k engineers? As someone from an EU country which has an oversupply of PhDs, says, definitely not. I'd much rather have more entrepreneurs and job opportunism than more broke PhDs with fancy degrees.
- PorciiVorbesc 26d ago
  Whose "actual definition" is that? Which authority established the the "actual definition" is in the name of all of us? At the end of the day, definitions are irrelevant, what matters is majority voter perception. GDP/capita don't matter if majority of voters perceive themselves as poor. And GDP/capita is a poor metric since it doesn't account for inequality differences of wealth accumulation. Like if your economy has a few ultra wealthy Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Larry Elissons, Jenson Huangs and and tens of thousands of broke homeless people, then the average GPD per capita is more than fine. My and many other peoples' definition, is how many people can find decent paying jobs right now, and how much they can afford after paying rent and bills. They don't care about the stock market, as that's just the playground of the top 10% of asset holders(including HN), not of the majority working class.
  - dismalaf 25d ago
    > GDP/capita don't matter if majority of voters perceive themselves as poor. The per capita part literally covers the amount of people in an economy. There are very few examples of countries where GDP per capita doesn't lead to an objectively high standard of living - really only recent low-population petrostates and tax havens. Switzerland? High GDP per capita objectively nice place to live. Japan? High GDP per capita, objectively nice. Norway? Sweden? Netherlands? All high GDP per capita all nice. And then there's countries like China and India. Large economics, rich as a country. But large populations of poor. And their GDP per capita reflects it. Here's a blog post about why it's good (not mine): https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/four-reasons-why-gdp-is-a-useful https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/four-reasons-why-gdp-is-a-usef... It's not an absolutely perfect, fine grained measure, but economists haven't settled on a better measure. Even in the HDI calculation, GNI per capita PPP is their "living standards" measure. > Like if your economy has a few ultra wealthy Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Larry Elissons, Jenson Huangs Russia has plenty of oligarchs, yet their GDP per capita is way lower than the US'. Also keep in mind, poor people in the US are richer than the average in most countries... Inequality itself isn't bad if it still brings up the bottom to a decent standard of living. Most of the EU is poorer than the poorest US state, for example.
    - PorciiVorbesc 25d ago

dismalaf 26d ago

Here's a chart to visualize: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US-EU-CA&start=2016 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... My definition of the economy is the actual definition lol.

ozlikethewizard 26d ago
GDP per capita is not an effective measure of the economic quality of the average person though. If growth is centralised in the hands of the few, then sure per capita goes up but most peoples access to increased wealth does not. Look at something like HDI instead, US actually down over the past ~decade: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/in...
- dismalaf 26d ago
  The "standard of living" component of HDI is literally GNI per capita PPP (basically the same thing as GDP per capita, with a few minor adjustments). The other components are just life expectancy and educational attainment. The educational attainment one is interesting, all the countries at the top have free post-secondary... Does a PhD do more for the nation than an entrepreneur who creates a unicorn and hires 10k engineers? Also life expectancy is a lagging indicator...
  - PorciiVorbesc 26d ago
    >Does a PhD do more for the nation than an entrepreneur who creates a unicorn and hires 10k engineers? As someone from an EU country which has an oversupply of PhDs, says, definitely not. I'd much rather have more entrepreneurs and job opportunism than more broke PhDs with fancy degrees.
PorciiVorbesc 26d ago
Whose "actual definition" is that? Which authority established the the "actual definition" is in the name of all of us? At the end of the day, definitions are irrelevant, what matters is majority voter perception. GDP/capita don't matter if majority of voters perceive themselves as poor. And GDP/capita is a poor metric since it doesn't account for inequality differences of wealth accumulation. Like if your economy has a few ultra wealthy Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Larry Elissons, Jenson Huangs and and tens of thousands of broke homeless people, then the average GPD per capita is more than fine. My and many other peoples' definition, is how many people can find decent paying jobs right now, and how much they can afford after paying rent and bills. They don't care about the stock market, as that's just the playground of the top 10% of asset holders(including HN), not of the majority working class.
- dismalaf 25d ago
  > GDP/capita don't matter if majority of voters perceive themselves as poor. The per capita part literally covers the amount of people in an economy. There are very few examples of countries where GDP per capita doesn't lead to an objectively high standard of living - really only recent low-population petrostates and tax havens. Switzerland? High GDP per capita objectively nice place to live. Japan? High GDP per capita, objectively nice. Norway? Sweden? Netherlands? All high GDP per capita all nice. And then there's countries like China and India. Large economics, rich as a country. But large populations of poor. And their GDP per capita reflects it. Here's a blog post about why it's good (not mine): https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/four-reasons-why-gdp-is-a-useful https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/four-reasons-why-gdp-is-a-usef... It's not an absolutely perfect, fine grained measure, but economists haven't settled on a better measure. Even in the HDI calculation, GNI per capita PPP is their "living standards" measure. > Like if your economy has a few ultra wealthy Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Larry Elissons, Jenson Huangs Russia has plenty of oligarchs, yet their GDP per capita is way lower than the US'. Also keep in mind, poor people in the US are richer than the average in most countries... Inequality itself isn't bad if it still brings up the bottom to a decent standard of living. Most of the EU is poorer than the poorest US state, for example.
  - PorciiVorbesc 25d ago