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In 2014, much like 2014, we saw America only solidify its economic dominance http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556 http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556 The US d

In 2014, much like 2014, we saw America only solidify its economic dominance http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556 http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556 The US dollar and S&P 500 has outperformed all peers US GDP growth has exceeded nearly all counties, including emerging markets (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile Russia, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan all having problems due to falling oil and stagnation. Yields still rock bottom due to huge demand for low yielding debt America is not just pulling ahead of the rest of the world, it's running circles around it. I hate to be the bearer of good news, but America, for all its flaws, is still the envy of the world. Its fastest-growing, most innovative tech companies and its most prestigious institutions of higher learning, such as the Ivy League, Caltech and MIT, are inundated with applicants from foreigners. Foreigners also can’t get enough of America’s most expensive real estate, nor can they get enough of America’s low yielding debt. If we really were in a ‘post America’ era as the left insists we are, none of this would be happening. The US economy has hardly been in a slog, especially compared to the rest of the world. The last quarter of GDP was revised to 5% – the fastest growth since 2003.

d4mi3n 12y ago
While this may be true, I have to wonder how much of this is to the benefit or detriment of US citizens. We still have some very real economic problems; consider a shrinking middle class and the high rate of unemployment for recent college grads (both STEM and non-STEM).
marincounty 12y ago
"America is not just pulling ahead of the rest of the world, it's running circles around it." Now, but as China pointed out, 'You like to carry a lot of debt!'. It's ironic how this booming economy, for some people, is under the over site of a liberal democrat? By the way, thank you Obama for health care. It's a big deal for a lot of people. Yes, it needs to be tweaked, but down the road--the poor and the middle class will look at it as a great gift. Oh yea, you are the only president, I can remotely identify with; I'll never forget an off the cuff statement he made about paying off his student loans a few years before he became President. Go ahead and down vote, I know he's not that popular here.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
stealthfound3r 12y ago
I'll just leave this here: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- cbd1984 12y ago
  The people who get most worried about debt are the people who least understand it.
  - mooreds 12y ago
    It's like they say, if you owe the bank $10,000 dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 dollars, you own the bank.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      Except here, there really is no bank the way there is for corporations or private individuals: Governments owe debt to investors who are looking for a safe risk, and as long as confidence is high, the amount of debt the government can take on is practically unlimited. Debt as a percentage of GDP is a way to quantify what the confidence is likely to be, but that's a convenient estimate, not reality. Confidence is paramount, and that's difficult to quantify. The essential point is that nobody seriously expects America to default on its loans. And, no, the rantings and hysteria aside, China can't "call in" loans. That's not how it works. Bonds have a maturation date, decided in advance.
olalonde 12y ago
> US GDP growth has exceeded nearly all counties, including emerging markets (adjusted for inflation). Do you have a source for that? According to Wikipedia, the US ranked 151st for year 2013. Did they make such a huge jump in ranking in 2014? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_g...
- tiatia 12y ago
  The US likes to fake the statistics and often revises them down later. The US might have REAL GDP growth. It's population grows about 1% per year. How much more GDP above this 1% does the US really have? This being said. How do you measure GDP growth? In money? Your would have to subtract inflation. How do you measure inflation? Increase in money supply? Would be interesting to see the GDP growth based on energy consumption: http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-consumption-are-inseparable.html http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-... Maybe someone has the statistics for the last 100 or at least last 20 years.
  - tiatia 12y ago
    Here is a graph, unfortunately not cumulative, which would it make easier to read: http://ncusar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/US_energy_consumption.png http://ncusar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/US_energy_... Solid economic growth in the 70ies, then a big dip around 1980, a smaller around 1988, then solid growth in the 90ies until around 2004. Then decline. I would trust this model much more than any government announced GDP growth. Reminds a little bit to Sow jet Russia. They had a tractor manufacturing plant with state given output increases they had to match. They were not able to fulfill the quota but since output (like many other things) were measured in "tons of tractors produced" the solution to the problem was easy. While they did not produce more tractors, the tractors became heavier and heavier every year...
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      There are strong confounding factors. Gasoline is something like half of U.S. petroleum consumption: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbbl_a_cur.htm http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbbl_a_cur.htm The vehicle fleet has been significantly improved in the period you are talking about: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-how-it-happened/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/c... So even though petroleum consumption has been flat or whatever, miles driven have expanded by ~2x: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA I doubt it's as noticeable, but housing and appliances have also improved over that period (the average energy efficiency of newer buildings is probably the biggest effect, but better appliances and lighting probably manage to show up).
Zigurd 12y ago
We've had a shale oil and gas boom for roughly a decade. Imagine how fucked we'd have been in the "Great Recession" without that. I'll toast our success after we unwind QE and a reasonable fraction of the bottom 70% have jobs and wages that support buying a house. We still have TBTF banks that can implode again, just like in 2007. We still count military spending and excess medical spending on the plus side of the GDP and productivity ledgers. We still have disturbing quality of life issues in policing, the Drug War, education, and health. Let's say Putin wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and invades some FSU nations. Still complacent?
- vidoc 12y ago
  Putin seems to be the new bad guy these days.
- vixen99 12y ago
  Perhaps someone will suggest a review that takes down Mark Steyn's After America but I haven't seen it. There is nothing virtuous about “caring” compassionate” “progressives” demonstrating how caring and compassionate and progressive they are by spending money yet to be earned by generations yet to be born. http://www.davemanuel.com/us-national-debt-clock.php http://www.davemanuel.com/us-national-debt-clock.php
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    How much money has QE printed so far? How many times the cost of a basic income program would that be?
rtpg 12y ago
The US still has an exceedingly poor lower and middle class, and even if tech has helped alleviate that (cheap phones/tablets let more people be connected), general quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe, in Japan, SK, etc. There are structural issues with how America works that has prevented trickle-down economics from being a reality.
- refurb 12y ago
  quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe, in Japan, SK, etc. Yet the number of folks who want to come to the US is unending, including folks from Western Europe, SK and Japan.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Yeah, so what? That's only a contradiction to the preceding statement if all of the following are true: 1) All those people are average where they are coming from. 2) All those peopke are coming to America expecting to end up as average Americans. 3) All those people have an accurate understanding of the economic conditions they are coming from and those experienced by the average American. Otherwise, it's a complete non-sequitur.
- learc83 12y ago
  While wages for the middle class have been somewhat stagnant for a while, I think your use of "exceedingly poor" is completely without merit. There are only 3 countries in the world (Luxemburg, Switzerland, and Norway) with a higher median household disposable income than the U.S. (using PPP) [1]. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole situation since most of Europe provides more government services, but the U.S. also has a lower tax burden (which isn't fully taken into account in disposable income because of VAT). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
- vixen99 12y ago
  'general quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe'. Maybe but here's food for thought - Fraser Nelson of the UK Spectator found that if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and join the US it'd be the 2nd-poorest state in the union. Poorer than Missouri. "Poorer than the much-maligned Kansas and Alabama. Poorer than any state other than Mississippi, and if you take out the south east we’d be poorer than that too." http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/why-britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-other-than-mississippi/ http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/why-britain...
tiatia 12y ago
"In 2014, much like 2014, we saw America only solidify its economic dominance http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556" http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556" Elberto34, of all the clowns you are the funniest one. ;-)

d4mi3n 12y ago

While this may be true, I have to wonder how much of this is to the benefit or detriment of US citizens. We still have some very real economic problems; consider a shrinking middle class and the high rate of unemployment for recent college grads (both STEM and non-STEM).

marincounty 12y ago

"America is not just pulling ahead of the rest of the world, it's running circles around it." Now, but as China pointed out, 'You like to carry a lot of debt!'. It's ironic how this booming economy, for some people, is under the over site of a liberal democrat? By the way, thank you Obama for health care. It's a big deal for a lot of people. Yes, it needs to be tweaked, but down the road--the poor and the middle class will look at it as a great gift. Oh yea, you are the only president, I can remotely identify with; I'll never forget an off the cuff statement he made about paying off his student loans a few years before he became President. Go ahead and down vote, I know he's not that popular here.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

stealthfound3r 12y ago

I'll just leave this here: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cbd1984 12y ago
The people who get most worried about debt are the people who least understand it.
- mooreds 12y ago
  It's like they say, if you owe the bank $10,000 dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 dollars, you own the bank.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Except here, there really is no bank the way there is for corporations or private individuals: Governments owe debt to investors who are looking for a safe risk, and as long as confidence is high, the amount of debt the government can take on is practically unlimited. Debt as a percentage of GDP is a way to quantify what the confidence is likely to be, but that's a convenient estimate, not reality. Confidence is paramount, and that's difficult to quantify. The essential point is that nobody seriously expects America to default on its loans. And, no, the rantings and hysteria aside, China can't "call in" loans. That's not how it works. Bonds have a maturation date, decided in advance.

olalonde 12y ago

> US GDP growth has exceeded nearly all counties, including emerging markets (adjusted for inflation). Do you have a source for that? According to Wikipedia, the US ranked 151st for year 2013. Did they make such a huge jump in ranking in 2014? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_g...

tiatia 12y ago
The US likes to fake the statistics and often revises them down later. The US might have REAL GDP growth. It's population grows about 1% per year. How much more GDP above this 1% does the US really have? This being said. How do you measure GDP growth? In money? Your would have to subtract inflation. How do you measure inflation? Increase in money supply? Would be interesting to see the GDP growth based on energy consumption: http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-consumption-are-inseparable.html http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-... Maybe someone has the statistics for the last 100 or at least last 20 years.
- tiatia 12y ago
  Here is a graph, unfortunately not cumulative, which would it make easier to read: http://ncusar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/US_energy_consumption.png http://ncusar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/US_energy_... Solid economic growth in the 70ies, then a big dip around 1980, a smaller around 1988, then solid growth in the 90ies until around 2004. Then decline. I would trust this model much more than any government announced GDP growth. Reminds a little bit to Sow jet Russia. They had a tractor manufacturing plant with state given output increases they had to match. They were not able to fulfill the quota but since output (like many other things) were measured in "tons of tractors produced" the solution to the problem was easy. While they did not produce more tractors, the tractors became heavier and heavier every year...
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    There are strong confounding factors. Gasoline is something like half of U.S. petroleum consumption: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbbl_a_cur.htm http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbbl_a_cur.htm The vehicle fleet has been significantly improved in the period you are talking about: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-how-it-happened/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/c... So even though petroleum consumption has been flat or whatever, miles driven have expanded by ~2x: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA I doubt it's as noticeable, but housing and appliances have also improved over that period (the average energy efficiency of newer buildings is probably the biggest effect, but better appliances and lighting probably manage to show up).

Zigurd 12y ago

We've had a shale oil and gas boom for roughly a decade. Imagine how fucked we'd have been in the "Great Recession" without that. I'll toast our success after we unwind QE and a reasonable fraction of the bottom 70% have jobs and wages that support buying a house. We still have TBTF banks that can implode again, just like in 2007. We still count military spending and excess medical spending on the plus side of the GDP and productivity ledgers. We still have disturbing quality of life issues in policing, the Drug War, education, and health. Let's say Putin wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and invades some FSU nations. Still complacent?

vidoc 12y ago
Putin seems to be the new bad guy these days.
vixen99 12y ago
Perhaps someone will suggest a review that takes down Mark Steyn's After America but I haven't seen it. There is nothing virtuous about “caring” compassionate” “progressives” demonstrating how caring and compassionate and progressive they are by spending money yet to be earned by generations yet to be born. http://www.davemanuel.com/us-national-debt-clock.php http://www.davemanuel.com/us-national-debt-clock.php
- Zigurd 12y ago
  How much money has QE printed so far? How many times the cost of a basic income program would that be?

rtpg 12y ago

The US still has an exceedingly poor lower and middle class, and even if tech has helped alleviate that (cheap phones/tablets let more people be connected), general quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe, in Japan, SK, etc. There are structural issues with how America works that has prevented trickle-down economics from being a reality.

refurb 12y ago
quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe, in Japan, SK, etc. Yet the number of folks who want to come to the US is unending, including folks from Western Europe, SK and Japan.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Yeah, so what? That's only a contradiction to the preceding statement if all of the following are true: 1) All those people are average where they are coming from. 2) All those peopke are coming to America expecting to end up as average Americans. 3) All those people have an accurate understanding of the economic conditions they are coming from and those experienced by the average American. Otherwise, it's a complete non-sequitur.
learc83 12y ago
While wages for the middle class have been somewhat stagnant for a while, I think your use of "exceedingly poor" is completely without merit. There are only 3 countries in the world (Luxemburg, Switzerland, and Norway) with a higher median household disposable income than the U.S. (using PPP) [1]. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole situation since most of Europe provides more government services, but the U.S. also has a lower tax burden (which isn't fully taken into account in disposable income because of VAT). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
vixen99 12y ago
'general quality of life for the average American is worse than many places in Western Europe'. Maybe but here's food for thought - Fraser Nelson of the UK Spectator found that if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and join the US it'd be the 2nd-poorest state in the union. Poorer than Missouri. "Poorer than the much-maligned Kansas and Alabama. Poorer than any state other than Mississippi, and if you take out the south east we’d be poorer than that too." http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/why-britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-other-than-mississippi/ http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/why-britain...

tiatia 12y ago

"In 2014, much like 2014, we saw America only solidify its economic dominance http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556" http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1556" Elberto34, of all the clowns you are the funniest one. ;-)