What I see in the FT graph showing US GDP per capita remaining highest & rising fastest since the 90s is the imperfection of GDP as a measurement of standard of living.
Much more of GDP in the US than in these other countries is economic activity that reduces people's well-being rather than increases it:
* Mandatory auto ownership due to poor public transit & spread-out land use.
* Long auto commutes, also due to spread-out land use.
* Infrastructure costs - roads, utilities, etc - due to above.
* Costs of auto crashes due to above & also lax traffic law enforcement.
* Excessive administrative costs of health care (lately coming at expense of patients via claim denials).
I don't have remotely the familiarity with the statistics to tease this out quantitatively, but per capital miles driven in the US is about 1/3 higher than France & Germany & several times higher than Japan.
"Invest more in research and development and in infrastructure…. Imagining such changes may be easy, but implementing them is not". Could this not be the US too? Public R&D has declined, and the deteriorating infrastructure across the nation is obvious to all but the blind.
"if your brain can cope with your binocular vision telling you that things are five feet away while your eye muscles are focusing on two inches." Just as smart phones seem to have a deleterious effect on the mental health of teens and pre-teens, I would not be surprised if these head sets turn out to be bad for the eyesight of young people whose eyes are still developing.
"Curious how former President elect Trump ever became convinced that the nowhere close to happening BRICs currency was a threat to the dollar..."
The thing to remember about Trump is that it is all kayfabe.
Make up a threat, and make up a response. It gives the opportunity to look tough to the crowd, and for that it doesn't matter if either of them are real. Indeed, almost better if both are fake, because then playing to the crowd costs nothing.
Reminds me when I first saw, in Paris, a Renault Espace minivan as the first on the market. Was that a great success for Renault? The Buzz Review isn't a review, it is just shilling for VW with "vibes". Not unlike some tech reviews of late.
It reflects the move to remote work and the reduced value of managers, particularly mid-level and below. Managing remote workers is very different, and companies try software monitoring rather than management by walking around nagging and chivvying staff.
I once had a job that allowed remote work. There was an assumption by management that those of us who were working remotely were goofing off a lot. So I made sure that when I was working remotely, that I had a project that I could turn in when I came back to the office. On the other hand, there was an assumption that those present at the office were working hard. So when I had little to do, I would always come to the office in order to catch up on gossip, have lunch with coworkers, and generally look busy.
Funnily enough gabbing at the water cooler (or kitchenette for coffee) was either encouraged for cross-pollination of ideas for higher-paid employees or frowned upon for the "lower-level" staff. For coders, any interruption broke the flow of coding. The best company I worked for had individual offices for coders. The rule was you could interrupt if the door was ajar, but not if it was closed. Compare that enlightened understanding with cubicle coding with constant interruptions.
What I see is teh obvious rapid GDP growth of the 2 axis nations after WWII.
I see Japan's growth stall after their stockmarket crash and that their decade of stagnation seems to have continued. Britain was remarkably parallel with the US despite flip-flopping Tory and Labour governments until the Tory austerity program starting is 2020. Overall, the slowing growth rate is what one might expect of economies shifting from manufacturing to services. But what is missing is the continued growth in inequality that could be argued as both affecting growth and how the median person experiences GDP growth, rather than the few winners.
As Ben Ross comment, it says nothing about quality of life. How much of this GDP is actually the cost of a "broken windows" policy on many citizens? Most recently we had a pandemic that shifted work to remote which seemed to be welcomed by most people I know, yet already the pressure is on to restore office work by various vested interests, that incur costs and make life less tolerable again. How is that contribution to GDP "good"?
What I see in the FT graph showing US GDP per capita remaining highest & rising fastest since the 90s is the imperfection of GDP as a measurement of standard of living.
Much more of GDP in the US than in these other countries is economic activity that reduces people's well-being rather than increases it:
* Mandatory auto ownership due to poor public transit & spread-out land use.
* Long auto commutes, also due to spread-out land use.
* Infrastructure costs - roads, utilities, etc - due to above.
* Costs of auto crashes due to above & also lax traffic law enforcement.
* Excessive administrative costs of health care (lately coming at expense of patients via claim denials).
I don't have remotely the familiarity with the statistics to tease this out quantitatively, but per capital miles driven in the US is about 1/3 higher than France & Germany & several times higher than Japan.
German economy.
"Invest more in research and development and in infrastructure…. Imagining such changes may be easy, but implementing them is not". Could this not be the US too? Public R&D has declined, and the deteriorating infrastructure across the nation is obvious to all but the blind.
"if your brain can cope with your binocular vision telling you that things are five feet away while your eye muscles are focusing on two inches." Just as smart phones seem to have a deleterious effect on the mental health of teens and pre-teens, I would not be surprised if these head sets turn out to be bad for the eyesight of young people whose eyes are still developing.
In re the:
"Curious how former President elect Trump ever became convinced that the nowhere close to happening BRICs currency was a threat to the dollar..."
The thing to remember about Trump is that it is all kayfabe.
Make up a threat, and make up a response. It gives the opportunity to look tough to the crowd, and for that it doesn't matter if either of them are real. Indeed, almost better if both are fake, because then playing to the crowd costs nothing.
2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz Review
Reminds me when I first saw, in Paris, a Renault Espace minivan as the first on the market. Was that a great success for Renault? The Buzz Review isn't a review, it is just shilling for VW with "vibes". Not unlike some tech reviews of late.
The Anti-Manager Recovery:
It reflects the move to remote work and the reduced value of managers, particularly mid-level and below. Managing remote workers is very different, and companies try software monitoring rather than management by walking around nagging and chivvying staff.
I once had a job that allowed remote work. There was an assumption by management that those of us who were working remotely were goofing off a lot. So I made sure that when I was working remotely, that I had a project that I could turn in when I came back to the office. On the other hand, there was an assumption that those present at the office were working hard. So when I had little to do, I would always come to the office in order to catch up on gossip, have lunch with coworkers, and generally look busy.
Funnily enough gabbing at the water cooler (or kitchenette for coffee) was either encouraged for cross-pollination of ideas for higher-paid employees or frowned upon for the "lower-level" staff. For coders, any interruption broke the flow of coding. The best company I worked for had individual offices for coders. The rule was you could interrupt if the door was ajar, but not if it was closed. Compare that enlightened understanding with cubicle coding with constant interruptions.
GDP growth
What I see is teh obvious rapid GDP growth of the 2 axis nations after WWII.
I see Japan's growth stall after their stockmarket crash and that their decade of stagnation seems to have continued. Britain was remarkably parallel with the US despite flip-flopping Tory and Labour governments until the Tory austerity program starting is 2020. Overall, the slowing growth rate is what one might expect of economies shifting from manufacturing to services. But what is missing is the continued growth in inequality that could be argued as both affecting growth and how the median person experiences GDP growth, rather than the few winners.
As Ben Ross comment, it says nothing about quality of life. How much of this GDP is actually the cost of a "broken windows" policy on many citizens? Most recently we had a pandemic that shifted work to remote which seemed to be welcomed by most people I know, yet already the pressure is on to restore office work by various vested interests, that incur costs and make life less tolerable again. How is that contribution to GDP "good"?