[palata]

A lot deeper than active wars and energy supply issues???

Europe's economy has been slowing down since 2007, which is the peak of conventional oil. The problem of Europe is that is doesn't have access to abundant energy like the US does. The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.

[pjerem]

If you measure economical performance with PIB per capita, yeah, for sure, US has a better economy.

If you measure with anything else useful like (healthy) life expectancy or happiness level, state of the democracy, etc... like if you think the the economy must serve the people and not the other way, I'd say Europe is way more successful despite the real issues.

Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.

[WarmWash]

>Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy.

You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each.

If you look at the higher brackets (you have to look because "Americans in the 75th percentile live great" is not a clickable story) America is a better place to live if you work a job that pays well.

The plots for "comfortable living vs income" in the US and Europe are different, and that difference is endlessly arbitraged and any boring news day to pump out another "Life in Europe is better" story.

[pjerem]

Sorry but I don't share your view. A society where the bottom 50% can't live a decent life is just dysfunctional. I don't care which country is best for the riches (and actually, Europe is good for the riches), I care that the economy is there to allow everyone to live a decent and meaningful life.

[WarmWash]

The issue is that "decent life" is a benchmark that (besides being subjective) is set relatively rather than absolutely.

So being in the bottom 50% in the US sucks when you look around your country, but is actually pretty "decent" when you look around your planet.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

This perspective implies that you should be vigilant to keep out poor or unskilled immigrants who might struggle to afford the quality of life you require for citizens.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each.

Poverty in the US is similar to poverty in Sweden, according to this dataset:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha...

But the median American earns far higher wages than the median Swede:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income

I think there is just a lot of misinformation out there. Americans love to complain, and other countries love to criticize the US. These effects create systematic misconceptions which no one bothers to fact-check.

[WarmWash]

I mean the real unspeakeable secret is how the American mid-high-middle-class/upper-class has so effectively turned financially transparent despite being the wealthiest group in the country. The 65% to 99% are just an absolute hulking bag of cash.

The battle in the US is between the mid-low-middle-class/lower-class and the 1%. Which is just so incredibly effective at diverting attention from where all the actual money is. When you can pull your head out of the swamp of social media and fountains of clickbait/class ragebait, there is this huge elephant sitting in the room with it's finger over it's mouth doing the "shhh, be quiet" motion.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

https://xcancel.com/cafreiman/status/2074453764761641240

[gedy]

> I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.

It's just a totally different scale of comparison that does not work - those Nordic countries are smaller than many counties in US states. It's like comparing Iceland to Santa Barbara, etc.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.

Norway produces oil at Saudi Arabia levels per capita:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count...

The US has about 70x the population of Norway, hence far lower per-capita production.

[WarmWash]

The problem Europe has is an allergy to people making money. Oil prices aren't what drove every Euro tech worker to San Francisco for 25 years.

[palata]

Since 2007, the European economy is in contraction if you look at physical indicators like "how much stuff do trucks move" or "what area is being built". That correlates directly with the peak of conventional oil and the fact that oil has been harder to get in Europe since 2007.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.

The most valuable American companies are not exactly in energy-intensive industries:

https://companiesmarketcap.com/

[palata]

Everything depends on energy. Driving a car is a lot cheaper in the US because of abundant energy. That has an impact on the economy (the economy is pretty much trucks moving stuff around).

[RandomLensman]

If have a hard time linking a slowdown from 2007 on to oil instead of the GFC.

[palata]

I don't understand that sentence.

[RandomLensman]

GFC = Great Financial Crisis. I'd look at that first rather than some peak oil for Europe's underperformance.

[palata]

Is "GFC" the subprimes crisis? Because that one, in 2008, may well be a consequence of the peak of conventional oil. It's not "some peak for Europe", it is THE peak for the world of, well, conventional oil, which means anything that is not the shale oil in North America.

[RandomLensman]

It started in 2007. I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it?

[palata]

Peak oil means that oil becomes harder to get. That's the definition of the peak: the production increases until the peak, and decreases after. When the economy is directly correlated to oil, it means that a decrease in oil results in the economy slowing down.

> I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it?

We got an economical crisis right when we reached peak oil production. Again, there is an extremely clear correlation between oil production and the economy.

Since 2007, the US has had access to shale oil and the likes, so they haven't reached their peak yet. Europe, on the other hand, has reached their peak in 2007. And since then, the economy (if you look at physical indicators, not artificial proxies like the GDP) is slowing down. Again an extremely clear correlation.