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Europe's productivity keeps outpacing the US

sethackerman.substack.com

8 points by ZeljkoS · 2 comments

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twoodfin

I am highly skeptical that you can usefully capture actual comparative growth rates after normalizing for PPP.

Take someone in Kazakhstan making a salary equal to per capita GDP. Unadjusted, that’s about $17,000 USD. With PPP adjustment we say, no, this Kazakh is actually living like an American making $48,000.

Take an American making $48,000 (not too much under the US median personal income of $51,000) and have the two of them swap places. Wave a magic wand on the language and cultural differences, they’re both homo economicus.

PPP says that after a few months they’ll each be economically indifferent to switching back.

I find that wildly implausible: There’s simply no way that $17k USD-equivalent buys you as nice a life in Kazakhstan as $48k does in the US. I’d even be surprised if living off $48k in Kazakhstan were preferable to that same salary stateside, even if you could buy a lot more eggs and a larger plot of land.

cyanydeez

April 2025 is when I rebalanced my portfolio away from the US.

IF im wtong, theres not going to be anyone untouched by the failures of this adminstration and its societal paychopathy

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