It would be interesting to see this methodology applied to other countries, since it paints a picture that the current economic understanding is wildly incorrect.
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
122 points (98.4% liked)
Europe
10476 readers
1086 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
And if GDP wasn't keeping pace, why would that be a bad thing? It's not like growth has meaningfully improved peoples lives in the last couple decades
The issue is that Europe has a relatively good social safely net. An economy with little growth and more of its people retired are going to cause a decrease in benefits per person.
We have PLENTY of average benefits per person already. Currently most benefits go to rich people in the form of public investments in private companies, subsidies for often harmful industries, and a plethora of tax breaks. Growth is not the problem.
We hear the opposite because it's in someone's interest we hear the opposite.
Europe’s GDP is keeping pace with America’s just fine. Why do we constantly hear the opposite?
Because we have a lot of neoliberal to economically conservative governments in Europe who want us to work more, harder and for smaller wages.
Interesting article. There are a few other reasons why the comparison actually favours Europe:
- GDP is usually reported as aggregate, instead of per capita, meaning population growth is an important factor.
- The US is the world's largest oil producer. A significant chunk of its GDP is simply pulled from the Earth.
- GDP is inflated due to the presence of paper headquarters of multinational corporations. (In Europe, this also skews the numbers for Ireland. For Europe as a whole, it skews the numbers in the US' favour.)
- GDP (or the article's rgdpo) still only estimate the market price of the output of goods (possibly corrected for purchasing power). The US spends more on health care, for worse outcomes. That's part of the reason why quality-of-life metrices have the US tumbling down, typically to below 20th place globally.
- The gap further widens once you start taking into account the cost of climate change as effectively negative production.
In the end of the day, metrics on quality of life are much more relevant than GDP. For years we heard about the decline of the Japanese economy, it continues however to have indisputably the best quality of life in all of Asia.
Interesting article and comments.
Question that someone with more knowledge may be able to answer; why are we measuring in goods produced when much of the workforce moved from making things to utilizing brainpower?
GDP includes services as well. As long as they are sold that is.
Thank you for sharing this. The explanations were very clear and made me aware of a measurement issue in GDP statistics that I've never heard of before.
Very interesting. I've worked with the data mentioned before (as a student) and never really thought about such problems. Will do so from now on.