broadsword
Brigadier
I can't wrap them around my head.
American Economics Thread
- Thread starter Bernard
- Start date
I can't wrap them around my head.
Fantastic documentary look at the construction and future of Intel done by GamersNexus! You get inside looks and tours of the current construction goin on at Intel as well as a look at many steps of the chip fabrication process.
NOTE: This is 1 hour long, so it covers many areas and contains some phenomenal footage.
NOTE: This is 1 hour long, so it covers many areas and contains some phenomenal footage.
More money to Israel will save the US economy
supercat
Major
I'm not the only one who suspects that the GDP of the US has been overstated over the years.
FriedRiceNSpice
Captain
First, numbers are wrong. In tech alone, 260,000 workers were laid off in 2023. Secondly, the layoffs over past two years primarily impacted the two pinnacle sectors of the US economy, tech and finance. Workers making top 90-95 percentile of income were the most heavily impacted, and across the two sectors considered the primary growth engines for the US economy. When that happens, you can bet there are going to be knock on effects and reverberation that will be felt in the upcoming years.
There is no doubt about this.
There are a lot of idiots who insist that because the American stock market is doing better then it must be a bigger economy than China.
What "bigger" economy ends up using half the electricity while buying half the cars (among many other things) of the supposedly smaller economy it is ahead of?
What's more, the Chinese electricity usage trendline is on an upward curve while the US one is basically flat. China is growing faster and faster in electricity consumption. All energy is converted into economic activity. Even if it is to merely heat or cool one's lazy non-working ass, it is economic activity because someone has to pay for it.
The US also uses a lot more energy per capita than other Western regions including Europe, Japan or South Korea.
The worst offender is the transportation sector with people often living at 2h driving distance from work. People often drive their personal cars to work. This is due to the suburbia sprawl in the US and lack of quality public transportation. Anyone traveling a longer distance than that will use airplanes. Rail is only used for slow moving freight traffic.
Compare that with other countries with quality electrified public transportation, including buses, subways, rail, including high speed rail such as China or those other Western regions. This is much more energy efficient.
In the US a lot of electricity is also spent air conditioning homes. But US homes typically feature poor insulation. So much of the energy is wasted.
The worst offender is the transportation sector with people often living at 2h driving distance from work. People often drive their personal cars to work. This is due to the suburbia sprawl in the US and lack of quality public transportation. Anyone traveling a longer distance than that will use airplanes. Rail is only used for slow moving freight traffic.
Compare that with other countries with quality electrified public transportation, including buses, subways, rail, including high speed rail such as China or those other Western regions. This is much more energy efficient.
In the US a lot of electricity is also spent air conditioning homes. But US homes typically feature poor insulation. So much of the energy is wasted.
Not sure how my number were off when you're basically corroborating them. I'm surprised my estimate was even that accurate. Layoffs are typically a symptom, not the cause (though a serious enough "symptom" can certainly become a cause of death) and the companies that cut staff did it because they either over-hired or are no longer profitable. A tiny fraction of the workforce being laid off is unlikely to cause some major ill effect down the road, especially since white-collar workers are very likely to find other work.
Electricity consumption is not a proxy for economic growth. Majority of Americans already have a car, a microwave, a fridge, an oven, light, shelter, heating, and air conditioning. Most consumer electronics tend to be efficient. So why would per capita electricity use increase?
It wouldn't. Even existing infrastructure and manufacturing is focused on improvement to energy efficiency rather than adding new capacity. New renewable energy deployments are more about replacing old, dirty capacity like coal. The only real area where electricity demand can grow is with EVs, which is a tiny market in US.
So no, that tweet is dumb.
Most Americans don't want to live in high-density housing in a city. Only a quarter of Americans live in what could be described as an "urban" area. So yes, majority of Americans will not be using public transport and it would be inefficient to build out public transport that way.
Sorry, there is no amount of efficiency advantage and gains that can allow the US economy to be bigger than one that uses twice as much electricity or be able to match an economy that is growing usage at 7% every year while the US usage remains flat. You cannot grow an economy without a corresponding growth in the usage of electricity.
Any suggestion otherwise and you're onto magical thinking like a perpetual motion machine -- things just runs forever without adding new energy. Absolutely illiogical.
There is no way, you can match that grade of change by standing still:
