China will never reach US level of living standards.
China has a large population and not enough domestic resources, particularly food and energy, to provide for them, let alone to support a further rise in living standards The world can’t support the Chinese population living at a Western level. The environmental impact on the earth would be devastating.
Nor will the US be able to maintain its standard of living without worldwide environmental damage. Absent radical conservation and other efforts to reduce commodities/mineral consumption we are up the proverbial creek. Yes yes total transportation to EVs & green power generation. But those solutions are tres expensive to the consumer. And the world’s developed nations have increasingly more income inequality that will negatively affect economies.
The inequalities or divergence of wealth in the US, the lack of action, the falling standard of living, the lack of proper R&D…supply side economic policies at work.
Congrats we all saved a wealthier person a lot on his or her taxes.
Leap1 the divergence of wealth is not restricted to the US but is also occurring in European developed nations. We can thank globalization for this fact. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4otroKOb3b8
Leap1 the divergence of wealth is not restricted to the US but is also occurring in European developed nations. We can thank globalization for this fact.
The REAL cause is the Power Law or Pareto distribution.
The Europeans wealthy are trying to talk the general public into tax breaks for the wealthy. As if they need the money. Part of that is talking people out of state run pensions.
Macron got a rude surprise in the vote a day or two ago. It is too political to describe here, just google for the French results. The French public narrowly will have Macron back, but he stands a chance of losing in the French legislature because the public is uninterested in the poor rich.
But good policies flatten it. Same curve, less ostentatious waste.
Agree entirely but it’s good to know the real cause so as not to attribute it to some evil spirits.
Good policies are the ones that people are willing to live with. Demonize people and you just create enemies and gulags to deal with them. Sound familiar?
After an online petition posted in May 2018 had attracted nearly 1 million signatures, mass demonstrations began on 17 November.[69] The movement was initially motivated by rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality; it claims that a disproportionate burden of taxation in France was falling on the working and middle classes,[70][71][72] especially in rural and peri-urban areas.
the yellow vests movement has called for redistributive economic policies like a wealth tax, increased pensions, a higher minimum wage, and reduced salaries for politicians
The protest went on for more than a year. Macron shined them on & their complaints never were addressed.
Elites 1
Working Class Zero
Yes yes total transportation to EVs & green power generation. But those solutions are tres expensive to the consumer.
If you install rooftop solar, in the geographies that it makes sense, there is the high initial cost but then it is much cheaper in the long run, assuming you use a reasonable amount of electricity.
And EVs are expensive today, but given even 10-20% market share the economies of scale will make them cheap to buy* and cheaper to operate (lower maintenance and see solar above for fuel)
*EV cost for a reasonably sized car that doesn’t go 400 miles in the snow, but rather good enough for local driving and you rent a longer range car when needed.
And EVs are expensive today, but given even 10-20% market share the economies of scale will make them cheap to buy* and cheaper to operate (lower maintenance and see solar above for fuel)
One problem is that most EVs charge at night while parked. During the day they are mostly out and about or parked at work. So that means that you need either:
An electric utility that is willing to act as your “battery” (you feed them electricity during the day, and they give you electricity at night, for same price)
-or-
Install expensive batteries (like Tesla Powerwall), and you would require a substantial amount of them to be able to charge a car with 20 or 30 kWh at night. This would need two or three Tesla Powerwall units which are quite expensive.