Noah it’s not necessarily relevant to this post but it’s insanely hypocritical for Vance to be proselytizing about a return to Christian family values by rejecting material comforts, a life of consumption, prestige, and creature comforts. Does he realize that his boss, the POTUS, spends almost 100% of his time pursuing exactly those things, while blatantly abusing his wealth and trampling on any notion of family values. Vance’s arguments and diatribes are absolutely worthless nonsense.
All these movements like Degrowth are great at talking about how they will tear down this or that existing institution or system, but they are always short on the details for what, exactly, will replace them. Vance can only speak in vague bromides.
I think the core issue is equality right? GDP has come under criticism because politicians and economists can rightly say GDP is growing as a proxy for economic prosperity, while people feel increasingly poorer relative to their higher income peers.
Quality of life is relative, after all. We all live like kings compared to our ancestors, but if we feel like we’re stagnating while the GDP is growing, it will come under fire as a flawed yardstick.
Notably, Vance talks about abstract concepts like spiritual and moral fulfilment instead of tangible outcomes like broad-based material prosperity, because the Modern Right’s policies don’t actually create material prosperity.
In the US, and probably other wealthy countries, immigrants who lack advanced education and skills do a lot of low pay non-union manual work that the native born don't want to do, for obvious reasons, but especially the low pay. We still need the work immigrants do to grow, harvest, package, slaughter and butcher food., cut & mill wood and produce other building materials, construct conventional and manufactured housing, pave roads, and care for the elderly. Those jobs are all mechanized, but they still require a lot of labor and will for the foreseeable future. And that labor deserves a living wage, not poverty. Political and economic ideologues are walled off from reality. Vance is a lightweight, in spite of his education.
It’s not necessarily relevant to this post but it’s also insanely hypocritical for Vance to be proselytizing about Christian values when he’s literally
There's always this motte-and-bailey between "GDP isn't everything" and "GDP is totally meaningless", that makes GDP critics infuriating to debate.
Noah it’s not necessarily relevant to this post but it’s insanely hypocritical for Vance to be proselytizing about a return to Christian family values by rejecting material comforts, a life of consumption, prestige, and creature comforts. Does he realize that his boss, the POTUS, spends almost 100% of his time pursuing exactly those things, while blatantly abusing his wealth and trampling on any notion of family values. Vance’s arguments and diatribes are absolutely worthless nonsense.
All these movements like Degrowth are great at talking about how they will tear down this or that existing institution or system, but they are always short on the details for what, exactly, will replace them. Vance can only speak in vague bromides.
I think the core issue is equality right? GDP has come under criticism because politicians and economists can rightly say GDP is growing as a proxy for economic prosperity, while people feel increasingly poorer relative to their higher income peers.
Quality of life is relative, after all. We all live like kings compared to our ancestors, but if we feel like we’re stagnating while the GDP is growing, it will come under fire as a flawed yardstick.
Notably, Vance talks about abstract concepts like spiritual and moral fulfilment instead of tangible outcomes like broad-based material prosperity, because the Modern Right’s policies don’t actually create material prosperity.
Noah taking on Vancenomics is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but has greater public service cred.
In the US, and probably other wealthy countries, immigrants who lack advanced education and skills do a lot of low pay non-union manual work that the native born don't want to do, for obvious reasons, but especially the low pay. We still need the work immigrants do to grow, harvest, package, slaughter and butcher food., cut & mill wood and produce other building materials, construct conventional and manufactured housing, pave roads, and care for the elderly. Those jobs are all mechanized, but they still require a lot of labor and will for the foreseeable future. And that labor deserves a living wage, not poverty. Political and economic ideologues are walled off from reality. Vance is a lightweight, in spite of his education.
Man hopefully one day economists discover surrogation and autocorrelation.
The strawberry example isn’t as good as it sounds. GDP measuring would, using hedonic deflators, capture changes in the quality of the strawberries.
It’s not necessarily relevant to this post but it’s also insanely hypocritical for Vance to be proselytizing about Christian values when he’s literally