Liardo

@Israeli_Opinion @Niroker82 @aakashgupta Productivity growth trends seem to show a stagnant economy since the 2000s, not a growing one. Also, a young population is an advantage, if you adjust for Europes older population Israeli performance is even poorer!

@Liardo1 @Niroker82 @aakashgupta Also, remember that Israel has the youngest population in the OECD - our GDP per capita would be significantly higher if adjusted for the working-age population (18+) alone.

Israel breaks this chart in half. GDP per capita comparable to Germany. Housing costs higher than anywhere in Europe. One of the most educated populations on earth. TFR of 2.9, nearly double the OECD average. The correlation between income and fertility is real, but calling it a "self-defeating mechanism" confuses the map for the territory. Income is a proxy for a bundle of things that happen simultaneously when countries modernize: urbanization, female education, career optionality, contraceptive access, and a cultural shift from family-as-economic-unit to individual-as-meaning-unit. Israel has all of those inputs. And secular Jewish women there still have near-replacement fertility of ~2.0. College-educated Israeli women out-reproduce non-educated European women. The gap between Israeli and European fertility is actually wider among the educated than the uneducated. What Israel has that Germany, Japan, and South Korea don't: a shared sense that building the next generation is the point. Social solidarity so thick that grandparents live within driving distance of nearly every child. A culture where having three kids at 35 with a graduate degree is normal, not sacrificial. Sweden, Germany, and South Korea have all spent enormous sums on pro-natal benefits. Their TFRs: 1.42, 1.36, and 0.73. You cannot subsidize your way out of a culture that has deprioritized reproduction. The mechanism here isn't economic. It's existential. Countries that believe they're building something have kids. Countries optimizing for individual optionality don't. The "final boss" framing makes this feel like physics. It isn't. It's a story about what cultures decide matters.

@Niroker82 @aakashgupta Humm I think you should check economic data, Israel has a huge division in between tech and the poor masses (mostly religious radicals, minorities,...). It averages out to a not-so-impressive society

@Liardo1 @aakashgupta Israel has the most productive workforce in the world! Although hours work are one of the highest as well!

@Niroker82 @aakashgupta You reckon? Hahaha

@Liardo1 @aakashgupta Your chart is upside down dude

@sashaschweine @aakashgupta That's the point, nominal data irrespective of distortions in exchange rates, work hours and local prices; Turkey, Spain and Poland offer better living conditions than Israel

@Liardo1 @aakashgupta How unadjusted? GDP per capita in USD, nominal value, IMF most recent data.

@sashaschweine @aakashgupta Unadjusted data, very smart my dude! Israel still a third world country

@Liardo1 @aakashgupta lol gdppercapita.fyi/?country=DEU%7…

@MarioNawfal Almost all developed countries could develop nuclear weapons in a short amount of time if they wanted to, not sure its good!

🇯🇵 Japan holds 44.4 tonnes of separated plutonium, enough for approximately 5,500 nuclear warheads. More than Russia currently deploys. Most of it is stored in the UK and France. Japan has no nuclear weapons. It's been a choice, not a capability gap. Experts say Japan could produce a basic nuclear device within 6-12 months if it politically decided to. The PLA just published a full-page warning about exactly this. Source: Eurasian Times

@constans @BadMouse101 West Germany: double the population, industrial Ruhr heartland, may use Benelux and North Sea ports, access to global markets. East Germany: agrarian Prussia, some industry in Silesia, divided largest city, must pay reparations. Not so even.

@Liardo1 @BadMouse101 We had a literal comparison between east Germany and West Germany. Same country, same people, two different outcomes.

The country almost rioted because they were unable to afford coffee. Europe already has a “low competition collective society.” It’s called the Mediterranean

@constans @BadMouse101 Depends what you mean, for Eastern European standards it delivered ok given the circumstances, if the West/East divide had gone the other way (communist West, capitalist East) we would be talking about how capitalism can only deliver mediocre results

@Liardo1 @BadMouse101 Yes. Communism failed to provide goods and services because central planning was working with very little. Even domestically built goods line cars were in short supply.

@BadMouse101 @constans Yeah so indeed currency issues, the fact that the West built the international economy around itself due to post-1945 dominance (even in the Third World) gave it a huge advantage, so comparing East/West economic performance is not straightforward

@Liardo1 @constans 1977 was the date in particular being referred to here, and it had an effect on the eventual dissolution. youtu.be/U-Atiga6y64?si…

@Ketok1842 @RishiJoeSanu Plus allowing for very low wages provides a competitive advantage to lowballing employers, while workers need to dip into public assistance (so government->company indirect transfers)

@Liardo1 @RishiJoeSanu assume you're right - why wouldn't you (or somebody else) use this knowledge to create a business that outcompetes everyone else?

The minimum wage literature has completely changed in the 2020s. Almost all evidence point to the econ 101 model being correct.

@Ketok1842 @RishiJoeSanu It is short term more competitive to hire cheap labor plus low productivity human service becomes expected by customers, innovation requires risk and shifting consumption patterns in a way markets don't reward without intervention

@Will_Tanner_1 Traditional degenerate upper classes got stomped by uber-competent meritocrats, love to see it!

"For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution." -Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

@Ketok1842 @RishiJoeSanu No incentive to value labor if its cheap to pay wages, far from being rational firms pay what they can get away with according to social expectations... time to raise those expectations!

@Liardo1 @RishiJoeSanu why wouldn't firms just raise the wages themselves then? that would certainly improve morale much more than state enforced minimum wage

@SandyofCthulhu Lower execution and incarceration rate than the US tho

Yeah having a lower middle class home is definitely worth the torture chambers, prison camps, and shootings in the good old GDR.

@visegrad24 Joke of a country

BREAKING: Israel ends all defense deals with France The Israeli Ministry of Defense has suspended all defense procurement from France and terminated existing contracts. This decision follows Paris's refusal to allow U.S. aircraft carrying military supplies for Israel to transit French airspace. 🇮🇱🇫🇷

@paulnovosad In other words, rising minimum wages forces managers to triage towards higher productivity, a clear success

California's minimum wage increase raised wages 8%, fast food prices 3–4%, and caused employment declines in fast food of 2–4%. In other breaking news, pit bull bites man

@ProfBZZZ @GreenPlusAnE xD Iranian troops airdropped over Paris, Chinese tanks in Italy, Russians crossing the Vistula... I think you were too big a fan of Red Dawn!

@Liardo1 @GreenPlusAnE Iran is no threat to EU? China? More delusion. But, again, y'all thought Hitler or the Soviets were no biggy either.. and openly made yourselves dependent on Russia which I note *is* in your dangerous column. so...

Euros may be happy with their societies, but they won’t be for long. They’ve been free-riding off other nations’ defense, tech, and energy, and that can’t last. Their options are to submit to foreign domination, make sharp welfare cuts, or some combo of both.