Great chart! I'm surprised, though, that there doesn't seem to have been much of an increase in the years around 1800, which would have been about the time the US got settled in and established as a free nation. Instead, it looks like the economy only started to improve sometime after the Civil war.
Also, it's odd that the growth didn't become more volatile right around then, the way it did during WWII. Is the chart for America only, or for the whole world?
At any rate, it's cool to see everything laid out nicely with respect to time.
I'm not that surprised, actually; the United States was still primarily an agricultural nation until well after the Civil War, and we were on the gold standard until FDR took us off during the "Great" Depression (which frankly wasn't nearly as bad as some of the earlier ones), which tended to limit growth in an economy based around a commodity-based system of exchange.
Admittedly, it kept inflation way low, so there were tradeoffs.
It is 38 years after the moon landing. Shouldn't economists be able to figure out planned obsolescence is going on in the automobile industry? Galbraith mentioned it in 1959.
Of course in 1959 there weren't 230,000,000 cars in the US. How much do Americans lose on depreciation of automobiles every year? When consumers replace worn out cars the new ones get added to GDP but the worn out cars don't get subtracted from anywhere.
I guess economists don't have to do algebra correctly.
Right, but this describes the whole US mass/popular consumer economy--especially the great economic frontier, networked electronics. Tens of millions of Americans replace their smartphones every 2 years, some even more frequently. There's obvious efficiency issues here but it's difficult to get to close to them with policy because of certain sensitive constituencies.
Great chart! I'm surprised, though, that there doesn't seem to have been much of an increase in the years around 1800, which would have been about the time the US got settled in and established as a free nation. Instead, it looks like the economy only started to improve sometime after the Civil war.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's odd that the growth didn't become more volatile right around then, the way it did during WWII. Is the chart for America only, or for the whole world?
At any rate, it's cool to see everything laid out nicely with respect to time.
Any chance of throwing that data on a logarithmic scale?
ReplyDeleteI'm not that surprised, actually; the United States was still primarily an agricultural nation until well after the Civil War, and we were on the gold standard until FDR took us off during the "Great" Depression (which frankly wasn't nearly as bad as some of the earlier ones), which tended to limit growth in an economy based around a commodity-based system of exchange.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, it kept inflation way low, so there were tradeoffs.
Try this one.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mkbergman.com/wp-content/themes/ai3/images/2006Posts/060727a_HistoricalGDPGrowth.gif
http://www.mkbergman.com/?m=200607
ReplyDeleteIt is world data, but interesting.
It is 38 years after the moon landing. Shouldn't economists be able to figure out planned obsolescence is going on in the automobile industry? Galbraith mentioned it in 1959.
ReplyDeleteOf course in 1959 there weren't 230,000,000 cars in the US. How much do Americans lose on depreciation of automobiles every year? When consumers replace worn out cars the new ones get added to GDP but the worn out cars don't get subtracted from anywhere.
I guess economists don't have to do algebra correctly.
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=28529
psikey
Right, but this describes the whole US mass/popular consumer economy--especially the great economic frontier, networked electronics. Tens of millions of Americans replace their smartphones every 2 years, some even more frequently. There's obvious efficiency issues here but it's difficult to get to close to them with policy because of certain sensitive constituencies.
ReplyDelete