'The GDP gap between Europe and the United States is now 80%'
lemonde.fr
lemonde.fr
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...
Indeed, the article says Eurozone, while this graph (and the one on nominal GDP from same source) says 'EU'.
You can compare GDP per capita by PPP.
>In 2008, the eurozone and the US had equivalent gross domestic products (GDP) at current prices of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion respectively (€13.1 trillion and €13.6 trillion). Fifteen years on, the eurozone's GDP is just over $15 trillion, while US GDP has soared to $26.9 trillion.
>As a result, the GDP gap is now 80%! The European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based think-tank, published a ranking of GDP per capita of American states and European countries: Italy is just ahead of Mississippi, the poorest of the 50 states, while France is between Idaho and Arkansas, respectively 48th and 49th. Germany doesn't save face: It lies between Oklahoma and Maine (38th and 39th). This topic is muted in France – immediately met with counter-arguments about life expectancy, junk food, inequality, etc. It even irks the British, who are just as badly off, as evidenced in August by a Financial Times column wondering, "Is Britain really as poor as Mississippi?"
Whether Europe is ahead in this regard can be debated I suppose, and in some ways some forms of wealth is a means to this end, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things that Britain might be as poor as Mississippi?
GDP is a bad measure. We all know this.
There us also nothing wrong with GDP as a metric. It measures something specific like all metrics and issues only arise when it is conflated or confused with other metrics (like you do in your comment).
This is about GDP, i.e. production of wealth. I'm claiming that not only we need production of wealth but we also need to keep up with others in order to keep a good standard of living.
Now, we also need a good distribution of wealth for everyone to benefit, but that is another issue. And 'robbing' other is completely OT.
And this is just one of the examples of inefficiency in your "wealthy" society. What we have here is broken window fallacy and misappropriation of resources, but there's also negative wealth you create. Wealth that costs more then it ever has created. Think of all the asphalt you love to create, which creates heat island effect, which requires ACs to handle. Along all the steps of the production "wealth" is being "created".
Lasty, his comment was indeed not factual because what he wrote about sidewalks in Europe is plainly BS (an I am an European).