patrick.net

The_Deplorable says

So, where is this higher GDP coming from?

Creative Accounting and Financialization. Although in fairness, we do have the vast majority of IP still.

SunnyvaleCA says

Patrick says

I have to admit that there are tons of really hot Polish women, far more than I expected. Much better than the US.

For sure not many hot Polish women in the US.

Few polish people period on the west coast, many in NY/Chicago/Midwest

The_Deplorable says

This doesn't make sense because unlike Europe, the US sent all their industrial operations - entire factories, the equipment, including the foundation bolts to China.

So, where is this higher GDP coming from?

We didn't sent all of our industrial operations, just most our lower tier and a lot of our middle tier industries. Our high tier mostly stayed and grew.

High tier = higher value. That means higher GDP.

But industrial development in and of itself doesn't matter when it comes to GDP. If it did, then the heavily industrialized USSR would have been a juggernaut 2-3 times higher GDP than us.

What matters is the value you produce by what you do. Sure, manufacturing can deliver a lot of GDP...but not as much if is constrained by government. And Europe's economy is stifled by regulation/welfare state bs compared to us. As we are compared to Asia.

But demographic collapse in Asia is putting an end to that disparity and in Europe it will just kill whatever little growth prospects they have. 40% of the EU population will be retirees. China will be just as bad or worse. Russia and Ukraine worse of all.

India has the best prospects and is geopolitically sitting pretty sweet, but for the corruption and caste bullshit.

BayArea says

I may have missed it above but what all countries are you visiting?

Poland, Austria, Czecia

AmericanKulak says

Patrick

Are there White males in commercials?

I will look.

In Austria :

In the Wielicka salt mine near Krakow :



And this is way the hell underground.

Center of Tuliszków. My great great grandfather's house is on the far left and he planted the tree with the scar in the center.

Trollhole says

India has the best prospects and is geopolitically sitting pretty sweet.

Why? Help me understand this.

Patrick says

AmericanKulak says

Patrick

Are there White males in commercials?

I will look.

I watched some TV. The majority are white people including white men, but they frequently include blacks and Turks.

The_Deplorable says

This doesn't make sense because unlike Europe, the US sent all their industrial operations - entire factories, the equipment, including the foundation bolts to China.

Agreed. It's irrelevant as GDP alone is mostly worthless without other measures. I say mostly because countries with a reasonably high GDP tend to do better, but it's meaningless once you reach a certain threshold. China is 2nd largest, but certainly way down in quality of life. Same for the US comparison to northern/Middle European countries. GDP per capital is roughly the same, but quality of life in their cities simply beats 80% of US cities. This is true for Switzerland, Germany and parts of Austria for sure, not necessarily sourther or eastern Europe. Demographics are also not really significant as you can sew with Japan, one of the GDP powerhouses and high standard of living. These graphs alone are meaningless.

Trollhole says

Euro zone economy grew JUST 6% over the past 15 years.

US grew 82%.

This is meaningless, clearly you haven't traveled. It doesn't mean the US isn't a great country, but in terms of avg. quality of life it's behind. GDP alone becomes meaningless at some point. With deficit spending it can go infinite. Doesn't translate into better quality of life.

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings.jsp

Vienna is about twice as expensive as Krakow.

We had a far higher quality hotel in Krakow for about $120 per night, the Grand Ascot:

https://grandascot.pl/en/

Patrick says

Poland, Austria, Czecia

No Slovakia? Did you do any hiking, perhaps in the Tatras?

mell says

Doesn't translate into better quality of life.

Spot on. You can have a rising GDP and a declining quality of life, for sure.

Patrick says

We had a far higher quality hotel in Krakow for about $120 per night, the Grand Ascot:

https://grandascot.pl/en/

I didn't see any mention of parking on their website.

mell says

This is meaningless, clearly you haven't traveled. deficit spending it can go infinite.

Seems that someone is smoking the same 'quality of life' rationalization crack pipe that the Europeans have engaged in when faced with this ugly reality.

And deficit spending has nothing to do with it, either. Just another canard thrown out by the economically ignorant.

And let's cut through the 'well travelled snobbery' BS (a virtue signalling tactic typical of the Left) by asking the following question:

Tell me, you live in Europe or in America? In other words, do you live in a high GDP economy or a virtually non-existant GDP one?

Al_Sharpton_for_President says

No Slovakia? Did you do any hiking, perhaps in the Tatras?

Went through it on the train. No hiking, this is a pretty urban trip, except for visiting my grandmother's village.

zzyzzx says

I didn't see any mention of parking on their website.

They do have parking, looks like about 10 spots in the basement.

We're on the way to Prague now.

Trollhole says

mell says

This is meaningless, clearly you haven't traveled. deficit spending it can go infinite.

Seems that someone is smoking the same 'quality of life' rationalization crack pipe that the Europeans have engaged in when faced with this ugly reality.

And deficit spending has nothing to do with it, either. Just another canard thrown out by the economically ignorant.

And let's cut through the 'well travelled snobbery' BS (a virtue signalling tactic typical of the Left) by asking the following question:

Tell me, you live in Europe or in America? In other words, do you live in a high GDP economy or a virtually non-existant GDP one?

I live in both, neither snobbish nor left. I loathe the EU(rocrats) but some of the northern Euroepan countries, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, parts of Austria are just ahead of the US when it comes to quality of life for families, regardless of the EU. Nonetheless the US is one of the greatest countries of the world. You can see the best of worlds in both continents.

Patrick says

Al_Sharpton_for_President says

No Slovakia? Did you do any hiking, perhaps in the Tatras?

Went through it on the train. No hiking, this is a pretty urban trip, except for visiting my grandmother's village.

You'll like Prague, except for that really ugly brutalist reinforced concrete train tunnel that traverses the valley where the city is. They might have removed it, but it really was a big eyesore.

The old city is cool from a demographical standpoint - all the medieval structures have doorways designed for people no more than 5 ft tall. Make sure you visit the castle on the outskirts, where IIRC it was the seat of Charles IV. The Glockenspiel in the center of town is pretty cool as well.

See if you can find some old Commie money - it was really funny with the gear and the bough of wheat, etc.

No one wanted jews , wow. Curious as why so much hate towards them.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zSmcAKS1sy4?feature=share

Curious if this is real?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digvijaysinhji_Ranjitsinhji_Jadeja

"Good Maharaja's Square" in Warsaw, Poland, was named after Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji in recognition of his help to Polish refugees during World War II

KgK one says

No one wanted jews , wow. Curious as why so much hate towards them.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zSmcAKS1sy4?feature=share

They hate the Romi (gypsies), too.

The Russian economy outperforming Germany's

https://unherd.com/thepost/russias-economy-is-outperforming-germanys/

But hey! Germain cities are probably soooo much better!

Prague old city is well worth visiting. Really beautiful.

Noticed a cute young woman, then I noticed the thick dark hair on her legs :

Patrick says

Noticed a cute young woman, then I noticed the thick dark hair on her legs :

Likely in the armpits, too.

HeadSet says

Patrick says

Noticed a cute young woman, then I noticed the thick dark hair on her legs :

Likely in the armpits, too.

Must have a monster bush.

Makes me feel like Tarzan in the jungle... whaaa ahha ahha!

Will take a little leg hair over a bull nose ring and purple hair any day of the week. Hippy is safer than Wokie.

Patrick says

Prague old city is well worth visiting. Really beautiful.

Noticed a cute young woman, then I noticed the thick dark hair on her legs :

On her VERY SHORT legs.

Trollhole says

The Russian economy outperforming Germany's

https://unherd.com/thepost/russias-economy-is-outperforming-germanys/

But hey! Germain cities are probably soooo much better!

GDP? Yawn. All that spending on re-starting shell production and refurbishing of T-54s and LADAs for the wives of dead cannon fodder and they are still down 2%? Some economic paradise right there!

Patrick says

then I noticed the thick dark hair on her legs :

Have to go spelunking to get past her pelt. Aromatics must cause a swoon.

Weather is pleasant, high of 77 today in Prague.

Prague is a party town, lots of drinking, people stay up late. Quite a lot of vomit on the sidewalks in the morning, ugh.

Train station is a little sketchy with obvious gypsies hanging out in front and looking for targets to pickpocket I suppose, but the rest of Prague seems very safe.

Bathrooms are almost all for-pay only, about 1 Euro.

Change is hard to get, both coins and bills. ATM gave us 100 Euro notes in Vienna, but everyone wants smaller bills, and no one wants to break the 100 for you. You can do it at a bank though.

The lack of change has been a problem in Poland, Austria, and Czechia. In Poland, we wanted to store our luggage, but the boxes require coins, and none of the shops in the station will give you coins, not even if you buy something. Well, we checked 3 or 4 shops, and they all said no.

AmericanKulak says

Makes me feel like Tarzan in the jungle... whaaa ahha ahha!

Will take a little leg hair over a bull nose ring and purple hair any day of the week. Hippy is safer than Wokie.

100% agreed. I found hippies mostly pleasant and good in the sack even if not aligned everywhere

More thoughts about Prague:

Do not go in the summer. It's wall-to-wall tourists, ourselves included. Pretty maddening after a while that you can never walk in a straight line because there are always people in the way.

Avoid the Chinese shops. There are little convenience stores run by Chinese, but the prices are crazy. A Magnum ice cream bar is $1.50 in a mainstream grocery store here, but $5 or $6 in a Chinese shop.

It used to be shitty under the communists, but you can see that things are far nicer now, lots of recent renovations.

There used to be a massive statue of Stalin on the castle side of the river, on a hill with a great view of the city. Now it's a "beer garden" but that's just a few stands selling beer and a lot of tatted people smoking (including weed) and hanging out. Lots of graffiti up there, but OK, that's the place to be cool.

Saw maybe 10 gay flags, way more than Poland or Austria.

Saw just one woman wearing a mask. She looked like an idiot, which she clearly is if she's still afraid.

Pilsner Urquell is everywhere, and it's distinctly better than the version we get in bottles in the US.

Lots of Spanish tourists.

Patrick says

Now it's a "beer garden" but that's just a few stands selling beer and a lot of tatted people smoking (including weed) hanging out

Ah, my wife says there's a better beer garden up on that hill, but we somehow didn't see it.

I really like Hotel Hastal in Prague, a small hotel in the center. https://www.hotelhastalprague.com/en/ Very traditional, actual key to door. Was kind of surprised that the maids seem to be young Czech women. In America, hotel maids always seem to be Latina.

If you stay here, get room 22 if you can. Bigger than other rooms, and has a balcony.

Graffiti in Krakow:

Vienna and Prague have public mist sprayers, which are really nice on a hot day. I thought of a good joke about them:

Q: What is this thing called?
A: It's a mistery!

Patrick says

Pilsner Urquell is everywhere, and it's distinctly better than the version we get in bottles in the US.

Pilsner Urquell, along with Budvar (the original Budweiser) were founded in the city of Pils (Czech) or Pilsen (German) (hence the type of beer). True fact, after the fall of the iron curtain, Budvar wanted to sell internationally, but Budweiser US (which was founded by Budvar back in the day) sued to block them because their name infringed on their trademark.

See, even 30 years ago Budweiser was run by assholes.