Every decade, technology makes us dramatically more productive. Every decade, GDP growth slows. These two facts should not coexist — and understanding why they do reveals the defining economic tension of our era.
That’s true. My point was that the article is claiming that since the share of GDP which is consumer spending decreased, total consumer spending also decreased. But since GDP per capita increased at the same time, the actual total consumer spending per person increased (the 7 percentage point decrease does not outweigh the doubling of real GDP per capita). This could be misleading in its own right, with the richest spending more and the median spending less even in total numbers, but the article doesn’t claim that. It claims that total spending has gone down, which is just not true.
“real GDP per capita more than doubled in this time period which means consumer spending also doubled”
GDP measures a lot of things that are not consumer spending.
That’s true. My point was that the article is claiming that since the share of GDP which is consumer spending decreased, total consumer spending also decreased. But since GDP per capita increased at the same time, the actual total consumer spending per person increased (the 7 percentage point decrease does not outweigh the doubling of real GDP per capita). This could be misleading in its own right, with the richest spending more and the median spending less even in total numbers, but the article doesn’t claim that. It claims that total spending has gone down, which is just not true.
ah, duh, yeah - the share shrunk but the pie grew so it’s still a bit more cake
Giving you an upvote for using three metaphors in a sentence that small. Impressive!
thank you, I am giving you a smiley face back: :)