EconoFact

Correction accepted. Eight failed audits. Would love to see the will to fix this specific item, but am not confident it exists. We spent hundreds of billions on war with Iran before we forgave student loan debt and instituted Medicare for All, for example. The evidence is clear these are active choices we can make. We actively choose the bad financial policy choices through governance outcomes. The only branch of government I have faith in any longer is the bond market. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/12/19/pentag… https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-7th-audit-…

High tax and high public spending. Government spending was a slightly lower percentage of GDP than today (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S), and a whole lot of that was defense (https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and-internati… The 50s were great, let’s do that again. Assuming you're not a non-white person, or a woman who wants a career. Although getting rid of Medicare would certainly help the budget.

The US' contribution has been incredibly significant and the war would have gone very differently without US support but the idea that the US has contributed most money is false and driven by hubris. There's various ways of tracking support and by many metrics there are European countries that have given more than the US once you account for population & GDP. It gets more complicated for EU members as the EU has given financial support, so the largest funders of the EU, like France, have paid proportionally more via the EU than directly. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tra… https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/these-countries-ha… Also worth remembering that 70% of that aid from the US never left the US and was spent on procuring weapons from the US. https://econofact.org/factbrief/does-most-u-s-aid-to-ukraine-go-to-u-s…

> argue for an uncontrolled anarchistic border and presence of foreign nationals in the same breath. Can you cite any of these arguments? Because I struggle to take seriously your assertion when compared against data like these [1][2]. These data show laws were being followed and enforced. Maybe you want to argue about the level of enforcement, but you can't look at these data and conclude the border was "uncontrolled and anarchistic". Looks like Biden deported more people at the border in 2024 than Trump ever did in a single year. That's not anarchy. The real issue with interior deportations is the drastic rise in pending asylum cases after 2020 - roughly 3x more cases in 2024 than in 2020, and the number is just going up. Dealing with this would be easy if you just deny everyone political asylum, but that would be lawless. [1] https://econofact.org/immigrant-deportations-trends-and-impacts [2] https://www.ice.gov/spotlight/statistics

> That is a non-issue regarding privacy This is definitely not true and results from a limited perspective. How you get that information is important. This is quite difficult to do accurately if we're being honest, and you should work it out (write down how you'd measure it, then determine how to exploit it, then repeat). I think you'll find that the only way to do this results in invasion of privacy. I'll give a more familiar example of how things that are well intentioned and at first look appear innocuous. We encourage the use of pronouns to correctly address people and give them proper respect (a great goal and something we should always do!). But on the other side, it forces people to pick an identity and draw a very discrete line (as opposed to more flexible boundaries and terms). It does not account for gender fluidity and it forces people to out themselves or hide even more. Which can happen in ways out of their control (e.g. someone else sets up a name tag knowing their preferred pronouns in a setting the person may not want to reveal their identity). Often more important when someone is figuring themselves out. The problem is not intentions, it is that life is messy. Nothing is monolithic or universal. The best intentions can lead to amplifying the very thing you are trying to prevent/resolve. Another famous example is removing convicted criminal history questions (ban the box) from job applications[0]. Things are complicated and never are like what you assume…

So, kinda? I don't have a spectacular source, but there's this [1] Deportations were highest at the end of Bush's term. Obama gradually ramped down internal deportations. You may recall there was a pretty strong emphasis on DACA, the DREAM act, and a bunch of stuff about sanctuary cities. That got rolled back somewhat under Trump. This has been a politically charged topic, and I'm doing my best to tread lightly. My understanding is at the end of Obama's term, deportations were mostly driven by criminal activity. If someone got arrested for something, ICE is tipped off, and they're deported. On the other hand, they ran a stop sign, that was generally overlooked. Later, there was a push to improve those numbers, so there were various people who were suspected or known to be undocumented. Some were visited and deported. There's various stories of homes being busted into. I have some opinions around all of that, but that's a minefield I don't want to walk through. What is disturbing is, the enforcement varies with the political winds. They have a lot of power. "abuse" is pretty charged in this context. My preference is for the rules to be a lot less fuzzy. We already have a lot of rules around how citizens are treated, my preference is to treat people as citizens until proven otherwise. I'm ok with kicking in the door, if they can get a warrant. There's lots of special cases, there's lots of horrible outlier examples. Yeah, I get the guy picking tomatoes getting paid under…

It's true that Pentagon audits failed to account for hundreds of billions of dollars. https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-7th-audit-… But I am sure future audits will succeed in tracking down all of the prompts used for AI-generated reports. /s

What? The gap between US and Europe is increasing at a faster rate. If anything, economically Europe looks bleak compared to not just the US but growing countries in Asia. Even by PPP, US looks better. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-gap-betwee…

Being untrue is what makes these things lies[1][2]. Arguing that they are emotionally compelling is just confirming that they're manipulative lies. [1] https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation [2] https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-adjusted-wag…

Well said on the site of Y-Combinator. A US company ran by Americans that mostly funds startups in the US. Clearly the US, the home of Apple, nVidia, Anthropic, Open AI, SpaceX, Google, Meta, Amazon, Tesla etc. is sinking while the EU the home of (? ... well, there is ASML) is going to be running the world. Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributors?timeRan… EU's GDP is so catching up with the US: https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-gap-betwee… NOT

I don’t understand how this is a good solution for housing affordability. It seems a lot like saying some parties should not be able to invest in stocks because it might adversely affect someone elses retirement income. The down side to these kinds of approaches is less market efficiency. This legislation seems like political theater considering the low rate of corporate investor ownership of residence real estate. https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-20-of-sing… . Government regulation is important but why not start by identifying the most influential factors behind home prices.

Nothing to do with Trump. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-gap-betwee… https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/04/the-gdp-gap-betwe… https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-riva…

It just depends on who you ask and what they think living paycheck to paycheck means. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/52-americans-live-paycheck-paycheck-123… https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/goldman-sachs-study-finds-more-am… https://econofact.org/factbrief/is-there-a-consensus-that-a-majority-o… No matter if it's "Nearly half" or 60%, things are clearly far from good for most Americans.

https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-20-of-sing… > "Large institutional investors, defined as those owning over 100 homes (which includes private equity firms), own 3 percent of the single-family rental stock nationwide according to Brookings. This share is higher in some local markets — in the 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas where these investors are most present, they own 12.4 percent" I personally believe that its problematic that large institutional investors own 12.4% of single family properties in the 20 main metro areas of the US.

It seems like in some areas (the good ones) its much higher (12%): https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-20-of-sing… It also seems like it might be important to determine what share of _new_ development is being created for investment. The share of existing homes being owned isn't as important. There's also the 2nd order effect. The price of property might go down if there weren't investors with tons of money to spend on a property.

Do you think Europe will be able to benefit from this forever if current trends[1] continue? I'm not so sure. [1] https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-gap-betwee…

> Do you really need your hand held on this one? Uh, I do. Because it seems to be at least debated [1]. [1] https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-healthcare-costs-risen…

https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-7th-audit-… "In November 2024, the Pentagon failed to pass its annual audit, meaning that it wasn't able to fully account for how its $824 billion budget was used. This was the 7th failed audit in a row, since the Department of Defense became required to undergo yearly-audits in 2018." Kicking journalists out would probably not make things more auditable so to speak.

"A few percent." > There are no official data on their total size, but estimates extrapolated from micro-costing studies suggest that billing and insurance-related services alone comprise about 15 percent of health care spending, and total administrative costs may comprise about 30 percent. 1. https://econofact.org/how-large-a-burden-are-administrative-costs-in-h…

That attitude sounds like a college grad with a fresh credit card they keep spending on. Their parents warn them that if they keep spending on it there will be major issues. But hey, they still have like $10k of credit and they can get another card! They’re just old and predicting catastrophe all the time. Until one day they they have no more credit left and all their income goes to paying credit card interest not even paying off the debt. In the 70s the debt was negligible. Now the debt is nearing 100% of the US GDP [1]. Historically once countries reach 120% hyperinflation occurs. The dollar being the global reserve currency buffers it a bit but not indefinitely. 1: https://econofact.org/why-is-the-u-s-debt-expected-to-keep-growing

AFAICT a lot of studies and economists predict macro-level benefits to the US economy for tariffs, but they also predict that the costs will outweigh the benefits. For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost. https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited

I definitely agree. Their goal is to balance the budget and reduce the national debt (which ballooned to 36T under the previous administration). Reducing waste at the Pentagon is absolutely necessary if they are going to achieve that goal. The Pentagon has failed 7 audits in a row. https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-7th-audit-…

The answer is less but at the local level in the form of loosening zoning and other regulations in order to allow for the building of more and denser housing. We have a housing shortage[0] plain and simple and NIMBY is holding back progress on the issue. [0] https://econofact.org/the-housing-shortage-and-the-policies-to-address…

Define "severe" https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth-rate

"there are a half dozen more who don't give any thought to any of this whatsoever and proceed to have (often multiple) kids anyway." You might have to update this [1]. People do care. People have an iphone now. People can read. The "tons of kids poppin" arguments don't hold. We will see a global wide population decrease soon. https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth-rate

> I get that we can't open the flood gates There is no flood of immigrants waiting for the gates to open. American net migration is trending down. Soon there will be more people leaving than coming. Besides, leaving your country is hard and a large majority of people aren’t actually that interested. Especially not for a place like USA when other, nicer, places have strong economies too. https://econofact.org/the-decline-in-u-s-net-migration Personally I moved here for the tech industry. But there’s really not much else the US has going for it.

Why deny basic laws of supply and demand? Almost all economists agree low supply of homes is a factor. https://econofact.org/why-and-where-are-housing-prices-rising https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/homes-for-sale-hit-record-low… https://www.barrons.com/articles/may-housing-starts-51623796605 Supplies are hitting record lows. There will always be millions of temporarily vacant homes in a country the size of the US as people move in and out of homes. Nobody is asking developers to build only "luxury condos". Where did you get that from?

Voter turnout is extremely correlated with income (https://econofact.org/voting-and-income). The more likely explanation is that the Republican party is afraid that more poor people who currently can't afford to vote will suddenly have the resources to do so.

> Isn't what the UK is doing effectively flattening the curve that everyone is talking about. No I think their strategy is the opposite, they want a big spike to get it over with. Flattening the curve is spreading the outbreak over time so the stays under the medical system saturation point, but the whole thing lasts much longer. See this graph: https://econofact.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FlatCurve_web.png

IP theft, copycat tech, and forced technology transfer [1] (US corps giving their IP to gain access to the market). [1] https://econofact.org/what-is-the-problem-of-forced-technology-transfe…