Warren, I know the data. It is you who are cheery-picking, although you may not know it.
You note that per capital GDP growth over 1945-1973 was 1.8%, which seems to make your point. But then I can note that per capital GDP growth over 1946-1973 was 2.3%, same as the other period. Remarkable what shifting things just one year does. I was responding yo YOU post in which you said:
"It should also be noted that outgrowing the WWII debt was composed of lots of population growth at nearly 2% per year, and quite minimal per capita economic growth and thus quite minimal improvement in living conditions for individual citizens." Well you can't count 1945 as a period when we were "outgrowing the war debt" since we were still like fighting the war. And you cannot assume that the all the soldiers magically appeared, all discharged, in August 1945 when the war ended. We did not stop war spending until 1947, and if you want to get technical you could use 1947 for which the corresponding population and per cap GDP growth were 1.5% and 2.5, which is even worse for you case than what I posted.
As for the other figures, where did you get them? The site I linked to has these figures:
1973-2010 1.0% 1.7%
1980-2010 1.0% 1.8%
I explicitly avoided using the 1947-73 and 1973-2010 comparisons because that IS cherry-picking in my favor.
I gave the site I was using because it is super-easy to use. I am doing the analyses in real time as I post. The same data can be found at economagic.com, which is where my spreadsheet data come from. It's the same data, you can get it from the BEA or the Fed, but its more of a pain. I like measuring worth because it makes it so easy.
Are you sure you grabbed the right data? Might it have been nominal GDP rather than real?
You note that per capital GDP growth over 1945-1973 was 1.8%, which seems to make your point. But then I can note that per capital GDP growth over 1946-1973 was 2.3%, same as the other period. Remarkable what shifting things just one year does. I was responding yo YOU post in which you said:
"It should also be noted that outgrowing the WWII debt was composed of lots of population growth at nearly 2% per year, and quite minimal per capita economic growth and thus quite minimal improvement in living conditions for individual citizens." Well you can't count 1945 as a period when we were "outgrowing the war debt" since we were still like fighting the war. And you cannot assume that the all the soldiers magically appeared, all discharged, in August 1945 when the war ended. We did not stop war spending until 1947, and if you want to get technical you could use 1947 for which the corresponding population and per cap GDP growth were 1.5% and 2.5, which is even worse for you case than what I posted.
As for the other figures, where did you get them? The site I linked to has these figures:
1973-2010 1.0% 1.7%
1980-2010 1.0% 1.8%
I explicitly avoided using the 1947-73 and 1973-2010 comparisons because that IS cherry-picking in my favor.
I gave the site I was using because it is super-easy to use. I am doing the analyses in real time as I post. The same data can be found at economagic.com, which is where my spreadsheet data come from. It's the same data, you can get it from the BEA or the Fed, but its more of a pain. I like measuring worth because it makes it so easy.
Are you sure you grabbed the right data? Might it have been nominal GDP rather than real?