(Economist Leader) America’s economy is bigger and better than ever

Few sights

have better captured America’s world-beating ingenuity. On October 13th a giant booster rocket built by SpaceX hurtled to the edge of the atmosphere before plunging back to Earth and being neatly caught by the gantry tower from which, only minutes earlier, it had taken off. Thanks to this marvel of engineering, big rockets could become reusable and space exploration cheaper and bolder. Yet, just as the launch was a testimony to American enterprise, so Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder, captures all that is going wrong with its politics. In his support for Donald Trump, Mr Musk has spread misinformation about voter fraud and hurricane relief and derided his opponents as ill-intentioned idiots.

America, too, continues to rack up a stellar economic performance even as its politics gets more poisonous. As they prepare to go to the polls in fewer than 20 days’ time, Republicans and Democrats have never mistrusted or disagreed with each other more. Against that gloomy backdrop, can America’s breathtaking economy possibly stay aloft?

Over the past three decades America has left the rest of the rich world in the dust. In 1990 it accounted for about two-fifths of the gdp of the g7. Today it makes up half. Output per person is now about 30% higher than in western Europe and Canada, and 60% higher than in Japan—gaps that have roughly doubled since 1990. Mississippi may be America’s poorest state, but its hard-working residents earn, on average, more than Brits, Canadians or Germans. Lately, China too has gone backwards. Having closed in rapidly on America in the years before the pandemic, its nominal gdp has slipped from about three-quarters of America’s in 2021 to two-thirds today….

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'Over the past three decades America has left the rest of the rich world in the dust.' https://t.co/YjpRyqcC5v pic.twitter.com/gon4gqDtQm

— Jesse Felder (@jessefelder) October 17, 2024