7 ms·

> Europe is in its own set of problems and it is not in the same situation that US used to be after WW2 (only major economy not affected by bombing). Both Japa

> Europe is in its own set of problems and it is not in the same situation that US used to be after WW2 (only major economy not affected by bombing). Both Japan and South Korea were equally devastated and yet they managed to build world-class technology industries in the subsequent decades. I think the problems with Europe and the EU are a lot deeper than that.

palata 2mo ago
A lot deeper than active wars and energy supply issues??? Europe's economy has been slowing down since 2007, which is the peak of conventional oil. The problem of Europe is that is doesn't have access to abundant energy like the US does. The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.
- pjerem 2mo ago
  If you measure economical performance with PIB per capita, yeah, for sure, US has a better economy. If you measure with anything else useful like (healthy) life expectancy or happiness level, state of the democracy, etc... like if you think the the economy must serve the people and not the other way, I'd say Europe is way more successful despite the real issues. Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.
  - gedy 2mo ago
    > I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits. It's just a totally different scale of comparison that does not work - those Nordic countries are smaller than many counties in US states. It's like comparing Iceland to Santa Barbara, etc.
  - WarmWash 2mo ago
    >Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each. If you look at the higher brackets (you have to look because "Americans in the 75th percentile live great" is not a clickable story) America is a better place to live if you work a job that pays well. The plots for "comfortable living vs income" in the US and Europe are different, and that difference is endlessly arbitraged and any boring news day to pump out another "Life in Europe is better" story.
    - pjerem 2mo ago
      Sorry but I don't share your view. A society where the bottom 50% can't live a decent life is just dysfunctional. I don't care which country is best for the riches (and actually, Europe is good for the riches), I care that the economy is there to allow everyone to live a decent and meaningful life.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
        This perspective implies that you should be vigilant to keep out poor or unskilled immigrants who might struggle to afford the quality of life you require for citizens.
      - WarmWash 2mo ago
        The issue is that "decent life" is a benchmark that (besides being subjective) is set relatively rather than absolutely. So being in the bottom 50% in the US sucks when you look around your country, but is actually pretty "decent" when you look around your planet.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
      >You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each. Poverty in the US is similar to poverty in Sweden, according to this dataset: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-than-30-per-day https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha... But the median American earns far higher wages than the median Swede: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income I think there is just a lot of misinformation out there. Americans love to complain, and other countries love to criticize the US. These effects create systematic misconceptions which no one bothers to fact-check.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
    >Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits. Norway produces oil at Saudi Arabia levels per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?country=USA~SAU~KWT~CAN~RUS~ARE~NOR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count... The US has about 70x the population of Norway, hence far lower per-capita production.
- RandomLensman 2mo ago
  If have a hard time linking a slowdown from 2007 on to oil instead of the GFC.
  - palata 2mo ago
    I don't understand that sentence.
    - RandomLensman 2mo ago
      GFC = Great Financial Crisis. I'd look at that first rather than some peak oil for Europe's underperformance.
      - palata 2mo ago
        Is "GFC" the subprimes crisis? Because that one, in 2008, may well be a consequence of the peak of conventional oil. It's not "some peak for Europe", it is THE peak for the world of, well, conventional oil, which means anything that is not the shale oil in North America.
        RandomLensman 2mo ago
        It started in 2007. I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it?
        palata 2mo ago
        Peak oil means that oil becomes harder to get. That's the definition of the peak: the production increases until the peak, and decreases after. When the economy is directly correlated to oil, it means that a decrease in oil results in the economy slowing down. > I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it? We got an economical crisis right when we reached peak oil production. Again, there is an extremely clear correlation between oil production and the economy. Since 2007, the US has had access to shale oil and the likes, so they haven't reached their peak yet. Europe, on the other hand, has reached their peak in 2007. And since then, the economy (if you look at physical indicators, not artificial proxies like the GDP) is slowing down. Again an extremely clear correlation.
- WarmWash 2mo ago
  The problem Europe has is an allergy to people making money. Oil prices aren't what drove every Euro tech worker to San Francisco for 25 years.
  - palata 2mo ago
    Since 2007, the European economy is in contraction if you look at physical indicators like "how much stuff do trucks move" or "what area is being built". That correlates directly with the peak of conventional oil and the fact that oil has been harder to get in Europe since 2007.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
  >The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy. The most valuable American companies are not exactly in energy-intensive industries: https://companiesmarketcap.com/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/
  - palata 2mo ago
    Everything depends on energy. Driving a car is a lot cheaper in the US because of abundant energy. That has an impact on the economy (the economy is pretty much trucks moving stuff around).
mrguyorama 2mo ago
The world runs on Siemens, Bosch, Rolls Royce, Bayer. Even adversarial countries buy German Marine Diesels for their warships. Europe makes better warships than the US, who has spent the last 40 years twiddling it's thumbs and can no longer make modern frigates apparently, and prefers to spend it's naval efforts on the Tsar's moronic toy boat. Unilever makes up half of the non-food items in your grocery store. Nestle makes up half the food items. Novartis played a huge part in the Covid vaccines and also is just a giant medicine company in general. Novo Nordisk should be familiar to you. ThyssenKrupp. It's twice the size of US Steel, which recently had to be sold to a US subsidiary of Nippon Steel because they sucked ass at keeping up with the times. Britain makes better gas turbines than China and Russia for example. Europe reliably produces top tier weapons systems and infrastructure, competitive with American, often surpassing American systems currently. Thales, BAE, Airbus, Saab, Rheinmetal. The US Abrams tank uses a clone of a German gun. The Bradley is a BAE design. The US has always loved using European produced and designed large guns, such as from Oerlikon or Bofors, because they are always world class. Most of their military industry is. Michelin tyres is a french company. A lot of these names survived WW2. Thinking Europe doesn't know how to build big stuff, important stuff, etc, they seem to do a better job than the US at maintaining essential industry talent and continuation of industry. By value and jobs, the automotive industry facing competition will struggle, but Europe survived the rise of Japanese automakers far far better than US automakers did, primarily because they didn't just sit back and twiddle their thumbs for decades as the rest of the world advanced. Well, okay, Britain automakers struggled, but that's a good thing.

palata 2mo ago

A lot deeper than active wars and energy supply issues??? Europe's economy has been slowing down since 2007, which is the peak of conventional oil. The problem of Europe is that is doesn't have access to abundant energy like the US does. The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.

pjerem 2mo ago
If you measure economical performance with PIB per capita, yeah, for sure, US has a better economy. If you measure with anything else useful like (healthy) life expectancy or happiness level, state of the democracy, etc... like if you think the the economy must serve the people and not the other way, I'd say Europe is way more successful despite the real issues. Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.
- gedy 2mo ago
  > I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits. It's just a totally different scale of comparison that does not work - those Nordic countries are smaller than many counties in US states. It's like comparing Iceland to Santa Barbara, etc.
- WarmWash 2mo ago
  >Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each. If you look at the higher brackets (you have to look because "Americans in the 75th percentile live great" is not a clickable story) America is a better place to live if you work a job that pays well. The plots for "comfortable living vs income" in the US and Europe are different, and that difference is endlessly arbitraged and any boring news day to pump out another "Life in Europe is better" story.
  - pjerem 2mo ago
    Sorry but I don't share your view. A society where the bottom 50% can't live a decent life is just dysfunctional. I don't care which country is best for the riches (and actually, Europe is good for the riches), I care that the economy is there to allow everyone to live a decent and meaningful life.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
      This perspective implies that you should be vigilant to keep out poor or unskilled immigrants who might struggle to afford the quality of life you require for citizens.
    - WarmWash 2mo ago
      The issue is that "decent life" is a benchmark that (besides being subjective) is set relatively rather than absolutely. So being in the bottom 50% in the US sucks when you look around your country, but is actually pretty "decent" when you look around your planet.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
    >You feel that way because the media (and the internet) is hyper focused on the bottom 50% of Americans. The households with 2 people earning <$40k per year each. Poverty in the US is similar to poverty in Sweden, according to this dataset: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-than-30-per-day https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha... But the median American earns far higher wages than the median Swede: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income I think there is just a lot of misinformation out there. Americans love to complain, and other countries love to criticize the US. These effects create systematic misconceptions which no one bothers to fact-check.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
  >Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits. Norway produces oil at Saudi Arabia levels per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?country=USA~SAU~KWT~CAN~RUS~ARE~NOR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count... The US has about 70x the population of Norway, hence far lower per-capita production.
RandomLensman 2mo ago
If have a hard time linking a slowdown from 2007 on to oil instead of the GFC.
- palata 2mo ago
  I don't understand that sentence.
  - RandomLensman 2mo ago
    GFC = Great Financial Crisis. I'd look at that first rather than some peak oil for Europe's underperformance.
    - palata 2mo ago
      Is "GFC" the subprimes crisis? Because that one, in 2008, may well be a consequence of the peak of conventional oil. It's not "some peak for Europe", it is THE peak for the world of, well, conventional oil, which means anything that is not the shale oil in North America.
      - RandomLensman 2mo ago
        It started in 2007. I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it?
        palata 2mo ago
        Peak oil means that oil becomes harder to get. That's the definition of the peak: the production increases until the peak, and decreases after. When the economy is directly correlated to oil, it means that a decrease in oil results in the economy slowing down. > I don't see the peak oil connection there - what is it? We got an economical crisis right when we reached peak oil production. Again, there is an extremely clear correlation between oil production and the economy. Since 2007, the US has had access to shale oil and the likes, so they haven't reached their peak yet. Europe, on the other hand, has reached their peak in 2007. And since then, the economy (if you look at physical indicators, not artificial proxies like the GDP) is slowing down. Again an extremely clear correlation.
WarmWash 2mo ago
The problem Europe has is an allergy to people making money. Oil prices aren't what drove every Euro tech worker to San Francisco for 25 years.
- palata 2mo ago
  Since 2007, the European economy is in contraction if you look at physical indicators like "how much stuff do trucks move" or "what area is being built". That correlates directly with the peak of conventional oil and the fact that oil has been harder to get in Europe since 2007.
0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
>The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy. The most valuable American companies are not exactly in energy-intensive industries: https://companiesmarketcap.com/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/
- palata 2mo ago
  Everything depends on energy. Driving a car is a lot cheaper in the US because of abundant energy. That has an impact on the economy (the economy is pretty much trucks moving stuff around).

mrguyorama 2mo ago

The world runs on Siemens, Bosch, Rolls Royce, Bayer. Even adversarial countries buy German Marine Diesels for their warships. Europe makes better warships than the US, who has spent the last 40 years twiddling it's thumbs and can no longer make modern frigates apparently, and prefers to spend it's naval efforts on the Tsar's moronic toy boat. Unilever makes up half of the non-food items in your grocery store. Nestle makes up half the food items. Novartis played a huge part in the Covid vaccines and also is just a giant medicine company in general. Novo Nordisk should be familiar to you. ThyssenKrupp. It's twice the size of US Steel, which recently had to be sold to a US subsidiary of Nippon Steel because they sucked ass at keeping up with the times. Britain makes better gas turbines than China and Russia for example. Europe reliably produces top tier weapons systems and infrastructure, competitive with American, often surpassing American systems currently. Thales, BAE, Airbus, Saab, Rheinmetal. The US Abrams tank uses a clone of a German gun. The Bradley is a BAE design. The US has always loved using European produced and designed large guns, such as from Oerlikon or Bofors, because they are always world class. Most of their military industry is. Michelin tyres is a french company. A lot of these names survived WW2. Thinking Europe doesn't know how to build big stuff, important stuff, etc, they seem to do a better job than the US at maintaining essential industry talent and continuation of industry. By value and jobs, the automotive industry facing competition will struggle, but Europe survived the rise of Japanese automakers far far better than US automakers did, primarily because they didn't just sit back and twiddle their thumbs for decades as the rest of the world advanced. Well, okay, Britain automakers struggled, but that's a good thing.