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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

reuters.com

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Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#471

Post by wizzairflyer »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #287
burntoutfire wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: - labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) - lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US

>- labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) That's just not true now and hasn't been the case anymore since like the 2009 financial crisis. In most of Europe it's trivial to fire an underperforming non-unionized employee as the countries have adapted more business friendly laws to remain competitive after the financial crisis. Sure, there may still be some grey beards somewhere with old bullet…

I live in Switzerland and the legal status of (tech) employee is roughly the same to what you describe. I wonder if the difference isn't that firing people "at-will" just is less culturally accepted here. I feel we're in kind of a weird spot between Japan and the US in terms of how the general public conceives the relationship between an employee and an employer.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#472

Post by photonios »

tristor wrote: post #407
mlyle wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe's done big multinational technical-political things many times to varying levels of success. Don't forget Gaileo, Arianespace, Airbus's parent EADS, the ESA, etc. They tend to not be super capital efficient, but the sheer amount of wealth and resources tend to make things that are priorities not completely fail. > P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the…

> What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck. At the risk of speaking out of turn, I've traveled extensively outside the US and befriended a lot of folks and had discussions on this topic with them. I would summarize my findings as such: 1. Economic Mobility: In Europe economic mobility, on average…

> The tech industry is a major factor in this, where senior-level positions in non-FAANG companies can make upwards of $150k/yr in the US, and the PPP equivalent European salary is around half of that.

Why does this matter so much when there is affordable healthcare, lots of social programs to save you in case things don't go so well?

I am honestly asking. I am in Europe and my salary is half of what I could make in the US, but it never bothered me. I have a very chill life and more money wouldn't make me significantly happier.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#473

Post by mamon »

mschuetz wrote: post #406
TacticalCoder wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

> P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. This is absolutely not true. English is tought in most schools simply because it's used worldwide. Also, most of the people I know are very happy to live here, and most who may have wanted to emmigrate to the US lost any desire to do so after the four years of Trump.

My experience is exactly the opposite: I was eager to emigrate during Trump term in the office, despite him making it difficult. Now that Biden has won, I know that emigration should become much easier, but it also became pointless.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#474

Post by ralfn »

eastendguy wrote: post #301
arnaudsm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

"corrupt politicians"... really? Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU? I don't. I think the majority of EU politicians are doing fine.

>Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU?

It doesn't happen with the one large corruption scheme taking all of the money. Its hundreds of small corruptions like a locust.

Here is a fair and neutral attempt to catalog all the schemes in play: https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/prevention-fraud-corruption-...

In return: Do you have an example of where the EU paid anywhere below 200% of industry standard price for anything?

I'm not arguing its more corrupt than say the US Congress. Its on par, with some weird extremes. For example: Berlusconi, a prime minister, spending public money on under age prostitutes, serving today freely as a member of the EP. That kind also owned most media companies in his country and implemented favourable regulation and tax exemptions for himself.

Here in the Netherlands, there is something referred to as the 'job carousel'. Where favourable regulation by politicians is rewarded in the future (after a political carreer) by very highly paid gigs in the industries and companies they favoured. Technically legal, and very hard to legislate against. Its a refined form of corruption, but it has all the same downsides. During Corona for example, the Netherlands had trouble getting its testing in order. Turned out we had excluded big commercial labs from consideration because we had represenatites of the 'small artisinal labs' in our taskforce lobbying. A small scale corruption, with heavy economic distortion as a result!

I'm also not perse blaming corruption on the politicians themselves. We are all together responsible for the corporate and governance culture we breed. Yet we shouldn't pretend we currently have the ability to spend/invest money effectively and fairly as a collective.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#475

Post by joelbluminator »

s_dev wrote: post #449
nixass wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Irish/Gaelic language is a thing it's mostly ceremonial and people on the street know it poorly, with no knowledge to even superficial conversation. Irish language has no use in Ireland. Even tho it is "official", it's useless

I don't agree it's "useless" but I can see your point. We don't learn it for commerce or for historical/cultural insight. We learn it to know who were are. Imagine telling a bunch of Jews that Hebrew was a load of nonsense and they're better off learning German, French or Spanish. I would agree though that the level of spoken Irish amongst the general population of Ireland is poor. For them it's not about more opport…

> Imagine telling a bunch of Jews that Hebrew was a load of nonsense and they're better off learning German, French or Spanish.

You mean Israelis right? Many jews outside Israel don't know Hebrew.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#476

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Aerroon wrote: post #99
WhoCaresLies wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy, Steel, Semi(ARM), Pharma, Luxury, Distribution, Telecom Giants in Europe, there are a lot more Only Americans think the opposite, i wonder why.. And speaking of market, Europe is a big player, https://www.vgchartz.com/ console sales speak for itself Stop being brainwashed

The EU is ahead of the US in crude steel production, but we're about 6 times behind China.[0] ARM is in the UK and not the EU. It's owned by a Japanese company and soon an American one. Does Europe do that well in pharmaceuticals? It looks to me like the US is leading in biomedical research publications. [1] Some European countries are ahead when measured per capita, but only some and that's not an important figure h…

>"The EU is ahead of the US in crude steel production, but we're about 6 times behind China."

People often throw around numbers like this without any context. In the other thread people were trying to judge economics of electric powerplants by total weight.

Why is this a relevant metric? Why would you not expect China, which is 2x the population and is building infrastructure to refine more steel? Like they also produce more food and plastic, so what?

It also is hardly correlated with wealth, wages or GDP. There has been a glut of steel on world markets for the past few years.

Are the kinds of steel produced even comparable, i.e. only recently China could produce ballpoint pens

www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-38566114

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#477

Post by Bayart »

burntoutfire wrote: post #251
arnaudsm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

Also: - labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) - lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US

I've grown to be extremely suspicious of anyone taking labour laws as a barrier to be brought down, as it's always come from people who've got nothing to lose from it and weakening them seems to systematically translate into lower standards of living and higher income inequality.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#478

Post by gostsamo »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #347
mrtksn wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? Europe is in this strange place where collectively account for enormous wealth and power but individually no country is a match to the big boys like USA/China when simultaneously are super unoptimised due to cultural/lingual differences. The younger Europeans I met were all very eager to learn English, so who k…

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european a…

Sorry, but you are trying to speak on my behalf and I strongly disagree. I learn english for various reasons but leaving the EU is not one of them. The EU has lots of faults and I won't deny it, but so does any other place. So what? One day I might leave to retire on a caribbean island, but it won't be out of bitterness. If you don't feel the same way, be honest and don't project it on others.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#479

Post by mongol »

adrian_b wrote: post #37
1cvmask wrote: post #2

Arguably the most technically advanced EU country Sweden always avoids Franco-German initiatives and the leader in chip technology in Europe is the brexiting UK with the globally dominant ARM platform (soon to be acquired by NVIDIA from Softbank).

In semiconductors Sweden was never more important than between 6th to 15th position in Europe. The only well-known company that might have made semiconductors was ASEA, which might have made some thyristors before disappearing 33 years ago, after the fusion with Brown Boveri. Now ABB has the headquarters in Switzerland. It has various sites in Sweden, but so have some US companies, without any of them being considere…

The fusion with Brown Boveri was like you say a fusion, not an acquisition. The HQ needs to be somewhere, but ABB is apart from that about as much Swedish as Swiss. Asea was one of the companies within the influence of the Wallenberg family and their company Investor were as of 2015 the largest individual shareholder of ABB.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#480

Post by eldaisfish »

908B64B197 wrote: post #388
eldaisfish wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs. I find it telling that it's mostly europeans who make these types of comments. The EU has tremendous barriers to labour mobility that most europeans don't even realise - differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most signifi…

> differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most significant It has never been cheaper and easier to operate in several languages. Seriously, translation and internationalization is as cheap as it can get (and most folks in Europe are at least bilinguals!). What they need to focus on is a unified marketplace and harmonized regulation. Now each tiny country has it's special snowflakes regulations (how to acc…

I get the feeling you're European. Language is a massive barrier and simply hand-waving that away by claiming that internationalisation is cheap is silly. Language drives a whole host of things and operating in several languages is far from easy. You are also being very generous with claiming that most folks in Europe are bilingual. They may have basic knowledge of multiple languages but can likely function fully in only one. The generations below 30 are likely to be almost completely bilingual. Look at Belgium for example. How many Flemish people can function in French and vice versa?

The fact that the US operates entirely with the global lingua franca is a gigantic advantage that can crush competition before it even begins.

The unified marketplace is one problem but look at what has already been done - EU labour is free to move. Degrees are almost always mutually recognised. What stops further integration? It ultimately boils down to language. This is why a Greek doctor can't just move to Germany. Also why a Spanish lawyer can't easily move to Sweden. Language is a much bigger problem than people here seem to think.

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