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Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

economist.com

31–40 of 905 posts

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#31
post #5

The graphs seem to me like they were selectively showing data which makes europe look bad. E.g. only showing the market cap of big companies or showing the decline of the european share of gdp but not the US one (which I assume was also falling), etc. Of course they made it to support the argument but to me it made their case much less valid.

East Asia industrializing does not somehow diminish Europe or the U.S., so measures like "global share of GDP" for the continent have nothing to do with the subject matter at hand, which is why Europe, with certainly a sufficiently large GDP, is not able to give birth to large corporations at the same rate as the U.S.

Now we can argue whether being able to do this is a good thing or a bad thing. But for some reason companies in Europe tend to grow at a slower rate. Is this good? It's a tough call. But it has nothing to do with national GDP, and throwing in non-sequiturs comparing GDPs of nation states is not contributing to the discussion.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#32

The opening paragraph: In 1984 a besuited 20-something American executive on a visit to France offered Europeans a few tips for corporate success. Entrepreneurs needed to be given a second chance if they failed and government bureaucrats made for lousy investors, he told a television interviewer. His advice was sage. But European companies ruled the global corporate roost alongside those of America and, occasionally,…

On the other hand, Steve Jobs rejected conventional medicine when he became sick, which may have contributed to his premature death.

I guess in the sum of all things, the motions of Steve Jobs could only amount to what it did. One might consider him a genius, if not for the difficulty of determining the true distribution of efforts and talents at Apple.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#33
post #7
post #5

The graphs seem to me like they were selectively showing data which makes europe look bad. E.g. only showing the market cap of big companies or showing the decline of the european share of gdp but not the US one (which I assume was also falling), etc. Of course they made it to support the argument but to me it made their case much less valid.

Fair. From ~40% share of global gdp in the 60s to ~25% now

Seems a little meaningless without knowing if growth slowed, or if developing countries are just going the steep sections of their growth curves.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#35

The opening paragraph: In 1984 a besuited 20-something American executive on a visit to France offered Europeans a few tips for corporate success. Entrepreneurs needed to be given a second chance if they failed and government bureaucrats made for lousy investors, he told a television interviewer. His advice was sage. But European companies ruled the global corporate roost alongside those of America and, occasionally,…

On the other hand, Steve Jobs rejected conventional medicine when he became sick, which may have contributed to his premature death.

Or it may have lengthened it. Oncologists are still in la la land about the genetic (as opposed to metabolic) theory of cancer, it's not clear when they will wake up.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully we can improve at that while keeping worker protections This is how Europeans defend their system - better worker protections. But I get far better pay, conditions, and work-life balance at a North American company than I could possibly expect working for a local company. I'm not sure this defence really works anymore.

It's not just better worker protection. It's the whole system that has more social safeties for everyone. You might be better off with better conditions working for a top American company but you are not most people, you are part of a privileged few who had the capacity (opportunity, financial, intellectual) to be part of a a select who can enjoy this position. You're also dependent on your company to provide these b…

If you're doing well in America pretty much every system is better for you than the European counterpart. On the other hand if you're doing poorly well you can fall very far in the US system.

Of the American's on Hacker News almost all of them are in the "doing well" category so the perspective is all off.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#37

The opening paragraph: In 1984 a besuited 20-something American executive on a visit to France offered Europeans a few tips for corporate success. Entrepreneurs needed to be given a second chance if they failed and government bureaucrats made for lousy investors, he told a television interviewer. His advice was sage. But European companies ruled the global corporate roost alongside those of America and, occasionally,…

Yet they moved their taxable entity to Ireland, if I understand things correctly. I'm not sure what it means to say that they're an "American" company. And what do we actually gain from having companies nominally located in the US?

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#38

Would have been nice if they had given a serious mention to some of the positives. Sure, Europe ahs hundreds of mobile operators but we also have cheaper plans than any I could find in America. We also have serious competition with our internet providers so I can actually switch to a better service. Anyway it is sad that we can't seem to grow as many new large companies. Hopefully we can improve at that while keeping…

> Hopefully we can improve at that while keeping worker protections This is how Europeans defend their system - better worker protections. But I get far better pay, conditions, and work-life balance at a North American company than I could possibly expect working for a local company. I'm not sure this defence really works anymore.

That is true for you, but not all.

Programmer compensation can scale with the total capital of the enterprise because the software can run everywhere (eg. AWS backend developer). So bigger employers can pay programmers more, almost linearly with capital.

But most workers can not productively use infinite capital. So they do not reap the benefits of scale, while definitely suffering the reduced autonomy of larger firms (e.g. Amazon delivery jobbers).

Social-democratic societies make different choices.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#39
post #27

The opening paragraph: In 1984 a besuited 20-something American executive on a visit to France offered Europeans a few tips for corporate success. Entrepreneurs needed to be given a second chance if they failed and government bureaucrats made for lousy investors, he told a television interviewer. His advice was sage. But European companies ruled the global corporate roost alongside those of America and, occasionally,…

As someone who grew up in Normandy, it does little to me obviously. Except the part on what we lack and should do which is still so damn hard to convince people is the solution. People in France care so much more on raising their kids, having good friends, living somewhere fun or interesting, having time away from work than they forget us the little busy bees who have to pay for all that. I gave up after 3 years of w…

> People in France care so much more on raising their kids, having good friends, living somewhere fun or interesting, having time away from work

Ironically, working for a North American company in Europe lets me do all this better than if I worked for a local company.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#40
post #24
post #12

This article doesn't do a good job of explaining why having many huge corporations is a boon. My guess is that many Europeans are perfectly fine with that.

Europe is extracting less value from its people than the U.S. is right now. Hardly a bad thing

If you assume the value extracted leaves the system, the sure. That's a bad assumption though. When everyone makes more everyone gets more. I mean, if a lot of something gets made in the US, it's generally because the US people demand it with spending.
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