Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, don't Americans complain all the f**ing time how bad their broadband internet is?
German and Austrian broadband is equally worse.
This is a discussion about market share, not quality.
Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
471–480 of 905 posts
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the end, one may talk about all the startups (when the BPI pumps billions into it, I sure hope there are some startups and medium companies), but EU has proven unable to build an Apple . It would be dismantled here, and CEO beaten up before reaching any interesting level. DailyMotion (French) was as big as Youtube. Many others like this. We always end up #2, and the Silicon Valley still decides what is ok to say o…
United States unlike EU is one big market, with one unified language and standards, and I believe this difference is a huge reason (the reason?) why US has so many large startups and corporations. Also one might think that the existance of large companies like Apple points to a deficit in executive/governmental branches.
The big reason is US prioritizes big business and makes conditions most favorable to it, even at the expense of the society.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#473As usual the article is almost exclusively concerned with market capitalization as an indicator of economic success. Countries like Germany are dominated by small and middle-class, family owned business. 'Big corporate' is indeed more successful in the US or China but it's just one model to manage an economy and I don't think it's that great. One of the most important points is also buried at the end of the article >…
“No big companies” is a fine policy for things that don’t require a lot of money to innovate on. A small business will never be capable of producing anything like the iPhone for example. Pushing the envelope on tech is very expensive and this is where Europe’s current model doesn’t work. If it’s just companies reselling existing things or incremental tech (e.g. grocers, telecoms, utilities, airlines, etc), then small…
Fairphone is European and small. There's really interesting enineering under the hood.
If anything, Apple is the counter example of being efficient at innovation. They mainly package and market existing ideas in a really efficient way, but having such a capitalisation actually create so little is a waste. The same money spent on a lot of smaller companies is much more likely to produce actual innovations
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to the World Happiness Report for 2020 (which is a well-regarded and well-researched report as far as I know), 9 of the top 10 countries in the world for people's quality of life and well-being are all in the EU. The USA comes in 18th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2020_re...
Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand most definitely are not in the EU.
Switzerland and Norway are in the European Common Market and are very much aligned on all fronts.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies This is literally the article’s point. Europe and the U.S. grew similarly. The U.S. and China produced more large companies. (The Continent’s larger companies also being older than the other two’s.) > supposedly more investment in R&D Not supposedly, factually. The article explicitly states this. It’s the Economist; if you…
I think you make an interesting point, but your analysis suggest that what is most important for you is the wow factor of innovation, not innovation itself. > Leading product centres are I disagree, leading product centres measure marketing capabilities. Why do you think EU continue growing at this pace? Because we're also producing the innovation that goes into the iPhone and are making money of the composants that…
The first identifiable ANN was proposed by McCulloch and Pitts in mid-1940s. First embodiments were made in the United States as well.
> How many parts do you think Siemens built for the Falcon 9?
Few if any Siemens parts in a rocket are irreplaceable; there's no other Falcon-9 maker though yet. It is also a separate question how would it play out for Siemens if were they starting up in Europe today.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But then it quickly mention, without any further analysis, that both their GDP actually grew at a similar pace. So the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies. So all else being equals it means that the smaller US companies grew more slowly and that this article is simply mesuring increasing corporate inequalities (if there is such a thing). No. About half of the Eu…
Isn't it nice that a large part of the European economy consists of stuff helping people (the "state activities" you mention) vs. the large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Europe’s entire social safety net is at risk if their private sector can’t generate enough wealth to support it. Given their declining populations and anti-immigrant tendencies inflamed by the refugee crisis in many of its member states, it doesn’t look good for the EU’s future.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies > This is literally the article’s point. Europe and the U.S. grew similarly. The U.S. and China produced more large companies. (The Continent’s larger companies also being older than the other two’s.) So Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally, while in the US and China you got a massive concentration…
> Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally This assumes ex ante a similar quantity of wealth. Europe’s GDP per capita is lower than America’s. Where it’s higher, the growth is slower. The more-even distribution comes at the expense of quality of life or economic power. (Though not for Europe’s well-entrenched multi-generational and often legally-entitled wealthy.) To be clear, I don’t believe in mo…
Perhaps for some really contorted, US-centric definition of ”quality of life”.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The more-even distribution thus comes at the expense of quality of life. What are you talking about? We have fairer elections, better infrastructure, more social security, everyone's got health insurance, we're not getting shot in school, and also we're not on the way to be ruled by a fascist so ... how exactly are you measuring the quality of life?
>we're not getting shot in school, and also we're not on the way to be ruled by a fascist I downvoted you since you're going massively off-topic with your generalizations about the US that have no place on HN.
Thank you for your thoughtful downvote.
However I don't really follow. The discussion is clearly about politics here, so it probably does not count as off-topic. Also, fascism has a massive influence on the economy, making it relevant.
If you merely dispute my view that there's fascist tendencies in the US, that is fair, but no reason for a downvote, I'd argue.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#479Can someone explain to me the title of the article? This looks like weird English syntax to me.
Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can start a software business in Austria with just a laptop and get health insurance for 32€/month (total social security payments if you don't make profits are about 150€/month). Fees for registering a company are waived/reduced for founders. I had nowhere near $20000 when I started. Sure, if you want to open a capital intensive business like a restaurant, you'll need more money. But that's the same everywhere.
It's somewhat more difficult for founding a limited liability company there, where the capital requirements are much higher than in most other countries (Eur 35K).
Yeah, that's why most founders don't actually register a GmbH. Many small businesses are sole proprietors, even businesses with a few employees.