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

economist.com

571–580 of 905 posts

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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few European people oppose migration of educated workers. Rather it's about asylum seekers who often arrive here illegally, and typically lack sufficient education to do well in our job markets, leading to very high unemployment rate and other social problems. Europe has a problem with aging workforce, but it can't be solved by importing people who can't find a job.

> Few European people oppose migration of educated workers. That's a lie people tell you because they do not want to sound racist. > Rather it's about asylum seekers who often arrive here illegally ... very few ... > and typically lack sufficient education to do well in our job markets, Uhm. And the ones that are educated, we don't recognize their diplomas. Nice. And also, that's what the education system is for. Fin…

GP didn't blame it on the immigrants but on the old money elites who first demanded former Eastern Bloc countries in the EU and then millions of immigrants.

In a real market economy, they'd have to raise wages instead. But no, undercutting local workers and cram new arrivals into the already overheated rental market, the old money vultures get even richer.

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

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one European. You would have to talk to a lot of Europeans to make the claim you made.

The fact that you can't name any just proves my point. Thank you.

Your logic is flawed. That happens when following some ideology.

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

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue if you say "the fact is", you should provide a source for that. So low-paying jobs in the service sector are not an immigrant thing in the US? Did you talk to enough Europeans to know we can only name the BionTech guy as an example of a successful immigrant?

>Did you talk to enough Europeans to know we can only name the BionTech guy as an example of a successful immigrant? Please name some for me. Especially in Germany.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/31872/people-with-migra...

A few examples as well as general recent trends but also the challenges immigrant founders are facing.

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

#574

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Silicon Valley is top, we all know that. But in terms of startup funding, after the SFBA and Beijing comes London. In terms of startup-friendliness, London typically beats every US hub except the SFBA, and occasionally ties with NYC. I'll give you places like Stockholm and Amsterdam don't quite hit those heights, but still have healthy ecosystems going for them. But it's difficult to describe the 'EU' way of doing th…

> in terms of startup funding, after the SFBA and Beijing comes London Do not believe this is correct. In 2016, London was No. 7, after 6 American cities; it was ahead of Beijing and Shanghai individually, though not collectively [1]. The next European city is Paris, in No. 16, after Chicago, Austin and Mumbai. [1[] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/globa...

I'll dig out the report I'm thinking about, but the data in yours is either from 2016 (report date) or 2012 (where they say at least some of their data is from).

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

#575
post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing isn't 'harder', it just has to be done correctly.

Giving two written warnings two weeks apart for one of the five objective reasons that are grounds for firing, then firing with a three month notice period is by definition harder than saying "you're fired, please leave the building immediately".

So employ people on fixed 3 month contracts, or even by day. You’ll have to pay more of course.

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

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well the topic of this thread was corporate and tech related so what do you expect? I expected exactly this - that people that benefit from those giant companies fail to see the downsides. > You can't always bring the lifestyle of minimum wage employees into every single discussion just as an joker card to argue that Europe is better than the US. Why not, if it works? Are you not just confirming that the US works f…

> those giant companies fail to see the downsides So in your book big companies have only downsides? What about VW, Mercedes, BMW, SAP, Bayer, Siemens, etc? Why are big US companies evil for you and not the rest?

> big companies have only downsides

> Why are big US companies evil for you and not the rest?

Never said any of that, so I guess you're not really reading my comments?

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

#577

This article is truly bizarre. The main point it makes is that the top 500 US companies grew faster than the top 500 European ones in the last decade or so. 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…

That's a little bonkers. From my perspective, if the entire EU economy grew as fast but in the US the biggest companies grabbed everything, that is a sign that conditions in the EU are going to be better, and that the fertile soil of innovation is going to be in the EU and NOT the US.

That would be 'cos in my analysis (heavily influenced by concepts of artificial life and the genetic algorithm) concentration is devastating for innovation past local plateaus. It's not just 'the consumer', it's basically premature optimization, and it's a very serious concern.

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

#578
post #289

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... Just Eat Takaway. Booking.com are from the Netherlands too. Spotify is Swedish. As is Klarna and Mojang. SoundCloud is German. Mixcloud British. Several of the covid vaccines were develeoped in europe (albeit under the umbrella of US companies such as J&J). Volkwagen and Volvo are beating Tesla in sales numbers and in getting self driving to market hands down. There is lots of high tech in Europe. Just Because th…

> Booking.com are from the Netherlands too. Booking has been owned by a US company since 2005.

That’s the US M.O. any innovation gets bought out by successful companies.

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

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm so 1) the corporate tax rate and other tax benefits in many EU countries is much lower than the US (I imagine you must have heard of US companies using their European operations to dodge us taxes) 2) The quality of labor you can hire is generally higher in europe (for example its common knowledge that facebook london has better engineers) I think what the us has is access to venture capital which i agree is diffi…

Actual tax rate dont matter, the US system allows you to easily not pay any or very little, compared to Europe. Tax benefits are very little. Please show me a company in the US that pays 25% Corp tax + all the other stuff you have to pay in most European countries.

> show me a company in the US that pays 25% Corp tax

In 2020, the companies in the S&P 500 paid an effective tax rate of 23.77% [1]. On average, it's about 25%.

[1] https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios...

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

#580
post #143

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Reporting back: Your comment is utter nonsense. There is a thriving tech scene in Europe and we do quite well! Reliable and cheap health care is a huge boon for small entrepreneurs. There’s little regulation to deal with as a software company. Child care and great schools are cheap or free. Yes firing people is much harder, that is a different context compared to the US you have to properly plan for. Which we do over…

Work for a tech company in Europe. GDPR compliance is costing us massive manpower hours and money spent on compliance consultants. Most of my salary gets obliterated before it reaches me and I make significantly less than tech workers in the US. There's a lot to like about the security but I'm starting to wonder if I can ever really break out of working until I'm enfeebled here.

What country, how much do you pay, why are you so concerned about personal information when you could simply not collect it?

Im concerned you think functions like Infosec are a drain too (same principles as gdpr - ensure you are handling information securely), please tell me who it is so I don’t invest

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