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

economist.com

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

#681

Post by cube2222 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #655
cube2222 wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioning US research power here when the main vaccine being used - Pfizer - was developed in German BioNTech is quite weird. If you look at vaccination percentages[0] you'll also see that US and Europe are very close in that regard. I'm in my twenties in Poland and already got my second vaccine (yes, also Pfizer). As to the bigger discussion at hand, I don't see how taking vacations is contradictory to ambition and…

> Mentioning US research power here when the main vaccine being used - Pfizer - was developed in German BioNTech is quite weird. The US managed to independently produce a vaccine. No country in Europe managed that. For example the French vaccine is only just being trialed now. > you'll also see that US and Europe are very close in that regard What data are you reading? US has fully vaccinated 42% - Europe 23%. Deaths…

> The US managed to independently produce a vaccine. No country in Europe managed that.

Sure, it's a true statement, still doesn't change the fact that for Pfizer the manpower was European, the capital was US. At least that's what I've been reading. You're obviously right about the other vaccines, not denying that.

> What data are you reading? US has fully vaccinated 42% - Europe 23%.

You're right, I was reading into first-dose percentages, the US has been much better at the fully-dosed percentage.

> Deaths also higher in Europe.

Here you're wrong (or we have diverging sources, or I'm still bad at reading graphs) as far as meaningful statistics go. Using worldometer[0] and quick Excel, looking at per capita deaths it's 1451 per million for Europe, 1641 for the EU and 1846 for the US.

> I guess all those long lunches were worth it though?

I actually prefer to go without lunch and finish earlier :) Isn't it the norm to take a 30-60 minute lunch break at the US too though?

[0]:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

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

#682

Post by throwaway210222 »

ido wrote: post #522
sgt wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you should note anti-immigration tendencies. I believe those tendencies are fueled by ridiculously liberal immigration laws that essentially allows far too many asylum seekers into Europe. That's why you now see ghettos and zones where the police don't go in France, Sweden and even UK. I am not against immigration but I think Europe should be seriously reconsidering non-western immigration as it will…

I am not against immigration but I think Europe should be seriously reconsidering non-western immigration as it will simply clash. I don't get why you want to filter them by "non-western"? I have arab, african, indian & east-asian friends here in Berlin that I am sure are net-postives for society. Why not set the filters to something more directly related to what you want to achieve? Such as education level, having a…

> Why not set the filters to something more directly related to what you want to achieve?

Fine I'll bite: draw cartoons of you-know-who, see if they still integrate so seamlessly.

Its the elephant in the room.

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

#683

Post by sokoloff »

throw0101a wrote: post #642
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally False. Europe did a better job at distributing income due to high taxes but not wealth. Most Europeans are rich due to accumulation of wealth (specifically old business and real estate) inherited across generations. Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality as wealth has pooled to the people whose families have been here…

> Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality […] Do you have a source for the statistic that show this? Another comment mentioned Gini. Piketty uses the share of the top percentile (1%) or decile (10%): * https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/pikettys-inequal... * https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/03/pikettys-new-... The US isn't the worst in the world, but it is certa…

Both of those citations appear to be looking at income inequality measures rather than wealth inequality measures.

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

#684

Post by tchalla »

sokoloff wrote: post #646
dukeyukey wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality I had a quick look at Wikipedia's wealth Gini figures and this isn't the case. Places like the Netherlands and Sweden score atrociously, but the three big European economies (France, Germany, and the UK) all have less wealth inequality than the US (significantly so for the first two), as do a whole host of other European countries.

It doesn’t look to me like Germany has significantly better score than the US. (0.818 Germany vs 0.852 US. 0.867 Sweden and 0.906 for Netherlands [with 0.736 the very year prior, making me suspicious of the stability of those data points as I can’t comprehend that wealth distribution across a country that large could change that much in a single year].) * - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_…

Is the GINI scale linear? In other words, what does a difference of 0.81 vs 0.85 mean?

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

#685

Post by pembrook »

onion2k wrote: post #163
SOMA_BOFH wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you tried to start a company there?

Why should society optimize for how easy it is to start a business?

Because 60% of European GDP is government spending, and the place where government gets most of that money is by taxing private businesses (profits & cap gains), their products when sold (VAT and import duties), and their employees when they are paid by said businesses (income tax).

No businesses means no wealth to redistribute which means no safety net.

They are literally the bedrock of the entire system. So yes, society should place massive importance on making it easy for them to operate.

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

#686

Post by emptysongglass »

midasuni wrote: post #580
emptysongglass wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What a completely ignorant line of questioning. You have no idea what product I work on or if I have anything to do with compliance. And you appear to assume that the use of personal data is a binary switch you can just flip on or off, regardless of the product.

Why would I be interested in answering any question you have given your evident distaste for myself, my job, and my industry?

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

#687

Post by reader_mode »

midasuni wrote: post #587
reader_mode wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry didn't understand candidate part. Anyway - yeah I have no doubt private systems can get overloaded too, here if you have the money you have access to really good private system and low wait times, going public is guaranteed waiting list.

In the US if you have money going private is the waiting list and you can’t jump the queue as everyone else has already paid.

Sounds like a bad deal, might be worth looking into medical tourism.

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

#688

Post by imtringued »

oytis wrote: post #279
yoz-y wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article, most people here, and the reality disagrees with that. The point is that all the giants are elsewhere. Case in point as mentioned elsewhere: we actually have ISP competition here.

In reality there is some lag until effects are seen. Europe's economy has been huge very recently, and it's still significant, but the trend is that it's significance is shrinking as it can't keep up with American and Asian growth

I agree but this isn't a done deal. The potential is there and there is no reason why it shouldn't be able to compete.

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

#689

Post by brainless »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #157
brainless wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you do not understand. I have more "skin" in the game than you might think. I am a founder who understands business, finance, talks to users, takes support tickets, can talk to investors, and write in 3 different programming languages, setup the entire software pipeline myself. I am more hands-on than you might have seen around. Trust me on that. Your definition of "skin" does not need to be mine. I want to h…

I like you.

Thank you, :hugs:

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

#690

Post by iso1210 »

specialkfan wrote: post #291
ativzzz wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very US mindset. I live in the US and I completely disagree with your outlook on life. Great food with friends, or a vacation with family provides so much more satisfaction to me than anything a job could provide. The only thing a job provides that those things can't is money. I'm not so egotistical to think that I'm special and not easily replaceable. I'm no Steve Jobs or Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. I'm just…

Yep - it's this mindset that allows the US to be far more productive with arguably maybe a "lower" quality of life if you're benchmarking it against things like vacation time. It's all about trade-offs at the end of the day and what you choose to value. What folks in the US value are clearly different and therefore result in different priorities.

> it's this mindset that allows the US to be far more productive

https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

GDP per hour worked for the US is $72/hour, same as Belgium. France is $68, Denmark $75, Germany $66.

Is 9% "far more productive"?

Japan FWIW is $47/hour.

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