Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

861–870 of 905 posts

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

#861

Post by csomar »

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #403
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #334

Earlier 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…

>> 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…

Only if you assume that these big companies are owned by a few people. They could be as equally distributed as small businesses nullifying the effect. Though since the USA is quite unequal comparing to Europe, it probably is not.

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

#862

Post by refurb »

coldtea wrote: post #801
refurb wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ. Yeah, I said that’s a fine attitude to have. My point is you can either give a shit about your job or not. If you don’t, don’t expect to do anything innovative or produce a lot of value. If you’re cool with that, so am I. Just don’t complain in a few decades when you have to cut back social programs.

> My point is you can either give a shit about your job or not. If you don’t, don’t expect to do anything innovative or produce a lot of value. You seem to have conflated working overtime and not taking vacations with "giving a shit about your job". Sure, not giving a shit about your job wont give you innovations. But working overtime and not taking vacations wont give you innovations either. It's totally orthogonal…

You seem to have a hard time focusing. I never said anything about overtime.

You’re setting up a bunch of straw men then knocking them down.

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

#863

Post by refurb »

nicbou wrote: post #740
refurb wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on what you consider cool. I work in drug discovery and no, I couldn't do that without some deep pocketed investors.

You could still do it with 6 weeks vacation though, with the sort of balance Europeans have come to expect.

You can’t if there aren’t any jobs like that in Europe.

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

#864

Post by refurb »

coldtea wrote: post #768
refurb wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's clearly not slavery because these are folks who could work anywhere. The point is - many (not all) Europeans are happy with a 10 to 4 paper pushing role. Butt in seat, collect a paycheck. That's fine. But you can't have that plus innovation and global leadership in entrepreneurship.

> No, it's clearly not slavery because these are folks who could work anywhere. Well, we can consider slavery (or rape, abuse, etc.) a binary thing. That it's just about threatening someone with direct violence and not giving them any other choice. Or we can consider it a spectrum. Few people work in a corporate job by free choice. People might enjoy work, want to build something great, and so on. But they wouldn't g…

By your logic everyone is a slave - if somebody doesn’t work we all starve. That seems like a useless framework.

And I said nothing about overtime. It’s the mentality of “oh I’ll do it tomorrow” and tomorrow never comes.

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

#865

Post by refurb »

Fargren wrote: post #728
refurb wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Because new companies create jobs. 2. People with jobs pay taxes. As do the companies themselves. 3. Taxes pay for social safety net?

You make it sound like having ease to start companies leads to a better social security net. Easier to start companies -> more companies -> more taxes -> safety net. Sounds credible in theory, but the reality is that despite it being harder in the EU than the US to start a company, the safety net is much stronger in the EU. So there must be something wrong in that theory.

I never made that claim at all.

What I claimed is without jobs and companies (economic activity) you cant collect taxes which pay for social safety nets.

Am I wrong? Or is there magic fairy dust to pay for a social safety net I don’t know about?

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

#867

Post by frumper »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #758
Delk wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being ruled by a fascist supporter and/or supported by fascist sympathizers has an enormous impact on the quality of life Of course. It's the "about to be ruled by" part that's the cheap-ish rhetoric, as it implies an unsubstantiated imminent threat, not just "some of these guys are really going in the wrong direction". > having 10 times the chances of dying shot by a stranger makes it 10 times more probable that i…

> No, it absolutely certainly does not, unless that's the only way you could die. That's really, really basic statistics. You're right, but all other stats regarding mortality are worse for US than my country, so... Homicides rates in particular are many times worse not just some % worse, that's why I mostly complain about them. But we also have longer life expectations, better food, better healthcare, etc. etc. if t…

I assume you’re not in a violent criminal gang in your country. If you were in America and continue to not be in a violent criminal gang then your numbers don’t hold up nearly as well. Its even smaller chances if you’re not related to a gang member, and smaller yet if you don’t live in gang neighborhoods, which I assure you are not hard to determine. It’s easy to overblow the concerns if you don’t factor that in your calculations.

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

#868

Post by rswail »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #682
ido wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What you're trying to say is Muslim immigrants have trouble integrating in secular European society.

But that has been a problem with immigration for years. In Australia in the 50s/60s the same thing was said about Italians and other post-war immigrants.

The first generation works hard and busts their ass to get their kids a good education and into professions and business. They also have more of the attitudes of the society they left (conservative etc).

The second and then third generation adopt their local society's attitude. This leads to inter-generational clashes.

Radical propaganda leads to radicalization to the same endpoint, whether Islamist or Christianist or (in Israel for example) Judaist, or in India, Hinduist.

That radicalization is what is causing the current lack of assimilation. It is dangerous because it is driven by having an in group and an out group. It doesn't matter which religion it is, the radicalization, the precepts (male domination, female subjugation, attacking non-cis genders, non-hetero sexuality etc) are all the same.

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

#869

Post by rswail »

sgt wrote: post #773
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why you now see ghettos and zones where the police don't go in France, Sweden and even UK. Please name me one place in the UK where police don’t go. This is exactly the same 5 year old BS that we heard from Trump times. Even the USA ambassador was embarrassed and grilled by the journalist in the Netherlands to provide one example of “politicians being burned” and “no-go zones” in the Netherlands. https://you…

Police have been told to avoid certain areas in uniform when traveling to and from work. In other areas the police think twice about entering, as people are likely to throw things at the car etc. I have this from a friend in the UK. If that doesn't qualify as a type of "no go", I don't know where to draw the line. In any case, it's shocking.

"a friend in the UK"... what an excellent source of factual unbiased information.

It's also bullshit (and if it isn't prove me wrong with actual facts, not apocryphal stories from "friends" ).

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

#870

Post by emptysongglass »

midasuni wrote: post #856
emptysongglass wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Your attitude to other people’s data is exactly why the GDPR and similar rules like HIPA exist.

Who said anything about my attitude toward other people's data? You don't know anything about me. Stop turning me into your vehicle to rail against what you see as an industry abuse of personal data.

What I said was that GDPR compliance is expensive and uses manpower that US companies don't need to spend like EU companies, which may help to explain the challenges that EU tech companies face when competing with US tech companies. The degree of regulatory compliance EU companies must satisfy might also explain why I'm getting paid peanuts when I could be earning more in the US.

Post reply on HN