You shouldn't worry too much about it. I have confidence that here in the US the people who operate our political system have the values, vision, and competence to put us back on track with Europe in a single administration.
European Stagnation Is Real
21–30 of 34 posts
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#22And individual debt in America versus Europe?
Household debt rates in America are better than most of Western Europe and comparable to Germany [0]. FYI the Nordic states and Netherlands tend to have the highest household debt rates amongst European OECD states [0]. [0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-debt.html
they also have generous social protections that allow them to handle the associated risk.
easy to take on a lil more debt if you know you have healthcare and employment protections.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#23IMHO, the EU needs to become more proactive when it comes to tech markets. Trying to find new ways to tax US tech megacorps is not going to cut it. 1. Create competitive low tax regimes for EU based tech companies, both for investors and employees. 2. Forbid buyouts by US tech companies. 3. Become more protective of tech markets in general. For example why the fuck does AirBnB or Uber get to operate in Europe? What i…
I think it's really clear what europe should do and it's been for a while. Now insert politics and you get governments mostly captured by US influence thanks to propaganda, lobby, deep ties and european upper class invested in US companies.
Any tech focus won't make a dent unless europe gets out of the US grip. And to do that would require huge changes in politics. So far we are seeing turn to far right which is even more tied to US (and US tech) than the current center right heading europe.
We will see. The digital tech moat US might be quite shallow. Maybe in hardware but software in europe is pretty great and most of the moat are network effects. Network effects can be dissolved much easier and faster than hard tech. But it's never been a fair fight.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think there are more than zero writers of code who were drawn away from cutting hair and waiting tables, I’ll eat a hat! * it must be an unused natural fiber hat. HN, anyone among you who once cut hair and waited tables? Pizza delivery does not count!
I bussed tables at one time. Like 25 years ago I think. Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job. But I was not bid away from bussing tables to write code, I was not really bid away from bussing tables for anything because nobody is bidding on table bussers to go work on anything at all.
> Pretty much everyone has done some crappy job.
you'd think so, but a lot of HN went to places like MIT and then straight into FAANG. Or Perdue and then into MechEng jobs, etc. etc.
Is one of the reasons why you see some of the hot takes at HN -- homeboy never had to pay his rent waiting tables or cutting grass.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Household debt rates in America are better than most of Western Europe and comparable to Germany [0]. FYI the Nordic states and Netherlands tend to have the highest household debt rates amongst European OECD states [0]. [0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-debt.html
they also have generous social protections that allow them to handle the associated risk. easy to take on a lil more debt if you know you have healthcare and employment protections.
If so South Korea, Portugal, and Canada wouldn't have Nordic level household debt rates despite have significantly less permissive (and in SK's case functionally non-existent) social safety nets compared to Nordics.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. > What? The context is clear is you read the whole paragraph instead of that one sentence: > Once a good is non-tradable, the wage is not set globally but in local markets. Newly productive American technology companies bid workers away from haircutting and waiting tables to write code. Since Americans still need hair…
If you think there are more than zero writers of code who were drawn away from cutting hair and waiting tables, I’ll eat a hat! * it must be an unused natural fiber hat. HN, anyone among you who once cut hair and waited tables? Pizza delivery does not count!
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Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#27IMHO, the EU needs to become more proactive when it comes to tech markets. Trying to find new ways to tax US tech megacorps is not going to cut it. 1. Create competitive low tax regimes for EU based tech companies, both for investors and employees. 2. Forbid buyouts by US tech companies. 3. Become more protective of tech markets in general. For example why the fuck does AirBnB or Uber get to operate in Europe? What i…
I think it's really clear what europe should do and it's been for a while. Now insert politics and you get governments mostly captured by US influence thanks to propaganda, lobby, deep ties and european upper class invested in US companies. Any tech focus won't make a dent unless europe gets out of the US grip. And to do that would require huge changes in politics. So far we are seeing turn to far right which is even…
Yes, unfortunately it's very easy to buy our bureaucrats both at national and EU level. Heck most of them style themselves to be Americans! You make very good points.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#28This is very interesting, good points. They don't really say what lead to this. EU and US were neck and neck in GDP growth department until GFC. And it's really not obvious what changed.
I'm not going to outright state it, but here's where you should start: there's a communist holding the position of chairman of Goldman Sachs International (yes, really, I know how it sounds. It's still true). This person made a BIG change to the Euro during the GFC ... and what you're asking was exactly the expected result.
And let's not discuss the recent changes.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#29Honestly, the world could use more stagnation. We've had a lot of change in the past hundred years, and we've reached a point where we can clothe, feed, and house everyone in the world. Once that's done, moving forward more thoughtfully makes a lot of sense. Who cares if we reach Mars in 2100 or 2200? On the other hand, I care a lot about avoiding the nuclear / bio / chemical / environmental / and now AI apocalypse.
“we”? i think it’s damn obvious that it’s not “we”. the world doesn’t get to move together until all differences are resolved, is that the progress you think we’ve made in the last 100 years? I don’t understand how talk like this goes unchallenged so often. it’s fine aspirationally but come on! I look at a growing economy like a bicycle, the slower it goes the less stable it is. in other words, you can’t just stop un…
Growing the economy is not "like a bicycle, the slower it goes the less stable it is."
See everything from ancient Egypt to Soviet-style Communism. Periods of time in Ancient Rome would fit in too. The problem with those -- except for a repressive political system -- was that we could not produce enough to satisfy everyone's basic needs.
Today, we can.
Much of the US-style growth is driven precisely by instability. The system feeds on debt. That forces stress. That forces growth. That also means one cannot be "better stewards of one’s self, family, friends."
And so far, no one has explained how "we don’t foolishly bully human nature with policy." Legal and economic frameworks guide what humans do; that's either something we think through and engineer, or it gets engineered for us by market forces, but it's there anyway.
The most freedom-preserving policy isn't a command system, but it's not a pure market system either. And for stability, we can contrast stable economies to boom-and-bust cycles and successful democracies to the very many failed market-economy democracies across e.g. Africa and South America.
Re: European Stagnation Is Real
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Household debt rates in America are better than most of Western Europe and comparable to Germany [0]. FYI the Nordic states and Netherlands tend to have the highest household debt rates amongst European OECD states [0]. [0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-debt.html
they also have generous social protections that allow them to handle the associated risk. easy to take on a lil more debt if you know you have healthcare and employment protections.
Swedish 5y mortgage rates are at about 3.1%. US is at twice that.