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

Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

baldurbjarnason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 526 posts

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#321

Post by datenwolf »

paulsutter wrote: post #48
mjburgess wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem they've mistaken the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better". Since we have so many consumer protections, much of how we end up engaging with the law around business practices is to our benefit . We're always aware we can raise bad business practices with an ombudsman (etc.). So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive…

Yes each time we see these cookie warnings, we admire a system that does so much to our benefit

Strictly speaking, those fat Cookie banners are unlawful under the regulation of the GDPR; the GDPR mandates that a site must not behave functionally different given consent or not, as long as the functionality is not related to a specific user.

Unfortunately there are only so many GDPR compliance officers around, and they have to focus on the bigger fish to fry.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#322

Post by Lutger »

MarcusE1W wrote: post #129
toenail wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella Defense has to be believable, a 50/50 bet that treaties will be honored in the future isn't. All that debt fueled spending doesn't mean a lot.

As a European I always have mixed feelings when this comes up. First things first, the European NATO members signed a contract to use 2% of GDP for defense and some are not doing that. Not right, they have to honor their agreements. But then why is the US spending so much more than the 2% ? I feel that by and large that Europe and mostly the EU tries to have international influence via commerce. (Trade agreement/or n…

> As a European I always have mixed feelings when this comes up. First things first, the European NATO members signed a contract to use 2% of GDP for defense and some are not doing that. Not right, they have to honor their agreements.

While its true that some countries do not honor the agreement, there is often some context missing here. The 2% agreement was made in 2006, shortly after that the financial crisis came. Priorities changed and because for most Europeans defense is actually seen as deterrence and not political influence - as you yourself posit, the 2% norm didn't seem particularly important given the economic collapse we were facing. Nobody believed there would be a war, surving the financial crisis was much more critical to us Europeans.

After Russia annexed part of Ukraine in 2014 however, there was a renewed commitment to the norm and spending did actually increase quite a bit - and is still increasing. The EU combined now does spend 2% of its GDP, some countries less and some countries more. Most countries who still do not meet the 2% do have a policy to increase their spending. Since 2014, there is not a single EU country which did not increase their defense budget (in terms of GDP). The only countries where the budget is decreased (again, in terms of GDP) are Turkey and the US.

> But for the rest the Americans seem to have their own motives to have a large army that goes beyond defense and then it feels a bit strange to hear that America has to pay for a big Army because the Europeans don't do it (except the Europeans really should stick to 2%). As the Europeans have less incentive/possibility to use their military for anything else but defense whereas the Americans do.

Excellent point.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#323

Post by throwup238 »

indymike wrote: post #254
MarcusE1W wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I always have mixed feelings when this comes up. First things first, the European NATO members signed a contract to use 2% of GDP for defense and some are not doing that. Not right, they have to honor their agreements. But then why is the US spending so much more than the 2% ? I feel that by and large that Europe and mostly the EU tries to have international influence via commerce. (Trade agreement/or n…

> All of that also with the view that probably most people are shocked that it is actually possible to have an actual war in Europe again. Compound interest is powerful, and works both ways. Under-spending on defense for a decade or too leaves large gaps in defense capability. The US overspends, but doesn't always spend on the right things. A good example not having enough artillery ammunition.

> A good example not having enough artillery ammunition.

US military doctrine doesn’t use much artillery anymore so why would it still spend a lot on artillery ammunition?

US uses maneuver warfare with air support and precision munitions. No one expected to provide a bunch of logistics support to a non-NATO ally that uses our Cold War enemy’s doctrine.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#324

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

bojan wrote: post #247
carlosjobim wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their enemy, at least not to the same extent as the US. US citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their friend, at least not to the same extent as the EU. Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU. Real life is not the same as HN, becau…

> Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU. The polling seems to be proving you wrong. Even in the UK the attitude towards the EU seems to be net positive.

How’d that work out for you with the Brexit vote? Still placing your undivided faith in polls by people that benefit from presenting a particular ideology as being popular?

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#325

Post by [deleted] »

ransom1538 wrote: post #279
paulsutter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes each time we see these cookie warnings, we admire a system that does so much to our benefit

Boss: "Oh, also, add those cookie warnings for the gdpr". Me: "No. We are not in the EU. I refuse. I also refuse to abide by Congolese law or Peruvian Navy doctrines. If I break Myanmar PII laws, I will take my chances. EU is no better than anyone else, pushing their crappy laws, I refuse to care about." Boss: "Ok! Np."

[deleted]

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#326

Post by M2Ys4U »

seydor wrote: post #117

The discussion about Apple is kind-of meh, as apple is not such a big deal in europe, as most phones are not iphones. But the nostalgic view of the EU as some kind of free market pioneer is stuck in the 90s. Today's world and EU are very different. Nobody rememebrs WW2 and europe is too weak to start another war. The protection from external threat (russia) is coming from the USA, and russia won't last very long anyw…

>Standardization is something that is happening in all global markets, not just in the EU, and that's how we have resorted to using the same standards with everyone in the world (including on the internet), not just with europe. The USB-C became a global standard because it dominated in the free market , before the EU standardized it.

That's missing out some crucial parts of the history of this standardisation effort.

Before the EU mandated USB-C, they basically told the industry "choose a standard or we'll impose one on you". The industry (mostly) went for micro-USB as a result, and then moved over to USB-C.

The EU then saw that there were still some notable outliers (e.g. Apple) and decided to follow through with its threat of imposing a standard connector to force these stragglers in to line with the rest. The point was to have a standard, not necessarily to push any one standard that the EU most preferred.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#327

Post by madsbuch »

fermisea wrote: post #273
bojan wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be ridiculous, if a truck has a Bulgarian license plate it's a reasonable expectation that it's based in Bulgaria.

If a worker has Bulgarian nationality, they are free to live and work anywhere in the EU, including France. And a Bulgarian business can also operate anywhere in the EU. It's a single economic market, so it's clear that rules like that are arbitrary and designed to be appease special interests.

This is about the vehicle. The Bulgarian company is welcome to acquire a French registered vehicle and let it drive in France for years - it might come with extra requirements around having a French subsidy.

As stated elsewhere: This is politics and does not really change the fundamentals. Change take time. When countries in the EU gets more assimilated, more and more of these restrictions will be lifted.

You ought to see the trajectory and direction more than the absolute position of the legislation.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#328

Post by epistasis »

> But the single market is what it’s for. Without it, the EU would cease to exist. To understand what motivates EU, as an organisation, you need to understand the single market.

> Whenever I point out on social media that the single market is the purpose of the EU, I get bombarded by replies saying: “No you’re wrong. The EU was founded to preserve peace in Europe. Gotcha!

I think the author is right here, and that this misapprehension is way too common.

The EU was a way for a bunch of colonizing countries to get rid of their colonies and still keep their level of wealth. Call it "peace" but that all comes back to having enough economic productivity that had previously come from their colonial wealth extraction.

I think that to the extent that the EY does not understand that it's there for economic productivity, the more that the EU will fall further behind the US on productivity and wealth of the populace.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#329

Post by hef19898 »

ben_w wrote: post #305
hef19898 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But cookie banner seriously hurt the big tech sector in delivering better persobalized adds! It prevebts innovation! /s

Judging by the adverts they show me, Facebook thinks I'm originally from a small city in Florida, that I moved from the US to the UK and want to give up my US citizenship for tax purposes, that now live in specifically both Cambridge and Waterlooville even though those are opposite sides of London, that I own a potentially dangerous breed of dog that the UK just banned, and that I'm a hermaphrodite in need of both a…

So, you are telling me that you live two seperate and secret lives to hide the fact you own illegal dogs?

In all seriousness so, for all the effort and data companies like facebook have, the product, targeted ads, is just bad. And sometimes hilariously so.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#330

Post by ttoinou »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #74

A common mistake is to think that the EU is limited to a few large economies (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland), but this is not the case. Ensuring that a Croatian SME can win contracts with the French or Germans is one of the EU's priority objectives. This is how the EU has lifted millions of people out of poverty. This is a very tangible reality. It worked with East Germany, Spain, Poland, the Baltic States a…

The EU made us all poorer, it hasn't lifted many out of poverty
Post reply on HN