Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing? • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #476

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it nice that a large part of the European economy consists of stuff helping people (the "state activities" you mention) vs. the large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Europe’s entire social safety net is at risk if their private sector can’t generate enough wealth to support it. Given their declining populations and anti-immigrant tendencies inflamed by the refugee crisis in many of its member states, it doesn’t look good for the EU’s future.

So basically you're saying it could not work to have a social safety net, so let's not have one all together? Because it could go wrong, don't even try?

Does not sound very American.

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

#492

Post by sateesh » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

thow-01187 wrote: post #430

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…

Imho, what was happening in the Silicon Valley economy looks much more like displacement of value rather than creation of value (1). Google/Facebook have displaced other ad formats, redirecting money to themselves. AWS have displaced IT technicians in other corporations, redirecting money to themselves. Apple is selling overpriced commodity hardware, redirecting money to themselves. Uber is displacing taxis, redirect…

You are arguing that Google/FB displaced ad formats, and cite Netflix is an exception. Isn't what Netflix doing also "displacing of pre-existing formats".

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

#493

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:46 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #437

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it nice that a large part of the European economy consists of stuff helping people (the "state activities" you mention) vs. the large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people?

US creating top paying tech jobs for the working class and not taxing them to death so they can grow into a flourishing middles class is also helping people. >large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people Source? If you're talking about the defense sector then you should also know that the UK and France were several years in a row number 2 and 3 worldwide in arms sales, including to the Saudi regime.

Social media giants? Environment-polluting industry?

BTW, Germany's also a top seller of weapons! We even delivered chemicals to Assad. So yeah, in that area we really are on par.

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

#494

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:47 AM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #490

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US creating top paying tech jobs for the working class and not taxing them to death so they can grow into a flourishing middles class is also helping people. >large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people Source? If you're talking about the defense sector then you should also know that the UK and France were several years in a row number 2 and 3 worldwide in arms sales, including to the Saudi regime.

There are plenty of well paid tech jobs in Europe. The ridiculous levels of pay you can get in the US are really creating more inequality rather than addressing it.

Yeah but the people commenting here are probably the ones that earn that tech money, not the person working in the service sector for a couple of $ an hour.

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

#495

Post by oytis » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:47 AM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #421

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally This assumes ex ante a similar quantity of wealth. Europe’s GDP per capita is lower than America’s. Where it’s higher, the growth is slower. The more-even distribution comes at the expense of quality of life or economic power. (Though not for Europe’s well-entrenched multi-generational and often legally-entitled wealthy.) To be clear, I don’t believe in mo…

> The more-even distribution thus comes at the expense of quality of life. What are you talking about? We have fairer elections, better infrastructure, more social security, everyone's got health insurance, we're not getting shot in school, and also we're not on the way to be ruled by a fascist so ... how exactly are you measuring the quality of life?

Denmark legally discriminates agwinst "non-western" immigrants and officially aims at not taking any refugees at all. France is ruled by a rather right-wing government and has a chance to have a far-right one next. Germany hasn't seen a left-wing government for 16 years, will likely not see it for 4 more years (if ever).

The rest can be easily compromised by economic stagnation, to have good social security you need a lot of wealth, and a lot of immigration from poorer countries

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

#496

Post by sgt » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #476

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it nice that a large part of the European economy consists of stuff helping people (the "state activities" you mention) vs. the large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Europe’s entire social safety net is at risk if their private sector can’t generate enough wealth to support it. Given their declining populations and anti-immigrant tendencies inflamed by the refugee crisis in many of its member states, it doesn’t look good for the EU’s future.

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 simply clash.

Norway has done terrific integration of immigrants and also is in the process of shutting the gates since the 90s. It seems to be the way forward.

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

#497

Post by fnord123 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

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…

It's bad for business journalists who want to cover the celebs of the business world.

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

#498

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #451

tovej wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US upward social mobility is among the worst in the world. US workers are stuck in a rat race that simply doesn't exist to the same extent in Europe.

I beg to differ. The fact is hard working immigrants in the US have a much higher chance of becoming successful than in Europe. Pretty much all the US tech companies are now run by immigrants of minority backgrounds while, for example, Eastern European and Turkish immigrants in Germany are still regarded as cleaners and kebab salesmen, with the only notable exception they can name being the Turkish CEO of BionTech.

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?

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

#499

Post by oblio » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #413

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #403

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.) So Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally, while in the US and China you got a massive concentration…

> Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally This assumes ex ante a similar quantity of wealth. Europe’s GDP per capita is lower than America’s. Where it’s higher, the growth is slower. The more-even distribution comes at the expense of quality of life or economic power. (Though not for Europe’s well-entrenched multi-generational and often legally-entitled wealthy.) To be clear, I don’t believe in mo…

> This assumes ex ante a similar quantity of wealth. Europe’s GDP per capita is lower than America’s.

European GDPs per capita have been by and large lower than the US one since at least 1900, so this doesn't tell us much.

You know, having a continental sized country with continent sized resources and a population all speaking the same language, plus the last conflict on its territory having happened 150+ years ago, seems to be paying off.

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

#500

Post by midasuni » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #381

Aunche wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Europe has no homogeneous consumer market for tech giants like the US or China which can propel tech firms to gigantic size. Yet they use Google and Facebook all the same. WhatsApp was an American company that wasn't even used in America but dominates Europe. As far as domestic companies go, Nokia was a former megacorp and SAP is still one today, which proves that big tech has always been a possibility there. Howeve…

But what has Whatsapp to do with innovation? There's nothing innovative about a messenger app. They only thing they did is degrade privacy even further.

Whatsapps original purpose wasn’t where it reached its niche. It was in the right place at the right time - it launched as it became easy to distribute apps, and it used free data (wifi or gprs) to undercut sms. This latter fact wasn’t valuable in the west, but was great in poorer countries.

This built up the network, and unlike the European and academic way of building open networks and software (web, linux, email) it captured the walled garden.

I have no idea why it was valued at however many billions though even with that.

There’s nothing special about WhatsApp that signal and telegram don’t do other than that existing network, primarily driven by laziness of the consumer (as there’s no reason you cant have all the apps installed)