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Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

wsj.com

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Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#61

Post by hef19898 »

astrange wrote: post #22
undefinedland wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't; European leaders have either been negligent, corrupt or coerced and I don't blame Americans for sinking their teeth into Europe. But my parents come from Poland and I live in Australia (which has also been effectively been made into a vassal state) and I despair at being put under American rule. I thought Europe had sufficient strength given its population, economy and history to push back and at least re…

Nobody in America knows or thinks anything about Australia. (The reverse is half true - Australians seem to think a lot about the US, but they don't know much about it, leading to their strange conviction they're the only country in the world with good coffee.) They're pretty rich so they should be happy with themselves, but they have the same problems any low population resource economy country has. Failing to diver…

Australia is a corner stone of US foreign policy in the Pacific. And China's as well. So a lot of people in the US think about Australia, regularly.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#62

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ramblerman wrote: post #49
hcks wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans have a strong ability to cope for their declining standards of life. They’ll mention how about they have great cities/safety/etc but you’ll notice they never say which city/country exactly they’re talking about (as in let’s pretend all of Europe is Switzerland)

Swiss cities are consistently among the most expensive in the world. Food is bad. Very xenophobic society. It has a lot of great things too ofc. But I wouldn’t consider it representative of the nicer parts of Europe (vs pure financial optimization) mentioned above such as working less, walking, biking in the city.

>Food is bad. Very xenophobic society.

Where did you get your info? Swiss food quality is some of the best in the world, well regulated and mostly organic, that's why it's so expensive.

How did you measure xenofobia?

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#63

Post by klabb3 »

hcks wrote: post #41
veave wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read this comment (or variations of it) so many times I am starting to wonder if it's a joke that I'm missing. Or simply propaganda. I understand that you are in tech and are happy with your position, but consider the lives of millions who are unemployed, or those who can't afford to turn their AC on or fix their car when it breaks down. Not to mention how much prices have increased.

Europeans have a strong ability to cope for their declining standards of life. They’ll mention how about they have great cities/safety/etc but you’ll notice they never say which city/country exactly they’re talking about (as in let’s pretend all of Europe is Switzerland)

Hard disagree. The ones who ramble about Sweden, Switzerland, Finland when they’ve reached some goal like “happiest people in the world” or “safest cities”, usually with some picture of a cabin in the alps, are Americans who romanticize Europe.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#64

Post by BillyTheKing »

There's a significant issue in that innovation isn't always at the forefront in Europe. The primary focus seems to be maintaining the status quo, particularly safeguarding pensions. Tbh this lack of innovative thinking is quickly becoming a pretty severe problem.

I was visiting a med island recently with both Americans and Europeans, it was evident how wide the income gap was becoming. The American members of our group, working in comparable positions and industries, had significantly more spare cash than their European counter parts.

I honestly hope that Europe addresses this lack of innovation and economic decline instead of just propping failing industries. Although it's important to recognize that the issue is not just bureaucratic. It's more deeply rooted in mindset and creativity — which is arguably much harder to overcome..

Unfortunately, creating an environment that encourages innovation, startups, and tech adoption isn't particularly straight-forward (especially if you're behind). It requires a cultural shift, coupled with decent policies and investment in top-level education

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#65

Post by _kbh_ »

Garvi wrote: post #21
picadores wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let them eat environmental fanatics

The protesters were quite clear it wasn't about any misguided environmental policies, but political ones. We used to get a lot of cheap energy from Russia. Now that pipelines are getting blown up mysteriously, it's a different world. And before someone accuses me of not badmouthing "the enemy" enough, know that even Ukraine is still importing billions worth of Russian gas and petrol products and thus financing the wa…

> And before someone accuses me of not badmouthing "the enemy" enough, know that even Ukraine is still importing billions worth of Russian gas and petrol products and thus financing the war against itself. Funny how that works.

Ukraine doesn't want to cut of Europes supply of Russian gas until they are ready.

Russian gas transits via Ukraine but it remains to seen how long that will last for.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#66

Post by FirmwareBurner »

Garvi wrote: post #23
astrange wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Germany exports its image of being rational and methodical so hard they accidentally believed in it and forgot they're all naturalistic-mystic Green Party hippies and shut their nuclear plants down.

I agree in principle. But the shutdown of nuclear reactors and subsequent switch to lignite coal burning power plants didn't affect the economy as much as it did the environment. Coal power is not more expensive, it's dirtier.

>lignite coal burning power plants didn't affect the economy as much as it did the environment. Coal power is not more expensive, it's dirtier.

Yeah, but us humans live in that environment. I wonder hoe many years less life expectancy will be thanks to lignite burning and breathing in that coal dust.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#67

Post by hef19898 »

gumballindie wrote: post #16

Hm dubious article. Fails to mention that while west europeans are indeed getting poorer east europeans are getting richer. Confused folks might say that east europe is becoming richer thanks to eu funding and i will remind them that that comes at the heavy price of having sold entire industries to said benefactors - whom often underpay despite colossal profits, essentially making development more … challenging. None…

Yeah, and most of the article, which is allmover the place, focuses on the period right after Covid (bad for Europe as an export heavy region) and the war in Ukraine (it changes things if a war happens right next door). Inflation is a serious problem everywhere, and yes the tendency of rich European countries to favor austerity didn't change. Greece is fucked since 2008, in order to save investment banks, nothimg new here.

In short, the article uses some nice ancdotes, throws in special cases, puts some statistics and numbers (without additional explanation of how those numbers are calculated) on top of all of that only to justify the narrative behind the headline. So, all the mortal sins (in my view) of numbers heavy journalism in one place.

Not that everything is rosey over here, but Europe is far from poor. And for some reason, we didn't have a recession yet neither. The article is well in line so with a lot of others pushing the narrative of neo-liberalism being the only saviour of a Europe on the brink of collaps (only a slight exageration).

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#68

Post by hef19898 »

boffinAudio wrote: post #24
astrange wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Germany exports its image of being rational and methodical so hard they accidentally believed in it and forgot they're all naturalistic-mystic Green Party hippies and shut their nuclear plants down.

[flagged]

Citation, please.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#69

Post by FirmwareBurner »

WA wrote: post #55

Don't believe any article that uses AVERAGES instead of the MEAN when it comes to wages, because average wages are worthless to consider and are more easily skewed by extreme outliers. Since Jeff Bezos moved to our village, we're all multi-millionaires on average.

>Since Jeff Bezos moved to our village, we're all multi-millionaires on average.

Funny anecdote, but realistically how many ultra-wealthy like Bezos live in neighborhoods poor enough to significantly, distorrt the localc market? I think you'll find the ultra wealthy generally live in similar locations, seme as the poor, same as the middle class, and that goes in every country, from the US to France.

Re: Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

#70

Post by FirmwareBurner »

lucasRW wrote: post #39

Western European are funding the eastern countries (tens of billions per year), plus, are accommodating hundreds of thousands of migrants per year. You'd have to be a full to think that at some point this does not translate into a serious dent into your economic health.

>Western European are funding the eastern countries

No they aren't. Western European countries are getting access to the eastern european consumer market to sell their products, and to the cheep Eastern European resources, products and labor to prop up their shortages for industry, labor and social services at the expanse of their own, through the EU common market. It's why Eastern Europe now pays the same or more for food and energy than Germany when it used to be significantly cheaper.

There's no free lunch here. You're making it sound like westerners are directly putting their money in our pockets. I checked my pockets and I don't have any western money in them. Your comment sound like your average fake Brexit propaganda.

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