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How Europe crushes innovation

economist.com

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Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#91

Post by snapplebobapple »

jstummbillig wrote: post #20
knowledge-clay wrote: post #10

I'd rather live in a society with strong labor protections than one that is "more innovative", whatever that means.

Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can? Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together? I don'…

One has to come to terms with the majority of people being better off in each individual interval under strong labor protections (because they are by definition mediocre) while likely being worse off over time as a group because of the pie not growing. Who gets the growth in pie is also highly unequal within the group large swaths can also be worse off over time. Ie third world labor got almost all of the pie that went to labor over the last 40 years. First world labor is at best treading water. Its still right to favor innovation because the group is better off and its more freedom supporting but lots of unhapoy people dowm that path.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#92

Post by naldb »

surgical_fire wrote: post #88
naldb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very easy: spend an insane amount of money, usually at a time when your business can’t afford it.

That's not how it works. You just can't fire at will. If your business can't afford to fire people it probably shouldn't be hiring too.

How do you know at the time of hiring that months or years down the road the business won’t go well?

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#93

Post by Muromec »

jstummbillig wrote: post #38
Muromec wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it become unaffordable?

Because labor protection costs money. If you get something from that, that's net boosting your economy, you have no problem. If not, you get social cohesion, at a price. Somebody is paying that price. If it's companies they are disincentivized to employ people in your market. If companies go somewhere else to employ people, jobs disappear from your market. If the jobs disappear, so does the money.

Labor protection costs money the same way monopolies cost money. You can have a strong cartel on the one side of the labor market or another, but there is a backed-in assumption that cartel of workers harms the economy more than a cartel of employers. This coming from a employers mouth is just negotiation tactics, nothing more.

>If companies go somewhere else to employ people, jobs disappear from your market.

Does this actually happen anywhere in the usual suspect countries? Doesn't seem to be. Quite the opposite -- they all import workers, because the actual pain point right now is pension fund deficit with the ration of retired to working being skewed.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#94

Post by jstummbillig »

bojan wrote: post #58
jstummbillig wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely fantastic for the people, as long as you get companies to agree with you. Looking at the EU market: Does it work? Is that your reading? I am sure there are ways to try and force companies, but I would suspect it's fairly complicated politically, given that that's usually not how that goes.

> Looking at the EU market: Does it work? Is that your reading? The EU single market isn't really single yet - and that is in my views the biggest obstacle to innovating start-ups being able to scale. If you want to release EU-wide you have to make sure you also comply to 27 national jurisdictions. It's hard. I work at financial services, and we really have to carefully grow and release per country. The UK would have…

> Less complicated in the EU than basically anywhere else in the world.

Oh, the idea was not that the EU couldn't compel companies to do things. They can. It's that companies can then go and move production somewhere else in the world. As they do.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#95

Post by kalleboo »

Muromec wrote: post #26
knowledge-clay wrote: post #10

I'd rather live in a society with strong labor protections than one that is "more innovative", whatever that means.

There is a small problem -- more innovative society next door will get richer and eat you anyway. So lets enjoy the good times and be weak men while it lasts.

Once they get richer they'll reach the same conclusion about the meaning of life. See the "lying flat" trend in China.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#96

Post by latexr »

gwbas1c wrote: post #90
latexr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the argument the article is making. The point I’m making is that “innovation” which consists of a select few being better off at the expense of the majority is not something to be celebrated.

> at the expense of the majority I disagree First, the vast majority of tech work is not in risky startups. Second, the risk is known. That is why high salaries are negotiated going into startups. Third, most comprehension is not in equity. Startup employees do invest in their retirement outside of their equity. Fourth, anyone can invest in software in the public market and through institutional investments like mutu…

> I disagree

And then all your examples are about tech work and startups. Other types of work exist, and they comprise the majority of jobs. Labour laws don’t exist only for startups and tech workers.

You’re also ignoring the argument of the article.

> Criticize the system if you want. What's better? Feudalism? Communism?

Let’s please leave out the purposefully exaggerated bad examples and engage in good faith. You don’t have to change the whole system to increase respect and conditions for workers, as proven by the difference between the USA and Europe described in the article.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#97

Post by piva00 »

naldb wrote: post #92
surgical_fire wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. You just can't fire at will. If your business can't afford to fire people it probably shouldn't be hiring too.

How do you know at the time of hiring that months or years down the road the business won’t go well?

Isn't that part of the job of being in top management? Being paid millions of bucks for your skills that should tell what your business need?

If the signs are showing that you might need to fire people, you need to think and work for that: set enough money aside to pay for severance and/or buy-outs, not just decide "oh shit, I can't pay them, and I can't pay what is needed for me to fire them", that's just incompetence.

The way you present this is like business leaders are victims that were helpless on forecasting what their businesses need, which is exactly their fucking job to do.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#98

Post by latexr »

surgical_fire wrote: post #86
gwbas1c wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case is very simple: Working on risky ventures requires the ability to lay people off when the venture is not profitable. When only 1/5 risky ventures is profitable, you can't expect a business to take a risk if the likely result is severe financial penalties for failure.

"I want to take risks exploiting workers. Taking risks treating them fairly is risky".

“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm2x6CVIXiE

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#99

Post by Muromec »

naldb wrote: post #92
surgical_fire wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. You just can't fire at will. If your business can't afford to fire people it probably shouldn't be hiring too.

How do you know at the time of hiring that months or years down the road the business won’t go well?

Your problem, not mine, lol.

Re: How Europe crushes innovation

#100

Post by Muromec »

piva00 wrote: post #76
Muromec wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a small problem -- more innovative society next door will get richer and eat you anyway. So lets enjoy the good times and be weak men while it lasts.

Let them get richer, the same people who talk with these threatening remarks also talk how capitalism isn't a zero-sum game, someone else becoming richer doesn't mean someone else getting poorer, right? Just means getting richer at a slower rate, Europe is pretty rich on global standards, let's keep getting a bit richer while others get the chance to reach these levels.

It's not about being less rich than US, it's about US using all this money to influence politics here, because the can afford it.
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