This must’ve been what it felt like while Rome was burning, because it’s happening on a grander scale in Europe’s lap: war, economy, inflation, etc.
Not really. Western European countries are doing terrible. Europe’s share of global economy is becoming smaller and smaller and almost all European economies have not seen any growth since 2008, while America has maintained its share.
And it’s not just doing poorly compared to America. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Asian Tigers have all grown a good deal since 2008. Europe on the other hand has been like Japan.
If you don’t believe it you can check this link. The bar below the map can take you back to years ago and you can see that economies such as Israel, Australia, Taiwan etc. have grown a good deal since 2008 while Europe not only has completely flatlined, many countries, including some of the more well-off ones, are actually poorer now than in 2008. The only European countries that have seen decent growth in 15 years are very poor countries, leprechaun economics, and Switzerland.
Compare these figures to developed economies outside Europe the difference is comical. Taiwan for example grew almost 100% within the same time frame. Israel grew more than 80%. The US grew more than 50%. The only one that’s done as poorly as Europe is Japan.
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Growth in GDP, in GDP per Capita, in GDP share of the global GDP…
You better not lose in the game of growth!
Apologies for the meme, but seeing the whole GDP-related numbers as a competition is funny, but definitely not the right thing to do! Without entering to discuss about the problems and implications of a never-ending growth!
Saying that the fact that a European country has become poorer because their GDP per capita has decreased since the peak at 2008 is willingly forgetting any kind of issue about where that GDP was allocated in 2008, AND ignoring any possibility of improvement in infrastructure, quality of life, age expectancy, happiness, changes in the economy sectors, consumer behaviours, immigration influx, etc.
Have you all lived in Europe? Do you think it’s GDP they are after?
Eagerly waiting for the 100% improvement in quality of life 
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If you are referring to inequality, it has widened all across Europe so your argument is invalid.
https://ednh.news/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/income-inequalities.jpg
Well, other than life expectancy, which has increased pretty much everywhere, which of these issues has improved in Europe since 2008? I’m sure that’s why far right is on the rise all over Europe: people have become happier, lol.
Also, are you illiterate? If you want to discuss other issues that is not about the economy, start another topic.
That’s funny considering every single European government never shuts up about economic growth.
Again, if you want to discuss quality of life, start another topic. This topic is called “European economy stagnating”, which will naturally be about GDP.
I find it laughable that someone would actually try to spin economic growth as something negative just because they are butthurt about their stagnation being called out. It’s amusing really.
The reality is Europe is becoming more and more irrelevant and the trend is irreversible. That is an objective fact.
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They don’t know that. They still think the world pays attention to what they’re doing from what I’ve experienced. I think it will shock them when they go out of Europe. No one in the Americas or Asia really pays attention.
They do have quality of life down, can’t argue with that. But that comes at a cost.
If you look at it, the game changing companies the last 2 decades are coming out of the US or East Asia. There won’t be a google or Foxconn or any unicorns coming out of Europe because the business environment is shit.
The government micromanages every aspect of employment. In France companies need to make and follow legal regulations on when they can email and text employees for example. I have to follow so many steps for pensions in the UK. Taxes are ridiculous, I’ll be moving my HQ out of Europe as soon as I can. Tons of red tape and stupid bureaucratic nonsense.
The government has been the single biggest impediment in running and starting a business, and that’s saying something in a pandemic. They are slow, clueless, and incompetent. Once I paid 1p over in council taxes on accident and their accountants couldn’t handle it and summed me to court 
Call any government service in Europe and I almost guarantee they will tell you they are experiencing delays because of Covid still. The rest of us have had to figure it out but the government can’t 
Europe as beautiful and nice to live in has made their bed. It’s a great place for employees I guess but the game changing talents will open businesses elsewhere or take their talents elsewhere with higher salaries and lower taxes.
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I lived a year in Taiwan, they didn’t give me promised 2x month salary. I could not do online transaction since I was a foreigner. No problem said clerk at bank. Open account on your wife name. We moved back to Germany, where wife netto salary has increase like 2x immediately with 5 weeks of paid holidays, another 10 days paid for take care when kids are sick. Meanwhile she gave 2 births and together we were on paid maternity leave for 36 months. She keeps her job. I keep mine. I understand not every business can support our lifestyle. So, yea you can keep your Foxconn and their slavery conditions . We rather have Volkswagen (stagnation of revenue from 150 in 2009 to 300 billions in 2021).
I don’t understand what is so great in Taiwan? Apartments without proper kitchen for cooking? Over expensive groceries? Toxic working conditions? Whole day long education for kids? Millionaires getting away with zero taxes?
Yes, you have convenience, but it comes with cost. As it comes our life balance lifestyle. 10 years of GDP growth is nothing. Let’s measure 30 years. Sure mistakes has been made, but still we stand together in EU. Dozen of different European nations.We have one ECB and dozen different fiscal policies. We had to sacrifice growth. What about conditions of south east Asians in Taiwan vs Poland emigrant workers in Germany? This is why I called EU center of civilization. Cause different nation have came together.
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I haven’t talked about Taiwan. You can address those issues with Gain. I’m talking about Europe. The US is still a very new country and Taiwan has only been a democratic country for 25 and under the threat of china the whole time. You guys have had a long time to get it together so of course many things are going to better.
I’ve already agreed with you that quality of life is good and it’s a beautiful place. Now you’re just coming off as salty. Europe is stagnant and Im 100% on point that no game changing companies are coming out of Europe and won’t be in the foreseeable future.
Its a good place for employees but try running a business in Europe compared to the US (some states) and parts of Asia. It’s a different story. Europe is great for established money. Its also much older than most places so you guys have had a long time to get it together. But places like Italy have crazy youth unemployment of like 25% plus last time I checked. Young people leave whenever they can.
Do you?
UK left and you guys can’t even stand together against Russia.
Again. Lovely place to live and vacation. I will be moving my HQ out as soon as I can to somewhere like Texas. It’s not a good place to build a business. It’s a good place to be comfortable as an employee and live off a pension. That’s not what I want with my life. I don’t want to live off my pension and retire at 65. No thanks.
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ASML and BioNTech are both European companies, which made it possible world actually survive during Covid. They were the most essential.More than TSMC or Pfizer.
UK did mistake but they stand with Finland & Sweden. Let’s be real we can not cut gas over night, it would crush our economy. Russia will be defeated on battlefield and Germany will rebuild army. Together with new energy deal, we talk about 300 billions of injections into economy. ECB can do quantitative printing of euros and should do it more. Merkel is gone. Crazy women. What did this women do to Europe is terrible. I think growth should come. Will see. Only USA, as a big nation, so far was able to grow continously. Growth is exponential function and with limited resources, is mathematically impossible forever.
Oh for sure. I’m not saying there’s not any productive companies from Europe; that would be a silly thing to say. There are many established companies. What I’m talking about are unicorns as we call it in the finance industry. You know, Facebook, Google, Tesla. I don’t see the environment in Europe as a top place to start a company like that. That’s why you mentioned VW group, their growth is not that organic. They bought our other European brands. I’m sure there are still net synergy benefits of doing so but it’s definitely not game changing like Tesla.
But then again, US is also not doing as much organic growth as before. Trump tax corporate tax cuts were meant to stimulate investments for growth but what we saw is stock buy backs and companies buying other companies, like what Microsoft is doing.
Yeah, I agree.
There’s room for growth but as I mentioned. I think it’s the government getting in the way. The way they are trying to make Apple have all the same charging cords for example. While I also agree with the general idea, to do something like that shows that Europe needs to step off and let companies grow without so much interference.
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Government is big player everywhere .In Taiwan I think government owns big part of TSMC? Whole reality in Taiwan is adjusted to those big corporates, from lower taxes and long working hours and so on. I can buy TSMC stocks and other Taiwanese teck companies. Same for American companies. A lot of good option, while Taiwanese can not breathe clean air or Americans can not enjoy 5 weeks paid off. We do have a free lunch to certain degree in Europe. Trump was right about trade protections and NATO
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National Development Fund held a decent chunk of TSMC in early years, but its holdings (if at all) are negligible.
However, Philips fuqqed up. Could’ve held its stake in TSMC, and that stake’s return since then would have outperformed any product it’s ever produced (at no cost, too). since then.
Stupid move. Would be worth over U$7bn now. Its current market cap is about US$21bn now.
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Says a country that has lost every single wars since the 1850s.
Maybe this army will come to save you in Taiwan 2050.
This is a common fallacy about Europe. actually the US is much older than the vast majority of European countries. Many European countries didn’t exist over one hundred years ago.
And Europe is such a diverse place, Im not sure we get anywhere with generalisations except that workers rights are generally pretty good there.
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Well, sure, after Austro-Hapsburg Empire split up after WW1.
Yes .
But not only that, far from it. Scandinavia, UK , Eastern Europe, Germany, Italy, they all had their maps redrawn and new countries assembled or split off to become independent states. Much of Europe was under the Soviet yoke until 1989. Russia has been and continues to be a malign influence on the development of European countries.
I’m not sure I buy the Europe is finished argument.
There are many globally successful companies from Europe still, its just there is more competition out there.
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The word I’m hearing from Silicon Valley is the problem is mainly weak anti-trust laws. The giants lobby Congress and keep new entrants out.
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I’m in the middle of starting a company here in Japan and the regulations are daunting. By comparison starting a company in Taiwan was a breeze. I’ve got this vision of an agricultural robotics startup here in the Hokkaido countryside but spending two hours at the local government office while they called Tokyo about whether a space between my first and middle English names was acceptable on legal documents or not will wear you down.
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I don’t know but worker rights are important too. After all 99.9999% of the people are going to be that and only like a few people will be billionaires.
Sure good business environment but sucks to be a worker.