4 ms·

A headline in search of an article. Very little context provided, would have probably been served even better with just a graph of the euro zone growth from 19

by raiyu 8y ago

A headline in search of an article. Very little context provided, would have probably been served even better with just a graph of the euro zone growth from 1999 quarter by quarter versus other economies like Japan, US, China for context. Journalism feels lazier and lazier as it constantly searches for more clicks and ad impressions.

rossdavidh 8y ago
I think there is no chart because, if you go find one, it shows EU growth in the last ten years has been going up and down in a pretty similar fashion to Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, and other non-EU advanced economies. This would indicate that being in the EU hasn't really helped them all that much, but it also hasn't hurt that much (in aggregate). So, not much of a story, which feeds right back to your point.
- kaybe 8y ago
  Well, the EU was not made to improve the economies of its members. Its main goal is to intertwine them enough to make another big war way too painful.
  - toyg 8y ago
    And to make Europeans strong enough to be peers to US and then-USSR, rather than being their battlefield. This has become even more urgent now that China and India have accelerated their inevitable rise to superpower status.
  - nickik 8y ago
    Funny that mostly not how they sold it to the poor countries, or even the rich countries. That might have been what the elites believed, more political ingratiation. That of course is good for them as well. In reality when they 'sold' this is was all about economics. And the routes of the whole thing are economic as well.
    - toyg 8y ago
      You have aims, and you have ways. The signatories on the Treaty of Rome all had very explicit political aims - it was 1957, the Cold War was in full swing, something had to be done. They simply had the intuition that the only way to reach these aims was through economic integration first, because the continent was still too raw from two centuries of total war. With the years, the model was so successful that others joined because of the economic benefits alone. But it was never just about business, not even Thatcher seriously believed that; it was about the realities of a world where European countries, kings of the planet for half a millennia, were going to become fundamentally irrelevant in a few generations, and risked being again the battlefield between global superpowers.
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    No surprise there. "When goods don't cross borders, armies will."
    - rossdavidh 8y ago
      I've heard that, but there are a lot of counter-examples. The colonial wars in China and elsewhere happened in order to force China to participate in trade. Plenty of cases of the U.S.A. invading either to make sure their banks got reimbursed, or to prevent Europe from doing the same. Plenty of other examples one could give, but the chart on this article (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-the-world-looks-a-bit-like-it-did-before-world-war-i https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-the-world-looks-a...) may do. Free trade hit a peak in 1913, the highest it had perhaps ever been. The period that followed was not exactly peaceful.
- IdiocyInAction 8y ago
  It's gonna be pretty hard to disentangle Switzerland, given how many treaties they have are part of with the EU. Though, the EU isn't primarily about econonomics IMHO; I'd predict that EFTA would have come to pass without the EU as well.
adventured 8y ago
For reference here's the 1999 through the end of 2017 GDP per capita figures and relevant chart, with the US (and $USD) as a baseline, and I've included some other side countries below. The biggest gains: China, Russia, Romania, the Baltics, Czech, Slovakia, Poland The worst: Japan, Greece, Italy, France https://i.imgur.com/uLfuhXA.png https://i.imgur.com/uLfuhXA.png Lithuania $3,113 -> $16,680 (436%) | Latvia $3,151 -> $15,594 (395%) | Estonia $4,119 -> $19,704 (378%) | Slovakia $5,636 -> $17,604 (212%) | Ireland $26,284 -> $69,330 (164%) | Slovenia $11,442 -> $23,597 (106%) | Spain $15,678 -> $28,156 (80%) | Finland $26,178 -> $45,703 (75%) | Austria $27,174 -> $47,290 (74%) | Netherlands $27,951 -> $48,223 (73%) | United States $34,620 -> $59,531 (72%) | Belgium $25,444 -> $43,323 (70%) | Portugal $12,474 -> $21,136 (69%) | Germany $26,795 -> $44,469 (66%) | France $24,673 -> $38,476 (56%) | Italy $21,936 -> $31,952 (46%) | Greece $13,245 -> $18,613 (41%) China $873 -> $8,826 (911%) | Russia $1,330 -> $10,743 (708%) | Romania $1,610 -> $10,813 (572%) | Czech $6,307 -> $20,368 (223%) | Poland $4,389 -> $13,811 (215%) | South Korea $10,409 -> $29,742 (186%) | New Zealand $15,322 -> $42,940 (180%) | Australia $20,521 -> $53,799 (162%) | Canada $22,167 -> $45,032 (103%) | Switzerland $40,581 -> $80,189 (98%) | Sweden $30,577 -> $53,442 (75%) | Denmark $33,440 -> $56,307 (68%) | Japan $36,026 -> $38,428 (6.6%)

by raiyu 8y ago

rossdavidh 8y ago

I think there is no chart because, if you go find one, it shows EU growth in the last ten years has been going up and down in a pretty similar fashion to Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, and other non-EU advanced economies. This would indicate that being in the EU hasn't really helped them all that much, but it also hasn't hurt that much (in aggregate). So, not much of a story, which feeds right back to your point.

kaybe 8y ago
Well, the EU was not made to improve the economies of its members. Its main goal is to intertwine them enough to make another big war way too painful.
- toyg 8y ago
  And to make Europeans strong enough to be peers to US and then-USSR, rather than being their battlefield. This has become even more urgent now that China and India have accelerated their inevitable rise to superpower status.
- nickik 8y ago
  Funny that mostly not how they sold it to the poor countries, or even the rich countries. That might have been what the elites believed, more political ingratiation. That of course is good for them as well. In reality when they 'sold' this is was all about economics. And the routes of the whole thing are economic as well.
  - toyg 8y ago
    You have aims, and you have ways. The signatories on the Treaty of Rome all had very explicit political aims - it was 1957, the Cold War was in full swing, something had to be done. They simply had the intuition that the only way to reach these aims was through economic integration first, because the continent was still too raw from two centuries of total war. With the years, the model was so successful that others joined because of the economic benefits alone. But it was never just about business, not even Thatcher seriously believed that; it was about the realities of a world where European countries, kings of the planet for half a millennia, were going to become fundamentally irrelevant in a few generations, and risked being again the battlefield between global superpowers.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  No surprise there. "When goods don't cross borders, armies will."
  - rossdavidh 8y ago
    I've heard that, but there are a lot of counter-examples. The colonial wars in China and elsewhere happened in order to force China to participate in trade. Plenty of cases of the U.S.A. invading either to make sure their banks got reimbursed, or to prevent Europe from doing the same. Plenty of other examples one could give, but the chart on this article (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-the-world-looks-a-bit-like-it-did-before-world-war-i https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-the-world-looks-a...) may do. Free trade hit a peak in 1913, the highest it had perhaps ever been. The period that followed was not exactly peaceful.
IdiocyInAction 8y ago
It's gonna be pretty hard to disentangle Switzerland, given how many treaties they have are part of with the EU. Though, the EU isn't primarily about econonomics IMHO; I'd predict that EFTA would have come to pass without the EU as well.

adventured 8y ago

For reference here's the 1999 through the end of 2017 GDP per capita figures and relevant chart, with the US (and $USD) as a baseline, and I've included some other side countries below. The biggest gains: China, Russia, Romania, the Baltics, Czech, Slovakia, Poland The worst: Japan, Greece, Italy, France https://i.imgur.com/uLfuhXA.png https://i.imgur.com/uLfuhXA.png Lithuania $3,113 -> $16,680 (436%) | Latvia $3,151 -> $15,594 (395%) | Estonia $4,119 -> $19,704 (378%) | Slovakia $5,636 -> $17,604 (212%) | Ireland $26,284 -> $69,330 (164%) | Slovenia $11,442 -> $23,597 (106%) | Spain $15,678 -> $28,156 (80%) | Finland $26,178 -> $45,703 (75%) | Austria $27,174 -> $47,290 (74%) | Netherlands $27,951 -> $48,223 (73%) | United States $34,620 -> $59,531 (72%) | Belgium $25,444 -> $43,323 (70%) | Portugal $12,474 -> $21,136 (69%) | Germany $26,795 -> $44,469 (66%) | France $24,673 -> $38,476 (56%) | Italy $21,936 -> $31,952 (46%) | Greece $13,245 -> $18,613 (41%) China $873 -> $8,826 (911%) | Russia $1,330 -> $10,743 (708%) | Romania $1,610 -> $10,813 (572%) | Czech $6,307 -> $20,368 (223%) | Poland $4,389 -> $13,811 (215%) | South Korea $10,409 -> $29,742 (186%) | New Zealand $15,322 -> $42,940 (180%) | Australia $20,521 -> $53,799 (162%) | Canada $22,167 -> $45,032 (103%) | Switzerland $40,581 -> $80,189 (98%) | Sweden $30,577 -> $53,442 (75%) | Denmark $33,440 -> $56,307 (68%) | Japan $36,026 -> $38,428 (6.6%)