6 ms·

Why is producing big companies a goal? High standards of living for all seems to a much better goal. And that can be done with small or big companies - so long

Why is producing big companies a goal? High standards of living for all seems to a much better goal. And that can be done with small or big companies - so long as economic production is high enough and distributed well enough.

Rinzler89 2y ago
Because that famous EU welfare is funded via taxes. Having well performing companies funds your welfare system. Currently EU welfare systems are under massive strain and huge waiting lists due to ageing population and economy that hasn't kept up to fund it. There's no free lunch here. You need big companies with scale that pay huge wages as those mean a lot more tax revenue. Saying no to that kind money out of some made up idealism is just silly copium. The EU income taxes paid by a single FANG salary employee would be the equivalent of the taxes paid by ~10 average workers. Pretty sure Germany and every other EU country would like to have such taxpayers contributing into the welfare system and not say no to it. Europe's share of global GDP gas been on a constant decline at the expense of US and Chinese growth. Yeah it's nice to have a better welfare system than China or the US, but how will you fund it in the future if you keep having less money? Political idealism doesn't pay your food and rent.
- lycopodiopsida 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
      Stop trolling and throwing around wild accusations. Here are your words: >You need big companies with scale that pay huge wages as those mean a lot more tax revenue. Now provide proofs that we need some big corps dodging taxes, including FAANG, and not more small and middle-sized business.
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        No
  - gizmo 2y ago
    Yes, this is why European politicians are bending over backwards to get American tech CEOs to open offices in their countries.
  - ericd 2y ago
    Even if a company doesn’t pay taxes, its masses of highly paid workers do. Each of those SWEs making $300k+ are paying more in taxes than the entire earnings of the average EU dev.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      I still don't get why that's so complicated to understand that more well paid workers = more taxes for the state, and some are vehemently expecting a "source" for this.
    - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
      Aha, the cries of the once well-payed SWE laid off and replaced with some cheap hire oversea come up at least once a week for a year or two already. The funny thing about transnationals - they do not care about the society they operate in. But what about the rest, not these lucky SWE who had a good run for the last 10-15 years? How is it going, education, medicine, crime, inequality? All is splendid, I assume?
gizmo 2y ago
Because tech innovation requires tons of R&D and you can't afford to do that otherwise. Europeans use American laptops running an American operating system to watch American movies in an American browser. European economic production is nowhere near high enough and now Europe is struggling to provide for its aging population and doesn't have enough good jobs for younger people. I support redistribution generally, but the wealth has to be created first or there won't be anything to redistribute.
- Certhas 2y ago
  .... while all of the content is hosted on Linux servers, and you're listening to music through a Swedish app. That is running on silicone made in Taiwan. Using equipment that can currently only be manufactured in Belgium and Germany. On a Mac you are using a British instruction set. Also in terms of tech innovation: What part of the US-based tech innovation couldn't have been (and actually were) achieved with open-source solutions many many years earlier for a fraction of the cost, if we didn't have copyright? Honestly, a significant chunk of the "innovation" seems to relate directly to maximizing advertisement opportunities and inducing increased consumption. Who cares if a website takes a second to load rather than 0.1 seconds? If it has content I want, 1 second isn't a big deal. If I don't care about the content, I lose nothing by being distracted by something else in that 1 second. --- More importantly: European Economic production isn't high enough... by what standard? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm GDP per hour worked is 74 in the US vs 69 in Germany and 54 in the EU. And the EU includes many large countries that emerged from communist dictatorship only 35 years ago, and are very much still in the process of catching up. Incidentally, the German economy is the result of the West German economy with 63 million people absorbing a failing economy hosting 16 million people in 1990. The idea that the US is some promised land of economic prosperity while Europe is falling is entirely absurd. It's a narrative built on small relative differences and a US system that pressures people into working a lot more than Europeans do. More importantly, even GDP per Capita wise: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm EU per Capita GDP in 2022 is the same as USA 2016. Was the USA in 2016 struggling but now isn't? This is all bullshit. Economic output is more than high enough and rising steadily. The problem remains solely in the distribution of
dukeyukey 2y ago
Big companies means efficiencies of scale. Small companies that succeed and grow inevitably become big companies. If they don't, it means the qualities that make them effective don't scale to the rest of the economy.
- jononor 2y ago
  They become big but not necessarily huge - like the 10 biggest tech companies that people here put as the benchmark. For that one needs organizations that also continuously increases their scope - going into new markets, consolidating exiting markets, buying up existing players. And if they are to continue being "European" then they must resist being bought up by the huge US or global tech companies. The latter is a big problem at least here in Norway. We have some companies that grow quite big and successful - but it is generally just a question of time before they get swallowed by a huge corp, often with US headquarters. Example: Atmel, now Microchip
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    Yep, that's a huge problem, and one that isn't easy to fix. The European market is vastly more gragmented than the North American one, so even without Europe's penchant for taxes and regulation, North America can more easily get giant companies that can reach across the Atlantic. The only real answer is protectionism, and there's a good chance that'll hurt more than it helps.

Rinzler89 2y ago

Because that famous EU welfare is funded via taxes. Having well performing companies funds your welfare system. Currently EU welfare systems are under massive strain and huge waiting lists due to ageing population and economy that hasn't kept up to fund it. There's no free lunch here. You need big companies with scale that pay huge wages as those mean a lot more tax revenue. Saying no to that kind money out of some made up idealism is just silly copium. The EU income taxes paid by a single FANG salary employee would be the equivalent of the taxes paid by ~10 average workers. Pretty sure Germany and every other EU country would like to have such taxpayers contributing into the welfare system and not say no to it. Europe's share of global GDP gas been on a constant decline at the expense of US and Chinese growth. Yeah it's nice to have a better welfare system than China or the US, but how will you fund it in the future if you keep having less money? Political idealism doesn't pay your food and rent.

lycopodiopsida 2y ago
[flagged]
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
    Stop trolling and throwing around wild accusations. Here are your words: >You need big companies with scale that pay huge wages as those mean a lot more tax revenue. Now provide proofs that we need some big corps dodging taxes, including FAANG, and not more small and middle-sized business.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      No
- gizmo 2y ago
  Yes, this is why European politicians are bending over backwards to get American tech CEOs to open offices in their countries.
- ericd 2y ago
  Even if a company doesn’t pay taxes, its masses of highly paid workers do. Each of those SWEs making $300k+ are paying more in taxes than the entire earnings of the average EU dev.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    I still don't get why that's so complicated to understand that more well paid workers = more taxes for the state, and some are vehemently expecting a "source" for this.
  - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
    Aha, the cries of the once well-payed SWE laid off and replaced with some cheap hire oversea come up at least once a week for a year or two already. The funny thing about transnationals - they do not care about the society they operate in. But what about the rest, not these lucky SWE who had a good run for the last 10-15 years? How is it going, education, medicine, crime, inequality? All is splendid, I assume?

gizmo 2y ago

Because tech innovation requires tons of R&D and you can't afford to do that otherwise. Europeans use American laptops running an American operating system to watch American movies in an American browser. European economic production is nowhere near high enough and now Europe is struggling to provide for its aging population and doesn't have enough good jobs for younger people. I support redistribution generally, but the wealth has to be created first or there won't be anything to redistribute.

Certhas 2y ago
.... while all of the content is hosted on Linux servers, and you're listening to music through a Swedish app. That is running on silicone made in Taiwan. Using equipment that can currently only be manufactured in Belgium and Germany. On a Mac you are using a British instruction set. Also in terms of tech innovation: What part of the US-based tech innovation couldn't have been (and actually were) achieved with open-source solutions many many years earlier for a fraction of the cost, if we didn't have copyright? Honestly, a significant chunk of the "innovation" seems to relate directly to maximizing advertisement opportunities and inducing increased consumption. Who cares if a website takes a second to load rather than 0.1 seconds? If it has content I want, 1 second isn't a big deal. If I don't care about the content, I lose nothing by being distracted by something else in that 1 second. --- More importantly: European Economic production isn't high enough... by what standard? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm GDP per hour worked is 74 in the US vs 69 in Germany and 54 in the EU. And the EU includes many large countries that emerged from communist dictatorship only 35 years ago, and are very much still in the process of catching up. Incidentally, the German economy is the result of the West German economy with 63 million people absorbing a failing economy hosting 16 million people in 1990. The idea that the US is some promised land of economic prosperity while Europe is falling is entirely absurd. It's a narrative built on small relative differences and a US system that pressures people into working a lot more than Europeans do. More importantly, even GDP per Capita wise: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm EU per Capita GDP in 2022 is the same as USA 2016. Was the USA in 2016 struggling but now isn't? This is all bullshit. Economic output is more than high enough and rising steadily. The problem remains solely in the distribution of

dukeyukey 2y ago

Big companies means efficiencies of scale. Small companies that succeed and grow inevitably become big companies. If they don't, it means the qualities that make them effective don't scale to the rest of the economy.

jononor 2y ago
They become big but not necessarily huge - like the 10 biggest tech companies that people here put as the benchmark. For that one needs organizations that also continuously increases their scope - going into new markets, consolidating exiting markets, buying up existing players. And if they are to continue being "European" then they must resist being bought up by the huge US or global tech companies. The latter is a big problem at least here in Norway. We have some companies that grow quite big and successful - but it is generally just a question of time before they get swallowed by a huge corp, often with US headquarters. Example: Atmel, now Microchip
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  Yep, that's a huge problem, and one that isn't easy to fix. The European market is vastly more gragmented than the North American one, so even without Europe's penchant for taxes and regulation, North America can more easily get giant companies that can reach across the Atlantic. The only real answer is protectionism, and there's a good chance that'll hurt more than it helps.