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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 w

by 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
- kortilla 2y ago
  >EU per Capita GDP in 2022 is the same as USA 2016. Was the USA in 2016 struggling but now isn't? Absolutely the US would be struggling if the GDP was still 2016 values with today’s costs.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Pretty much. I'd also love it (European) if we stil had 2017's rent prices and consumer prices, but we don't. Housing, energy, food, healthcare and everything has gone up like crazy. We're definitely poorer than before, just sweeping it under the rug pretending everyting's fine. So it boggles my mind that your parent tried to make a point by equating USA 2016 with EU 2022 GDP/capita as if nothing's wrong with that. Are some people that oblivious?
    - Certhas 2y ago
      The 2017 number was a mistake by me, I wanted to look at inflation adjusted/PPP, and that was nominal. You can clearly see the massive effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting inflation in the data. If we were looking at nominal values, the opposite is the case: Nominally GDP is rising rapidly: Nominal: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm PPP/Inflation adjusted not so much: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... But pretty much all countries are still well ahead of where we were in 2017. If you feel poorer than in 2017 it's because you're getting less of a larger pie, not because the economy is producing less than it did then.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Certhas 2y ago
  Can't edit anymore, but this little factoid: > 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 the ouptut. The conclusion that economic output has been rising steadily, even in the last couple of years, is true. But the 2016 vs 2022 numbers are nominal, thus useless. There is a much more significant difference over time when working in PPP/Inflation adjusted numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... The overall point holds though: The economic output of the EU is at 45K per capita today, the level of the US in 1997. The US was not a poor country in 1997. Germany is at the economic output per capita of 2009. Did the US in 1997 suffer from the problem that it didn't produce enough economic output? Of course not. And given that, adjusting for inflation, GDP per capita is at an all-time high, the conclusion that you're poorer because economic production is distributed to others is necessarily true. And it tracks, too. Corporate profits and the Dow Jones are not down. The already extremely wealthy have accumulated nearly two thirds of the new wealth being created since 2020: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly... > Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits, and paid out $257 billion (84 percent) of that to rich shareholders. The Walton dynasty, which owns half of Walmart, received $8.5 billion over the last year. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy corporations, has seen this wealth soar by $42 billion (46 percent) in 2022 alone. Given these facts, if we have to accept lower economic production in the name of a fairer distribution of economic production, that seems more than acceptable to me.
jononor 2y ago
To be fair more than half of that laptop hardware is made in China+Taiwan, including a lot of the IP that goes into it. If you look at phones and tablets, there is a bunch of components/IP from European companies also, such as ARM, Bosch, STmicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP etc. Intel has famously struggled and failed multiple times to get into that market. European semiconductor companies are also strong in automotive and other industries that use modern embedded systems. In another consumer electronics niche, a majority of wireless mice and keyboards are build on Nordic Semiconductor chips - from tiny Norway.
- gizmo 2y ago
  That's all true. However, the US is capable of producing almost everything domestically, albeit in lower volume. The US military doesn't like to depend on Chinese chips for obvious reasons.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >If you look at phones and tablets, there is a bunch of components/IP from European companies also, such as ARM, Bosch, STmicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP etc. But those are all low-marin chips. Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, AMD and Apple have much higher margins on their chips. They don't bother competing with the EU chips companies.
bigfudge 2y ago
And yet standards of living in Europe are comparable to those in the US, and preferable at the median. Our attention is captured by speculative valuations of unicorns, and yet people actually need real stuff made, drugs developed and made etc. Europe does perfectly well in many non winner takes all sectors where English language and network effects are less relevant. The political instability created by the US neoliberal experiment is something I hope we can avoid over here too.
- gizmo 2y ago
  Europe is much much poorer than the US, actually. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3PGpsrWEAEiplB?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3PGpsrWEAEiplB?format=jpg&name=...
  - Certhas 2y ago
    EU GDP per capita 2022 is the same as US GDP per capita 2017. Unless you want to say that the US was much poorer in 2017 than it was in 2022 that's a fairly ridiculous statement. Also, the highest productivity places in the EU have much lower hours worked per capita than the US, with Germans on average working 25% less than Americans and the EU as a whole working 13% less than the US. https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm
    - gizmo 2y ago
      World Bank: European Union gdp per capita for 2022 was $37,433, a 3.33% decline from 2021. U.S. gdp per capita for 2022 was $76,330, a 8.7% increase from 2021. It's not even close?
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        GDP per capita as a stand alone metric doesn't mean much.
        2y ago

by gizmo 2y ago

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

kortilla 2y ago
>EU per Capita GDP in 2022 is the same as USA 2016. Was the USA in 2016 struggling but now isn't? Absolutely the US would be struggling if the GDP was still 2016 values with today’s costs.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Pretty much. I'd also love it (European) if we stil had 2017's rent prices and consumer prices, but we don't. Housing, energy, food, healthcare and everything has gone up like crazy. We're definitely poorer than before, just sweeping it under the rug pretending everyting's fine. So it boggles my mind that your parent tried to make a point by equating USA 2016 with EU 2022 GDP/capita as if nothing's wrong with that. Are some people that oblivious?
  - Certhas 2y ago
    The 2017 number was a mistake by me, I wanted to look at inflation adjusted/PPP, and that was nominal. You can clearly see the massive effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting inflation in the data. If we were looking at nominal values, the opposite is the case: Nominally GDP is rising rapidly: Nominal: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm PPP/Inflation adjusted not so much: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... But pretty much all countries are still well ahead of where we were in 2017. If you feel poorer than in 2017 it's because you're getting less of a larger pie, not because the economy is producing less than it did then.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Certhas 2y ago
Can't edit anymore, but this little factoid: > 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 the ouptut. The conclusion that economic output has been rising steadily, even in the last couple of years, is true. But the 2016 vs 2022 numbers are nominal, thus useless. There is a much more significant difference over time when working in PPP/Inflation adjusted numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... The overall point holds though: The economic output of the EU is at 45K per capita today, the level of the US in 1997. The US was not a poor country in 1997. Germany is at the economic output per capita of 2009. Did the US in 1997 suffer from the problem that it didn't produce enough economic output? Of course not. And given that, adjusting for inflation, GDP per capita is at an all-time high, the conclusion that you're poorer because economic production is distributed to others is necessarily true. And it tracks, too. Corporate profits and the Dow Jones are not down. The already extremely wealthy have accumulated nearly two thirds of the new wealth being created since 2020: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly... > Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits, and paid out $257 billion (84 percent) of that to rich shareholders. The Walton dynasty, which owns half of Walmart, received $8.5 billion over the last year. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy corporations, has seen this wealth soar by $42 billion (46 percent) in 2022 alone. Given these facts, if we have to accept lower economic production in the name of a fairer distribution of economic production, that seems more than acceptable to me.

jononor 2y ago

To be fair more than half of that laptop hardware is made in China+Taiwan, including a lot of the IP that goes into it. If you look at phones and tablets, there is a bunch of components/IP from European companies also, such as ARM, Bosch, STmicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP etc. Intel has famously struggled and failed multiple times to get into that market. European semiconductor companies are also strong in automotive and other industries that use modern embedded systems. In another consumer electronics niche, a majority of wireless mice and keyboards are build on Nordic Semiconductor chips - from tiny Norway.

gizmo 2y ago
That's all true. However, the US is capable of producing almost everything domestically, albeit in lower volume. The US military doesn't like to depend on Chinese chips for obvious reasons.
Rinzler89 2y ago
>If you look at phones and tablets, there is a bunch of components/IP from European companies also, such as ARM, Bosch, STmicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP etc. But those are all low-marin chips. Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, AMD and Apple have much higher margins on their chips. They don't bother competing with the EU chips companies.

bigfudge 2y ago

And yet standards of living in Europe are comparable to those in the US, and preferable at the median. Our attention is captured by speculative valuations of unicorns, and yet people actually need real stuff made, drugs developed and made etc. Europe does perfectly well in many non winner takes all sectors where English language and network effects are less relevant. The political instability created by the US neoliberal experiment is something I hope we can avoid over here too.

gizmo 2y ago
Europe is much much poorer than the US, actually. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3PGpsrWEAEiplB?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3PGpsrWEAEiplB?format=jpg&name=...
- Certhas 2y ago
  EU GDP per capita 2022 is the same as US GDP per capita 2017. Unless you want to say that the US was much poorer in 2017 than it was in 2022 that's a fairly ridiculous statement. Also, the highest productivity places in the EU have much lower hours worked per capita than the US, with Germans on average working 25% less than Americans and the EU as a whole working 13% less than the US. https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm
  - gizmo 2y ago
    World Bank: European Union gdp per capita for 2022 was $37,433, a 3.33% decline from 2021. U.S. gdp per capita for 2022 was $76,330, a 8.7% increase from 2021. It's not even close?
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      GDP per capita as a stand alone metric doesn't mean much.
      - 2y ago