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Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA. We basically coast along. We don't live on credit, but debit, and most people have

Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA. We basically coast along. We don't live on credit, but debit, and most people have zero investments outside their house. We're content and risk adverse and don't care much for the stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it). In places where higher education is cheap, or even sometimes free (like Sweden), there's less pressure to perform after graduation. It's quite common to study some field, but after graduation you go do something completely unrelated. A degree is just a means to an end, something to put on your CV to get an edge over those that does not have a degree. Those who study for the purpose of using their knowledge to create a successful business are very few. And when it comes to starting a business, the EU market is rarely the target, instead the focus is the domestic and much smaller market. It's also difficult to start a company that targets a larger market from the get go, because it means you need to advertise in multiple countries, target different languages, set up offices and contacts, and all of that costs money that startups do not have. The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. The EU is still a collection of different countries, with different languages, and the people in one country doesn't really care about what happens across their border or which new and up-and-coming company they have to offer. EU citizens like American companies, because we here about them on the news constantly, but we are completely oblivious to companies from our European neighbors.

sajithdilshan 2y ago
This is so true. I’m a software engineer in Berlin, and I’m from Sri Lanka. It amazes me how many young people are still pursuing bachelor’s or master’s degrees in business management or related fields instead of specializing in STEM fields, where they’d have a better chance of securing a high-paying job and making a meaningful impact. It seems like everyone wants to work for big four audit firms, but they often end up doing poorly paid internships in companies unrelated to their higher studies field. As you mentioned, the EU single market is just another bureaucratic monster. If you want to expand your business to other countries, you’ll need to apply for passporting. Then, if you ever want to provide services related to local taxes, you’ll have to have a physical office registered in the respective country. Each country also has its own nationalistic preferences regarding which services and products they use. For example, the French tend to prefer French companies over any other company that provides the same product, or even a better version from another European country. In essence, the EU is simply a massive tax burden on European citizens, benefiting only a handful of countries within the continent.
- Gravityloss 2y ago
  I think EU simplifies things a lot and accelerates the economy. I'm from a small country. Almost whatever business you do, you usually start thinking export really fast. One thing to say about EU is what they say about Africa. It's not one, there are different places in there. If you've been in one, then that might not apply somewhere else. I don't think EU countries have that many domestic businesses anymore. Companies operate in multiple countries and have supply chains crossing borders. People can freely just go and work wherever they want just like that. EU has removed so much friction and middlemen. Maybe German and French people could learn English a bit better and it would be smoother for business. And taxation of work could be harmonized and simplified so it'd be easier to buy labor (and not just products or services) from anywhere. That's a hard problem though because of the different societies and services and thus different taxation. What would you improve?
- kergonath 2y ago
  > In essence, the EU is simply a massive tax burden on European citizens, benefiting only a handful of countries within the continent. The tax burden is absolutely not "massive", either in relative or absolute terms. Money going to underdeveloped parts of the EU is by design. Helping them helps everyone. It creates a huge internal market and companies and people benefit, even from net contributing countries. There sure are issues to solve, but in pure monetary terms, the EU is a no brainer, just look at the UK.
  - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
    > Money going to underdeveloped parts of the EU is by design. Helping them helps everyone. That is your take on it. But is it true? How does a French/German person benefit from the money from their taxes being sent to another country when their own economies are in the dumpster? > It creates a huge internal market and companies and people benefit, even from net contributing countries. Maybe for big companies. I don't think a plumber in Spain cares that they can sell their services to someone in Latvia. > There sure are issues to solve, but in pure monetary terms, the EU is a no brainer. Then why is it that we are having this conversation? If the EU is a no brainer, we should be swimming in cash, shouldn't we? Even the most ardent supporters of the EU have finally admitted the truth (such as Mario Draghi), the EU is falling behind on many fronts including but not limited to AI, EVs, economic output, industrial output, defense spending and so on... > Just look at the UK That's a bit disingenuous. There are many countries in Asia or elsewhere that are doing just fine without being part of a union such as the EU. What about Germany currently? What about Greece after 2008? What about France which had a 10%++ unemployment rate for the majority of the 2010s? The UK is not doing well at the moment, that is a given, but let's not pretend that the countries in the EU are doing any better either. At least the UK has a functioning government whereas France is in a deadlock and will soon go through it's 4th prime minister/government of the year.
pmb 2y ago
> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. [citation needed] because I think this is extremely false. It is easy to underestimate the pain caused by having all the pre-euro currencies and pre-EU tax laws (yes there was the Schengen zone and EEC, but the EU uniformity helps a lot) and pre-EU borders. Source: me, who is a middle-aged American founding a tech startup in the EU and visited Europe many times before the EU existed.
- oblio 2y ago
  They're most likely talking about digital. Look at Netflix, a different catalog in every country.
  - pmb 2y ago
    They said it was currently worse than it used to be before the EU. That is not true. Netflix engaging in complicated IP rights negotiations does not mean the existence of the European Union is pointless.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  The current EU laws (especially tax laws) aren't helpful for businesses. If you want to do business in every EU country you basically have to register a business in each of them. Sure, you can sell goods for €10.000 - €20.000 to another EU country without much trouble, beyond that you need to setup a business in each country, sometimes you even need employees or at least an office in a country to be able to do so. I worked for a company that shipped to a number of EU countries, from an EU country. It has taken them 15 years to expand from shipping to three countries to nine. Every time they want to enter a "new market" it is years of planning and insane fees or doing business in a supposed "single market". The current situation is better than before the EU, but it's by no means good. Certainly no where as good as a Nebraska company wanting to sell their product in New Mexico. EU business will never grow to the size of American companies if they cannot bootstrap themself in a true single EU market. An American business immediately have a potential customer base of 350 million consumer, an EU business have at most 80 million if they start in Germany and will have to add an insane bureaucracy if they want to expand. EDIT: My information is out of date: In 2021 a solution was introduced where you can pay your VAT locally, and the tax authority in your own country will handle the transfer of VAT to the other EU countries. There are still some taxes (e.g. taxes on tobacco or alcohol) you may need to handle for each country, and to do some you may need to be a registered business.
Slartie 2y ago
> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. That's not exactly true. The single market has been a great thing for companies producing physical products. That's also what was in mind of the people who designed the single market. They wanted to unify standards for physical stuff. Because back then, there were no digital services to speak of. "Analog" services were naturally limited in their scaling capability so they weren't in focus, but mankind had back then just learned to scale up physical production, and the single market for physical goods has largely worked out great to shape global standards and stay competitive in the area of anything that's traded and touchable. What's been created is a bad fit for digital products and services, unfortunately. The legal frameworks covering purely digital services are far less unified than the standards for physical goods. And digital services are way more reliant on localization than physical stuff is. No amount of EU single market legislation will ever be able to eliminate the language barriers, much less other cultural barriers that are often hindering digital services successful in one EU country from being adopted in neighboring EU countries. Therefore, for those digital services that benefit greatly from network effects, it'll be hard for European variants to ever beat their US counterparts on the domestic turfs, and virtually impossible on the global market. However, not all digital services are dependent on network effects, so there are good reasons to continue trying to make the EU single market more applicable to digital services and to foster domestic offerings whereever possible, even if that strategy will probably never lead to the next Facebook or Instagram or Amazon to be built by a EU company.
- anovikov 2y ago
  Simple way to eliminate language barriers is to introduce English as main language of schooling, thus making all next generation bilingual. It's done by middle and upper classes anyway so idk why commoners are intentionally left in the dust by the System. Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway. It's stupid to pretend otherwise.
  - KK7NIL 2y ago
    > idk why commoners are intentionally left in the dust by the System. There's extreme wealth inequalities between EU countries (we're talking about one order of magnitude in the extreme cases), language barriers are the main things holding back the demographic crisis that would come from mass economic immigration within the EU. > Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway. It's stupid to pretend otherwise. EU is a big place (and so is the US). Perhaps you've mainly visited major urban centers of both and so don't see the rather unique cultures both hold.
caseyy 2y ago
> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders. The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region. Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US. This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on. > EU citizens like American companies As an EU citizen, I don't bank with an American company, I don't drive an American car, I don't shop in American grocery stores nor is importing many American foods allowed on safety grounds, I don't buy American fuel, my private health insurance isn't American, and so on and forth. I only buy American tech where there isn't a more competitive Chinese alternative. I'm not against the US in any way, shape or form. I just don't think we think about the US in the EU as much as you think. You are right in the sense that the European way of life is very different from the US way of life and we don't care that much for the economy. Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. We just don't value it as highly as other aspects in life – there is a strong sentiment of rejection of the rat race, growth of shareholder value at all costs, and other such American things in Europe. Perhaps it would benefit you to first examine the evidence on the ground, and then re-evaluate if your belief in American values (which I respect – totally great values in many cases) blinds you to European culture around capitalism. Europe is quite socialist, after all. Naturally, less effort will be spent on capital, more on society.
- mathverse 2y ago
  This is absolutely not true. Moving across Europe is significantly harder than in US. On top of that companies hiring across Europe need to go B2B or EoR. The countries are absolutely not harmonised in terms of regulations, labor law or employing people. I am sorry but you absolutely have no clue what you are talking about.
rdm_blackhole 2y ago
The EU is not a federal state (yet) so the problem of having a EU wide company that could operate in all the member states is who gets the money and what do they do with it. If I live in Portugal but my customers are mostly located in Ireland, what share does Portugal get of the corporate taxes? What share gets Ireland? What about the other countries? What if my country of residence changes in the meantime?
dartharva 2y ago
All the points you listed apply to India as well, with its multilingual states and conservative scarcity-driven mindset. Yet entrepreneurship is growing here at rates never witnessed before.
- stcroixx 2y ago
  Indians don't coast like Euros. Average standard of living is much lower in India which motivates them to do things to raise it.
  - dartharva 2y ago
    Maybe, but then standard of living in India was always poor - in fact, much poorer before than it is now. Yet it is only now that entrepreneurship is at a peak never seen before in the country.
k__ 2y ago
"The EU single market is largely a myth" People in the UK might disagree now.
- throw646577 2y ago
  The Leave campaign was significantly duplicitous about post-Brexis access to the Single Market; they've always known it's a real thing or they wouldn't have had to lie about it.
ben_w 2y ago
> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. Everything I've heard from small UK businesses post-Brexit says that the EU single market is actually pretty useful.
guerrilla 2y ago
> We don't live on credit, but debit, and most people have zero investments outside their house. We're content and risk adverse and don't care much for the stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it). This is a contradiction. We all have pensions, and in many cases multiple pensions, up to three or more in Sweden.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA. I think you're referring to "finance" or something. As to why we americans mostly speak in economic terms relating to the stock market—I honestly think we're just a really dumb people incapable of expressing our needs.
semiquaver 2y ago
This seems incongruous: > most people have zero investments outside their house. > stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it) To the extent the average American has any non-house investments, they consist of retirement savings in (defined contribution) pension accounts. How does this differ from your description of the average European?
- senko 2y ago
  While the underlying mechanics are similar (pension funds), the average European (at least in my corner of the EU) is completely unaware. They know some (government-mandated) amount is withheld and paid out to the government (which then routes it to appropriate mix of pension funds), and that's it. While you can be aware of the details (and make your own pension fund choice), most people are blisfully unaware.
croisillon 2y ago
not much to say except that i agree very much with it in general
TomK32 2y ago
> The EU is still a collection of different countries, with different languages, and the people in one country doesn't really care about what happens across their border or which new and up-and-coming company they have to offer. 14 million EU citizens who live (as of 2020) in a EU country other than their own beg to differ. I'm one of them and know about the plentiful of rights that I enjoy as a EU citizen to live in another country. There are dozens and dozens of cities that attract students and workers from all EU countries. Regarding the single market, well the Brits are learning the hard way how easy the flow of goods and wares was when they were still part of it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. Perhaps you don't remember how it was before the EU existed. Compare a Polish company doing business with France before Poland joined the EU vs today.
antrperspective 2y ago
The EU and Globalism is a mechanism for corporations/companies to get constant cheaper labor. The other implications are not important for the parties that make these decisions.

sajithdilshan 2y ago

This is so true. I’m a software engineer in Berlin, and I’m from Sri Lanka. It amazes me how many young people are still pursuing bachelor’s or master’s degrees in business management or related fields instead of specializing in STEM fields, where they’d have a better chance of securing a high-paying job and making a meaningful impact. It seems like everyone wants to work for big four audit firms, but they often end up doing poorly paid internships in companies unrelated to their higher studies field. As you mentioned, the EU single market is just another bureaucratic monster. If you want to expand your business to other countries, you’ll need to apply for passporting. Then, if you ever want to provide services related to local taxes, you’ll have to have a physical office registered in the respective country. Each country also has its own nationalistic preferences regarding which services and products they use. For example, the French tend to prefer French companies over any other company that provides the same product, or even a better version from another European country. In essence, the EU is simply a massive tax burden on European citizens, benefiting only a handful of countries within the continent.

Gravityloss 2y ago
I think EU simplifies things a lot and accelerates the economy. I'm from a small country. Almost whatever business you do, you usually start thinking export really fast. One thing to say about EU is what they say about Africa. It's not one, there are different places in there. If you've been in one, then that might not apply somewhere else. I don't think EU countries have that many domestic businesses anymore. Companies operate in multiple countries and have supply chains crossing borders. People can freely just go and work wherever they want just like that. EU has removed so much friction and middlemen. Maybe German and French people could learn English a bit better and it would be smoother for business. And taxation of work could be harmonized and simplified so it'd be easier to buy labor (and not just products or services) from anywhere. That's a hard problem though because of the different societies and services and thus different taxation. What would you improve?
kergonath 2y ago
> In essence, the EU is simply a massive tax burden on European citizens, benefiting only a handful of countries within the continent. The tax burden is absolutely not "massive", either in relative or absolute terms. Money going to underdeveloped parts of the EU is by design. Helping them helps everyone. It creates a huge internal market and companies and people benefit, even from net contributing countries. There sure are issues to solve, but in pure monetary terms, the EU is a no brainer, just look at the UK.
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago
  > Money going to underdeveloped parts of the EU is by design. Helping them helps everyone. That is your take on it. But is it true? How does a French/German person benefit from the money from their taxes being sent to another country when their own economies are in the dumpster? > It creates a huge internal market and companies and people benefit, even from net contributing countries. Maybe for big companies. I don't think a plumber in Spain cares that they can sell their services to someone in Latvia. > There sure are issues to solve, but in pure monetary terms, the EU is a no brainer. Then why is it that we are having this conversation? If the EU is a no brainer, we should be swimming in cash, shouldn't we? Even the most ardent supporters of the EU have finally admitted the truth (such as Mario Draghi), the EU is falling behind on many fronts including but not limited to AI, EVs, economic output, industrial output, defense spending and so on... > Just look at the UK That's a bit disingenuous. There are many countries in Asia or elsewhere that are doing just fine without being part of a union such as the EU. What about Germany currently? What about Greece after 2008? What about France which had a 10%++ unemployment rate for the majority of the 2010s? The UK is not doing well at the moment, that is a given, but let's not pretend that the countries in the EU are doing any better either. At least the UK has a functioning government whereas France is in a deadlock and will soon go through it's 4th prime minister/government of the year.

pmb 2y ago

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. [citation needed] because I think this is extremely false. It is easy to underestimate the pain caused by having all the pre-euro currencies and pre-EU tax laws (yes there was the Schengen zone and EEC, but the EU uniformity helps a lot) and pre-EU borders. Source: me, who is a middle-aged American founding a tech startup in the EU and visited Europe many times before the EU existed.

oblio 2y ago
They're most likely talking about digital. Look at Netflix, a different catalog in every country.
- pmb 2y ago
  They said it was currently worse than it used to be before the EU. That is not true. Netflix engaging in complicated IP rights negotiations does not mean the existence of the European Union is pointless.
mrweasel 2y ago
The current EU laws (especially tax laws) aren't helpful for businesses. If you want to do business in every EU country you basically have to register a business in each of them. Sure, you can sell goods for €10.000 - €20.000 to another EU country without much trouble, beyond that you need to setup a business in each country, sometimes you even need employees or at least an office in a country to be able to do so. I worked for a company that shipped to a number of EU countries, from an EU country. It has taken them 15 years to expand from shipping to three countries to nine. Every time they want to enter a "new market" it is years of planning and insane fees or doing business in a supposed "single market". The current situation is better than before the EU, but it's by no means good. Certainly no where as good as a Nebraska company wanting to sell their product in New Mexico. EU business will never grow to the size of American companies if they cannot bootstrap themself in a true single EU market. An American business immediately have a potential customer base of 350 million consumer, an EU business have at most 80 million if they start in Germany and will have to add an insane bureaucracy if they want to expand. EDIT: My information is out of date: In 2021 a solution was introduced where you can pay your VAT locally, and the tax authority in your own country will handle the transfer of VAT to the other EU countries. There are still some taxes (e.g. taxes on tobacco or alcohol) you may need to handle for each country, and to do some you may need to be a registered business.

Slartie 2y ago

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. That's not exactly true. The single market has been a great thing for companies producing physical products. That's also what was in mind of the people who designed the single market. They wanted to unify standards for physical stuff. Because back then, there were no digital services to speak of. "Analog" services were naturally limited in their scaling capability so they weren't in focus, but mankind had back then just learned to scale up physical production, and the single market for physical goods has largely worked out great to shape global standards and stay competitive in the area of anything that's traded and touchable. What's been created is a bad fit for digital products and services, unfortunately. The legal frameworks covering purely digital services are far less unified than the standards for physical goods. And digital services are way more reliant on localization than physical stuff is. No amount of EU single market legislation will ever be able to eliminate the language barriers, much less other cultural barriers that are often hindering digital services successful in one EU country from being adopted in neighboring EU countries. Therefore, for those digital services that benefit greatly from network effects, it'll be hard for European variants to ever beat their US counterparts on the domestic turfs, and virtually impossible on the global market. However, not all digital services are dependent on network effects, so there are good reasons to continue trying to make the EU single market more applicable to digital services and to foster domestic offerings whereever possible, even if that strategy will probably never lead to the next Facebook or Instagram or Amazon to be built by a EU company.

anovikov 2y ago
Simple way to eliminate language barriers is to introduce English as main language of schooling, thus making all next generation bilingual. It's done by middle and upper classes anyway so idk why commoners are intentionally left in the dust by the System. Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway. It's stupid to pretend otherwise.
- KK7NIL 2y ago
  > idk why commoners are intentionally left in the dust by the System. There's extreme wealth inequalities between EU countries (we're talking about one order of magnitude in the extreme cases), language barriers are the main things holding back the demographic crisis that would come from mass economic immigration within the EU. > Let's face it: our culture (all across the EU), is American, anyway. It's stupid to pretend otherwise. EU is a big place (and so is the US). Perhaps you've mainly visited major urban centers of both and so don't see the rather unique cultures both hold.

caseyy 2y ago

> The EU single market is largely a myth from the perspective of wanting to start a successful company that can compete internationally. It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. This is simply not true. There is freedom of movement for workers which means it's easy to recruit top talent across the continent. Remote work is also much simplified. There's no friction moving goods and company assets across borders. The regulatory environment is significantly unified under the EU so there are few regulatory risks for companies growing outside their country within the region. Every EU company also has access to the entire continent's consumer base – 450 million residents, which is 50% more than the US. This benefits many EU tech companies – Spotify, Revolut, Klarna, Bolt Mobility, Wise, N26, and so on and on and on. > EU citizens like American companies As an EU citizen, I don't bank with an American company, I don't drive an American car, I don't shop in American grocery stores nor is importing many American foods allowed on safety grounds, I don't buy American fuel, my private health insurance isn't American, and so on and forth. I only buy American tech where there isn't a more competitive Chinese alternative. I'm not against the US in any way, shape or form. I just don't think we think about the US in the EU as much as you think. You are right in the sense that the European way of life is very different from the US way of life and we don't care that much for the economy. Yet Europe is still home to some of the largest stock markets in the world including LSE, Euronext, FSE, SIX Swiss, etc. We just don't value it as highly as other aspects in life – there is a strong sentiment of rejection of the rat race, growth of shareholder value at all costs, and other such American things in Europe. Perhaps it would benefit you to first examine the evidence on the ground, and then re-evaluate if your belief in American values (which I respect – totally great values in many cases) blinds you to European culture around capitalism. Europe is quite socialist, after all. Naturally, less effort will be spent on capital, more on society.

mathverse 2y ago
This is absolutely not true. Moving across Europe is significantly harder than in US. On top of that companies hiring across Europe need to go B2B or EoR. The countries are absolutely not harmonised in terms of regulations, labor law or employing people. I am sorry but you absolutely have no clue what you are talking about.

rdm_blackhole 2y ago

The EU is not a federal state (yet) so the problem of having a EU wide company that could operate in all the member states is who gets the money and what do they do with it. If I live in Portugal but my customers are mostly located in Ireland, what share does Portugal get of the corporate taxes? What share gets Ireland? What about the other countries? What if my country of residence changes in the meantime?

dartharva 2y ago

All the points you listed apply to India as well, with its multilingual states and conservative scarcity-driven mindset. Yet entrepreneurship is growing here at rates never witnessed before.

stcroixx 2y ago
Indians don't coast like Euros. Average standard of living is much lower in India which motivates them to do things to raise it.
- dartharva 2y ago
  Maybe, but then standard of living in India was always poor - in fact, much poorer before than it is now. Yet it is only now that entrepreneurship is at a peak never seen before in the country.

k__ 2y ago

"The EU single market is largely a myth" People in the UK might disagree now.

throw646577 2y ago
The Leave campaign was significantly duplicitous about post-Brexis access to the Single Market; they've always known it's a real thing or they wouldn't have had to lie about it.

ben_w 2y ago

guerrilla 2y ago

> We don't live on credit, but debit, and most people have zero investments outside their house. We're content and risk adverse and don't care much for the stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it). This is a contradiction. We all have pensions, and in many cases multiple pensions, up to three or more in Sweden.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> Us Europeans are more 'detached' from the economy than people are in the USA. I think you're referring to "finance" or something. As to why we americans mostly speak in economic terms relating to the stock market—I honestly think we're just a really dumb people incapable of expressing our needs.

semiquaver 2y ago

This seems incongruous: > most people have zero investments outside their house. > stock market (even though many people's pensions are tied to it) To the extent the average American has any non-house investments, they consist of retirement savings in (defined contribution) pension accounts. How does this differ from your description of the average European?

senko 2y ago
While the underlying mechanics are similar (pension funds), the average European (at least in my corner of the EU) is completely unaware. They know some (government-mandated) amount is withheld and paid out to the government (which then routes it to appropriate mix of pension funds), and that's it. While you can be aware of the details (and make your own pension fund choice), most people are blisfully unaware.

croisillon 2y ago

not much to say except that i agree very much with it in general

TomK32 2y ago

> The EU is still a collection of different countries, with different languages, and the people in one country doesn't really care about what happens across their border or which new and up-and-coming company they have to offer. 14 million EU citizens who live (as of 2020) in a EU country other than their own beg to differ. I'm one of them and know about the plentiful of rights that I enjoy as a EU citizen to live in another country. There are dozens and dozens of cities that attract students and workers from all EU countries. Regarding the single market, well the Brits are learning the hard way how easy the flow of goods and wares was when they were still part of it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> It's not any easier now than it was before the EU existed. Perhaps you don't remember how it was before the EU existed. Compare a Polish company doing business with France before Poland joined the EU vs today.

antrperspective 2y ago

The EU and Globalism is a mechanism for corporations/companies to get constant cheaper labor. The other implications are not important for the parties that make these decisions.