4 ms·

What does "European welfare model" even mean? Europe consists of many countries, and different countries have significantly different welfare models. Many EU c

by shafyy 2y ago

What does "European welfare model" even mean? Europe consists of many countries, and different countries have significantly different welfare models. Many EU countries have enough wealth, the problem is that it is unevenly distributed.

inglor_cz 2y ago
"Europe consists of many countries, and different countries have significantly different welfare models." In general, single payer healthcare + pay-as-you-go pension systems + relatively comfortable welfare systems + high taxation and regulation to support those systems. Yes, there are meaningful differences across the continent. But visible outliers are scarce. One of the really nasty consequences is underfunded defense, which caught up with us once Russia started acting on its imperial dreams. "Many EU countries have enough wealth, the problem is that it is unevenly distributed." A typical EU government spends about 40 per cent of the GDP, with the heaviest part of the spending being pensions. The worst outlier, France, around 55 per cent. If this is not enough, it will never be enough, short of mass expropriations. We already have a massive brain drain to the US. More punitive taxation = more brain drain.
- shafyy 2y ago
  It makes sense to me that a big portion of government spending goes towards social welfare and healthcare – at the end, that's one of the most important things. I agree that defense was underfunded in many EU countries. But hindsight is 20-20. If you remember the 2000s, everybody was optimistic about eternal peace in Europe, and global trade without tariffs was at its heights. The lower investment into defense came not at the cost of higher social welfare. The gap between poor and rich is still increasing, and we need ways to address that.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    "The gap between poor and rich is still increasing, and we need ways to address that." Do we? For what? We already have a serious problem in Europe that we totally missed the IT revolution. In the list of the biggest corporations in the world, US tech giants dominate. The first European entry is Louis Vuitton, a producer of luxury handbags. Either we are going to have a robust economy that can support the levels of taxation which carry the welfare state, but that means that someone is inevitably going to become very rich. If someone succeeds in building European Amazon, they will be in the same category of rich as Jeff Bezos. Or we will still have our legacy giants like Louis Vuitton and a more equitable distributon of poverty. But hey, no new digital parvenus up there. You are concerned about the gap between the rich and the poor. What about the gap between the US and the EU economy? That is growing pretty fast. Already we are small brothers to the big brother overseas. 20 or 30 more years of our current stagnation and we will be global nobodies; no one will bother to implement our strict regulations to gain access to our markets.
    - fzeroracer 2y ago
      > Do we? For what? Because when the gap gets too large, you get an oligarchy. Like here in the US. And I don't think you want a homegrown Elon Musk to run your country. Also it makes the economy a sham held up by billionaires. I literally cannot start a company here in the US because even my engineering salary is not enough to bootstrap a company without licking VC boots. I'm currently looking to instead get a visa in another country for starting up a business.
      - inglor_cz 2y ago
        On a global markets, there always will be huge corporations, and nowadays they usually grow huge because they provide some useful or at least highly sought-after services. And their owners are certain to become rich. You can drive them out of your particular tax domicile, but you won't squash them globally, and the result will be that you will be dependent on them anyway. As Europeans, we have to deal with Musk from a position of weakness. European Musk would be easier to control than American one, but hey, we did our best to redirect all the future Musks, European or South African, to the US... "I literally cannot start a company here in the US because even my engineering salary is not enough to bootstrap a company without licking VC boots." You have to realize that a lot depends on your level of ambition. You can start a small local company anytime, tech or non-tech, plenty of people do that every day, but your market reach will be naturally limited to one city or so. But if you want to start a globally relevant technological startup, hey, that was NEVER in the power of a random median engineer. At least you now have options, including those VCs. There aren't any such options in other places.

by shafyy 2y ago

inglor_cz 2y ago

"Europe consists of many countries, and different countries have significantly different welfare models." In general, single payer healthcare + pay-as-you-go pension systems + relatively comfortable welfare systems + high taxation and regulation to support those systems. Yes, there are meaningful differences across the continent. But visible outliers are scarce. One of the really nasty consequences is underfunded defense, which caught up with us once Russia started acting on its imperial dreams. "Many EU countries have enough wealth, the problem is that it is unevenly distributed." A typical EU government spends about 40 per cent of the GDP, with the heaviest part of the spending being pensions. The worst outlier, France, around 55 per cent. If this is not enough, it will never be enough, short of mass expropriations. We already have a massive brain drain to the US. More punitive taxation = more brain drain.

shafyy 2y ago
It makes sense to me that a big portion of government spending goes towards social welfare and healthcare – at the end, that's one of the most important things. I agree that defense was underfunded in many EU countries. But hindsight is 20-20. If you remember the 2000s, everybody was optimistic about eternal peace in Europe, and global trade without tariffs was at its heights. The lower investment into defense came not at the cost of higher social welfare. The gap between poor and rich is still increasing, and we need ways to address that.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  "The gap between poor and rich is still increasing, and we need ways to address that." Do we? For what? We already have a serious problem in Europe that we totally missed the IT revolution. In the list of the biggest corporations in the world, US tech giants dominate. The first European entry is Louis Vuitton, a producer of luxury handbags. Either we are going to have a robust economy that can support the levels of taxation which carry the welfare state, but that means that someone is inevitably going to become very rich. If someone succeeds in building European Amazon, they will be in the same category of rich as Jeff Bezos. Or we will still have our legacy giants like Louis Vuitton and a more equitable distributon of poverty. But hey, no new digital parvenus up there. You are concerned about the gap between the rich and the poor. What about the gap between the US and the EU economy? That is growing pretty fast. Already we are small brothers to the big brother overseas. 20 or 30 more years of our current stagnation and we will be global nobodies; no one will bother to implement our strict regulations to gain access to our markets.
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    > Do we? For what? Because when the gap gets too large, you get an oligarchy. Like here in the US. And I don't think you want a homegrown Elon Musk to run your country. Also it makes the economy a sham held up by billionaires. I literally cannot start a company here in the US because even my engineering salary is not enough to bootstrap a company without licking VC boots. I'm currently looking to instead get a visa in another country for starting up a business.
    - inglor_cz 2y ago
      On a global markets, there always will be huge corporations, and nowadays they usually grow huge because they provide some useful or at least highly sought-after services. And their owners are certain to become rich. You can drive them out of your particular tax domicile, but you won't squash them globally, and the result will be that you will be dependent on them anyway. As Europeans, we have to deal with Musk from a position of weakness. European Musk would be easier to control than American one, but hey, we did our best to redirect all the future Musks, European or South African, to the US... "I literally cannot start a company here in the US because even my engineering salary is not enough to bootstrap a company without licking VC boots." You have to realize that a lot depends on your level of ambition. You can start a small local company anytime, tech or non-tech, plenty of people do that every day, but your market reach will be naturally limited to one city or so. But if you want to start a globally relevant technological startup, hey, that was NEVER in the power of a random median engineer. At least you now have options, including those VCs. There aren't any such options in other places.