4 ms·

The simple but unpopular answer is that the EU is no longer a wealthy continent. The EU is finding this out on a daily basis.

troupo 1y ago
Which is, of course, a bullshit answer.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Actually, it's far closer to the truth than you may think. France? Their debt is killing their country and causing escalating political crises. Germany? Energy costs are killing their competitiveness. Hard to compete with energy costs of $0.44 per kWh on average; before labor costs. Italy? Need I say more? Their economy is notoriously stagnant. The remaining 24 EU countries make up less than 50% of the EU's GDP. Meanwhile, US and EU GDP went from almost 1:1 in 2008, to 1:0.65 and still declining. To give you a sense of how severe Germany's problems are, the US state of Mississippi is almost ready to pass Germany's GDP per capita.
  - troupo 1y ago
    1. So much emotion 2. None of that says that the EU isn't rich 3. None of that proves that the bullshit about revenue Do you know how I know that? Because that "7%" comes from this quote: "Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global App Store revenue." App Store revenue is not all of Apple's revenue. Oh, and those same execs claim they don't even know if App Store makes money or loses it, so how would they know.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    You seem to enjoy making nonsense comparisons. But I wonder why you do this, is there something in it for you to make it seem as though the USA is doing fine when the EU is - according to you - not? I've actually lived on both sides of the Atlantic. And there is wealth on both sides and there is poverty on both sides. But the gap between rich and poor is much more pronounced on the US side than in the EU. Energy costs are a small fraction of the total expenses. Mississippi is not a good comparison to Germany (last I checked half of Mississippi was not living under the russian boot for 50 years) and if you just stare at the GDP you will miss a lot of quality-of-life indicators that would make me choose to live in Germany long before I would want to live in a backwater state in the USA. And that's assuming the USA will survive the current onslaught on its institutions. So stop bullshitting and start thinking about what the real world differences are between countries and then strive to improve the one you can have an effect on rather than just seeing this as a numerical game of put-downs that make absolutely no sense at all.
jacquesm 1y ago
The bullshit you read on HN knows no bounds.
steve_adams_86 1y ago
What data would you use to substantiate this claim? What's your criteria for a continent to be wealthy?
- gruez 1y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    You are making the common mistake of comparing countries and continents.
    - gruez 1y ago
      >per capita
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        Yes, per capita per country versus per capita per continent. The two simply are not comparable. You keep arguing in bad faith, please stop doing that, it is degrading the level of discourse here.
        gruez 1y ago
        >Yes, per capita per country versus per capita per continent. The two simply are not comparable As opposed to comparing a country of 340M with countries with populations anywhere between 33k to 143M?
        jacquesm 1y ago
        Yes, because then you'd see that the EU is not the homogeneous entity that you seem to think it is. You could compare the USA to Switzerland or the Netherlands on a per-capita basis or you could pick Romania or Bulgaria and come away with a completely different impression. The main difference is that countries that have been living under the Russian boot for 50 odd years are still recovering and the remainder is far wealthier than the USA and has a smaller wealth gap between rich and poor. This goes in particular for Germany which is still to this day spending large amounts of money to fund the recovery of the eastern part of Germany, but fortunately, unlike Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltics they have a large enough industrial base to be able to do so. To lump that all together makes zero sense and shows a lack of appreciation of both history and statistics.

troupo 1y ago

Which is, of course, a bullshit answer.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Actually, it's far closer to the truth than you may think. France? Their debt is killing their country and causing escalating political crises. Germany? Energy costs are killing their competitiveness. Hard to compete with energy costs of $0.44 per kWh on average; before labor costs. Italy? Need I say more? Their economy is notoriously stagnant. The remaining 24 EU countries make up less than 50% of the EU's GDP. Meanwhile, US and EU GDP went from almost 1:1 in 2008, to 1:0.65 and still declining. To give you a sense of how severe Germany's problems are, the US state of Mississippi is almost ready to pass Germany's GDP per capita.
- troupo 1y ago
  1. So much emotion 2. None of that says that the EU isn't rich 3. None of that proves that the bullshit about revenue Do you know how I know that? Because that "7%" comes from this quote: "Just to keep it in context, the changes apply to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global App Store revenue." App Store revenue is not all of Apple's revenue. Oh, and those same execs claim they don't even know if App Store makes money or loses it, so how would they know.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  You seem to enjoy making nonsense comparisons. But I wonder why you do this, is there something in it for you to make it seem as though the USA is doing fine when the EU is - according to you - not? I've actually lived on both sides of the Atlantic. And there is wealth on both sides and there is poverty on both sides. But the gap between rich and poor is much more pronounced on the US side than in the EU. Energy costs are a small fraction of the total expenses. Mississippi is not a good comparison to Germany (last I checked half of Mississippi was not living under the russian boot for 50 years) and if you just stare at the GDP you will miss a lot of quality-of-life indicators that would make me choose to live in Germany long before I would want to live in a backwater state in the USA. And that's assuming the USA will survive the current onslaught on its institutions. So stop bullshitting and start thinking about what the real world differences are between countries and then strive to improve the one you can have an effect on rather than just seeing this as a numerical game of put-downs that make absolutely no sense at all.

jacquesm 1y ago

The bullshit you read on HN knows no bounds.

steve_adams_86 1y ago

What data would you use to substantiate this claim? What's your criteria for a continent to be wealthy?

gruez 1y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank
- jacquesm 1y ago
  You are making the common mistake of comparing countries and continents.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >per capita
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Yes, per capita per country versus per capita per continent. The two simply are not comparable. You keep arguing in bad faith, please stop doing that, it is degrading the level of discourse here.
      - gruez 1y ago
        >Yes, per capita per country versus per capita per continent. The two simply are not comparable As opposed to comparing a country of 340M with countries with populations anywhere between 33k to 143M?
        jacquesm 1y ago
        Yes, because then you'd see that the EU is not the homogeneous entity that you seem to think it is. You could compare the USA to Switzerland or the Netherlands on a per-capita basis or you could pick Romania or Bulgaria and come away with a completely different impression. The main difference is that countries that have been living under the Russian boot for 50 odd years are still recovering and the remainder is far wealthier than the USA and has a smaller wealth gap between rich and poor. This goes in particular for Germany which is still to this day spending large amounts of money to fund the recovery of the eastern part of Germany, but fortunately, unlike Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltics they have a large enough industrial base to be able to do so. To lump that all together makes zero sense and shows a lack of appreciation of both history and statistics.