> Unlike the US, Europe has no California-level VCs. I don't expect hundreds of billions of Euros to be poured into long-shot projects.

My ex-neighbor (when I was a teenager, living in Belgium) and very good friend really wanted to make it big. He became a chip engineer, moved to California, raised money for a first startup (it tanked) then raised money for a second startup. He made the world a better place (he created some very specific micro-inverters for solar panels) and made a $$$ exit.

The EU saw exactly zero of the wealth he created and he's never ever coming back to what he considers a failure of a continent.

That's the problem: many of the great minds with the mindset required to do great things already left the EU.

> So yeah, both in economy and warfare, Europe dooms itself to be in the hands of the US, China, or a mix of both.

And in energy (economy is energy and energy is economy, and China really understood that) the EU doomed itself to be in the hands of Russia.

We are a failure of sinking continent.

> economy is energy and energy is economy, and China really understood that

In former times the energy monopoly was called "The Power Company"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning."

– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"

Europe is a great place to live if you just want to float through life.

The US is a great place to live if you have talent, want to work, and want to reap the rewards.