Europe manages to give a measurably better lifestyle for more people for less money than the US. Europe’s a success.

It appears to me that in most of Europe there is an unspoken bargain: society provides you with a reasonably comfortable and secure life where your basic needs are guaranteed at least to some level, and in exchange you are supposed to stay in your lane, make sure your ambitions match and follow one of the approved tracks, and leave things like starting businesses to a hidden aristocracy with family money, who for their part generally accept higher demands on their contributions and avoid "vulgar" displays of their wealth in exchange.

> But Europe has a population larger than USA, shouldn't they at least be close to us in leading edge companies?

An economy is there for the people. If that larger number of people have a higher quality of life than in the US, aren't they wealthier?

And if they do it for less money, aren't they wiser?

> They invented the Industrial Revolution.

And a lot more, my friend! You're welcome.

It would be very hard for a country to force it's most ambitious to not leave if there are other places eagerly recruiting them.

But when such a pull exists, it's very hard to counter that. Consider the number of non-SV places in the US that have tried to replicate that environment and basically failed. Even the famously "business friendly" places like Texas or Georgia that are success stories for poaching tech companies or film production largely work by having companies move there once they've left the high-growth phase and are no longer chasing strictly the most ambitious would-be-best-and-brightest talent.

The success stories there (that aren't just resource-extraction) have come from significant protectionism, essentially forcing a country to build its own version of the mega-companies even if it's a money-loser with copycats building shoddy copies for decades at first.

There's no easy way for Europe to magically change that with "culture." There's too many already-established mega-talent-bases in other places to think you can have people just pass up on that in a fully-global-market situation.

I would ask instead: why let those foreign mega-corps be so integral to so many basic services of modern life?

Perhaps not just Europe, but the entire world, would be better off if we had fewer monoliths and more variations, with more flexibility for local markets to develop different solutions or in different directions.

Your children need the number go up?

The EU is not a single country. It feels like a lot of Americans at the moment think of the EU as a single homogeneous entity that they often also just confusingly refer to as “Europe”.

Even the EU is a lot of different countries. Some of them quite poor, and some of them wealthier also with high GDP per capita.

GDP per capita does also not give you the whole picture. It is a number. Other numbers are median life expectancy, shootings per capita, PPI, median income, average vacation days, average distance to nearest high-speed rail station, physicians per capita, average number of pupils in a school class. Unemployment rate. Air quality.

GDP per capita is one indicator among many that says something about the country’s or region’s inhabitants, but in itself it is just a measure of how much money is being moved around annually. And it is potentially quite misleading. You could have a high GDP per capita and a poor population, if all the money went to large cooperations and billionaires.

I am not saying that everything is rosy in the EU, but just that there are also other important indicators and that it is a lot more complicated than just looking at GDP per capita across the entire EU.

An economy is there for the people. The people in Europe seem to have a higher quality of life than those on the other side of the Atlantic, don't you think?

Yeah compare the GDP per capita of Mississippi to Germany and then tell me which has a better quality of life.

They're referring to the idea that a particular Toyota pickup (Hilux) has become oddly popular for any group with the means and motive to bolt a machine gun onto a consumer vehicle.

Not from any wrongdoing on Toyota's part, but a combination of it being cheap, reliable, repairable, etc.

They kinda did that to themselves, but it's slowly changing. My partner's iPhone 16 is made in India. They really do lack waste management infrastructure though, and it's pretty crucial for this type of manufacturing. They should also borrow the regional concentration of industries that China has done, it really does make things more efficient.

For whatever reason, India had quite a lead on pharma manufacturing and still runs carries its own pretty well

Thirty? Try more like 10, and that’s only for the advanced nodes. Everything else, we will have capacity coming online soon enough.

Design, the gap is nonexistent in terms of talent deployed (though we have some way to go to have homegrown product companies). Which puts us roughly where Europe is.

Also consider, a tiny percentage of the Indian population is a ridiculous number of people. Dwarfing pretty much any other country except China.

Your last point on welfare and corruption is also false; 35% of government spend is on interest payments (which is kind of normal for most countries?) and 30% is on infrastructure and other capex. Defence is 8% and central welfare schemes plus co-sponsored schemes with the states are only 26%. The point being, while corruption is definitely a problem, it doesn’t significantly come out of the central budget. And welfare is smaller than infrastructure spending even if it’s quite significant (and it better be, in a country like this).

I remember when China was poor and everyone was talking about how their communal society guarenteed poverty. Then they started getting wealthy and the story became their communal society was what allowed them to be wealthy. The US is similarly either propelled by or crippled by their individualism depending on whether they've had a good year or not. India will no doubt be similar.

IMO the evidence suggests it is mostly tax policy and whether people are allowed to start and run businesses. Culture is important insofar as it affects those areas of policy. Getting wealthy is literally as simple as being able to create new wealth and keep it, plus lots of time. People don't choose to stay poor unless someone with a gun forces them to be poor.

You could say the same of the aristocracy of Europe over the last few hundred years, but that has effedtively crumbled. There's remnants of "old money" families that were upper-class, but for the most part the merchant class took control of the system that held them down. It took many generations, but the blue blooded dynasties are a dying breed.

Arguably India has the class system tied to the prevailing religion, but religion too has faded with modernity. Systems have a habit of breaking under strain and time.

China has a legal caste system in the form of birthplace registration and limits on internal migration.

I think you mean all systems by design do not distribute wealth and prosperity evenly. Thats actually not a thing.

Is it evenly distributed in China or the US?

Isn't every country like that?

I am a critic of Indias caste system but China has a state sanctioned caste system while the caste system is condensed by the Indian state and the state takes explicit (many think it over does it) steps to try to mitigate the effects of the caste system

China on the other hand defined your government benefits and the jobs you may get based on where you were born. People born rurally have to fake documents to work illegally in cities.

India has a ton of problems, but china is much worse when it comes to human rights. It's not even right to compare the two countries. India is a flawed somewhat liberal democracy (especially for the region of the world, India is a shining beacon on a hill surrounded by repressive regimes), while China is essentially a dictatorship

I don’t understand why people replying to you are defending a caste system like it’s an ok thing. This site blows my mind sometimes.

I wonder. Had any privatisation in NL any net benefits for the population? Not talking shareholder revenues.

TSMC alone uses 1/8th of Taiwan's electricity (and rising). They make it work.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/taiwan-semiconductor

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/tsmc-could-accoun...

Rather the US lax rules regarding their own enforcement.

The Double Irish (& Dutch Sandwich) where Companies routed profits through two Irish-registered subsidiaries, attributing intellectual property royalties to a management seat in a tax haven like Bermuda, is closed since 2015.

Subsequent sequential mismatch structures (the "Single Malt" tool) that replaced the Double Irish for certain firms using non-EU residency loops were also banned. Finally there's a 12.5% charge on unrealized capital gains when a company moves its assets or tax residency out of Ireland.

The headline tax rate and the effective tax rate are also very different things. France's effective corporate tax rate was actually lower than Irelands - but France is an absolutely brutal place to do business in for employers and they've comparatively no english-language tech FDI to speak of.

"Trapped capital" is not why Intel has doubled down on Ireland.

It's because whenever Intel asks for anything, the Taoiseach, IDA, and Invest Ireland will move mountains to do it.

Ireland is extremely business friendly because their leadership actually listens to industry.

I mixed up a tense or two there. It was done in 4 years, even accounting for Covid. The timeline looks like this

2019: Kick-off

2020: Construction in Ireland basically halted due to Lockdown for 18 months

Q3'2023: Fab 34 begins running a ‘First Full Loop’ of silicon

Q4'2023: Fab 34 completed. Doubles the manufacturing capacity available in Ireland, enabling the production of Intel 4 and Intel 3, some of the company’s most advanced process technologies, and the first to incorporate EUV lithography

2024: Intel sold 49% stake to Apollo GM for $11.2bn

2026: Intel buys back stake for $14.2bn

Q2'2026: Intel announce a further $5.7bn investment to upgrade existing capacity for server chips, slated for completion by late 2027

So now we're suddenly talking about living standards and not environmental regulation?

Your first 3 countries are also incredibly poor comparisons for living standards as they have horrendous work/life balance.

> comparable living standards

So vague as to be utterly meaningless.

And slow moving regulation literally incentivises high capex long-horizon investment.

Lately specifically because of Intel having financial issues, they already started building their fabs in Dresden and Wrocław when they cancelled last minute.

This was strategically planned with EU as part of bringing back production locally, similar to CHIPS Act in the US.

A probably non negligible weight is that decadence is bearish.

Those alive invest in long term planning, those with a dead drive get conservative in their action.

If it comes down to European vs Russian manufacturing capacity for missiles and hi-tech weaponry, etc, I'd put my money on Europe. Europe also has the advantage of seeing 5 years of Russia throwing their best at Ukraine, having their air defenses repeatedly breached by Ukraine, even deep into Russia using slow low-tech drones - they know many of Russia's weaknesses.

Yes. The US defense industry depends on European one. Take a look at F35 and where the components are made.

Ah yes, the only country that matters /s

> they could have made even tiny sacrifices to the social welfare system, diverted industrial production to military aid, and drowned Ukraine in help. That was a very achievable goal, and they didn't do it.

We already did that. Welfare and funding to social services, elderly care, etc is significantly reduced and with higher bar to get than before 2022 where I live. Plus we're also paying the price in higher housing costs thanks to housing millions of Ukrainians.

It's easy to want a higher reduction on welfare services when you're not the one needing them. It's easy to write cheques that other people have to cash.

> If they were "hell bent" on militarily defeating Russia, they could have made even tiny sacrifices to the social welfare system, diverted industrial production to military aid, and drowned Ukraine in help

Why do you think an entire continent with multiple and (sometimes even conflicting with each other) culture, priorities, national interest would do that? EU is an economic union. Not a federation like US

Europe has been stepping up a lot recently, given Trump's reluctance to push back against Putin - looks at UK/France supply of missile and anti-missile systems and IP to Ukraine, stepped up air defense based out of Lithuania (anticipating Kaliningrad as the first front of the war), etc.

> Europe is of course well aware that war with Russia seems increasingly inevitable, and have been preparing for it

What is the source for this? I have seen some news articles with this narrative, it was more on the line of fear-mongering rather than providing evidence.

That's why diplomacy is important. There is no scenario that Europe, let alone Ukraine can militarily defeat Russia (a country with nuclear weapons). I understand defending the territory. But what is the end game? fight forever? or mutual destruction?

We actually need both. Part of the industry certainly needs “PC chips”

We both know that feature sizes became marketing names over a decade ago. The "12 nm" for that fab are of course the marketing name. In any case, it's a seriously old process at this point.

Are you talking about Intel? That's the 7nm class and I've never seen anything about plans for the 20A/2nm generation at that fab.

You probably mixed it up with the Infineon Smart Power Fab.

The Infineon Smart Power Fab was opened some months ago and builds power ICs for the energy market. Probably something like ACDC and DCAC converter ICs. This is also needed in AI data centers. https://www.infineon.com/de/regional/dresden/smart-power-fab

European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), the TSMC fab in Dresden is still under construction and will produce logic chips in 28nm or 16nm. Bosch, Infineon, and NXP each have 10% share in this fab. I assume that it will mostly produce products which will be sold by these 3 companies, probably just the next generations from what they already sell. This fab was 50% subsidized by the German government.

GlobalFoundries also has a big 20nm Fab in Dresden.

The most advanced logic fab in the EU is the Intel fab in Ireland.

Bosch never said that though, the "AI" stuff was about the production methods used in the fab (along with a couple other buzzwords), it was never claimed that the fab produces chips "for AI". Instead these are fairly simple controllers for the automotive industry.

Can you share any official communication where somebody claimed this fab was for AI?

It was pretty clear that this fab - much like the other Bosch facilities - is going to be for automotive and industry ICs, not for high end node sizes in CPUs or GPUs.

The claim in OP is that "ASML currently sells no chipmaking machines in Europe". A single chipmaking machine purchase into a fab in Europe would be enough to prove that claim wrong. The number of fabs in Taiwan is irrelevant to this claim.

Ok. Soviet influence operation.

Why do you think that in 1998 Russia was not influencing Germany to use its gas?

Moreover, Russia and its coopting of the German Left and Greens is well documented.

Gerhard Schröder, chancellor 1998-2005, is well known to be best buddies with Putin and later (three weeks after leaving office!) worked for Gazprom. He is nicknamed "Gas-Gerd".

Schröder also famously called Putin a "true democrat".

And we mustn't compare it with the ecological impact of using gas in a democracy instead of nuclear under a communist regime

There's certainly semiconductor design capacity in Europe, but it's mostly geared towards low-end semiconductors, like the ones used in automotive and industrial. NXP and ST are designing ICs in Europe but relatively commodity stuff like low-end MCUs and motor controllers.

> Airbus proves the EU can do this

*could.

Airbus has been grandfathered into the current legal situation. Today a future Airbus would not be able to even start collecting data for its initial Environmental Impact Study.

I’ve seen someone explaining why it’s not as easy with semiconductors: Airbus can spread several different factories for different components around the EU. For semiconductors that’s not as feasible. Thus countries would fight which one would have the semiconductors factory. I think it was more or less this argument, which seems to make sense.

> Airbus proves the EU can do this

And Boeing's rampant carelessness proves European laws can be beneficial. "Hurr durr, how about them European laws" is a low-effort comment that adds nothing to the discussions.

The argument that a slack regulatory environment is sufficient was disproven when the US government subsidized new fabs via the CHIPS Act (a new law!), and then went further and partially nationalized a failing Intel to prop it up.

Of course Amurica will not do it themselves, Amurica will outsource the job to someone else.

lol China wouldn't bother bombing anyone

they'd just tell all their export ships to turn around and stop all exports

US would collapse in 30 days

it would be like the blockade US is doing to Cuba except 90% of every product we use and they wouldn't have to fire a single shot

they could also sell off the billions in US bonds and other assets

US economy would be utterly destroyed, we'd never recover because even the middle-class would be living out of their cars (now dead because all the parts for them are made in China)

Cool. What's your semiconductor project? Have you put something in Tiny Tapeout, or made a garage transistor?

its political stability and relative prosperity makes it an important consumer market, sure, but it's increasingly clear that Europe is no longer "great" great. its wealth was a product of being ahead of the rest of the world for a long time technologically and militarily, but the colonial era is over, so many others had caught up and are now eating their lunch. even the big three -- Germany, France, and Britain -- are in cultural, economic, and demographic decline. the alliance that binds them is loose and incoherent, promoting stagnation rather than innovation. the US brain drains its brightest while Europe itself frantically replaces its aging natives with whoever is willing to cross its undefended borders.

if the US or China had disappeared tomorrow, it would affect the rest of the world. what does an average person outside of Europe own that was made in Europe or couldn't be made in China instead? even ASML, its crown jewel, is built upon American tech and would be rebuilt in the US within a decade if there was necessity to do so.

This is not remotely racist. It's simply a fact, and the result of a lack of nationalist ideology.

Turns out if it's more economically efficient to simply import skilled workers, or outsource, then that's what will happen. Breeding and educating your own citizens in a first world country is very expensive. So you don't do it.

The only reason not to do this is national preference. Economically it makes sense, on a national level it makes sense, individually it's genocide.

Emigrating is not an easy task (even with money), think why they do it and why the don't want to live on the country they were born.

Think about it... a hint, it's not about money.

This is… a mathematically correct but practically useless way to compare migration flows. Using this approach, Singaporeans are more likely to move to China than Chinese to move to Singapore. Mathematically true, and tells us much about the relative sizes of these two countries, but very, very little about relative attractiveness as a place of living.

And healthcare, better food, better public transport, security, human relations, lifespan... and above all, happiness.

The american dream is dead, US is a country for working, not for living.

Absolutely also a testament to escaping Trump too. I have met many all over Europe, all ages – UK, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland etc who mentioned it. Including many previously living in California, Florida, Colorado etc with a decent climate, who were earning very good money.

Definitely a testament to each country too - presumably they have a fairly wide choice. They wouldn't go somewhere they disliked the culture that much. We know how discerning US folk are.

Are you looking for money or are you looking for a good life?

My country offers them both, people from lots of countries como here looking for money and also for a better way of living.

The lesson explains itself.

Being pedantic America is the continent. So a chilean should be as "American" as Donald Trump.

> That's an Island of less than 5 million people,

The Republic of Ireland has more than 5 million people. The Island has well over 7 million.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2026/0824/1588997-cso-popul...