Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US all share comparable living standards to Western European states yet are able to maintain and expand semiconductor manufacturing.

The issue is with policymaking - coordination between the EU, national, and local governments is weak so high capex projects become risky.

Edit: can't reply

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

Their hours worked are comparable to most Western European states as well now [0]. Germany is unique in Europe based on hours worked, and is why German industry is pushing to bring back the 40 hour work week.

[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html

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Zagitta a day ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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throwaway132448 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> comparable living standards

So vague as to be utterly meaningless.

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

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karahime a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think it's that vague. I've lived in both Europe and the US, in several places, and both have a wide range. What I will say is that I don't think Europe is better off for the times that it has thrown up roadblocks.

Also, slow moving, stable regulation can be better than arbitrary flippancy, but that doesn't mean it directly incentivizes investment, it just means the investment already incentivized by demand can proceed with more confidence that it won't have the rug pulled out from under it, assuming the regulations didn't discourage a tentative proposal in the first place.

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upupupandaway a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

What?

	▲	CamperBob2 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No one wants to invest a lot of money into something that might be illegal tomorrow. (Do you?)

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alephnerd a day ago | parent | prev [-]

HDI is a good metric for gauging living standards [0]

And slow moving execution and creation of relevant legislation is a hindrance for capex in high risk projects like those in the semiconductor segment.

The Draghi report was published 2 years ago, and remains largely unimplemented.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...