What do Europeans think of the European economy? From my American perspective it looks like they are trying to lose, trying to fall backwards, trying to become a less prosperous society. No one seems to be building anything, and the governments seem to be preventing anyone who tries to advance from doing so. What am I missing?

[delayed]

US Based big tech is skewing your perception. real world economies dont revolve around social media entertainment and ad serving mechanisms.

Take those out of what US "builds" and Us doesnt look very exceptional

> No one seems to be building anything

The article is literally about ASML, the company that builds the most complex machine ever built by humans.

I can pick a couple of other companies across a wide variety of industries if you'd like.

I do not live in Europe, but I have a lot of friends living there, mostly in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. We recently met in Croatia, and after a few beers this topic came up. We came to the conclusion that the following crises caused Europe to start lagging behind the rest of the world:

- 2008 financial crisis. Somehow, the U.S. was able to spend its way out of the crisis, while Europe's strict austerity measures made things quite bad. That was followed by the 2010-2012 debt crisis, the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, and another Greek debt and banking crisis in 2015.

- COVID: Most European countries, at least those with strong economies, had very strict restrictions and closures. The restrictions were as strict as they were in California. They did not really have any Texas or Florida style "rebellion" states. Sweden was the main exception. But borders and travel restrictions still existed.

- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Europe was much more economically integrated with and dependent on Russia (especially for energy), than the U.S. or many other parts of the world.

So basically, the world has gone through three major crises in the last 15-20 years, and in each case the U.S. was either less directly affected or somehow managed the economic consequences better than Europe.

Most people in my circle in EU seems to see it in similar way. Not much we can do about it though :(

They think the same of you…

I'm not a particularly big believer in infinite growth, so I'm not really concerned. But, I have noticed that many people both complain that nothing is being built, but also NIMBY. Could be the goomba fallacy...

Hype. And I don’t mean this pejoratively although it has negative consequences — the US does hype better than anyone. The challenge for the US is that people can exploit hype to the point that its effect gets diminished (eg Tesla) which might have long term consequences for the sustainability of the hype machine

Have you ever been to Europe?? Things they are building: proper trains; proper roads; proper particle accelerators; proper airliners; proper bread; proper cars; the AI that the USA thinks is so amazing; ARM CPUs; ...

And speaking of "a less prosperous society" -- have you been to most of the USA recently? Doesn't look very prosperous to me vs most of Europe.

Reading between the lines, I blame essentially the opposite thing: too much neoliberalism, preventing governments from enacting effective industrial policy (for ideological reasons, not as a choice for a plausible pathway to the desired outcomes). There is some but too little and too indirect. The focus is more on doing as little as possible than on really doing things, on giving permission and as-small-as-possible incentives for things to be done rather than causing them to be done (let alone straight up doing them - neolibs recoil in horror).

That's how I see it anyway, almost everyone else wants to double down on neoliberalism ie the negation of industrial policy. Except perhaps Frank Heemskerk from the article, who mentions wanting governments to create demand for made-in-europe chips so that fabs get built to supply that demand.

I think it is alright. I actually had the choice to move to the US and I picked Europe instead.

If the measure of "winning" is chasing any current hype so that line goes up no matter the cost, I would rather not be in such a place.

> What do Europeans think of the European economy?

First of all there is no such thing as "Europeans"; you have French, Germans, Italians etc.

> From my American perspective

Your American perspective is one created by American media, ie. corporate instruments whose job is to rationalize the American way of life and paint European regulators as some sort of backward ethnics not manifesting.

> No one seems to be building anything

You overestimate the amount of people/companies who are _actually_ building something. Watching red-eyed delusional Americans dropping by presenting an AI wrapper as innovation barely registers as "building".

> What am I missing?

The point.

Do you understand what the purpose of the government is? Do you understand how labour and capital work? Do you understand how the managerial class swindles semi literate investors by seeming to be building jack shit?

PS: Are there any hackers actually left in this site?

Yes, the situation in Europe is bad. But at least we're not being destroyed in a war by a bunch of guys driving toyotas.

I think it's great. I think whatever you are doing in the US under Trump we do best doing the opposite.

I am so glad that I don't have to live in the US right now. If this is loosing we should do even more of it.

https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-econ...

If you focus only on tech the discrepancy is larger than if you include the wider economy. Even though USA is ahead economically, the EU is still the second largest player globally and the gap is probably not as wide the HN bubble makes it seem.

lose what?

Holy Kool-Aid.

I mean, Europe built ASML, for one.