Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why is the US Economy Outperforming the EU?" video.

  1. That's an issue for almost all modern countries, if it wasn't for immigration, the problem would be far worse for developed countries, even the US. People seem to want to have far fewer kids nowadays and if you look at the stats, a lot of the growth is coming from immigration, either directly or by them having more kids than the natives, this is more or less happening in every modern country, the US is no exception and if you look at the countries that have a bigger population decline, they tend to be the ones that bring in fewer immigrants, Germany probably being the exception to that one.
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  2. I don't think the economy is broken, in fact, if you look at it, it's held up remarkable well considering how it's having to transform the energy sector in such a short space of time, after all, many predicted things to be far worse, that it's not actually shows a lot of resilient. That doesn't mean what's going on with energy doesn't hurt the economy, because it does, but it also offers a lot of benefits long term by forcing change a lot sooner than it would have been. The truth is, according to the stats, the US has been outperforming the EU for the last 2 decades, at the same time, the quality of life index have been widening in favour of the EU over the last two decades, with Europe more or less dominating the top 10. So the real question is, what's more important, quality of life or wealth? It seems to me that Europeans, especially western Europeans in the EU have the better end of the stick because wealth is more distributed and there's less poverty, whiles at the same time, a strong safety net for its people, now don't get me wrong, you need a reasonable amount of wealth, but given the choice, I suspect most of us would pick quality of living over more wealth. The irony is, the US could have more, but the problem is that too much wealth is in too few hands, so you get the impression that Europeans are better off than Americans in a lot of ways. At the end of the day, whether an EU or US citizen, I wouldn't worry about it, as long as the fundamentals are in place, the quality of life should be good enough for most of the people, it also means that change can speed up or slow down depending on need, like we saw with the energy transition in the EU, that works in almost any area depending on need.
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  3. In truth, so-called experts have been saying the EU is falling behind for two decades now, yet EU countries more or less dominant the quality of life index, in fact, the gap is widening over the US because the US is starting to slip in many areas. It's not as clear-cut as looking at GDP and GDP per capita numbers, they don't really tell us much about the health of an economy, especially for the average citizen, after all, the US and UK have been bragging for the last two decades how well the economy is doing, but a lot of people are not feeling those benefits, hence Trump getting into power and Brexit, those two factors are angry votes because a lot of people feel like they are getting left behind and that things are getting worse not better. Like I said, it's not that clear cut.
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  4. That's the irony of this, I've been hearing these stories from the US and UK the most about how bad the EU economy is doing over the last 2 decades, yet, when you look at the quality of life index and many other things like that, European countries seem to be pulling ahead, whereas the US has been slipping in many areas when Trump got into power, life expectancy is just one example of that. Overall, I think Europeans on average have a better quality of living over Americans, especially northern western Europeans, and it's likely down to the social programs Europeans take for granted, that and all the protection they have in a lot of areas that Americans don't or have much weaker rules in place. What surprised me about the US is that, the income level doesn't paint an accurate picture of the country, I remember when I was there, it felt like people were poorer, it also felt like many systems were being run down and at first I ignored that thinking, thinking it was in my mind, but when I got back to Europe, it really hit me on the nose how lucky Europeans are, it's a shame that most Europeans don't realise that.
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  5.  @potatoesandducks958  More or less all modern countries are and some that are not as developed like Russia are having these issues. The only thing keeping things ticking over is immigration, something the US brings in a lot, immigrants are far more likely to have more kids than the natives of a country, if immigration was to dry up, almost all modern countries would have major issues. The US probably more than most because it's got quite a weak support network when it comes to child support and other benefits that other modern countries have, it also has a work culture that makes having kids expensive whiles not giving people much time to think about having kids. So let's not kid ourselves, things would be much worse without immigration and hence why it's needed. After all, just look at the UK, immigration was one of the central points of them leaving the EU, yet years later and more people are immigrating to the UK then before Brexit, it's not because they want them, but because they need them to keep things ticking over, that's more or less the case for every modern country if you take out natural birthrates and birthrates from immigrants when they've moved to another country. Longer term, something will have to change to stabilise the situation, modern countries can only depend on immigrants to a degree, eventually those countries are going to modernise where far less of them need to move, but for now, it's not really an issue for the EU or US, but longer term it could become a major issue if governments don't find ways to encourage more births.
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