Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why Europe’s Economy is Doing Better than You Think" video.

  1. I remember reading somewhere that EU countries actually does more high-tech than the US does on a per capita basis, but the real problem in the EU is funding, something a capital market could solve. Basically, a lot of high-tech is being done in Europe, but getting the money to push ahead with it is much harder, so many of them get snapped up by American corporations, there are ways of solving that problem at an EU level, but the members need to come together to make it happen, and there would be a big incentive in doing so, far more independence away from the US and a lot of jobs creation in the EU, but it might harm US interest if it becomes a lot harder for there corporations to snap up a lot of the talent and tech as a lot of it would likely stay in the EU if we create a capita market to allow us to throw a lot more money at it.
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  2. This is why we need a new measure for measuring from the bottom up, lower to middle classes, because the numbers being reported and the reality for the citizens are very different from each other, especially in the US and UK, but even in many European countries.
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  3.  @sizanogreen9900  Honestly, I think the EU countries have weathered the storm quite well over the last few years with everything that's gone on, and Europeans countries still dominant when it comes to quality of life whereas the US and UK are lagging behind. GDP numbers are kinda meaningless because they don't tell us much of what's going on for the average citizens, after all, if the US was doing so well, we wouldn't be getting the rise of Trump and the far right overall, but clearly, there are problems in most of the developed world across Europe and North America because a lot of people are angry at the mainstream parties and want real change. In any case, I'm grateful I live in the US, because on paper the US looks to be doing better, but in reality and for its citizens, Europeans have it much better and it's one of those situations that you can only realise if you've lived on either side of the fence to see the real flaws, which in the case of the US, it's got far more flaws that make it less appealing.
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  4. I think the problem with Hungary is that Orbán tried to be smart, he ended up creating more of a dependency on Russia, especially in energy matters and he's also been isolating Hungary from the rest of the EU, which is probably hurting trade and investment in the country. Hungary should be doing better than it's actually doing, especially on inflation and interest rates and even on economic growth, but Orbán policies are starting to bite and could get even worse over the coming years unless Hungary change course.
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  5. GPD numbers only matter if a society is very equal with the distribution of wealth, overall, it's a poor way to measure the well-being of the people in a country, this is especially the case in countries that are not as equal like the US and UK.
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  6. One thing I learned many years ago is to ignore GDP and GDP per capita numbers as it has little relevance to the quality of life for the average person, especially the lower and middle classes. Seriously, I've heard many Americans that have moved to Eastern Europe and say they are having a better quality of life, that wouldn't make any sense if we went off GDP numbers because eastern EU countries are still developer and have a much lower GDP then western EU countries or the US, and it's clear we need a better system for measuring quality of life from the bottom up, after all, if we had a better system, a lot more people would be aware of areas that need fixing and that will put pressure on governments to fix them. All we have today is governments like the UK or US that boost about how well the GDP is doing or how low unemployment, it's so detached from the reality of real life from cost of living to shortage of housing and so on, and we know they are detached from reality, why do you think Brexit happened in the UK? or the rise of the far right in Europe or Trump in the US, these are all signs that something is wrong and a lot of people are not happy with how things are and how they are going, and if the mainstream don't listen to the concerns, it's going to lead to a rise in the far right across Europe and North America that could become dangerous if we are not careful. In any case, I will say one thing, EU countries need to do better in the tech sector and maybe a capital market in the EU could help a lot in that area, but when it comes to quality of life, Europeans are doing better than Americans, especially in the EU where Europe more or less dominant the quality of life indexes whereas others like the UK and US have been slipping down the tables over the last decade or so.
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  7. It doesn't work that way, for one thing, the EU countries don't need a defence anywhere near what the US have got, we are not that bat crazy and paranoid to spend so much on the military. Also, even at current spending, if EU countries pooled their resources together into a single military, that would be quite a powerful military that would be more than enough to defend it's self, it would also have the benefit of scale and reducing the duplication that is wasting a lot of resources by having 27 independent militaries with all the duplication and waste that give. Basically, what I'm saying, EU countries defence spending isn't the issue, having 27 militaries is, boosting spending isn't going to make much of a difference as each EU country on it's own are too small to really matter to big power on the world stage, but an EU military would be a different story, in fact, EU countries might be in a position that they could reduce spending on the military if they pool resources together, after all, how big of military do you realistically need to make sure no country messes with you? you don't need anything like what the US is spending, the US spends a lot because it's a very paranoid country when it comes to the world, the EU doesn't have that issue.
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  8. More accurately, it's the corporations eating everyone, including the American people lol. Hence, why the quality of life on average is dominated by European countries, because it all boils down to where the wealth is going, in the US, it's going to the super rich, not the average citizens, and even thought much of that is going on in Europe as well, the system is far more balanced that wealth is more even. In other words, on average, Europeans from lower to middle classes are doing better than Americans from lower and middle classes, the ones that are doing super well in both regions is the upper class, but for the vast majority of people, things are not that great, especially in the US but also not in Europe, it's just not as bad in Europe, but in any case, there's a reason why Brexit in the UK happened, the far right in Europe is on the right and Trump and the far right in the US, it's because things are not that great, all these are signs that a lot of people are angry across the western world.
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  9. Productivity in the EU is fine, can it be better? Yes, it can always be better but overall we are doing good on that one, especially if put on a per-hour basis to what Americans produce, we in Europe work fewer hours than Americans do so that can skew the numbers up. On the high-tech sector, the real issue isn't that we don't create enough high-tech, we do, but we don't fund them and they end up being snapped up by American corporations, a solution to solve that could be a capital market in the EU which would allow the EU to throw far more money at these start-ups, that would likely have the impact of creating a lot more jobs in the EU market, as well as keeping a lot of high-tech in-house, it would also make it much harder for the US to snatch up a lot of this talent and tech, either because a lot of it would stay in the EU or if they US corporations want to buy it, they likely would have to pay far higher for it. In any case, the resources are there to make it happen, it's just up to the EU members to come together and do the reforms at an EU level to make it happen. As for getting poorer, it depends on how you measure if, if we are talking about quality of life, Europe is actually doing really well, whereas the US and UK are actually getting poorer on average, quality of life and GDP numbers are very diffrent from each other.
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