Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "Why Europe Fell Behind the United States" video.

@finflop8276 We're talking about the EU as a whole, though. You can't pick and choose, lest we start talking about individual US States which blow apart most European nations.
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@Garcwyn QoL measures that, and the US is better than 60% of European nations in that regard. And GDP is a measurement to determine how much economic activity an entire nation has; it's actually very important -so acting like its somehow "anti-individual" when its just a useful measurement is hilarious. Also, Soviet Central Planners would've hated GDP since they were always behind the US in that too.
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Romans were probably miserable as they conquered the Mediterranean, while other societies were happier. Also, Americans aren't exactly miserable when compared to Europeans anyway.
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@isawrooka4 The Marshall Plan is credited across the West, not just the US, as the deciding factor on why Europe recovered so quickly. That "bump" is what led to that rapid investment in the first place, genius. Just like the US' "small bump" of its GDP to its own citizens post-Covid allowed for much of its economy to cruise through the crisis.
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@daniel halachev "The economic progress and stability of Europe, Japan and South Korea is not because of the USA, it's in spite of it." Basically every expert and historian disagrees with you lmao.
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@daniel halachev Basically no Eastern European has ever claimed the last 80 years as prosperous. In fact most consider it to be an age of repression where their "Western allies abandoned them". It's the last 30 years which were "prosperous". South Koreans by far consider the US to be principle in their success as a nation-state. That doesn't discount their efforts, but you're discounting US efforts which massively improved their allies' livelihoods. Your copium is hilarious, though.
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@finflop8276 OP is the one that started talking about GDP and HDI between the US and EU, I'm not the one that made that first comparison.
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@nathanm4444 Unlikely. Britain tried to lower French demands of reparations in the first place, and the French wanted Germany crippled for the foreseeable future. No amount of US debt forgiveness would change that. Also, it was the US that tried to get Germany on its feet during the Inter-War period to begin with. And did; Germany experienced its own Roaring Twenties, but collapsed when the US Stock Market did.
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@daniel halachev Europeans too. Except these ones aren't huffing copium so hard they rewrite history to make themselves feel better.
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@hungrymusicwolf The EU is only slightly better than the US in a happiness metrics, to the point that comparing the two in it is absurd. This is pure copium on your part; the US is not "rushing ahead" any more than it has been for its entire history. It's just that the EU is slowing down after getting dragged off of the floor and making a big sprint.
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@Garcwyn HDI is very much a quality of life indicator in terms of specific human development, and among the best ones we have. You can't just dismiss it because you say so. I've traveled Europe as well as the States, and I find the States to be rougher, but far wealthier than Europe on average. Europe is very much stagnating while the States are advancing still with youth unemployment skyrocketing and young people fleeing for better pastures. There is a reason immigration trends TO the US, not FROM it in regards to Europe. Even places like Germany has far more Germans moving to the US than from it.
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@Garcwyn All 3 of those are tightly interwoven with healthcare/quality of food/workplace environments/crime, etc, etc. Those are just the most basics of essentials to determine the whole picture; I repeat that this is the best and most basic of ways to determine the QoL of a people in a nation amongst all international organizations. So yes, you're just denying it because "you say so". Oh wow, a high achievement in one field makes it so the overall number goes up? Who'd have thunk it??? Are that high on copium that you want to specifically find a living standard ranking based on a few measures for the result you want? The US' median wealth has risen at the same time as life expectancy fell, it sucks since the US is undoubtably a more dangerous place; but as long as the average joe is doing alright then it's doing quite a lot better than its contemporaries. Make as many cope claims as you want, but the fact is that immigration trends prove that the US is doing quite a bit better than most of its European counterparts. "People vote with they feet", as they say.
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@aym9246 US has similar living standards as the EU, similar life expectancy, similar happiness index, similar democracy index, similar consumer rights, better freedom of movements, similar workers rights. It's behind in data privacy(kinda), free healthcare and education though. So the US is similar or ahead in most respects while still maintaining higher growth and maintaining its global share of GDP to boot. The US is the middle ground between China and the EU, and is why its arguably doing better than both.
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1) Quality of life has nothing to do with the decline or rise of nations generally, that is a micro concern when talking about a macro concern 2) The US' balance of power has remained stagnant despite the rising economic might of other countries. For example, the US' share of global GDP in 1990 was 26%. Then it went to 30% in 2000. Then fell to 23% in 2010. And rose again to 24% in 2019. In contrast the 28 countries that made up the EU used to account for something like 33% of the world's GDP, and today makes up around 16% of the world's GDP. In this metric, the EU is genuinely declining while the US maintains itself. 3) Yes, Asia is rising, but not compared to the US. Only when compared to Europe.
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@lours6993 US life expectancy is at 77 years of age. EU life expectancy at the same time was at 80 years. Not a big difference. For wealth inequality, the US is more extreme, but Europe is not exactly far behind either. And even in spite of that, US living standards remain relatively on par with Western Europe and higher than the EU overall.
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@lours6993 That's not the tagline of the report, the tagline is that the US among other OECD countries are facing life expectancy drop. Some recovered, some not. Seriously my guy, the graph is right there. The orange lines go down.
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@errormatrix4159 In the future, when pension systems break down in Europe due to the aging population with low youth numbers, you'll realize why exactly so many Americans are money obsessed.
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According to the HDI, the US is generally ahead than the EU in living standards with a 9.2 HDI and the EU having a 8.9 HDI. So you're wrong there.
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Yeah, sounds great, just tear apart the EU while you're at is as half of Europe breaks away out of spite as they abandon Ukraine to "not be pulled into a proxy war".
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@lours6993 Uh, most of the wealthy nation's life expectancy has been falling for years. And everyone's rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer lmao
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@lours6993 Yeah, though the other are bouncing back, a lot are not. The other important bit is "steeper and longer than most" Let me repeat that "THAN MOST" It's a tagline meant to generate clicks, the actual substance tells a different story.
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The USSR would never allow for a prosperous EU to begin with lmao, that was a US sponsored project.
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@fjuvo The US vs EU average has the US with a higher HDI
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@GypsyHaze And there are 44 countries in Europe, genius. Why do you need help counting?
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You say that as if Europe is any better in this regard. Hell, there are fewer limits to stop lobbyists in the EU than there are in the US lmao
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@cannedfeeling0338 True. Seems most people prefer getting gunned down over taxed, though
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@Dumbledore6969x Regardless of the economic system, people lazing around won't help the country at a macro level. Sure its good for the people, but that does nothing for you when trying to produce stuff to square up with other countries. So idk why you think pointing out capitalism so many times changes anything. Even if they were full on Marxist, the situation would still be the same, just with more people mysteriously disappearing for questioning the Politburo.
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@errormatrix4159 A resource based economy that is gonna have significantly lower living standards than anything capitalism had lmao
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@paul1979uk2000 1) This is mostly pure cope; HDI takes into account everything you said, and the US outstrips most of Europe. Period. End of story. 2) "Asia" has been rising a long time now, and the US has had no issue with it, nor has it made any moves to stop it. It was only when China specifically started bullying its neighbors that the US started getting tough on China. Many of China's neighbors are more aligned with the US than with China, so don't act like there is some kind of anti-Asia bloc the US is forming. Also, my statement remains true; "Asia is rising, but not compared to the US" -only relative compared to the rest of the world. 3) EU is VERY concerned about the shift of power from west to east. They have been trying to pull more industrial jobs and other critical sectors back to Europe for that very reason.
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@thomasgrabkowski8283 US avoids the issue altogether with immigration. Its why the US population remains young.
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@thomasgrabkowski8283 Relatively. And a lot younger relatively speaking.
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@MetDaan2912 US GDP is concentrated at the top, but its not that different from across Europe either. HDI is a good metric to see where US living standards are, and they're similar to Western Europe's.
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@hungrymusicwolf By our metrics, they were absolutely miserable, yes.
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@mrsupremegascon You're right, the US should've just done the European thing and vassalized the European states and used them for cheap labor by colonizing them. Because obviously letting European markets challenge American markets is just selfish American greed. You're not wrong that the Marshall Plan benefitted the US, but acting like it didn't massively benefit Europe far more and that the US couldn't have benefitted far more from simply colonizing Europe is peak Euro propaganda. US could've just done what the USSR did rather than rebuild.
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@Bob Seven 2% is the agreed upon number. And it's obvious with this Ukraine War that Europe as a whole was massively unprepared to fight a war let alone support a nation fighting one. Poland would have held the line, but Russia's complete psychopathy would allow it to use military resources to devastate Poland and maybe even as far as Germany even when their military suffers horrendously. Only the US had the capability to quickly smash Russian forces from doing any major damage to European infrastructure.
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That must be why far more Europeans migrate to the US than vice versa. Because the US is failing them.
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@lours6993 Germany's life expectancy has also fallen consecutively, but let's ignore that. And Estonia. And Greece. And quite a few more OECD countries.
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@lours6993 I did notice the trends, I was pointing out how other nations are facing similar ones in the OECD. In fact that's the exact stat I was looking at when telling you which nations are also facing something similar. For something similar, European real wages has fallen drastically in 2022 while places like the US, Poland, and Japan has maintained their real wages.
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@GypsyHaze Less than half. And HDI takes into account all that you mentioned; stop coping lmao
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@GypsyHaze Huh? I stated from the start that the US has a higher HDI than more than half of the European nations. What does Canada have to do with this? You're so high on copium that you make up random strawman just to say "Murica bad".
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@LeviMatteo Clearly not everyone, genius. My point still stands when talking about the EU regardless
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A happier society that gets rolled over and crushed by a less happy but more powerful nation don't get written in the history books, suffice it to say.
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The end of European hegemony has led to the great period of human history, so American hegemony being ended doesn't sound pleasant in comparison. Just saying.
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@gontrandjojo9747 I mean for everyone. Living standards exploded by the late 20th century. Helper ong by the US ensuring free trade amongst nations rather than letting regional powers dominate and screw around with it.
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I love that video about the US not being the great anymore, because while it is true in many respects, it also ignores several key factors that shows why the US is so vastly ahead of its competition. Even when looking at living standards and taking into account the wealth disparity, the US is still ahead at 9.2 HDI while the EU is at 8.9 HDI. Even with all of its missteps and trickle down economics and poor managed healthcare system; its still ahead.
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@maggiepie8810 Your claim is completely debunked when you check how productive people are when compared to Europeans as a whole. Americans work way harder generally, and Japanese work even harder than Americans. This is just pure copium.
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