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0 pointsfallingknife2y ago0 comments

And how is that going for them?

> In 2008, the eurozone and the US had equivalent gross domestic products (GDP) at current prices of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion respectively (€13.1 trillion and €13.6 trillion). Fifteen years on, the eurozone's GDP is just over $15 trillion, while US GDP has soared to $26.9 trillion.

Seems like they are not protecting their citizens interests nearly so well as they believe they are.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/04/the-gdp...

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6 comments · 1 top-level

pornel2y ago· 5 in thread

We have healthcare, guaranteed sick days and holidays, strong worker rights, consumer protections, passenger trains, and no daily mass shootings. We pay for this.

The stereotypical view the other ways is "yes, salaries in the US are way higher, but if I go there and get cancer, I'll bankrupt my family for three generations, and still die while on hold angry-calling my insurance provider".

Silhouette2y ago

Did Europeans not already have those advantages in 2008 though? If the figures quoted are correct then the Eurozone has had negligible growth over 15 years while the US has almost doubled the size of its economy over the same period. That surely can't be explained merely by Europeans continuing to enjoy the same advantages they already had but paying for the privilege.

izacus2y ago

Why do you think GDP is a relevant metric here?

1 more reply

caskstrength2y ago

OP seems to conflate EU with eurozone, but don't countries like Norway or Switzerland that are neither in EU nor in eurozone have sick days and passenger trains? Not sure you need bureaucrats in Brussels breaking your e2e encryption to have those things.

dmix2y ago

We have that in Canada too (besides the trains) and we're not nearly as backwards economically as most EU countries. EU has been stagnating for the last decade while Canada has maintained a consistent growth rate.

jagrsw2y ago

Incorrect. It's a bit problematic to compare EU as a whole, because countries join and leave, but if you compare bigger EU countries to Canada, Canada is not significantly better.

Also Canada has a higher real population growth which skews the data (per capita would be better), and on the per capita basis Canada looks pretty bleak.

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

(nominal)

  Canada: 2000: 742B 2018: 1710B (230% growth)
  Germany: 2000: 1940B 2018: 3940B (203% growth)
  France: 2000: 1360B 2018: 2018: 2770B (203% growth)
  Poland: 2000: 198B 2018: 585B (295% growth)

(PPP)

  Canada: 2000: 916B 2019: 1970B (215%)
  Germany: 2000: 2390B 2019: 4693B (196%)
  France: 2000: 1683B 2019: 3241B (192%)
  Poland: 2000: 451B 2019: 1316B (291%)

Per capita (PPP):

  Canada: 2000: 29900 2019: 51600 (172%)
  Germany: 2000: 29400 2019: 56400 (191%)
  France: 2000: 28600 2019: 49800 (174%)
  Poland: 2000: 11700 2019: 34700 (296%)

Edit: my mistake, you said "last decade", but the 2010-2019 comparison is even more damning to Canada, 7% growth over 10 years vs 14% for Germany and 25% for Poland. (GDP - nominal).

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