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by nostrademons1 days ago |
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upvoteby Dumblydorr1 days ago|
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“Brought on by government edict”

No, brought on by a novel pathogen that killed 10 million people. It would’ve been much worse without government action.

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upvoteby rdbl271 hours ago|
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The case of Sweden entirely falsifies the theory that "it would've been much worse without government action."

No government action whatsoever was taken in Sweden. None. Death rates were no better or worse than adjacent countries that intervened extensively.

Ergo, government intervention was irrelevant one way or another.

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upvoteby pocksuppet1 days ago|
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Without the indecisive government action that was taken, millions more people would have died, but the economy would have done better.

With decisive government action (see New Zealand), millions less people would have died, and the economy would have done better.

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upvoteby klipt1 days ago|
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New Zealand does have the advantage of an ocean border and thus near total control on entries and exits.

Compared to the very porous land borders of the US.

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upvoteby pocksuppet1 days ago|
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Come on, they're not that porous, certainly under a Trump administration. People fly into NZ too.
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upvoteby Xunjin1 days ago|
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This argument is so flawed in many ways, economies are built by people for people. Extrapolate the numbers, let's say in the COVID Pandemic a country, take USA as example, has 10% percentage of their population killed by it, would that be better to the economy?
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upvoteby etcimon1 days ago|
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There's multiple ways to look at the economy, the raw exchange of dollar currency in a debt chase (shit I need to run faster & pay down this stuff!), there's the productivity of industrial output (shit we need to sell more junk and useless crap!), and there's the stock and productivity in optimal life cycles (Damn, that Nokia is a tank!)

If 10% of the population went away, it would affect 1 & 2, but in any true practical lens, there's a ton of cheap empty houses, while on the other hand building repairable stuff that lasts or enough cheaply is where economies move to more complex technologies by saving time and effort in useless endeavour of debt chases or consumption-oriented wasteful productivity

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upvoteby pocksuppet1 days ago|
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Economies are built by rich people for rich people. A few million poor people dead doesn't really make a dent in them.
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upvoteby arkh1 days ago|
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> The next one is likely to be a doozy

The US, EU, China are teetering on the edge of a crisis. Russia is well on its way.

I feel like 2008 was just a warmup to what may be coming.

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upvoteby davedx1 days ago|
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The EU is not "teetering on the edge of a crisis", why do you say that?
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upvoteby cezart1 days ago|
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Not OP but, EU economy is being squeezed by China on the industrial and tech front, and by the US on the innovation/startup front. It is clear EU is no longer at the technological/economic frontier like it used to be 10-20 years ago. At the same time there are serious demographic, budgetary and political challenges all across the continent. Dragi's report covers some of these. It feels like the whole system might fall into a crisis soon if measures are not taken
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upvoteby abirch1 days ago|
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Factor in that Europe is powerful partly because of its unity and there are many forces trying to undermine that.
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upvoteby logicchains1 days ago|
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Europe became powerful before it was unified, and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.
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upvoteby ben_w1 days ago|
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We first became powerful because we did the industrial revolution before anyone else, and used more of that capacity to fight the world (and win) than to fight each other.

When we fought each other, after the industrial revolution, that was the Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars.

> and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.

I wouldn't say it was "ever since the creation of the EU", but rather "roughly between WW1 and decolonisation". Post-Cold-War the EU has taken over from the former global importance of the member states, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

That said, east and South Asia are regaining their multi-millennia history of being the world's dominant power by virtue of having roughly half the total world population.

And to agree up-thread, there's plenty going that can rapidly turn the EU's economy into a disaster if not handled expertly.

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upvoteby mwigdahl1 days ago|
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There were a lot of European wars between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. I agree with your point overall but there was a lot of fighting each other during that timeframe.
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upvoteby klipt1 days ago|
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> the world's dominant power by virtue of having roughly half the total world population

If human+ level AI takes off one would expect to see a great decoupling of power from population.

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upvoteby ben_w1 days ago|
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Sure, but until then, proportional to each of [population, education/educated workers, capital, instantaneous industrial base, energy supply].

Asia's diverse, but I'd say they seem to be doing pretty well with rapid improvements across all fronts.

In comparison, the US's weaker (not weak-weak, just weaker) areas currently seem to be educated workers, instantaneous industrial base, and energy supply (relative to rapidly growing demand from compute); while the EU's weaker areas currently seem to be capital and energy supply (from supply shock, as it doesn't have the compute). The US and EU both have coming demographic issues, but not as soon as the other stuff becomes more important. People talk about China having demographic issues too, but they're a dictatorship, they can make it shift if they care to.

(And Russia's losing a lot of people, more educated people, capital markets, industrial base, and energy supply).

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upvoteby myrmidon1 days ago|
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> People talk about China having demographic issues too, but they're a dictatorship, they can make it shift if they care to.

China has a significantly bigger problem with demographics than the EU does, it is just on a slightly longer fuse, compare:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman?f...

The big drop in Chinese fertility is going to be very disruptive in the near future, because it is much less gradual than European trends and the retiree/workers ratio is going to spike much harder because of that.

Having full authoritarian control is not gonna change anything now because it is already much too late (action would have been required like 35 years ago).

Best they can do is get through it somewhat smoothly.

edit: This is an even better visualization (projected working age population fraction)

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-young-working-...

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upvoteby 1 days ago|
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upvoteby rullopat1 days ago|
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The motivation that the USA entered WWII was not because they were generous, but because the 3rd Reich was effectively becoming a big European nation, so they had to do something to avoid it. A unified Europe is a thread to the USA and Russia and maybe somebody else too.
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upvoteby mr_toad1 days ago|
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> 3rd Reich was effectively becoming a big European nation

Even then the US might not have done much if the Nazis hadn’t kept attacking US shipping.

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upvoteby abirch1 days ago|
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Yes, Europe was powerful when they had colonies.

Currently, Europe can stand up against tech. Apple could easily prohibit iPhones from going into France but I doubt it cutting off the entire EU.

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upvoteby irishcoffee1 days ago|
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Stand up against tech? Cut off your nose to spite your face? Apple sure won’t care. Nor is Apple all encompassing of “tech”
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upvoteby ben_w1 days ago|
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> Apple sure won’t care

Europe collectively is about 26.7% of their 2025 revenue, according to SEC filings, so I bet they'd care.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0000320193250...

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upvoteby oblio23 hours ago|
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It's worse than that. If Apple were banned, someone else would fill their spot.
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upvoteby irishcoffee8 hours ago|
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Oh no, Europe would stand on their own two feet!?
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upvoteby ben_w4 hours ago|
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Great for us here in Europe, but an even bigger reason for Apple to be upset about it.
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upvoteby pavlov1 days ago|
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So you’re saying that the war-ravaged Europe of 1946 that was split by the Iron Curtain and needed Marshall Aid was more powerful and important than today’s EU?

Insane take. But somehow people will go to any lengths to disparage the EU.

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upvoteby ywvcbk14 hours ago|
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Globally in relative terms? Kind of. Sure the gap to the US was huge but it still controlled pretty much entire Africa and much of Asia (with China and Japan obviously not doing great..)
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upvoteby logicchains1 days ago|
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More likely it just slowly declines like Japan. Or if anti-migrant sentiment continues growing at the current rate, it breaks into a race war when the AfD and PFN win the majority of votes in Germany and France respectively.
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upvoteby Paradigma111 days ago|
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I dont think these slow indicators and developments hold much water the next few decades. We have seen the first inklings what the brave new multipolar world is going to look like and it does not bode well for much of the world. As long as Russia breaks down before the shit really hits the fan, Europe should be fine(r) than most.
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upvoteby neonstatic1 days ago|
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> Russia is well on its way.

Including the warmongering angry midget next to the US, EU, and China is funny. Russia's economy, before they decided to shoot themselves in the face, was the size of the Netherlands. Whether they are in a recession or not is irrelevant to anyone but them.

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upvoteby ben_w1 days ago|
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I thought Russia was about 2x the Netherlands by nominal, and 5x by PPP?

More relevantly, they were one of the world's petrol stations, and now they're not.

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upvoteby cs7021 days ago|
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> the economy is filled with bullshit jobs, bullshit corporations, and bullshit products.

Yeah, it sure feels true.

There's even a book about it, you know, to help people cope with it:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691276786/on...

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