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As if our EU leaders aren't a complete joke as well. Pushing ChatControl, fascism and gambling everywhere. We're just as much of a joke.
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It's not disingenuous. It was obvious this was happening 15 years ago and the US and EU could have done something about it back then.

The tendency to protect corporate profit margins is the western Achilles heel and China knew they could exploit that.

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yet somehow the outcome for the US has been much better. EU wins on paper though, yay!
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Sure if you are Bezos or Musk. Otherwise, no.
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Gdp grew much faster in the US than in the EU. I believe the EU is the worst performer of the planet. No joke. And not surprising with the self destructive actions.
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This doesn't really refute what Dah00n said.

Sure, GDP in the USA is growing faster than the EU, but the question is who is benefiting from the increased GDP?

The answer is in Dah00n's comment. The rich are getting richer, while the population gets scraps. Meanwhile, people in the EU get guaranteed healthcare, paid time off, maternity leave, better worker's rights, etc.

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The GDP growing faster while quality of life doesn’t meaningfully improve is a bad, bad sign. It means we’re burning extra money just to stay afloat and break even. That’s worse than if the GDP didn’t grow.
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Because as everyone knows, GDP is _the_ indicator for well being of its citizens. Nobody in the US is in catastrophic health related debt, because the US's GDP grew so much <3
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> outcome for the US has been much better

Is this better outcome for the US in the room with us?

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Compare any measurable economic and investment stat in EU vs US
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What happens when you compare quality of life? Or workers rights? Pretty sure that your average person cares more about those two data points…
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That might be a mirage temporarily made reality by outsourcing defense to the US, manufacturing to China and the work required for GDP growth to refugees.

All three will be going away sooner or later.

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How is locally producing military equipment versus buying extremely expensive US uberl33t overkill hardware suppose to hurt the EU? It not like the US was just giving Europe free armaments.

Yeah sure they won't be producing any F35s or million dollar per shot missiles, but was that a good idea to start with? Are they worth the money when once again lots of inexpensive arms are shown to be more useful in modern wars than a few handfuls of expensive ones? Both Iran and Ukraine have shown that one side being a few steps ahead in military technology and willing to dump money on equipment still has limited returns. There is no "I win" technology apart from indiscriminately killing most of the entire population, which just makes you an existential enemy to the rest of the planet and erases 95% of the value in taking that territory.

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Before outsourcing defense to the US... sorry, but have you ever read a history book? Europe was "exporting" defense around the world :-))

Before outsourcing manufacturing to China Europe was making a third of all industrial things on this planet, so Europe will be just fine.

> the work required for GDP growth to refugees

I don't get this one. Do you think the European economy is propped up by refugees? I think there are 5 million of them in total in Europe, most of them Ukrainians and it's likely Ukraine will become a EU member at some point in the future...

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Pretty sure almost every European would celebrate any of these things
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