from Hacker News

Europeans Are Becoming Poorer

by albertop on 7/17/23, 5:57 AM with 155 comments

  • by code-blooded on 7/17/23, 7:52 AM

    I moved from the US to Europe a year ago and I think articles like this don't capture quality of life in Europe well.

    Just think about healthier food, walkable cities, great public transportation, safety, free education and healthcare. The way I see it, life in Europe is less stressful and more enjoyable than in the US.

    Having less money translates into having a smaller house or a car, but in my opinion that doesn't make you any less happy. You just need enough to live comfortably, which especially in tech is not that hard, and then you can focus on whatever gives your life meaning.

  • by rob74 on 7/17/23, 8:41 AM

    Many of the examples given in the article are complete rubbish:

    > The French are eating less foie gras and drinking less red wine.

    foie gras involves torturing animals, and drinking less alcohol is healthier, so good for them!

    > Across Germany, meat and milk consumption has fallen to the lowest level in three decades

    yes, more people are eating less meat - good for them and for the environment!

    > TooGoodToGo, a company founded in Denmark in 2015 that sells leftover food from retailers and restaurants, has 76 million registered users across Europe

    using food at or past its sell-by date instead of throwing it away? Now we can't have that, can we?

    At this point, I was waiting for a line about how so many of these poor, poor Europeans are now forced to use bicycles or public transportation, which must surely be because they can't afford a car or the gas prices. But luckily it didn't come (except for the poor woman who has to "share a car with her partner’s father").

  • by gumballindie on 7/17/23, 8:11 AM

    Hm dubious article. Fails to mention that while west europeans are indeed getting poorer east europeans are getting richer. Confused folks might say that east europe is becoming richer thanks to eu funding and i will remind them that that comes at the heavy price of having sold entire industries to said benefactors - whom often underpay despite colossal profits, essentially making development more … challenging. Nonetheless decades of hard work seems to pay off for the “cheap labour”.

    I would suggest that europeans try and work together in some sort of union of cooperation and mutual respect. If there was such a union then certainly the whole continent might fare better. Just a thought.

  • by BillyTheKing on 7/17/23, 9:01 AM

    There's a significant issue in that innovation isn't always at the forefront in Europe. The primary focus seems to be maintaining the status quo, particularly safeguarding pensions. Tbh this lack of innovative thinking is quickly becoming a pretty severe problem.

    I was visiting a med island recently with both Americans and Europeans, it was evident how wide the income gap was becoming. The American members of our group, working in comparable positions and industries, had significantly more spare cash than their European counter parts.

    I honestly hope that Europe addresses this lack of innovation and economic decline instead of just propping failing industries. Although it's important to recognize that the issue is not just bureaucratic. It's more deeply rooted in mindset and creativity — which is arguably much harder to overcome..

    Unfortunately, creating an environment that encourages innovation, startups, and tech adoption isn't particularly straight-forward (especially if you're behind). It requires a cultural shift, coupled with decent policies and investment in top-level education

  • by seren on 7/17/23, 7:57 AM

    In an environment with rising energy prices it is hard to compete with a net oil exporter.

    However, it means that Europe should invest more in nuclear and renewables to stay relevant. But the war in Ukraine is not helping I guess.

    But the 2008 vs 2023 comparison is really sobering.

  • by Garvi on 7/17/23, 7:14 AM

    The doubling of energy prices pretty much wiped out the heavy industry sector around here. I remember the German heavy industry Rhein area unions protesting this in Berlin without much media coverage a few months ago.

  • by t8sr on 7/17/23, 8:41 AM

    Most new GDP growth since the 90s has and will continue to come from capturing new industries, like large scale web tech, genetic technology, space flight and modern investment finance.

    For all of these industries, you need a critical mass of specialists and capital, and so they can only be captured by very large companies. (Although SMBs can survive in some parts of the value chain, which is where Switzerland seems to live.)

    Americans (and the PRC) are very good at creating large new companies. Europe not so much - we have the money and universities, but also a lot of German Angst and a complicated internal market, not to mention heavy regulation.

    Being around startups, I’m also pretty surprised how unsophisticated many EU investors are - good ideas get severely underfunded, while everyone piles into random ML and crypto scams, only to loose all their money.

    Over time, this adds up to missing growth compared to the Americans. And we're so used to being rich that we can't conceive of what the continent will look like once the money is gone, so long-term economic outlook doesn't get much attention from the electorate.

  • by comfypotato on 7/17/23, 7:42 AM

    The graph uses 2008, 2019, and 2022 as indices.

    This could just as easily be a graph exploring the effects of the pandemic. I doubt Germany’s last tick would be in that direction were it not for the pandemic, for example.

  • by nunez on 7/17/23, 11:25 AM

    > NAME REDACTED, a 31-year-old anesthesiologist living in Manchester, England, earns about £51,000 ($67,000) per year for a 48-hour workweek. Inflation, which has been about 10% or higher in the U.K. for nearly a year, is devouring his monthly budget, he says.

    That's insane. AFAIK, Anesthesiologists in the US make $400k/year MINIMUM.

    (I redacted their name to prevent them from backlinking to this site.)

  • by LatteLazy on 7/17/23, 7:16 AM

  • by tim333 on 7/17/23, 2:00 PM

    >They are becoming poorer

    Seems dubious and based of a drop of 3% or so in real incomes between 2019 and 2022 caused by covid and the Ukraine war raising energy prices. Those are mostly over now - covid and the energy prices - and Europe will recover.

  • by UhUhUhUh on 7/17/23, 8:31 AM

    Well, some Europeans are getting richer. Move along.

  • by throwawaycol on 7/17/23, 8:27 AM

    Does it have anything to do with lack of colonies?

  • by Mat3777 on 7/17/23, 7:08 AM

    How poor will we get if you add the green transition to the Ukrainian war?

  • by WA on 7/17/23, 8:48 AM

    Don't believe any article that uses AVERAGES instead of the MEAN when it comes to wages, because average wages are worthless to consider and are more easily skewed by extreme outliers.

    Since Jeff Bezos moved to our village, we're all multi-millionaires on average.

  • by lucasRW on 7/17/23, 8:34 AM

    Western European are funding the eastern countries (tens of billions per year), plus, are accommodating hundreds of thousands of migrants per year. You'd have to be a full to think that at some point this does not translate into a serious dent into your economic health.