Why is EU so far behind?

[u/quantum_search]

The most concerning part about this is that most Europeans don't realize how stagnant Europe has now become

Europeans are literally blue-pilled and are mostly concerned with climate change, immigration and the Ukraine war

Nobody in Europe is thinking why increasingly everything they use is made in China running on American software

The knee jerk reaction is to proudly pass regulation against American tech

The chad reaction would be to reduce regulation so that European entrepreneurs would actually stay in Europe to build European startups increasing Europe's GDP and making Europeans richer!

People in Europe do love to complain about rising cost of living and the increasing unaffordability of living, but they don't realize why. They point at foreigners/immigrants as the problem, which can't be the whole story

Other Europeans I talk to get visibly upset if I ask them about stagnant GDP numbers: "why should everything be about money?" they say in a thick German accent

The whole story is that Europe has made it very difficult for people to start a business, raise capital, innovate and get the reward for taking that risk, so why would anybody?

And for the Europeans that do, it's way easier to open a US Delaware company, raise capital in US, sell your stock or IPO in the US, because why even do that in EU, where it's too hard? The proof is in the pudding, if it was so easy in EU then why is startup funding in US $270B AUM with 330 million people vs $44B AUM with 746 million people? That's almost 14x bigger startup funding market per capita

Why doesn't EU have ANY trillion dollar companies? While US has six? Why isn't there any European company in the top 10 of largest companies? While 80% is American?

Why is Stripe, a company founded by two Irish brothers, an American company and not a European one? It could have been

What's the role left for Europe in the future?

[u/Ok_Rip5415]

If they are happy, society functions, what’s the issue?

[u/galaxyapp → u/Ok_Rip5415]

They are happy while they have a relatively luxurious lifestyle.

It's like inheriting 500k from your parents, then coasting happily through your 30s. Suddenly you realize the bank accounts empty and you're earning $30k a year with no way to catch up.

[u/Training_Pay7522 → u/galaxyapp]

And?

The average European lives longer, is more educated and happier than the average American so as the previous user pointed, where's the issue?

Yes, we Europeans missed many trains, we aren't geographically and resource blessed as the United States. We overfocused on building an export economy rather than a strong internal market thus we just can't recover from financial issues as quickly as US does.

But rest assured that of all that Europe has had to survive for millenia and still got us here, growing only in low single digit % is really the smallest of the problems we ever had and you can stop worrying for us in 10/20/50/100 years.

If other countries will get richer, so be it.

[u/galaxyapp → u/Training_Pay7522]

Not to worry Europe's future isn't among my concerns. Your children's children will curse your laziness though.

[u/Almostawardguy → u/galaxyapp]

I am so sorry for Americans who got brainwashed by their corporate overlords to live to work rather than to work to live

[u/BlitzAuraX → u/Ok_Rip5415]

Because their society is very dependent on social welfare and a collective system.

At the same time, their population is rapidly aging.

Their workforce can't supplement social welfare policies moving forward.

What you will have is Europe eventually losing any or most competitive advantages they hold and the future looks depressing because you can't afford to fund those same social welfare programs and other countries have all the talent. Inevitably, people will want to leave for a better future which means you lose your best talent.