Europe's filing its nails while Mario's Draghing his take
September 11, 2024 1:00 AM Subscribe
Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's long-awaited report [PDF] on Europe's competitiveness has finally seen the light of day - and its first lesson for Europe's slowing growth since the turn of the century is to stop procrastinating. "We have reached the point where, without action, we will have to either compromise our welfare, our environment or our freedom," Draghi warned at the report's launch on Monday.
I heard about this and decided to stop what I was doing and check what people on Metafilter had to say about it.
posted by grahamparks at 3:05 AM on September 11 [2 favorites]
posted by grahamparks at 3:05 AM on September 11 [2 favorites]
Post title ftw.
posted by whatevernot at 3:14 AM on September 11 [10 favorites]
posted by whatevernot at 3:14 AM on September 11 [10 favorites]
A shortage of monocles and top-hats, whatever will we do! Riots in the streets, beating each other with cashmere sweaters!
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:53 AM on September 11 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:53 AM on September 11 [4 favorites]
Wolfgang Münchau: Those delighting in the EU's decline should be careful what they wish for (archive link).
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:14 AM on September 11 [2 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:14 AM on September 11 [2 favorites]
From the Politico link: Less than three hours had passed after Draghi finished his presentation before Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner said that “Germany will not agree" to joint borrowing.
Lindner is head of a single-digit party in a very, very weak coalition with elections a year away.
Opposition to borrowing is strong in Deutschland but people are at least starting to understand how much of a mistake it was not to make big investments a decade ago when money was cheap. If Draghi can convince enough of Europe that his is a viable path forward, maybe it would be possible to overcome that opposition.
I only skimmed the long PDF but a lot of the analysis I skimmed looked right. In terms of solutions, decisive investment sounds agreeable to me.
posted by daveliepmann at 8:46 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
Lindner is head of a single-digit party in a very, very weak coalition with elections a year away.
Opposition to borrowing is strong in Deutschland but people are at least starting to understand how much of a mistake it was not to make big investments a decade ago when money was cheap. If Draghi can convince enough of Europe that his is a viable path forward, maybe it would be possible to overcome that opposition.
I only skimmed the long PDF but a lot of the analysis I skimmed looked right. In terms of solutions, decisive investment sounds agreeable to me.
posted by daveliepmann at 8:46 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I can't figure out whether the repeating motif of "AI and social media" (in both Draghi's report and Münchau's article) is just meant to be illustrative of the EU's tech gap, or if they're meant to specifically be crucial in securing its future.
Because I'm not super convinced about the second option.
posted by entity447b at 8:50 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
Because I'm not super convinced about the second option.
posted by entity447b at 8:50 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I know zero percent about economics, Europe, etc, but I did just hear this take from someone who follows this more closely: Draghi and the European Central Bank are pushing the EU to increase public investment in tech & defense to maintain competitiveness but ten years ago his ilk were insisting on safety net cuts and sell-offs of public property in order to repay the European Central Bank. Is it fair to say that this crowd supports big spending on weapons and tech to bolster the economy while cutting spending on public safety net also supposedly to bolster the economy?
posted by latkes at 8:56 AM on September 11 [5 favorites]
posted by latkes at 8:56 AM on September 11 [5 favorites]
European manufacturers have (at best) a modest and shrinking edge and (at worst) no edge at all in technology and execution over Asian competitors who benefit from costs that are lower by 10%-20% (raw material, energy) to 40-50% (taxes, construction) to 70%+ (labor). If Europe can't sharply cut manufacturing costs, the only hope is tariffs, but that guarantees European manufacturers can only sell internally and to other high-cost markets, and lose out everywhere else.
posted by MattD at 9:04 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 9:04 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I have no idea what the other solutions might be, or whether his suggestions are reasonable, but being worried strikes me as correct.
posted by aramaic at 9:23 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
posted by aramaic at 9:23 AM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I can't figure out whether the repeating motif of "AI and social media" (in both Draghi's report and Münchau's article) is just meant to be illustrative of the EU's tech gap, or if they're meant to specifically be crucial in securing its future.
If you squint hard enough, Yanis Varoufakis makes essentially the same point from a left perspective when explaining Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism:
posted by daveliepmann at 11:59 AM on September 11 [4 favorites]
If you squint hard enough, Yanis Varoufakis makes essentially the same point from a left perspective when explaining Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism:
Capital was so successful, like a very toxic virus that kills off its host and therefore it cannot propagate itself... capital developed a mutation of itself which I call "cloud capital", a particular form of capital, which has killed off capital.The cloud capitalists being the rentier FAANG companies which can charge obscene rents because they own the platforms through which one must operate. They make up a big share of the economic gap between US and EU.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:59 AM on September 11 [4 favorites]
We'll definitely compromise our welfare, our environment, and our freedom, like everyone else on this planet, but at least in theory we could only compromise by limiting our consumption and limiting our population instead.
We've become too car and plane dependent though, and Europe has oil only in Norway 0.31%, Scotland 0.17%, and Russia 4.8%. We're thus dependent upon trade for fuel, not merely to drive essential delivery tricks, farm equipment, etc, but also for all these idiots moving luxury boxes.
As an industry, artificial intelligence is ultimately driven by an invester fraud, so fuck them. I think social media fits this too but at least they do have some advertising revenue. I'd suggest the EU make ad blockers mandatory in new browser installs, which'll lessen how much revenue those US parasites drain from EU companies.
As software tech, we should ditch copaganda like chat control and push open source social media applications that run over end-to-end encrypted messangers, which at least limit what US and China knows about EU citizens, and limits the ad surface.
As industries, we need complete supply chains for agricultural tech, biotech, medicine, integrated circuits of all scales, and renewables. Agrivoltaics shall become especially important in southern Europe. We need all these ourselves even if we lose money on them.
As I understand it, nobody makes lithography machines for 12V circuits anymore, because so many exist, but you must make new lithography machines sometimes, even if you only sell them rarely, especially since China bought all the old ones. That requires government owned lithography machine makers.
We do not need dominance in the world supply chain, but we need enough so that our own tech survives once China descides they'll only export for food.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:23 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
We've become too car and plane dependent though, and Europe has oil only in Norway 0.31%, Scotland 0.17%, and Russia 4.8%. We're thus dependent upon trade for fuel, not merely to drive essential delivery tricks, farm equipment, etc, but also for all these idiots moving luxury boxes.
As an industry, artificial intelligence is ultimately driven by an invester fraud, so fuck them. I think social media fits this too but at least they do have some advertising revenue. I'd suggest the EU make ad blockers mandatory in new browser installs, which'll lessen how much revenue those US parasites drain from EU companies.
As software tech, we should ditch copaganda like chat control and push open source social media applications that run over end-to-end encrypted messangers, which at least limit what US and China knows about EU citizens, and limits the ad surface.
As industries, we need complete supply chains for agricultural tech, biotech, medicine, integrated circuits of all scales, and renewables. Agrivoltaics shall become especially important in southern Europe. We need all these ourselves even if we lose money on them.
As I understand it, nobody makes lithography machines for 12V circuits anymore, because so many exist, but you must make new lithography machines sometimes, even if you only sell them rarely, especially since China bought all the old ones. That requires government owned lithography machine makers.
We do not need dominance in the world supply chain, but we need enough so that our own tech survives once China descides they'll only export for food.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:23 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
Foreign Policy’s Adam Tooze weighs in on his Substack (it’s ok he’s not one of those Substack weirdos, he’s a real economist with a wide purview who does a good podcast for FP magazine). Tooze roughly points out that the America research is led by VC.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:55 PM on September 11 [4 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 12:55 PM on September 11 [4 favorites]
> "real disposable income has grown almost twice as much in the US as in the EU since 2000"
I suppose this count total, but an extremely interesting number would be median disposable income. Are people buying new iPhone or sacrificing priorities?
> 'The gap between European and US labour productivity is not a new phenomenon'
I think "labour productivity" typically means supplanting human labor with energy, used by machenes, or trade that outsources the labor. You. change this if you want qualify food, semi-protected labor market, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:43 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I suppose this count total, but an extremely interesting number would be median disposable income. Are people buying new iPhone or sacrificing priorities?
> 'The gap between European and US labour productivity is not a new phenomenon'
I think "labour productivity" typically means supplanting human labor with energy, used by machenes, or trade that outsources the labor. You. change this if you want qualify food, semi-protected labor market, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:43 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]
I continue to encounter these questions since the end of the 1970s...the system has been working with growing effectiveness towards the destruction of the foundations of its survival
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:07 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:07 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
Europe, and to some extent the US too, were slow to realize that they were the losers of the Cold War. Politicians like Mario Draghi with their limited mandate may propose fiscal balms that dull the pain of defeat, but it takes statecraft and creativity to even imagine what victory may look like.
China "works" by viciously suppressing household income, welfare, and their share of "soft" or social capital (things like rights, equality, rule of law, access to opportunities and social mobility, etc.) -- hence domestic consumption. This is what lies behind the huge trade surpluses -- the excess produces that the Chinese are unable to productively absorb. The other side of the surpluses is the excess capital it can (and must) export abroad to snap up assets all along the value chains -- mines, materials, ports, technologies, politicians, control over international bodies, fawning citizens and billionaires, etc.
The root cause is the so-called "adverse selection". Namely, the lower and middle-class Chinese, on the whole, put up with their end of the bargain which is a very bad deal, willingly or not, against their own interests. That's why the top priority of China is total control over information.
The EU's position has been to form a codependent relation with China. I'd call this the "German Model" (which, by the way, is unravelling, accelerated by Putin's war). And in this unhealthy relation the EU's defeat became all but guaranteed the moment it decided that it was winning.
A much more eloquent, balanced, and substantial review of the situation can be found in Qin Hui's essay that is nominally a critique of Piketty. It's very long but certainly I feel if one feels like going over the 400-page Draghi report, they could benefit from a read of Qin's arguments that takes less time.
posted by runcifex at 9:16 PM on September 11 [3 favorites]
China "works" by viciously suppressing household income, welfare, and their share of "soft" or social capital (things like rights, equality, rule of law, access to opportunities and social mobility, etc.) -- hence domestic consumption. This is what lies behind the huge trade surpluses -- the excess produces that the Chinese are unable to productively absorb. The other side of the surpluses is the excess capital it can (and must) export abroad to snap up assets all along the value chains -- mines, materials, ports, technologies, politicians, control over international bodies, fawning citizens and billionaires, etc.
The root cause is the so-called "adverse selection". Namely, the lower and middle-class Chinese, on the whole, put up with their end of the bargain which is a very bad deal, willingly or not, against their own interests. That's why the top priority of China is total control over information.
The EU's position has been to form a codependent relation with China. I'd call this the "German Model" (which, by the way, is unravelling, accelerated by Putin's war). And in this unhealthy relation the EU's defeat became all but guaranteed the moment it decided that it was winning.
A much more eloquent, balanced, and substantial review of the situation can be found in Qin Hui's essay that is nominally a critique of Piketty. It's very long but certainly I feel if one feels like going over the 400-page Draghi report, they could benefit from a read of Qin's arguments that takes less time.
posted by runcifex at 9:16 PM on September 11 [3 favorites]
In general, a willingness to recognize the role government has in the economy and that we determine what that role is via political decisions is for the good. Instead of pretending that we have no say because it's all just the invisible hand of the free market (or a temporary stage before the inevitable rise of the proletariat, for that matter). I have no idea if this will move the needle; it doesn't seem from my distance that the EU really has the capacity to act on this sort of centralized scale.
Somewhat related: Brad DeLong making the case for more active industrial policy in the US.
Foreign Policy’s Adam Tooze weighs in on his Substack
Thanks, that was an interesting read and helped put the Draghi report in perspective. (And I can vouch for Tooze, a leading economic historian.)
posted by mark k at 9:48 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
Somewhat related: Brad DeLong making the case for more active industrial policy in the US.
Foreign Policy’s Adam Tooze weighs in on his Substack
Thanks, that was an interesting read and helped put the Draghi report in perspective. (And I can vouch for Tooze, a leading economic historian.)
posted by mark k at 9:48 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]
I live in the Netherlands. One of the very best things about the place is that we are not slaves of the market, that we are not obsessed with 'productivity' (an obsession which comes typically without consideration of that which is produced ), that we believe the market must be regulated, kept in check, held at bay, that quality of life, me time, down time, time to recover, time to enjoy, time to be with family, to exercise and a million other wonderful things remains of paramount importance. If this is decline - I'll take it. Happily.
posted by dutchrick at 3:54 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]
posted by dutchrick at 3:54 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]
me time, down time, time to recover, time to enjoy, time to be with family, to exercise and a million other wonderful things remains of paramount importance.
It sounds like you really value this time.
If only you could get even more of that time, while still producing the same amount of goods/services at your job.
That would be called: increasing productivity.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:12 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]
It sounds like you really value this time.
If only you could get even more of that time, while still producing the same amount of goods/services at your job.
That would be called: increasing productivity.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:12 AM on September 12 [4 favorites]
If only you could get even more of that time, while still producing the same amount of goods/services at your job.
That would be called: increasing productivity.
Often it seems to be either/or.
I struggle with the idea of 'productivity' as a value in itself regardless of what is produced.
posted by dutchrick at 6:46 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
That would be called: increasing productivity.
Often it seems to be either/or.
I struggle with the idea of 'productivity' as a value in itself regardless of what is produced.
posted by dutchrick at 6:46 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
I struggle with the idea of 'productivity' as a value in itself regardless of what is produced.
There's a reason they're called "goods" and not "bads."
posted by pwnguin at 8:36 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
There's a reason they're called "goods" and not "bads."
posted by pwnguin at 8:36 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
> That would be called: increasing productivity.
No. Increased productivity means more output by the company, so the company uses more input resource, more energy, and often more employee labor.
There is usually some trade off between energy vs labor though, or vs labor costs, meaning you save employees time by using energy less efficently, either by outsourcing employees via trade, or by using machines that suplement labor.
We love suplementing labor by machines of course, but we hit Jevons paradox hard there, so even there this typically results in more products, not less labor.
Yes, some employees can finagle work situations where they work less but recieve the same pay, often by monopolizing something, perhaps unintentionally or perhaps because other employees wind up much less useful.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:47 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
No. Increased productivity means more output by the company, so the company uses more input resource, more energy, and often more employee labor.
There is usually some trade off between energy vs labor though, or vs labor costs, meaning you save employees time by using energy less efficently, either by outsourcing employees via trade, or by using machines that suplement labor.
We love suplementing labor by machines of course, but we hit Jevons paradox hard there, so even there this typically results in more products, not less labor.
Yes, some employees can finagle work situations where they work less but recieve the same pay, often by monopolizing something, perhaps unintentionally or perhaps because other employees wind up much less useful.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:47 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
There's a reason they're called "goods" and not "bads."
Haha. Too often a chronic misnomer as far as I am concerned.
posted by dutchrick at 9:09 AM on September 12 [3 favorites]
Haha. Too often a chronic misnomer as far as I am concerned.
posted by dutchrick at 9:09 AM on September 12 [3 favorites]
Since GDP includes rents, it must also calculate imputed rents that homeowners would have paid to rent the home they live in so as to not have renting/owning ratios distort the GDP result.
Which means that all one needs to do to have infinite productivity is to own a home and work zero hours.
Problem solved!
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:22 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
Which means that all one needs to do to have infinite productivity is to own a home and work zero hours.
Problem solved!
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:22 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
No. Increased productivity means more output by the company, so the company uses more input resource, more energy, and often more employee labor.
What? You're confusing production and productivity.
Productivity is output for a fixed set of inputs. Technically it can be any type of input, but in the context of macroeconomic discussions the most common input is "one hour of labor." A trip to the BLS can confirm this claim for you (And you can also see the multi-input measurements that do take into account energy use as an input.)
Understanding this is key to following the discussion when someone like Draghi issues a report. Orthodox economists consider productivity growth the only way to increase quality of life long term; everything else is some variation on "work harder, if you want more stuff."
It's true you can find individual companies that might think of "productivity" on the employee level, so that getting everyone to work longer hours might lead them to say their employees are more productive. In some cases it even makes sense, for them. But imagining that applies to national accounts is like thinking about the federal debt in terms of a credit card balance, it's just a different thing.
posted by mark k at 7:07 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]
What? You're confusing production and productivity.
Productivity is output for a fixed set of inputs. Technically it can be any type of input, but in the context of macroeconomic discussions the most common input is "one hour of labor." A trip to the BLS can confirm this claim for you (And you can also see the multi-input measurements that do take into account energy use as an input.)
Understanding this is key to following the discussion when someone like Draghi issues a report. Orthodox economists consider productivity growth the only way to increase quality of life long term; everything else is some variation on "work harder, if you want more stuff."
It's true you can find individual companies that might think of "productivity" on the employee level, so that getting everyone to work longer hours might lead them to say their employees are more productive. In some cases it even makes sense, for them. But imagining that applies to national accounts is like thinking about the federal debt in terms of a credit card balance, it's just a different thing.
posted by mark k at 7:07 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]
I haven't seen discussion of one key point of the report. Thankfully Kyla Scanlon addressed it with a one-minute video, summarizing the PDF as saying Europe is reliant on US and China because Europe's R&D over the last 50 years has been CARS! CARS! CARS! while the US invested in pharma and tech too. "Europe's top companies are the same ones as they were 50 years ago. That's not really a good sign for innovation." Rx? More € for defense and innovation, coordinate, and we need a more unified market.
The report isn't saying "dismantle the good European lifestyle". It's literally saying "the good European lifestyle is at risk because we can't cooperate to do anything but sell internal combustion engine cars; let's fix this with massive state/EU investment".
posted by daveliepmann at 11:50 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]
The report isn't saying "dismantle the good European lifestyle". It's literally saying "the good European lifestyle is at risk because we can't cooperate to do anything but sell internal combustion engine cars; let's fix this with massive state/EU investment".
posted by daveliepmann at 11:50 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]
Any choice anti-car quotes from the report?
posted by jeffburdges at 10:03 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:03 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]
> because Europe's R&D over the last 50 years has been CARS! CARS! CARS!culminating in the Dieselgate.
posted by runcifex at 10:24 AM on September 13 [2 favorites]
the US invested in pharma and tech too.
Although Germany did get a bit lucky with BioNTech's mRNA COVID vaccine, so at least some parties are making investments.
I think the main point though is that there's no venture capital investing in EU, it's all state investment and central banks. Pharma and tech often have a huge risk component: you spend a lot of time and money up front, and start making sales a few years later. In pharma it's drug trials that take time which might not pan out, and while tech has kind of adopted a "fail fast" approach, the darlings of today are ML models that require billions in compute time to produce. And I guess chip fabs which take billions of dollars as well (but state subsidies muddy the economic analysis there).
I guess the mystery for me is why Draghi publishes a report whose conclusion is the EU shall become a tax and spending power like the US? Is he running to become president of the United States of Eurasia?
posted by pwnguin at 2:51 PM on September 13 [1 favorite]
Although Germany did get a bit lucky with BioNTech's mRNA COVID vaccine, so at least some parties are making investments.
I think the main point though is that there's no venture capital investing in EU, it's all state investment and central banks. Pharma and tech often have a huge risk component: you spend a lot of time and money up front, and start making sales a few years later. In pharma it's drug trials that take time which might not pan out, and while tech has kind of adopted a "fail fast" approach, the darlings of today are ML models that require billions in compute time to produce. And I guess chip fabs which take billions of dollars as well (but state subsidies muddy the economic analysis there).
I guess the mystery for me is why Draghi publishes a report whose conclusion is the EU shall become a tax and spending power like the US? Is he running to become president of the United States of Eurasia?
posted by pwnguin at 2:51 PM on September 13 [1 favorite]
But is it true he just wants to spend on tech and 'defense'?
posted by latkes at 10:04 PM on September 13 [1 favorite]
posted by latkes at 10:04 PM on September 13 [1 favorite]
Depends, is decarbonization tech? Is lithim mining in Portugal tech? Is the ESA tech? How about vocational training, or additional STEM scholarships and visas?
And there's more to the report than just spending. A lot is oriented at unifying regulation around banking and investing, and industrial regulation being applied differently in different member states. For example, one section suggests completing the Banking Union, which is largely about making one set of rules for banks across all of EU, but also setting up cross national deposit insurance. Another section mentions harmonizing bankruptcy laws.
There was also a mention that pension savings are too low relative to the US and UK, and that if the social welfare programs were funded with investment programs instead of pay as you go, that would be a natural source of European capital to invest.
And that seems to really be what the controversy here is: should the EU issue a ton of debt to make investments in their economy?
posted by pwnguin at 2:47 PM on September 14 [2 favorites]
And there's more to the report than just spending. A lot is oriented at unifying regulation around banking and investing, and industrial regulation being applied differently in different member states. For example, one section suggests completing the Banking Union, which is largely about making one set of rules for banks across all of EU, but also setting up cross national deposit insurance. Another section mentions harmonizing bankruptcy laws.
There was also a mention that pension savings are too low relative to the US and UK, and that if the social welfare programs were funded with investment programs instead of pay as you go, that would be a natural source of European capital to invest.
And that seems to really be what the controversy here is: should the EU issue a ton of debt to make investments in their economy?
posted by pwnguin at 2:47 PM on September 14 [2 favorites]
Thomas Piketty: Europe must invest: Draghi is right. (Or L’Europe doit investir: Draghi a raison).
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:12 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:12 AM on September 17 [1 favorite]
It is not possible to prioritize labor rights and labor productivity. The way productivity makes labor costs cheaper is by firing people. No one should strive to become more like the US. Our numbers are as manipulated as China’s albeit in different ways.
posted by vim876 at 11:28 AM on September 17
posted by vim876 at 11:28 AM on September 17
The way productivity makes labor costs cheaper is by firing people.
Is the level of productivity you have today optimal? Or should we be striving to make Europeans half as productive as they are now and hope unemployment somehow declines?
posted by pwnguin at 8:35 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]
Is the level of productivity you have today optimal? Or should we be striving to make Europeans half as productive as they are now and hope unemployment somehow declines?
posted by pwnguin at 8:35 PM on September 17 [1 favorite]
The list of stakeholders who talked with Mario Draghi's team to inform his report is finally public. No national government is mentioned.
Instead it's some "who is who of corporate lobbyists and universities/think tanks, so Google, Meta, etc, but maybe not McKinsey. And the academics look like economists.
Apart from consumer rights organisation @beuc. Draghi did not consult a single digital rights, or even general human rights, organisation for this report that has so much to say about GDPR, AI Act etc
posted by jeffburdges at 11:23 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]
Instead it's some "who is who of corporate lobbyists and universities/think tanks, so Google, Meta, etc, but maybe not McKinsey. And the academics look like economists.
Apart from consumer rights organisation @beuc. Draghi did not consult a single digital rights, or even general human rights, organisation for this report that has so much to say about GDPR, AI Act etc
posted by jeffburdges at 11:23 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]
Just listened to Odd Lot's episode on the report and was confused why Tracy said it was 400 pages long when the PDF I saw was only 70. Turns out the link in this post is only Section A. Section B has the other 320 pages. In case you need an insomnia cure I guess.
posted by pwnguin at 11:49 AM on September 18
posted by pwnguin at 11:49 AM on September 18
Politico with a Deutschland-specific riff on the same ideas:
posted by daveliepmann at 9:14 AM on September 22
After years of turning a blind eye to what the rest of the world could plainly see, Germans are slowly coming to terms with the reality that they are in deep trouble as the four horsemen of their economic apocalypse come into view: an exodus of major industry; a rapidly worsening demographic picture; crumbling infrastructure; and a dearth of innovation.Note that SPD/Greens would probably have found a way around those spending limits were it not for FDP.
While Germans have been preoccupied in recent years with migration and the war in Ukraine, their economy has quietly been imploding. The economic malaise is stoking fears that the country could see a further swerve to the political extremes. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, hampered by constitutional spending limits that make it all but impossible for the government to undertake ambitious economic stimulus, has been beset by infighting and appears to have run out of ideas over what to do.
posted by daveliepmann at 9:14 AM on September 22
I doubt the spending limits prevented doing this, like all developed nations there exist massive economic subsidies in Germny, France, etc, largely benefitting exactly the legacy industries critisized here, and other industries that cause climate change.
As an example, Switzerland is a lone little red dot here because they're not importing everyone's subsidized beef.
In principle, you could redirect existing subsidies towards new solar and new battery companies. In reality, you cannot halt existing subsidies because they improve the stock prices of automakers, agribuisness, etc whose owner make caompaign contributions, and because voters dislike price increases in meat, gassoline, coal, etc.
We'd be lucky if some conflict makes oil much less available, eventually forcing say 100 million cars off the road in Europe.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:42 AM on September 24
As an example, Switzerland is a lone little red dot here because they're not importing everyone's subsidized beef.
In principle, you could redirect existing subsidies towards new solar and new battery companies. In reality, you cannot halt existing subsidies because they improve the stock prices of automakers, agribuisness, etc whose owner make caompaign contributions, and because voters dislike price increases in meat, gassoline, coal, etc.
We'd be lucky if some conflict makes oil much less available, eventually forcing say 100 million cars off the road in Europe.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:42 AM on September 24
We'd this Ed Zitron thread about AI being largely stock fraud ..
"The really worrying part is that other than AI, many of these [big American tech] companies don’t seem to have any other new products. What else is there? What other things do they have to grow their companies? What else do they have?"
"Nothing. They’ve got nothing. And that, really, is the problem, because when it fails, the effects will invariably cascade down to other companies in the tech space."
A neoliberal economist like Mario Draghi cannot tell the difference between real technologhy and ponzi schemes like OpenAI et al.
We do have one new software product direction worth selling in which western nations still have a slight advantage, namely security, cryptography, and privacy, including all the end-to-end encrypted messangers like Wire and Signal.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:27 AM on September 29
"The really worrying part is that other than AI, many of these [big American tech] companies don’t seem to have any other new products. What else is there? What other things do they have to grow their companies? What else do they have?"
"Nothing. They’ve got nothing. And that, really, is the problem, because when it fails, the effects will invariably cascade down to other companies in the tech space."
A neoliberal economist like Mario Draghi cannot tell the difference between real technologhy and ponzi schemes like OpenAI et al.
We do have one new software product direction worth selling in which western nations still have a slight advantage, namely security, cryptography, and privacy, including all the end-to-end encrypted messangers like Wire and Signal.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:27 AM on September 29
A neoliberal economist like Mario Draghi cannot tell the difference between real technologhy and ponzi schemes like OpenAI et al.
This strongly reminds me of this graf from Piketty (previously linked above):
posted by daveliepmann at 1:43 AM on September 30 [1 favorite]
This strongly reminds me of this graf from Piketty (previously linked above):
If we now examine the details of the Draghi report’s proposals, there is obviously much to criticize, and that’s a good thing. Once the principle that Europe needs to invest massively has been accepted, it’s healthy for different visions to be expressed as to the type of development model and welfare indicators we want to promote. In this case, Draghi’s approach is technophile, mercantile and consumerist. He emphasizes large-scale public subsidies for private investment in digital technology, artificial intelligence and the environment. However, there is every reason to believe that Europe should seize the opportunity to develop other modes of governance and avoid, once again, giving full power to large private capitalist groups to manage our data, our energy sources or our transport networks.The broader point is separable from the specific prescriptions.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:43 AM on September 30 [1 favorite]
Absolutely. Investments means losing money initially, but maybe longer term, so ideally our larger investments should bring strategic benefits, like political independence from China or fossil fuel exporters, not merely products for sale abroad.
We definitely need manufactoring of wind, solar, heat pumps, batteries, integrated circuits, and other essential lithography products, as well as (re)electrification via trains, trams, and ebikes. All those products could disapear if the US and China start fighting over Taiwan or whatever.
Industrial solar furnaces sound promissing, but require serious research into new processes. I do think biotechnology makes sense broadly speaking, but we need more work on ecological farming practices too.
As I said, security, cryptography, and privacy provide good software products which Europe could deliever, and which sell well internationally, but this requires ditching our own copaganda like chat control, and further reigning in the surveillance capitalists.
At present, the digital euro idiots believe our phones have secure enough trusted enclaves for our bank balances, when really they get hacked literally every year. Yay, infinite euros on your phone! I do think secure trusted hardware maybe possible, but the research alone would require decades and cost billions. Ambivalent.
All these invesments could be done through state owned projects, or through stock purchases of partially state owned company, instead of just givaways to capitalists.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:25 AM on September 30
We definitely need manufactoring of wind, solar, heat pumps, batteries, integrated circuits, and other essential lithography products, as well as (re)electrification via trains, trams, and ebikes. All those products could disapear if the US and China start fighting over Taiwan or whatever.
Industrial solar furnaces sound promissing, but require serious research into new processes. I do think biotechnology makes sense broadly speaking, but we need more work on ecological farming practices too.
As I said, security, cryptography, and privacy provide good software products which Europe could deliever, and which sell well internationally, but this requires ditching our own copaganda like chat control, and further reigning in the surveillance capitalists.
At present, the digital euro idiots believe our phones have secure enough trusted enclaves for our bank balances, when really they get hacked literally every year. Yay, infinite euros on your phone! I do think secure trusted hardware maybe possible, but the research alone would require decades and cost billions. Ambivalent.
All these invesments could be done through state owned projects, or through stock purchases of partially state owned company, instead of just givaways to capitalists.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:25 AM on September 30
All those products could disappear if the US and China start fighting over Taiwan or whatever.
The alternative formulation is that we need more global trade, so that potential belligerents stand to lose more than they gain through warfare. Self-sufficiency is what you do when preparing for more war, not less.
posted by pwnguin at 9:10 AM on September 30
The alternative formulation is that we need more global trade, so that potential belligerents stand to lose more than they gain through warfare. Self-sufficiency is what you do when preparing for more war, not less.
posted by pwnguin at 9:10 AM on September 30
At present, China imports more from western Europe than any single nation, with Germany and Switzerland being the top exporters. Yet, recently Europe-China trade peaked and went into serious decline, presumably China launched native compeditors for all the heavy equipment they imported from Germany, likely their native equipment winds up better too, by being electric or whatever.
I'd expect Europe sells little that China wants in 20 years, except for food. We've 50% odds of syncronous maize crop failures in the 2040s, with all other major crops following not too long after, likely these estimates miss-important factors. AMOC collapse sounds especially catestrophic. We must not become dependent upon exporting food.
At a theoretical level, it's likely that trade causes much worse problems than is solves.
Trade turns us into one collaborative global economy. We obey the maximum power principle (MPP) like every other complex system, so one global economy can only grow by destorying other life, until eventually it destorys itself. We cannot disobey the MPP for long, but we could change our system dynamics so that the MPP acts differently upon us. We have two models from nature:
First, multi-cellular life forces all individual cells through the same germe line, well except gut microbiome. I doubt humans could construct such a totaletarian educational system, but even if so the germe line creates a deeply flawed solution, think obesity, cancer, and death.
Second, natual ecosystems thrive through predator-prey relationships, plus other tricks. We'll never have predator like rabbits have foxes, but I could imagine stable-ish scenarios: Nations cannot necessarily conqure one another, if electrification and peak oil makes defense better than offense, thus elimiating serious warfare. At the same time, if trade dies then nations could view each other only as ecological dead weight, so they could engage in clandestine economic sabotage that's somewhat ecologically benefitial, like poisoning each other cattle, blowing up refineries, etc. Awful lot of hopium there on my part, but maybe doable, unlike green growth, planned degrowth, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:15 AM on September 30
I'd expect Europe sells little that China wants in 20 years, except for food. We've 50% odds of syncronous maize crop failures in the 2040s, with all other major crops following not too long after, likely these estimates miss-important factors. AMOC collapse sounds especially catestrophic. We must not become dependent upon exporting food.
At a theoretical level, it's likely that trade causes much worse problems than is solves.
Trade turns us into one collaborative global economy. We obey the maximum power principle (MPP) like every other complex system, so one global economy can only grow by destorying other life, until eventually it destorys itself. We cannot disobey the MPP for long, but we could change our system dynamics so that the MPP acts differently upon us. We have two models from nature:
First, multi-cellular life forces all individual cells through the same germe line, well except gut microbiome. I doubt humans could construct such a totaletarian educational system, but even if so the germe line creates a deeply flawed solution, think obesity, cancer, and death.
Second, natual ecosystems thrive through predator-prey relationships, plus other tricks. We'll never have predator like rabbits have foxes, but I could imagine stable-ish scenarios: Nations cannot necessarily conqure one another, if electrification and peak oil makes defense better than offense, thus elimiating serious warfare. At the same time, if trade dies then nations could view each other only as ecological dead weight, so they could engage in clandestine economic sabotage that's somewhat ecologically benefitial, like poisoning each other cattle, blowing up refineries, etc. Awful lot of hopium there on my part, but maybe doable, unlike green growth, planned degrowth, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:15 AM on September 30
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