Europe feels somewhat depressing these days. I don't recall when was the last time I heard genuinely positive news coming from there. Everything is broken and falling apart.
Maybe generally most places are having a bad time with the pandemic and recession that is coming.
The EU and Japan are going to be the ones with issues.
It does have nothing to do with that though, just as you say. I’ll change my mind if Japan ever experiences hyperinflation from too much stimulus though!
Source is OECD projections: https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1369273724743127046
However, once Biden passes the $3 trillion infrastructure program the positions will reverse and the USA will leave the EU in the dust.
Extreme opinion: All the printed dollars should have been put into infrastructure.
But then “9 of the top 10 happiest nations are in Europe” [1]. That’s good news right?
The question is how will this dynamic play out over next few decades. Is it necessary to lead in technology to remain peaceful and happy?
[1] https://qz.com/1986996/europe-is-home-to-9-of-the-10-happies...
https://www.statista.com/chart/19312/most-innovative-economi...
It's feels like Europe has exhausted it's fuel and is now slowing down to a crawl while India and China are just getting started burning their gas. It's history in the making really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_Europe
The problem is basically the welfare state, which requires a huge tax system/burden to support, and encourages 'welfare tourism'.
Dropping all welfare for non-citizens, setting a minimum lifetime income tax paid to receive citizenship (eg. €100,000) refusing further immigration from troublesome nations and actually deporting those already there, as well as raising the retirement age to 70 - and with the savings eliminating payroll tax and cutting VAT to 16% (the legal minimum) across the bloc - are the necessary solutions.
The other issue is land taxation - in many countries eg. Britain, Spain, huge land areas are still owned by basically the aristocracy, who receive EU farm subsidies and pay little in the way of land taxation.
Given nothing fishy is going on, I suspect most people would take my previous comment as an opportunity to stroke their ego.
Let this be a WARNING to anyone else who investigates this user's comments.
"All their recent posts are broadly political" Show me a single political post and I'll delete this account.
> Dropping all welfare for non-citizens, setting a minimum lifetime income tax paid to receive citizenship (eg. €100,000) refusing further immigration from troublesome nations and actually deporting those already there, as well as raising the retirement age to 70 - and with the savings eliminating payroll tax and cutting VAT to 16% (the legal minimum) across the bloc - are the necessary solutions
Do you have any source supporting your claim that welfare for non-citizens is a significant part of government expenses? Or any case, more significant than the contributions ( direct in taxation and less direct in products and services ) of said non-citizens?
Going on my observations, the concept seems ludicrous.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-017-0636-1
"The natives generate a net surplus of EUR −695. Only for immigrants of Western origin the figures are positive, at EUR 2546 and EUR 47 for first-generation and second-generation immigrants, respectively, compared to EUR −2238 and EUR −1070 for first and second non-Western immigrants"
"The reasons for the expected deficits lie in the weak labour market performance of non-Western immigrants as a group and the fact that people with a low level of education, which includes many non-Western immigrants, tend to retire early"
Denmark has acknowledged this and has expanded assimilation efforts: https://qz.com/1320234/denmarks-new-laws-targeting-ghetto-ch...
The welfare state represents about 22% of the Danish economy: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/D...
And welfare spending is about 59% of Danish Government spending: https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/nationalregnskab-og-of...
I use the example of Denmark because their data is transparent, but their situation is not much different to other continental European countries.
Western European countries such as Denmark are benefitting hugely from migration from countries like Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria - because those migrants are educated and raised at the expense of their home country, but actually work and pay taxes as adults in the destination country. Its basically a form of 'human resource exploitation' - contributing to the depopulation of many Eastern European countries. These workers are basically keeping Western welfare states afloat, but the delta between quality of life in the West and East is shrinking.