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Comment by nivenkos | Hacker News Reader

- Omicron will create natural immunity to COVID and lead to the end of travel restrictions by the end of the year.

- Russia will dispute eastern Ukraine, and cut gas supplies to Europe leading to extremely high energy prices in Europe and increasing the gap between living standards in the US and EU.

- Le Pen will narrowly lose to Macron in the second round of the French election, but the Zemmour + Le Pen total will be a majority.

- The Swedish Democrats will enter government in Sweden with the Moderates. But little will change in practice.

- The Republicans will win in the mid-term elections due to growing economic concerns.

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> - Le Pen will narrowly lose to Macron in the second round of the French election,

Let me counter that: Macron won't run for a second time to avoid the humiliation of having a low score under 10%.

Valérie Pécresse will be elected president winning over Zemmour. She will do the same things as Macron and will be as hated in 5 years from now.

> but the Zemmour + Le Pen total will be a majority.

I agree on that.

How much are you ready to bet that Macron won't run? Because he's currently polling at 25% with at least 15% of respondents who are certain to show up and cast a ballot for him. No chance he'll score close to 10%.

His stepson runs a poll agency, I'd take the 25% with a shovel of salt! Even if he runs, he's sure to lose for Pécresse because she's new, so people aren't already fed up with her.

Come on, all the polling agencies consistently show the same data. If Pécresse gets to the second run then she may well win, as polling data also shows.

"Increasing the gap"

By what measures are living standards higher in the US then the EU? Genuinely curious.

For the younger generations, a sort of stability.

House prices : salary ratios are much worse in the EU (because salaries are so much worse in general), and housing is much smaller (no room for hobbies, home gym, usually no AC, etc. - which is awful during the recent lockdowns). Gas/diesel prices are much worse too (and driver training, car insurance, road tax, etc.) so car ownership is much more expensive (and severely regressing compared to prior generations).

Electricity is much more expensive, so is food, vehicles, electronics, pretty much anything you can think of. Salaries are lower and taxes on income (not property/inheritance, etc.) are much worse. And all of this is set to get worse next year with prices, inflation and income taxes going up and salaries not shifting (there has been no "Great Resignation" here).

If you want to see the death of the middle class, just look at Europe. With low home ownership, prospects are much bleaker for any sort of retirement too.

This sounds like a very US minded view on EU. As an EU who has been to the US a couple of times I could write the exact same piece with the opposite conclusion.

Housing is smaller but one doesn't live in a suburb, cars are more expensive but that's the idea, fuck cars. The one that stood out to me the most is "so is food". What? American supermarkets are cra-zy expensive to me.

I'm not saying you're wrong but that both our analyses are probably nonsensical.

On average the US has higher prices than most EU countries: https://data.oecd.org/price/price-level-indices.htm.

This is also true if you look at average prices vs average income (though that’s a really crude metric): https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php.

Houses are larger, on average, in the US, but I’m not sure that’s a meaningful comparison; houses tend to be larger in New Jersey than in New York City, but I’d rather live in NYC. ;)

It is true that net income after taxes and transfers is higher in the US (https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/), but it’s important to look at it after taxes and (market value of) public services (“transfers”), not merely after-tax; in many EU countries taxes include the cost of health care, whereas in the US healthcare is largely employer-provided and costs ~2x and is half as good (measured by outcomes).

All that is to say it’s complicated. The US is by most measures richer than EU countries, and prices are generally commensurately higher.

But I do think it’s strange to conclude from this that the EU is seeing “the death of the middle class”; the metric I most associate with that is income or wealth inequality—a shrinking middle relative to the rich and poor—and by common metrics like GINI or top percentile share of wealth (or by percentage of the population living in poverty: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233910/poverty-rates-in-...), the US tends to do substantially worse than the EU states.

> so car ownership is much more expensive

That's kind of the point. A significant part of my hometown takes a bus to work and shops in a walking distance from home. There's just not that much need for the cars in the first place.

> usually no AC

Among other generalisations, this is the most striking. Where in the EU? Due to the climate, I don't think anyone in my hometown has any need for AC. On the other hand, every block of flats has hydronic heating which regarding comfort and cost is way better than what is common in other countries.

Things like that are just not comparable at a scale of a continent.

> the gap between living standards in the US and EU

Do you have any supporting evidence for this gap beyond GDP?

Well, you can get any result you want by deciding on the right measure.

Want the US to beat the EU? Measure quality of life by the number of square feet of living space, hours of native-language cultural output available per year, percentage of the population with air conditioning, cost of a gallon of gas, and number of billionaires.

Want the EU to beat the US? Measure quality of life by % of people without healthcare, days of annual leave per year, and rates of bankruptcy.

Well yes, but that doesn’t make them equally valid. One of those sets of measures looks significantly better than the other (which I would guess is your point).

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