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Comment by cjfd | Hacker News Reader

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Some questions from your side of the Atlantic (I’m Dutch): how is Europe in good shape while Germany is in a recession for years now? And while our governments are becoming as polarized as the US? And while electricity prices are so high that it’s cheaper to stick to fossil fuels? It all makes no sense. I don’t think it’s all hopeless in Europe. But pretending we are in good shape is also not the way to go.

The question was about bribes being legal. And while Europe is not perfect, overall it is not is a destructive mode USA is in.

And in order for that to not happen, arguing against spread of knee jerk lies is a good thing.

>how is Europe in good shape while Germany is in a recession for years now?

It's in a better shape because unlike the US leaders, European leaders are much better at pandering, being politically correct and saying the right socially acceptable things in public that get universal appraisal on the world stage, without them actually doing anything concrete or solving any of the issues. Basically, they win on optics. At least I'm sure that's what he meant with that virtue signaling attack.

Because if we look objectively at how the EU politics handled the economy, defense, illegal immigration, AI & tech innovation, domestic EV industry, rise of China, Russia's invasion of Crimea, etc. over the years, they're definitely not worth their salt.

Case in point, EU had the same GDP as the US 20 years ago. Now it's only half of that the US. So not only they've left us poorer, but also militarily weak and exposed to influence of China, Russia, and of course the Trump's new US policies.

IMHO, 20 years ago Trump wouldn't have the balls to try to boss the EU around like that but he can today because we're no longer peers but pushovers with no leverage, no military leverage, no economic leverage, no tech leverage, no natural resource leverage, nothing other than telling him he's being mean, because our useless politicians were asleep at the wheel and left us vulnerable to such bullies.

In other comments you talked about how eu spending money to defend eu[1] and the romanian candidate being arrested for violating the law weren't the right things to do[2], or at least complained about how they were done.

To my eyes, these things show that in fact, eu is actually doing something about defense and protecting democracy, and to your eyes you see this as more taxes and the death of democracy and an evidence of romania's corruption. What actions would you expect eu to take in regard to ukraine, defense, and protecting democracy?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43287963#43288810

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43278705#43278894 (not just the first comment, the chain of answers is needed to be read as well)

What's you point by moving the discussion to something else by bringing up tangential but unrelated comments I made a while ago?

Sorry, I'm not gonna bite and feed the trolls..

I showed some things that you do not see as the right course of action for the eu, i'm not moving the discussion. I'm genuinely interested in the path you would take regarding defense in europe

It wouldn't be wise for me to further engage with people who's defense to all arguments they don't agree with is accusing people of being pro-Russian[1] or victims of Russian propaganda[1] without any evidence, and then later try to frame it as some form of curiosity on their part in order to absolve themselves of bad faith argumentation and move the accusations towards the other party, a well known technique tabloid reporters use to get a soundbite. It's fine by me if you think whoever you want as pro-Russian, I just don't want to be dragged into it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43295033

As a matter of fact, there was evidence - multiple evidences - that lead to the arrest of the Romanian candidate you talked about.

If not believing evidences - multiple ones - is not a proof of being influenced by Russian propaganda, a country that has repeatedly interfered in European affairs, I do not know what would be categorized as being influenced by Russian propaganda. Maybe directly going to Moscow and fighting for Russia?

Anyway, I was genuinely curious about your ideas on European defense, since you don't see many shared values in eu i was intrigued to see the views of someone who doesn't see Europe as more than a merely political one, with no common values

> It's in a better shape because unlike the US leaders, European leaders are better at pandering, being politically correct and saying the right socially acceptable things in public

I couldn't agree more. What I keep wondering though is whether this is new? Have politicians always focused on saying they fix things instead of actually fixing things? Many historians consider Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the best presidents since his optimism and New Deal got the United States out of the Great Depression (which is a weird name because nobody thinks it was very great). Are presidents like Roosevelt the exception? Should we expect that most presidents will achieve nothing more than a scandal like Watergate? I don't know.

If EU countries ran a deficit as large as the US did for the past 20 years...

We'd have even more GDP growth than America :-)

As well, the Euro would be worthless. US could print the 2008 crisis without massive currency debasement because of its reserve currency status, which in 10 years could not be the case anymore.

This means that the US has this huge deficit problem to fix, where most of it is because of Medicaid and Social Security entitlements (which will also grow faster in the next years).

The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now, the next 10 years will be a rough ride for the average American.

>which in 10 years could not be the case anymore

What makes you say that? A lot of things can happen in 10 years. Should we all just do northing and wait until then?

>The US is in a terrible fiscal shape right now

If being the worlds leading economy and military superpower is what a terrible fiscal shape looks like I think many countries in the world would want to be "terrible" right now.

Is it now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...

You’ll notice that in one of the cases, it is creating felons, and in the other, it’s elevating felons to high office. Pretty key difference.

Whataboutism

It's only whataboutism if it's from the nonsequitur region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling comparison.

TBO, I've heard of cases where some European politicians were sentenced for bribery, but I rarely hear about such cases in the US.

I don't know, perhaps it's because American politicians have higher moral standards, or maybe it's because bribery is not illegal in the United States.

Here's a recent one:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-us-senator-rober...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-loosen-enforcement-us...

Americans elect Trump who openly supports a company of his biggest donor. Also, pork.

Americans just don't have a problem with it.

That's a weird attitude. Ignoring real problem and burying one's head into the sand until its too late is what got US into the mess it is in now.

Are you implying that nobody should be able to criticize anything before its too late?

European politicians are superhuman and are way above bribes and such inferior, unsophisticated things.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/10/i-aske...

Being in better shape doesn't mean perfect. While not being perfect, i don't think equating the corruption in EU organization is even remotely comparable to whatever the hell Trump is doing by buying teslas at the white house. The most important man of the world manages to be now seen as a con man, which is not exactly what you're looking for in a leader (And yes, i do blame von der leyen for some of her scandals as well).

I do give that the comment you're answering to is unnecessary rude

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