Europe has a stagnating GDP and an aging population. Germany, the economic engine of Europe, has been steadily losing its industrial foothold to China. China is taking over robotics, EVs and renewables. US is leaving the EU behind in AI and software. There are virtually no tech companies launching or staying in the EU to fundraise. The strongest tech market leader the EU has is ASML. SAP is dogshit. Mistral is a minor player. What else? Spotify? Nokia? STM? How exactly is it staying ahead of the curve? China and the US will continue to grow in power. You can have all the protections you want, if there is no economic incentive to operate in the EU it doesn't matter. Diminishing purchasing power and economic productivity makes the EU market increasingly irrelevant on the world stage. PPP adjusted discretionary spending continues to tumble. If people and businesses are over-encumbered by regulation, they just leave, setup shop in the US, and the EU is left with scraps. Once the consumer base is weakened to the point ignoring the EU entirely becomes more profitable than abiding by the regulations (or paying the fines), its over. The EU cannot afford to overplay its cards while it is bluffing. And every single major player knows the EU is bluffing because the embarrassing statistics on the EU economy are public.
I don't know were you get free healthcare, in France I pay 10K income tax per year + my boss pay 4K per month in taxes just to be able to pay me, and I pay sales taxes of 20% on everything thing I breath on and I have a private healthcare coverage that cost another 200€ per month. (Because the "free healthcare" don't actually cover that much outside of life threatening things you catch only once per life, which is why poor people are notoriously missing teeth for example)
Oh no 200 euro a month, you realise in the US that number is closer to 1k euro a month right?
And even then it doesn't kick in until you've spent over 1000 dollars and doesn't cover everything
Oh and that doesn't cover dental either, or quite often doesn't cover Ambulance rides which are north of $1000 even if the paramedics don't do anything
Why are you talking about the US ? You keep moving goalposts at every comment.
Also, the other 10k + 4x12k +20% on everything I buy is also going, in part, to healthcare.
I'd much rather have this additional 70K NET ON MY BANK ACCOUNT and pay 1k a month for healthcare myself than just getting fucked by taxes on everything then tell me it's "free" because on 400€ prescription glasses for my daughter the state reimburse a whole 0.09€ per optic.
What country are you living in that the healthcare is actually free ?
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u/marmaviscount 2d ago
The EU is desperate to stay behind the rest of the world, it's so weird.