[0xfaded]

It's brutal from both sides, consumers are extremely price sensitive and will price out living wages for workers in favor of cheap goods. A transparent example of this is airline tickets, where creature comforts have been progressively traded for cheaper fares.

Record profits seem to occur when there is some monopoly power or other situation that allows companies to keep prices high while still forcing down costs. I think the book "Rentier Capitalism: who owns the economy and who pays for it" does a great job of describing the situation. As a bonus it focuses on the UK.

My opinion is that Europe needs Federalization and Deregularization to remain globally competitive. There is plenty of room for growth (which actually tends to be fueled by immigrants) if the molasses can somehow be dissolved. Doing business in Europe is a royal PITA (imho).

[raxxorrax]

They would also do it for convenience. Look at how much surveillance we put on delivery workers, just because people are overwhelmed with reasonably managing their lives. Nobody informed will want to do this job, it has been completely perverted by "optimization". I would not wish that job on my worst enemy.

The same you be said about public officials and Twitter. You have to be really ambitious to ward off and defend sensible policy against people on the mental level of teenagers.

I don't think Europe needs any of the suggestions because I don't see how this is connected to the problem. The rooms for growth are in the developing countries and they do grow. At least partially.