[kshacker]

I think due to a variety of reasons EU and US are on a road to divorce. EU will be wise to make that happen on their terms, but they do not seem to be ready.

- Monopolies and related regulation. Of course US has its own companies being treated as monopolies so they will try to save them

- Social systems including healthcare

- Russia being next door vs far away (for US)

- The whole AI buildout

- A little bit of Libre Office smattering at the government level

Whether you consider US to be guarding its national interests, or whether you consider europeans to be taking a free ride on US's defense systems, it seems like 2 partners who got together for whatever reasons, you can even justify them in history, but history has moved on. I think we are going in 2 different directions for even the next president, however big a U turn he/she makes, I do not think the situation is salvageable.

[dgellow]

If there is a divorce the very obvious reason is Trump

[4ndrewl]

But let's be clear about this - 50% of the voting population of the United States have been giving him their support for a decade now.

[root-parent]

His conviction for sexual assault, attracted the votes of 43 million female voters. Just the facts...

[mvdwoord]

No responsibilities in the EU at all? I feel trump is more of an accelerant/trigger.. but where two parties fight etc. We did not get to this situation (or Trump for that matter) from a vacuum.

[throw1234567891]

Okay.

[joe_mamba]

>EU will be wise to make that happen on their terms, but they do not seem to be ready.

It's too late for this. The time to execute this was 20 years ago when EU had leverage (the EU stock market was bigger than the US one in 2004, now it's half). Now that leverage is gone and EU is bogged down with massive domestic issues it can't recover from (some of which you mentioned), and starting a massive tech IP/trade war now with the US over Claude as retaliation for Trump will only hurt the EU working class more, as the US has more levers to pull being a big consumer of EU exports.

Unfortunately due to decades of neglect, mismanagement and bad policies, EU has backed itself into a corner making itself an easy mark for both the US and China to take advantage of as they lack any leverage to dictate international policies on their terms so they have to fold in the end.

Also, many EU politicians have no idea how the internet works let alone what Claude is. So much talks coming from them out of the blue on this topic will be the mouthpieces of the lobbyists funding them in exchange for government money to build "EU sovereign products" which may or may not deliver which is irrelevant as the goal will be to laudner public money into private pockets for shipping a sovereignty sticker.

@snovv_crash

>You spend too much time online

How can you insult people like that?

I base my assessment on the visible decline me and everyone around me see with our own eyes over the past 10 or so years. I can see for myself how my purchasing power has dropped like rock, how brutal inflation is, how much more expensive housing is relative to wages, how much more difficult it is to get a state doctor and childcare, the waves of layoffs me and friend experienced, etc. the news didn't have to tell people that, people can see and experience that for themselves. All these are not caused by one single issue that you can easily revert, they're a cumulation of multiple issues that accumulated over decades and are impossible to reverse in the current situation the EU is in.

It's so insulting when people are trying to gaslight you that your lived expiries are just "being online". So disingenuous and bad faith.

>The EU isn't bogged down with issues

It definitely is. That's why it can't take decisive actions against foreign bullies like Trump or even Putin(he invaded Ukraine in 2014 BTW). Like the EU talks a lot about its freedom and humanitarian values and policies but sheepishly fails to impose them on its trading partners, because it would suffer retaliations its economy can not absorb. It's too dependent on energy and tech trade with the US and too dependent on manufacturing from China, so it can't piss either of them off and is forced to play ball to their tune regardless of diverging values, while also playing to the tune of Azerbaijani authoritarianism for their gas imports and to the whims of Indian nationalists for access to their market. EU is currently in no position to bargain so it folds to everyone's demands.

[geysersam]

To be fair the value of the stock market is not a good indicator of progress. The US stock market is incredibly inflated.

Besides, it's a bit strange to argue that it's impossible to make a change, and as proof of that take the fact that there's been a big change over the last 20 years.

[joe_mamba]

>To be fair the value of the stock market is not a good indicator of progress.

Where did I talk about it being "progres"? I said the value of the stock market represents economic leverage which the EU lost and is now at the mercy of foreign bullies with stronger economies(US and CHina). If you want your trading partners to respect you and your values and not back-stab you the moment you turn around, you need leverage over them(economic and/or military), otherwise everyone will walk all over you and take advantage of you and your citizens will lose prosperity proportional to your nation's loss of share in the global economy.

>The US stock market is incredibly inflated.

Doesn't matter in this particular point. If the US stock market pops, the EU's economy will suffer just as much or even more, just like post 2008.

The point was that EU is far too economically dependent to US and other major nations they hate but has no muscle and no leverage to do anything against them except post stern words on X while quietly folding like a deckchair to their demands.

[geysersam]

Call it progress, call it "economic leverage", a very inflated stock market is no good measure for either.

It's true the US economy has grown faster than the European in the last two decades, for sure, I agree with you. It's just that the apparent magnitude of the difference depends on what metric you choose, and I just mean that the value of the stock market seems like a poor metric.

[joe_mamba]

>a very inflated stock market is no good measure for either.

It absolutely is. If my assets are worth twice as much as yours, I have more options to mess with you, and you have less resources to fight me back.

It's how rich people can bully poor people in court. It's how rich countries can bully poorer countries.

[inigyou]

> the EU stock market was bigger than the US one in 2004, now it's half

I feel this is mostly to do with the EU having more companies that stay private for longer and partly to do with the USA's currency manipulation which maintains the dollar value artificially high.

[joe_mamba]

Every country is free to manipulate its own currency.

[dgellow]

Most of the issues you mentioned are more likely to be specific to you own country. The EU is pretty limited in what it can do due to Europe being so afraid to federate

[joe_mamba]

> The EU is pretty limited in what it can do due

Thank god for that. Enjoy it while it lasts.

>do due to Europe being so afraid to federate

Why would they be afraid? Yugoslavia, USSR and any other time in history where you force similar but not really cultures under one central leadership, it ended up great in the end, they didn't fight or break up at all. So what's to be afraid of?

Yeah, why bother with that pesky democracy, freedom of speech and what each country wants when we can have a German like Ursula v.d Leyen be the supreme chancellor over the European Federal Reich and all of EU's problems will be gone, we'll have our own SV, our own SpaceX, it will be amazing, right? It will be uncle Adolf's dream come true.

[dgellow]

Ok so you won’t engage with the fact that you misattributed to the EU issues you have with your local government…

The EU is both weak, powerless, and also that powerful tyrannical entity according to your various comments. You really might want to check your sources of information

[joe_mamba]

>Ok so you won’t engage with the fact that you misattributed to the EU issues you have with your local government…

You have it backwards. I trust my local government because I can vote for it, and if they fail to deliver they can have rioters in from of their house, I don't trust EU leadership because I can't vote for it and we can't all travel to Brussels to riot while still making it to work after.

>The EU is both weak, powerless, and also that powerful tyrannical entity according to your various comments.

Why argue in bad faith pretending you can't distinguish what I meant? Eu IS powerless versus China and the US, but it can also act tyrannical over its members who don't play ball on unpopular topics like open borders illegal mass migration with illegal migrants and fake refugees. So it's both weak versus stronger actors and a bully versus weaker actors.

>You really might want to check your sources of information

Please give us your 100% truthful and unbiased sources of information. Or you might want to invest in a brain if you don't see the things I'm talking about happen in real life. Maybe you work in Brussels and your lifestyle depends on getting people to parrot the party line and silence the dissidents.

[snovv_crash]

You spend too much time online. The EU isn't bogged down with issues, it has uplifted an enormous part of itself out of abject post-communist poverty and yes growth isn't as fast, but it also isn't foisting as much debt on its citizens or working everyone to death. The problems you hear about on the news make the news because they are newsworthy, not because they are normal occurrences.

[joe_mamba]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48528379

[the_gipsy]

> 20 years ago when EU had leverage (the EU stock market was bigger than the US one in 2004

Where did you get that from??

[calgoo]

Its not to late, thats the defeatism that gives us fascism in the form of US politicians influencing us. Please dont think that we are soooo behind that there is no choice but to give in to their BS. There is, and right now is the perfect to to fight back.