[nostrademons]

Somewhere else in the comments here, someone else remarked "Individuals perhaps [move to the new models], but not organizations."

That's illustrative. The mechanism by which organizations are forced to update their technology, move to more competitive suppliers, and cut costs is a recession. In one, every business that doesn't do so goes bankrupt, and what's left are the more efficient businesses that have adopted technology effectively.

We haven't had a real recession since 2009. (2020 was an odd case, because it was effectively brought on by government edict and so it actually killed a number of efficient but unlucky sectors while doing nothing to clean out the dead wood in major corporations). The next one is likely to be a doozy, because the economy is filled with bullshit jobs, bullshit corporations, and bullshit products.

[Dumblydorr]

“Brought on by government edict”

No, brought on by a novel pathogen that killed 10 million people. It would’ve been much worse without government action.

[pocksuppet]

Without the indecisive government action that was taken, millions more people would have died, but the economy would have done better.

With decisive government action (see New Zealand), millions less people would have died, and the economy would have done better.

[klipt]

New Zealand does have the advantage of an ocean border and thus near total control on entries and exits.

Compared to the very porous land borders of the US.

[pocksuppet]

Come on, they're not that porous, certainly under a Trump administration. People fly into NZ too.

[Xunjin]

This argument is so flawed in many ways, economies are built by people for people. Extrapolate the numbers, let's say in the COVID Pandemic a country, take USA as example, has 10% percentage of their population killed by it, would that be better to the economy?

[etcimon]

There's multiple ways to look at the economy, the raw exchange of dollar currency in a debt chase (shit I need to run faster & pay down this stuff!), there's the productivity of industrial output (shit we need to sell more junk and useless crap!), and there's the stock and productivity in optimal life cycles (Damn, that Nokia is a tank!)

If 10% of the population went away, it would affect 1 & 2, but in any true practical lens, there's a ton of cheap empty houses, while on the other hand building repairable stuff that lasts or enough cheaply is where economies move to more complex technologies by saving time and effort in useless endeavour of debt chases or consumption-oriented wasteful productivity

[pocksuppet]

Economies are built by rich people for rich people. A few million poor people dead doesn't really make a dent in them.

[rdbl27]

The case of Sweden entirely falsifies the theory that "it would've been much worse without government action."

No government action whatsoever was taken in Sweden. None. Death rates were no better or worse than adjacent countries that intervened extensively.

Ergo, government intervention was irrelevant one way or another.

[arkh]

> The next one is likely to be a doozy

The US, EU, China are teetering on the edge of a crisis. Russia is well on its way.

I feel like 2008 was just a warmup to what may be coming.

[davedx]

The EU is not "teetering on the edge of a crisis", why do you say that?

[cezart]

Not OP but, EU economy is being squeezed by China on the industrial and tech front, and by the US on the innovation/startup front. It is clear EU is no longer at the technological/economic frontier like it used to be 10-20 years ago. At the same time there are serious demographic, budgetary and political challenges all across the continent. Dragi's report covers some of these. It feels like the whole system might fall into a crisis soon if measures are not taken

[abirch]

Factor in that Europe is powerful partly because of its unity and there are many forces trying to undermine that.

[logicchains]

Europe became powerful before it was unified, and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.

[ben_w]

We first became powerful because we did the industrial revolution before anyone else, and used more of that capacity to fight the world (and win) than to fight each other.

When we fought each other, after the industrial revolution, that was the Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars.

> and ever since the creation of the EU it's been becoming less and less important on the world stage.

I wouldn't say it was "ever since the creation of the EU", but rather "roughly between WW1 and decolonisation". Post-Cold-War the EU has taken over from the former global importance of the member states, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

That said, east and South Asia are regaining their multi-millennia history of being the world's dominant power by virtue of having roughly half the total world population.

And to agree up-thread, there's plenty going that can rapidly turn the EU's economy into a disaster if not handled expertly.

[rullopat]

The motivation that the USA entered WWII was not because they were generous, but because the 3rd Reich was effectively becoming a big European nation, so they had to do something to avoid it. A unified Europe is a thread to the USA and Russia and maybe somebody else too.

[abirch]

Yes, Europe was powerful when they had colonies.

Currently, Europe can stand up against tech. Apple could easily prohibit iPhones from going into France but I doubt it cutting off the entire EU.

[pavlov]

So you’re saying that the war-ravaged Europe of 1946 that was split by the Iron Curtain and needed Marshall Aid was more powerful and important than today’s EU?

Insane take. But somehow people will go to any lengths to disparage the EU.

[logicchains]

More likely it just slowly declines like Japan. Or if anti-migrant sentiment continues growing at the current rate, it breaks into a race war when the AfD and PFN win the majority of votes in Germany and France respectively.

[Paradigma11]

I dont think these slow indicators and developments hold much water the next few decades. We have seen the first inklings what the brave new multipolar world is going to look like and it does not bode well for much of the world. As long as Russia breaks down before the shit really hits the fan, Europe should be fine(r) than most.

[neonstatic]

> Russia is well on its way.

Including the warmongering angry midget next to the US, EU, and China is funny. Russia's economy, before they decided to shoot themselves in the face, was the size of the Netherlands. Whether they are in a recession or not is irrelevant to anyone but them.

[ben_w]

I thought Russia was about 2x the Netherlands by nominal, and 5x by PPP?

More relevantly, they were one of the world's petrol stations, and now they're not.

[neonstatic]

You are right: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...

[cs702]

> the economy is filled with bullshit jobs, bullshit corporations, and bullshit products.

Yeah, it sure feels true.

There's even a book about it, you know, to help people cope with it:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691276786/on...