Comment by cbg0
9 hours ago
The anti-EU comments are always the same shape, unable to separate the EU from individual countries and misattributing country specific policies to the entire EU. Only a few countries in the EU have wealth taxes, and it's not the EU who imposed them. Disability pensions are not easy to get and require a lot of medical paperwork and approvals in most EU countries. And what does "so poor economically" even mean?
Right - the EU is not that powerful. If anything Europe's mistake has been not making it powerful enough, so there is possibility of competing with China and America.
Britain has left it and that's made a negative difference to our productivity. Large home markets are critical, when your two major competitors have large home markets.
Taxes and social services are cultural things in Europe, based on us understanding what a good way to use the wealth technology has given is. America understands this as well - it spends more on state healthcare than Europe does (yes, PPP adjusted), just not universally available.
That "just not universally available" is kind of the crux of it; all that money in a first world country and many people still fear that calling an ambulance will bankrupt them.
It’s the mentality of the electorate. Without serious, horrible pain, which I truly believe will be felt over the coming 25 years, politicians won’t be elected who really embrace it. The welfare state can’t continue its current form without new innovative companies operating at a global scale. You can point to a few successes but without a grand, EU-wide mentality-shift I will continue to visit Europe exactly as I see it: a sclerotic, decaying old-world system that’s best use is a museum for my tourist dollars