alt Hacker NewsA lot deeper than active wars and energy supply issues???
Europe's economy has been slowing down since 2007, which is the peak of conventional oil. The problem of Europe is that is doesn't have access to abundant energy like the US does. The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.
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The problem Europe has is an allergy to people making money. Oil prices aren't what drove every Euro tech worker to San Francisco for 25 years.
>The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.
The most valuable American companies are not exactly in energy-intensive industries:
If have a hard time linking a slowdown from 2007 on to oil instead of the GFC.
If you measure economical performance with PIB per capita, yeah, for sure, US has a better economy.
If you measure with anything else useful like (healthy) life expectancy or happiness level, state of the democracy, etc... like if you think the the economy must serve the people and not the other way, I'd say Europe is way more successful despite the real issues.
Actually, I'm baffled at how US performs poorly for their people given they have abundant energy. Norway and Iceland also have abundant energy and their people are seeing the benefits.