Current Affairs EU In or Out

[Bruce Wayne]

Providing a framework and goal for ex-Soviet colonies to modernise and democratise is the EU's best achievement.

You're right about European enterprise. The US has the richest and most influential tech companies in the world - Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple etc. The EU, with its much larger population, a larger internal market and equivalent educational resources doesn't have anything at all to rival any of them. The single market is more concerned with selling Audi's and BMW's, so the digital single market in services doesn't exist. EU regulators focus too much on breaking up dominance rather than nurturing the creativity that allows companies such as Amazon to achieve dominance, thrive and provide wealth and influence.

I've wanted out of the EU for well over a decade because it is clear how uncompetitive and archaic it is, a huge, unnecessary political project that is continually beset with crisis, gridlock and disparate conflicting interests. If I thought the project was worth pursuing, I would be the first to advocate Britain being right in there, taking the lead and contributing as much as anyone, but it is clearly an outdated model, a 1950's solution to a 1930's problem, completely unfit for the modern world.

How has the EU harmed the chances of startups in Europe, and do you have concrete examples of both the startups in question and how their prospects have been harmed?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I see the Japanese government have said in advance of May's visit that not only do they think Brexit is a bad move but they are also prioritising a trade deal with the EU rather than us. Abe must hate Britain as much as Obama or something.

 

[peteblue]

I see the Japanese government have said in advance of May's visit that not only do they think Brexit is a bad move but they are also prioritising a trade deal with the EU rather than us. Abe must hate Britain as much as Obama or something.

Let's see what is said upon her return......and of course the EU deal will be a priority, we don't even leave until 2019.....

 

[abelard]

Providing a framework and goal for ex-Soviet colonies to modernise and democratise is the EU's best achievement.

You're right about European enterprise. The US has the richest and most influential tech companies in the world - Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple etc. The EU, with its much larger population, a larger internal market and equivalent educational resources doesn't have anything at all to rival any of them. The single market is more concerned with selling Audi's and BMW's, so the digital single market in services doesn't exist. EU regulators focus too much on breaking up dominance rather than nurturing the creativity that allows companies such as Amazon to achieve dominance, thrive and provide wealth and influence.

I've wanted out of the EU for well over a decade because it is clear how uncompetitive and archaic it is, a huge, unnecessary political project that is continually beset with crisis, gridlock and disparate conflicting interests. If I thought the project was worth pursuing, I would be the first to advocate Britain being right in there, taking the lead and contributing as much as anyone, but it is clearly an outdated model, a 1950's solution to a 1930's problem, completely unfit for the modern world.

thoughtful post, cheers

^that is certainly how Silicon Valley likes to brand itself (and how the Anglosphere self-servingly imagines Europe).

I think this is much closer to what is happening though:
http://www.newgeography.com/content...icon-valley-will-finish-it-off#undefined.uxfs

"Americans justifiably take pride in the creative and entrepreneurial genius of Silicon Valley. The tech sector has been, along with culture, agriculture, and energy, one of our most competitive industries, one defined by risk-taking and intense competition between firms in the Valley, and elsewhere.

This old model is fading. All but shielded from antitrust laws, the new Silicon Valley is losing its entrepreneurial yeastiness—which, ironically enough, was in part spawned by government efforts against old-line monopolists such as ATT and IBM. While the industry still promotes the myth of the stalwart tinkerers in their garages seeking to build the next great company, the model now is to get funding so that their company can be acquired by Facebook or one of the other titans. As one recent paper demonstrates, these “super platforms” depress competition, squeeze suppliers and reduce opportunities for potential rivals, much as the monopolists of the late 19th century did (PDF). The rush toward artificial intelligence, requiring vast reservoirs of both money and talent, may accelerate this consolidation. A few firms may join the oligarchy over time, such as Tesla or Uber, but these are all controlled by the same investors on the current Big Five.

This new hierarchy is narrowing the path to riches, or even the middle class. Rather than expand opportunity, the Valley increasingly creates jobs in the “gig economy” that promises not a way to the middle class, much less riches, but into the rising precariat—part-time, conditional workers. This emerging “gig economy” will likely expand with the digitization of retail, which could cost millions of working-class jobs.

For most Americans, the once promising “New Economy,” has meant a descent, as MIT's Peter Temin recently put it, toward a precarious position usually associated with developing nations. Workers in the “gig economy,” unlike the old middle- and working-class, have little chance, for example, of buying a house—once a sure sign of upward mobility, something that is depressingly evident in the Bay Area, along the California coast, and parts of the Northeast.

Certainly the chances of striking out on one’s own have diminished. Sergei Brin, Google’s co-founder, recently suggested that startups would be better off moving from Silicon Valley to areas that are less expensive and highly regulated, and where the competition for talent is not dominated by a few behemoths who can gobble up potential competitors—Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype, LinkedIn, Oculus—or slowly crush them, as may be happening to Snap, a firm that followed the old model and refused to be swallowed by Facebook but went through with its own public offering. Now the Los Angeles-based company is under assault by the social media giant which is using technologies at its Instagram unit, itself an acquisition, that duplicate Snap’s trademark technologies and features.

Snap’s problems are not an isolated case. The result is that the number of high-tech startups is down by almost half from just two years ago; overall National Venture Capital Association reports that the number of deals is now at the lowest level since 2010. Outsiders, the supposed lifeblood of entrepreneurial development, are increasingly irrelevant in an increasingly closed system.

The New Hierarchy
For all its talk about “disruption,” Silicon Valley is increasingly about three things: money, hierarchy, and conformity. Tech entrepreneurs long have enjoyed financial success, but their dominance in the ranks of the ultra-rich has never been so profound. They now account for three of world’s five richest people—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—and dominate the list of billionaires under 40.

Unlike their often ruthless and unpleasant 20th century moguls, the Silicon Valley elite has done relatively little for the country’s lagging productivity or to create broad-based opportunity. The information sector has overall been a poor source of new jobs—roughly 70,000 since 2010—with the gains concentrated in just a few places. This as the number of generally more middle-class jobs tied to producing equipment has fallen by half since 1990 and most new employment opportunities have been in low-wage sectors like hospitality, medical care, and food preparation.

The rich, that is, have gotten richer, in part by taking pains to minimize their tax exposure. Now they are talking grandly about having the government provide all the now “excess” humans with a guaranteed minimum income. The titans who have shared or spread so little of their own wealth are increasingly united in the idea that the government—i.e., middle-class taxpayers—should spread more around.

Not at all coincidentally, the Bay Area itself—once a fertile place of grassroots and middle-class opportunity—now boasts an increasingly bifurcated economy. San Francisco, the Valley’s northern annex, regularly clocks in as among the most unequal cities in the country, with both extraordinary wealth and a vast homeless population.

The more suburban Silicon Valley now suffers a poverty rate of near 20 percent, above the national average. It also has its own large homeless population living in what KQED has described as “modern nomadic villages.” In recent years income gains in the region have flowed overwhelmingly to the top quintile of income-earners, who have seen their wages increase by over 25 percent since 1989, while income levels have declined for low-income households."

All things considered, thank god we still have Europe

 

[peteblue]

thoughtful post, cheers

^that is certainly how Silicon Valley likes to brand itself (and how the Anglosphere self-servingly imagines Europe).

I think this is much closer to what is happening though:
http://www.newgeography.com/content...icon-valley-will-finish-it-off#undefined.uxfs

"Americans justifiably take pride in the creative and entrepreneurial genius of Silicon Valley. The tech sector has been, along with culture, agriculture, and energy, one of our most competitive industries, one defined by risk-taking and intense competition between firms in the Valley, and elsewhere.

This old model is fading. All but shielded from antitrust laws, the new Silicon Valley is losing its entrepreneurial yeastiness—which, ironically enough, was in part spawned by government efforts against old-line monopolists such as ATT and IBM. While the industry still promotes the myth of the stalwart tinkerers in their garages seeking to build the next great company, the model now is to get funding so that their company can be acquired by Facebook or one of the other titans. As one recent paper demonstrates, these “super platforms” depress competition, squeeze suppliers and reduce opportunities for potential rivals, much as the monopolists of the late 19th century did (PDF). The rush toward artificial intelligence, requiring vast reservoirs of both money and talent, may accelerate this consolidation. A few firms may join the oligarchy over time, such as Tesla or Uber, but these are all controlled by the same investors on the current Big Five.

This new hierarchy is narrowing the path to riches, or even the middle class. Rather than expand opportunity, the Valley increasingly creates jobs in the “gig economy” that promises not a way to the middle class, much less riches, but into the rising precariat—part-time, conditional workers. This emerging “gig economy” will likely expand with the digitization of retail, which could cost millions of working-class jobs.

For most Americans, the once promising “New Economy,” has meant a descent, as MIT's Peter Temin recently put it, toward a precarious position usually associated with developing nations. Workers in the “gig economy,” unlike the old middle- and working-class, have little chance, for example, of buying a house—once a sure sign of upward mobility, something that is depressingly evident in the Bay Area, along the California coast, and parts of the Northeast.

Certainly the chances of striking out on one’s own have diminished. Sergei Brin, Google’s co-founder, recently suggested that startups would be better off moving from Silicon Valley to areas that are less expensive and highly regulated, and where the competition for talent is not dominated by a few behemoths who can gobble up potential competitors—Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype, LinkedIn, Oculus—or slowly crush them, as may be happening to Snap, a firm that followed the old model and refused to be swallowed by Facebook but went through with its own public offering. Now the Los Angeles-based company is under assault by the social media giant which is using technologies at its Instagram unit, itself an acquisition, that duplicate Snap’s trademark technologies and features.

Snap’s problems are not an isolated case. The result is that the number of high-tech startups is down by almost half from just two years ago; overall National Venture Capital Association reports that the number of deals is now at the lowest level since 2010. Outsiders, the supposed lifeblood of entrepreneurial development, are increasingly irrelevant in an increasingly closed system.

The New Hierarchy
For all its talk about “disruption,” Silicon Valley is increasingly about three things: money, hierarchy, and conformity. Tech entrepreneurs long have enjoyed financial success, but their dominance in the ranks of the ultra-rich has never been so profound. They now account for three of world’s five richest people—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—and dominate the list of billionaires under 40.

Unlike their often ruthless and unpleasant 20th century moguls, the Silicon Valley elite has done relatively little for the country’s lagging productivity or to create broad-based opportunity. The information sector has overall been a poor source of new jobs—roughly 70,000 since 2010—with the gains concentrated in just a few places. This as the number of generally more middle-class jobs tied to producing equipment has fallen by half since 1990 and most new employment opportunities have been in low-wage sectors like hospitality, medical care, and food preparation.

The rich, that is, have gotten richer, in part by taking pains to minimize their tax exposure. Now they are talking grandly about having the government provide all the now “excess” humans with a guaranteed minimum income. The titans who have shared or spread so little of their own wealth are increasingly united in the idea that the government—i.e., middle-class taxpayers—should spread more around.

Not at all coincidentally, the Bay Area itself—once a fertile place of grassroots and middle-class opportunity—now boasts an increasingly bifurcated economy. San Francisco, the Valley’s northern annex, regularly clocks in as among the most unequal cities in the country, with both extraordinary wealth and a vast homeless population.

The more suburban Silicon Valley now suffers a poverty rate of near 20 percent, above the national average. It also has its own large homeless population living in what KQED has described as “modern nomadic villages.” In recent years income gains in the region have flowed overwhelmingly to the top quintile of income-earners, who have seen their wages increase by over 25 percent since 1989, while income levels have declined for low-income households."

All things considered, thank god we still have Europe

Nice article until you added the last line. The original post was decrying the uncompetitive nature of the EU......

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Nice article until you added the last line. The original post was decrying the uncompetitive nature of the EU......

I'm still wondering how the EU harms the prospects of startups.

 

[Raindog]

Nice article until you added the last line. The original post was decrying the uncompetitive nature of the EU......

...by holding up the example of Silicon Valley to explain that 'nurturing ... creativity ... allows companies such as Amazon to achieve dominance, thrive and provide wealth and influence' [Jamiednm].

The article details that actually all is not rosy, and that the creation of such behemoths doesn't have that effect and 'the Silicon Valley elite has done relatively little for the country’s lagging productivity or to create broad-based opportunity.' [abelard]

Monoploy =/= Competition, so thank god we still have a Europe which doesn't allow monopolies and is 'concerned with selling Audi's and BMW's,' [Jamiednm] to keep economies ticking over, rather then getting embroiled in a sector which is already under a stranglehold, and for which they are ill equipped.

At least, that's the way I read it.

 

[Connor]

 

[DanEFC92]

Pissing away £50b. Would be funny if I wasn't living here.

 

[peteblue]

Latest from the EU.....

"People who voted for Brexit made a “stupid” decision which could still be reversed by the British public, one of the EU’s most powerful officials said yesterday.

Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said it was “legally” possible for the UK to reverse its decision to leave."

I love listening to this guy, a 46 year old German Lawyer now a senior player in the EU.

So I am supposed to listen to this young, less experienced, bureaucrat who depends upon the EU budget for his income. Yet somehow, I, someone nearly 20 years older, with far more experience, made a stupid decision.......when did these kids decide that they knew everything......especially one that was just 3 when we joined.......

 

[Harryflashman]

Latest from the EU.....

"People who voted for Brexit made a “stupid” decision which could still be reversed by the British public, one of the EU’s most powerful officials said yesterday.

Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said it was “legally” possible for the UK to reverse its decision to leave."

I love listening to this guy, a 46 year old German Lawyer now a senior player in the EU.

So I am supposed to listen to this young, less experienced, bureaucrat who depends upon the EU budget for his income. Yet somehow, I, someone nearly 20 years older, with far more experience, made a stupid decision.......when did these kids decide that they knew everything......especially one that was just 3 when we joined.......

Surely you don't begrudge him his opinion ? I personally think you've made completely the wrong decision and I'm not paid by the EU but I don't challenge your right to that opinion nor anybody who voted out . I'll debate or chat over a beer with people I know who voted leave but I can't say they shouldn't have that opinion. Do you think he should just keep quiet ?

 

[peteblue]

Surely you don't begrudge him his opinion ? I personally think you've made completely the wrong decision and I'm not paid by the EU but I don't challenge your right to that opinion nor anybody who voted out . I'll debate or chat over a beer with people I know who voted leave but I can't say they shouldn't have that opinion. Do you think he should just keep quiet ?

No, but I wouldn't call anyone who voted remain 'stupid' or of having made a 'stupid' decision. He can have his view and if he wants to spell out the benefits of membership or the problems with leaving that is fine. But a judgemental view of those that made a decision that he doesn't agree with is a little bit, shall we say, 'stupid'.......

 

[Raindog]

Latest from the EU.....

"People who voted for Brexit made a “stupid” decision which could still be reversed by the British public, one of the EU’s most powerful officials said yesterday.

Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said it was “legally” possible for the UK to reverse its decision to leave."

I love listening to this guy, a 46 year old German Lawyer now a senior player in the EU.

So I am supposed to listen to this young, less experienced, bureaucrat who depends upon the EU budget for his income. Yet somehow, I, someone nearly 20 years older, with far more experience, made a stupid decision.......when did these kids decide that they knew everything......especially one that was just 3 when we joined.......

With respect, you may be older, but is your experience in the same field? Are you embroiled in the inner workings of the EU and are privy to it's finer points? As far as I know, you are. It's just that a lot of people were told to ignore expert advice during the vote as it was just 'Project Fear'.

And as for your last point, I take it you weren't born in 1878. Does that mean any EFC related opinion you hold should be discarded out of hand?

Edit: Just read your reply above. Fair enough if your beef is against the tone and the ill choice of wording. Then again, what adjectives do you think a doctor would use to describe someone who chopped off a foot to cure a broken toe?

 

[peteblue]

With respect, you may be older, but is your experience in the same field? Are you embroiled in the inner workings of the EU and are privy to it's finer points? As far as I know, you are. It's just that a lot of people were told t ignore expert advice during the vote as it was just 'Project Fear'.

And as for your last point, I take it you weren't born in 1878. Does that mean any EFC related opinion you hold should be discarded out of hand?

Not really, but he wasn't really around to see why we voted to join, or why we did, or indeed what it was that we thought we were joining. I've no problems him expressing his view as he understands it, but use of the word 'stupid', aimed at either the decision or the people who made it is a bit silly and unprofessional.......

 

[Raindog]

Not really, but he wasn't really around to see why we voted to join, or why we did, or indeed what it was that we thought we were joining. I've no problems him expressing his view as he understands it, but use of the word 'stupid', aimed at either the decision or the people who made it is a bit silly and unprofessional.......

Yeah, crossed posts. I've ammended the original post.