The Economist is confusing efficiency with competitiveness. There is no doubt that the EU must do more to improve production efficiency, but if a more productive EU means higher wages (and it should), an increase in EU productivity won't make it any more competitive.
The point is that the more "competitive" manufacturing economies – the ones that run persistent trade surpluses – are not the most productive or efficient economies. They are mainly the ones that keep wages from growing in line with productivity, which is why domestic demand in those economies isn't able to keep pace with production, and why growing exports does not result in growing imports.
Suppressing demand may be good for those countries that do it most effectively, as they can grow faster by using an open global trading system to externalize the costs of weak demand by running large trade surpluses, but it is bad for overall global growth, as Keynes pointed out at Bretton Woods. What the world needs is less income inequality, faster wage growth, and more demand.
Muscles only grow when you rest, after having stressed them during exercise.
Wisdom is the same. You can only grow wise once you cringe, having stressed your mind by being retarded.
@buttholemuseum thou art more longitudonal, and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and phallus' lease hath all too short a date.
@Johnie36149708@50ptMAE Would require a statesman, a builder, to think of the future. They wanted a businessman at the helm, and a businessman they got. Salesman comes to your door you get annoyed. Salesman gets name on the ballot paper they cheered. Curious how that works.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings” was never really quite right, because actually it’s feelings that matter and basically nothing else. The whole point is to create a society in which human beings can flourish. The whole point is human feelings. It’s literally the whole point. Everything we’re doing is for human feelings. If people are sad in the richer, safer society, then the richer, safer society is worse. Because the whole point is for human beings to live lives that they enjoy living. That’s literally the whole point. Nothing else could possibly matter. Everything we do is in service of that. Everything else is a means to that end.
@Johnie36149708@madrush222 slaveowners still profit...before the AI overlords see what kind of tokens are being used on what and duplicate the slaveowners business overnight, poaching the god tier legacy dev along the way for a marginal salary increase
You can't actually just go out and get a job. Want to try out a field? You can't. You must commit to it blind by pursuing an educational pathway first. Don't like the field? Too bad, fuck you. This new state of affairs is fairly unbelievable & key divide between olds & young.