@marcosagusstinn Thank you Marcos for debunking this moronic talking point of Italy supposedly lagging economically due to the Euro. Italy has been stagnant in productivity growth terms long before the Euro
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Paolo Trani
187 posts
Italy economy was not destroyed by the euro.
Before the euro, Italy could hide weak competitiveness through repeated lira devaluations.
Since the 1980s, Italy has gradually fallen behind its main European peers in productivity growth. The IMF describes Italy as having suffered from sluggish productivity growth for nearly three decades.
After the euro, that currency-devaluation escape valve disappeared.
From that point, Italy had to compete through:
→ Higher productivity — stagnant for nearly three decades
→ Meritocratic and more competitive firms — Italy remains dominated by very small firms, many passed from parents to children or through insider networks, weakening professional management, meritocracy and scale.
→ Stronger R&D and innovation — Italy has a smaller VC market, weaker startup ecosystem and lower innovation intensity than Europe’s leading economies
→ Better technology adoption — one of Italy’s biggest weaknesses is the very slow adoption of new technologies by firms
→ Lower bureaucracy and stronger institutions — Italy remains held back by excessive administrative complexity, slow justice, powerful lobby networks and the persistent influence of organised crime in parts of the economy
→ A more sustainable state — high public debt, persistent fiscal deficits, demographic decline and rising pension pressures limit Italy’s ability to invest in growth
The euro did not sink Italy. It removed the ability to hide stagnation behind currency devaluation.
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It is a popular misconception that I dislike China. In fact I think China is awesome. It's just that:
1) China is currently ruled by idiot assholes (which is even more true of America!)
2) There's a small army of online China boosters who are really creepy and stupid and aggro
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@RichardHanania Richard, have you ever been to Europe ? Are you planning a trip at any point ?
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Fun fact: “Britain is the only country besides Iran to grant clerics automatic seats in its legislature.”
Maybe we need to liberate them next. economist.com/interactive/18…
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Japan hasn't yet contributed any more resources or aid in the Iran War than the EU (less actually, given bases/logistics), but it's managing the diplomacy (i.e. playing Trump) much more adroitly.
Hence Trump's rhetoric on them doing more than the NATO.
The Age of Vibes.
Rapid Response 47@RapidResponse47
Japanese Prime Minister @takaichi_sanae: "I firmly believe that it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world. To do so, I am ready to reach out to many of the partners in the international community to achieve our objective together." 🇺🇸🇯🇵
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This is the most beautiful urban run in the world. Sorry, Central Park doesn’t come close.
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@StefanFSchubert Amodei has demonstrated more backbone that the entire republic party over the past 10 years
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I highly recommend Claude, both because it's the best AI and because of this.
Polymarket@Polymarket
BREAKING: Trump orders all Government agencies to stop using Anthropic products. 97% chance Claude is banned.
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Trump admin wants to copy the Chinese model where businesses are totally subservient to government.
This has worked well in China, but it won't work in America for several reasons.
First, the Chinese government is more competent than the U.S. government. If you open the door to Trump and his cronies, they'll raid the coffers and kill the golden goose in a year. Biden's people wouldn't fare much better, but they would kill it with environmental and social justice requirements.
Second, U.S. economic growth has always been powered by creative destruction. Once government is working hand-in-glove with established businesses, the startup economy will be slowly strangled by barriers to competition.
This said, Dario's view that Claude shouldn't be used in military applications is naive and short-sighted. The enemies of America are amplifying their militaries with AI as quickly as they can, and the U.S. lead in AI is incredibly thin. Stopping our military from using AI will only increase the global influence of America's enemies. We have our problems, but the other superpowers are unconditional worse for human well-being. Ceding the future to China is not going to create a future in line with Anthropic's values.
Also worth noting that this is a pure power play by Hegseth. OpenAI is already willing to play and probably Google, there's nothing they need from Anthropic that they can't get from the other companies. They can't stand anyone who won't bend the knee. They also know that twisting Anthropic's arm will help to bring the other firms in line.
Andrew Curran@AndrewCurran_
Update on the meeting; according to Axios Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Dario Amodei until Friday night to give the military unfettered access to Claude or face the consequences, which may even include invoking the Defense Production Act to force the training of a WarClaude
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@ChristophePenl1 @EugenieBastie Bah, j’ai la même sensation, mais je suis italien
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@EugenieBastie Tellement honte ce soir... Tellement honte d'avoir un type pareil pour nous représenter à l'international.
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@pegobry_en Your experience amounts to n=1. I don’t think it’s enough to make a dent into this argument which is backed by significant economic literature
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Sorry but this is retarded. Source: I have started and run companies in France and in the US, I attended the top law school in France 2005-2008. France has gone through numerous rounds of liberalization of its labor market since 2002, with no visible impact on innovation or productivity or what-have-you. As a CEO in France I wouldn't have listed labor law in the top 5 of my concerns; I don't know any French CEO who would say the same. After Macron passed his big labor law reform in 2017, the Wall Street Journal asked me to do a piece on it, I couldn't find a single pro-market legal expert who would say labor law was a big problem in France anymore. Meanwhile the US has tons of onerous labor market regulations, particularly around DEI and healthcare (thanks Obama!) which aren't problems in Europe. Obviously there are many ways that French labor laws could be improved or reformed, but the idea that this is THE big difference between Europe and the US, that in Europe it's a socialist nightmare and the US is some sort of free market utopia when it comes to labor regulation, is just not true.
Pieter Garicano@pietergaricano
Why don't European companies innovate? It is common to blame expensive energy, high taxes, anti-growth politicians, interest groups, and green regulations. But California has the same problems, and has created the world's most innovative companies. Europe's problem is labor law. Compared with America, it's far harder to let workers go when a business doesn't work out. worksinprogress.co/issue/why-euro… - It costs a large company roughly four times more to fire a worker in Germany or France than the US. - German law requires employers to consider age, years of service, family obligations, and disability status when deciding who to lay off. Employees who would be least impacted by losing their job are prioritized for dismissal. - German employees who take on a caregiving role are fully protected from dismissal for two years from the date they begin caregiving. - Factory closures in Germany regularly lead to payments of over €200,000 per employee. - French companies must be prepared to show a court that their financial results are struggling enough to make layoffs necessary. - To avoid the difficulties of formal dismissals, many European companies entice workers to depart voluntarily, with payouts of up to four years' salary. Taken together, a German worker is ten times less likely to be fired in a given year than an American worker. This high cost of firing makes failures more expensive. It pushes big European companies away from taking risks and leads them to concentrate on safe, unchanging areas. Europe has the ingredients needed to succeed. Its citizens are educated and inventive; it has excellent infrastructure and the rule of law; and its culture is not that different from the one it had fifty years ago, when its companies were world-beating. If Europe wants to a Tesla or a Google, it only needs to make it cheaper for companies to fail. My new piece for @WorksInProgMag.
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@pl_european The reality is we need to work both harder and smarter in Europe if we want to keep up with the competition
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This is bullshit, we need the workforce to work smarter not harder. Working longer hours does not make the workforce more productive, destroying work-life balance does not make the workforce more productive. Sure, Germany still uses fax machines 🙃
Clash Report@clashreport
German Chancellor Merz: The prosperity our country enjoys today cannot be maintained in the future with work-life balance and a four-day week. That's why we need to work harder. Source: AFP / Jan. 15, 2026
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@GuidoLange @clashreport Because he is in a coalition with the useless SPD
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@clashreport He is literally doing nothing to change anything here. The only thing left after one year of his reign is a long list of broken promises.
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Germany's Merz:
We must deregulate every sector. I call for a “regulatory clean slate.”
Minor corrections to laws are not sufficient. We need to systematically review the whole set of existing EU legislation.
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@robin_j_brooks @micheleboldrin conversazione con Robin su questo argomento ?
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The Euro must end. Poland doesn't want to join, so we're left taking places like Bulgaria, where it's totally unclear if the country is actually aligned with Western Europe. Just look at Bulgaria's imports from China, which are going through the roof...
robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/why-euro-bre…
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@actsmaniac Bro you are wasting your time with these type of people imo
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why the specific dislike of Germany and Poland lmaooo
t@morelikeacurse2
@actsmaniac @Y40IFRQTTING You’re German I’m gonna be honest you don’t really get a say. When I think of a nation of subservient cattle people I imagine Germany or Poland. Don’t worry though my chuddy we will free you and give you sentience some day.
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@TheWickedJJ @james_akw Bro, did you even read the paper you cited ? They admit it themselves they have established no causal link. It’s not like citing research papers without understanding them helps your case here
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@J_Locke95 @james_akw One of the things I find most reliable on here is that ignorant people will inevitably assume the person they're talking to is as ignorant about a topic as they are.
Anyway, there's no shortage of research on this topic.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
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Immigration is not a solution to low birth rates or population ageing. Even EU-commissioned studies conclude it can, at best, buy time, not reverse the trajectory. And this is not a restrictionist talking point. Explicitly pro-immigration accounts concede the same basic reality.
Deccaner@Deccaner
@james_akw Someone needs to take care of your elderly and their pension
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@J_Locke95 @james_akw Diversity depresses birth rates, so the best thing we can do for native fertility is to reduce it. A lot.
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@aa_gilli @Dario_Garuti Andrea, quali soluzioni proponi ? La dipendenza tecnologica è totale ? Che fare realisticamente ?
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@Dario_Garuti No, gli USA ci stanno spiegando il polso, mi pare ovvio, ma non c’è problema se non l’hai capito. Qualcuno pensa di poter liberarsi dando una botta, solo che noi siamo a mani nude e loro in una corazza piena di punteruoli…
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Some want to clash with the U.S. in this historical phase…
“For decades, Europe has relied on the U.S. for security, Russia for energy and China as a growing export market. Now it depends on the U.S. for all three.
Today, the European Union sends about one-fifth of its exports to America, its biggest international market, and relies on the U.S. for about one-quarter of its natural-gas supplies. The largest U.S. military base in Germany has more soldiers than the biggest German base there.
It isn’t just energy, trade and security. Europe relies on U.S. technology and financial services. Visa and Mastercard control around two-thirds of card spending in Europe. Around 80% of German companies say they rely on U.S. digital technologies and services.”
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