Europe faces ‘competitiveness crisis’ as US widens productivity gap [ft.com]

European workers have more rights that protect them from being worked into the ground?
- Governments trying real hard to remove them though

I look forward to a future where the elites stop playing monopoly against each other. Who cares if we're competitive?
- Everyone should. If we're not competitive, we become dependent on them. You know, the same thing that happened with Russia and we're now desperately trying to fix it.
  
  this assumes that:
  dependence is inevitable if Europe is not the most competitive.
  that economic competitiveness had anything to do with natural gas imports.
  that our economic system and its basic dynamics are unchangeable.
  that our needs are unchangeable.
  
  the natural gas situation wouldn't have been avoided if Europe were more 'competitive'; neither would any other geopolitical situation. instead the EU should have — and is currently — diversifying its domestic energy sources. the EU could also work on energy coöperation and reducing energy usage.
  interdependence works for everyone. independence is a destructive mindset.
  
  But if we're competitive then the only way is up, you then NEED growth.
  But that's just NOT possible.
  You CAN'T have infinite growth. That's not a thing.
  So either you can run after the "cool" kids that are chasing something that's unreachable, or you can come to terms and settle with "good enough" (the later has the benefit of not destroying the planet in the process)
- "Productivity" is how much a worker produces in an hour. Lower productivity means either that a people have to work longer hours, or make do with less. So, who cares? Pretty much everyone.
  
  this assumes that:
  all workers are 'producing' anything.
  all workers are serving real needs.
  the difference between supply and demand is really so low that any dip in 'productivity' would harm anything more than an executive's RoI.
  that the threat of this financial 'harm' necessitates more work.
  
  with the increase in 'productivity' over the last century, if we reduced our expectations, and stopped letting monopoly money run our entire society, and stopped burning surplus resources because it's 'unsold' or would drive down prices: we wouldn't need to work even 20% what is expected of us now.
  
  I'm economics, productivity just means labour hours divided by revenue. This has nothing to do with how hard, efficient or effective anybody works.
  
  You are such a silly goose haha.
  Have you heard of "machines"? Do you know what a tractor and a plow is? If you would have payed more attention in school you might know that we now only need 1% of the population to feed the other 99% ( 150 years ago we needed 90% of the population to feed every one)
  We. Don't. Need. More. Stuff.
  What we have is good enough.
  Thanks to "machines" humans don't need to work as much anymore to have the same standard of living.
  If you're struggling it's not because your productivity isn't high enough. It's because the elites create artificial scarcity. And you're buying straight into their lies 😂

Ah, our daily allotment of bullshit neoliberal propaganda has arrived.

The recent jump in US productivity comes after a massive fiscal stimulus centred on green industry
And the way they do it is by creating jobs in an industry that's important for our all future.
Others have explained why "productivity" is not the one and all messurement on how well a country /Europe does, but that Europe desperately needs to put money into their hands to get jobs in the green industry going, especially Germany, is definitely true. The Biden government made a huge effort creating these jobs, the question is if it isn't just going down hill from here with that after the next election.
- We had those jobs in Germany but then the CDU sabotaged the solar and wind industries.