Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
In the 90s and early 2000s, Europe seemed so squarely ahead of us in the US. That switched so hard. What happened, and why did it happen?
What happened to Europe?
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Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
You'll have to do a lot better to sell me on this
Tahuti
Writing Deity
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The EU countries were arguably the biggest beneficiaries of the Soviet collapse, more than the USA in fact. Countries like Poland and Bulgaria couldn't ever hope to join without that and such gave the EU countries confidence. That mania waned. And the Greece thing.
Cheetah
Deity
Yeah, ahead in what way? You're skipping a few steps here. You need to describe the topic somewhat before asking us about it. 
Well, from where I sit it does not look like that too much. Of course, apart from the tiny insignificant detail that I now work for an American company, not for a German one - and I didn't have to change my job for that switch. The company was just sold and bought with me right at my desk.
Tahuti
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The challenge is on us, knowing Hygro.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
The challenge is on him to be clear if he wants answers.
Tahuti
Writing Deity
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He already has mine.
The rise of the EU in the 90s and early 2000s was pretty fast and pretty intense. It seemed like the whole world was getting swept up in Euromania. Perhaps their current struggles are simply a case of "the flame that burns twice as bright, only burns half as long."
Timsup2nothin
Deity
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Satellite imagery indicates that Europe is still there. What makes you think something has happened to it?
crabapple
I am watching
The Euro with combination of 2008 downturn happened
Ajidica
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Perhaps I was too young to remember the news but from what I've read I was under the impression that in the 90's a lot of European economies were going through some fiscal and monetary problems trying to accommodate the massive spending by the FDR on integrating the DDR and trying to meet the economic targets for adoption of the Euro.
There was a lot of wishful thinking going on with the expansion of the EU but I don't think it is very controversial to state that the EU expanded too fast for its own good and should have remained focused on western Europe.
Recently the EU's been having issues because they have a single currency -which is used by a bunch of not very similar economies- without great fiscal coordination between the Eurozone.
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Because of the euro the little countries like Greece could spend a whole lot more money, driving the economies of Europe. Then the bills came due and they can't pay it back. So, the economies tanked. Then the crazy bastards invited in as many potential terrorists, rapists, and thieves, mixed in with lots of good, normal people, and just threw their doors open to chaos. So, the whole of Europe is taking a nose dive, all led by their crazy leaders who 'only wanted to help' and thereby scrod the whole damn place.
Zkribbler
Deity
There was a worldwide economic crash.
Obama followed Keynesian doctrine and used spending to quickly pull the U.S. out of recession.
Europe adopted Hoover-style austerity. Southern Europe fell into depressions. Northern Europe went through double- and triple-dip recessions. These nations are just starting to recover.
Obama followed Keynesian doctrine and used spending to quickly pull the U.S. out of recession.
Europe adopted Hoover-style austerity. Southern Europe fell into depressions. Northern Europe went through double- and triple-dip recessions. These nations are just starting to recover.
A+ dad joke, would read again
That's true, but Europe is a tight knot of entities (EU being a massive aggregate of such entities, arguably inseparable from each other). And the fate of European continent is more or less tied to the fate of any of them. I can't imagine any European entity - be it part of EU or not, let alone the EU as a whole - going up or down without influencing all the other entities too.
tl;dr, Europe is like jelly: wherever you poke it, it wobbles all the way throughout.
tl;dr, Europe is like jelly: wherever you poke it, it wobbles all the way throughout.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
Many European countries and cities still outpace America in livability and happiness scores? If this is a more general "why isn't Europe dominating the world like the US" then that's because its population is dispersed into too many countries?
