European industry is doing better than you may think

(economist.com)

55 points | by andsoitis 1 day ago

4 comments

  • randypewick 17 hours ago
    • PorciiVorbesc 11 hours ago
      Thanks but the quality of the article is so low full of handwavy out of touch opinions dethatched form the real world. Like this: "This means Europe[...] should stop mourning old industries and ensure it can harness the power of AI and other new technologies to boost productivity."

      It's like the author only looked at a graph and decided everything is rosy and you just need to add some AI on top to be perfect. And even funnier, the graph used in the article is from 2024. Like bro, you're 2 years out of date. Industry today, especially automotive is way worse than it was in 2024.

      Sorry, but this isn't in any way a well researched article, but more of armchair Redditor opinion piece.

      • izacus 5 hours ago
        It's Economist, their reporting in Europe was always very heavily biased and not very well researched.
  • dominotw 10 hours ago
    Everyone has bought all the cheap shit that they could ever buy from china. There isnt perpetual demand for cheap chinese stuff. PPl are sick of it.
    • lambda_lord 8 hours ago
      China makes products across all quality levels now, and local industry often cannot compete with China on price. Even if you don’t want to buy from China, the Chinese product will be compelling for a lot of people.
    • rwyinuse 8 hours ago
      Sometimes that cheap shit is better than European made stuff, unfortunately. I've had to order shoelaces from Aliexpress, because the only brand sold by my local supermarket (made in EU) is poor quality and breaks quickly. The Aliexpress version I found is half the price and much more durable. And don't get me even started on bathroom equipment... So much low quality crap is being sold, no matter where it was made.
    • pipes 10 hours ago
      Why do you think there isn't perpetual demand for cheaper goods and why do you think people in general are sick of cheaper goods?
      • throwaway270925 8 hours ago
        He's not talking about "cheaper goods", he's talking about "cheap shit" - thats different things...
        • pipes 8 hours ago
          Does.not address what I'm asking. It's a blanket statement without evidence.
    • bluecalm 8 hours ago
      C'mon man. Cheap shit is the best way to raise quality of living for low income/poor families. You can buy everyday useful things for your home at like 1/3 of the price in those Chinese shops in many EU countries (Spain being a prime example with a lot of them everywhere).

      There is huge demand for it and it is perpetual. Just walk into those stores and see how many people shop there.

  • aaron695 14 hours ago
    [dead]
  • altern8 17 hours ago
    WOW, the want you to pay for articles like these? It's just a handful of paragraphs
    • eigenspace 12 hours ago
      This sort of reasoning was always stupid, but it was more excusable before LLMs. Now that there's LLMs everywhere inflating word-counts with slop, you'd think that people would have learned by now to appreciate when an author doesn't over inflate an article which doesn't need to be very long.
    • nasmorn 9 hours ago
      It’s so shallow I learned nothing and way too short as well.

      You could ask an LLM to make it longer

    • watwut 13 hours ago
      If they can write the same with fewer words, it is better.
    • ForHackernews 15 hours ago
      it's a whole magazine. you pay for the magazine, not this one article.
      • altern8 4 hours ago
        Ah, that makes sense