The British Empire used to be the most powerful global actor by far in the world. But when Germany and USA manufactured better stuff, “Buy British” signs didn’t help, neither will “Buy European”. If we want to keep up with China and USA, we need to innovate

https://i.redd.it/eanr1kdcyfke1.jpeg

by KonserveradMelon

35 comments

  1. Lol, what does the US produce aside from weapons? Shitty cars? 

  2. Frugal countries have something to say, I’m afraid.

  4. Just start selling Sam Vimes Boot theory to everyone. Worked great for my shoes and coats: started saving a ton of money when I splurged on few expensive, locally made ones and no longer needed to keep replacing cheap s#it that just keeps breaking.

    And of course guys need to say how nice ladies look even when they’re ”re-wearing” clothes to show that it ain’t us guys who say bad things about something that is normal AF.

  5. So how’s Huaweis business in the USA going these days?

  7. That’s all true. But it doesn’t mean we have to buy American products. For example, don’t buy shit from Amazon for starters. Dont buy American cars or tools. Dont buy American wine or beer or spirits. If you ride motorcycles there is no need to buy a Harley Davison or an Indian. Machines of all kinds are produced in Europe. Contractors can buy stuff not made by Caterpillar.

    Stuff like IT and online stuff is harder but start actively searching for options. Get off Facebook and Instagram. Just because it will take time doesn’t mean we can’t start now.

    There is a long list of things people can find alternatives for right now. Preferably buy stuff sourced in Europe. The Americans have told you they don’t want your business. Let them have their wish. (And I am saying this as an American with dual citizenship. If Russia understands mainly violence and conquest, my home country worships and understands money and power. Take the money away and work to undermine their power. It’s the only thing we understand.)

  8. Outside of data services and some natural resources (LNG mostly) USA does not produce anything EU wants or needs. Cars are rubbish… Planes are fucking flying coffins. And the good thing about data services, they don’t take too much time and efforts to replicate (just look what Russia and China did).

  10. The loss of like 96% of their occupied countries could also be a big factor

  11. oh boy… reminds me of the origin “made in Germany” slogan

  12. I tend to agree in a bunch of aspects, but there is something else than _mearly_ the products and their price. There’s the network effect and the marketing. A lot of US products have much much better marketing and image, and that can and should be countered by campaigns such as these, awareness and image improvements. Even if the change isn’t 100% even a couple of percentage points can make a difference.

  13. So buy american it is the last stage of american dominance, then :))

  14. IIRC the “Made in Germany” was originally made mandatory to keep Britons from buying German-made goods. It has somewhat lost its shine, but it’s still a hallmark of quality.

  15. Bring back 2000s Nokia, ericsson, etc. 😢 Don’t sell ARM holdings and charge extra for licenses of non eu products… symbian os could have been our mobile eu OS 🥲

  16. The biggest issue really is marketing. There is a lot done well in the EU but they get little airtime compared especially to US products and services. Overall yes, quality in many areas needs to improve but consumers also need to be discerning and actively look past the marketing spiel and see if the product/service is actually as good as advertised.

  17. We need both buy European and innovation. They work in conjunction with each other.

    The big fail of the last 30 years was to value cheap stuff. To make us believe that cheap and free was good.

    We need to invest in our industries even if it means not respecting a couple of treaties. We need to educate and incentivise our population on buying European made stuff ; our spendings are our jobs. Innovation will follow.

    The key is to convince boomers that their duty is to help us the younger generations to prepare our future.

  18. Do we need to innovate? Of course!

    BUT we need to START adopt EU solutions and products. Yes, most of them less competative **for now.** Years of braindraining towards higher US funds and possibilites definetly cripple EU tech sector.

    But with new users and capital influx it will be much easier to kickstart a lot of great businesses in EU, especially in tech. Every action and migration to ours developers matters. Every percentage of revenue decrease hurt tech overlords.

  20. First we must inform US citizens about blue card EU.
    Many guys there think it’s the same sh1t as H1B

  21. Innovate? USA and China throws money at innovators with powerful domestic consumption power. Can Europe even throw remotely near amount of money? Or they will catch up with red tape and over obsession on environmental protection like they did with their EV and Battery project? Only time will tell but things aren’t looking good due to high tax and aging population.

  22. I don’t get all that fuss about european goods, honestly. Recently switched to mistral ai from chatgpt – no difference what so ever. Their biggest technological “advantage” right now for them americans is easily replicated by Eu and China.

    I’m driving french car, my furnitures are mostly ikea, my rig, phone, tv is mostly made in Asia. My biggest source of entertainment are English Premier League and italian’s serie A. I’m eating mostly locally produced meat and vegetables. I drink local or french wines. If I’m not grocery shopping in local stores I mostly use Lidl.

    The software I’m using for work is european.

    Biggest american “stuff” that is used by me and my surroundings are the socials which are actually god damn overflooded by far right propaganda to the point they are no longer usable at all. And OS’s on phone and PC.

    And by now everybody with few brain cells in their head should’ve came to conclusion that the american social networks are the biggest platform of the hybrid war waged upon us by russians and now americans.

    Europe is not in any case so technologically lag behind. We just don’t have own social networks cause we didn’t have any need to. But as for now and the completely overflood of x and facebook I can recall an EU soc network might pop any moment anyway. There is definitely a need for one right now.

    I don’t have any russian goods at home. There is “russian” or better called “cis” store in town and all the goods there coming from poland and the baltics lol.

    Stop eating the propaganda.

  23. times were different, i honestly don’t need innovation that much these days.. more like stable prices and non-temu quality

  24. It is baffling me how people are still believing in this. After everything the US has done those past weeks how is it possible to realize that Europe must be self-reliant (or at least with a highly reliable source) with regards to strategic products: weapons, it, energy, … Europe needs to stop to be the only place on Earth where people believe in unlimited free trade.

  25. Sure but innovation takes money, money comes from sales.

    So buy european, from companies who want more than just profits.

  26. I mean so many US products originate from Europe or are created by Europeans in the US. So many cheap Chinese knock offs are them just ignoring intellectual property on designs and processes from other countries.

    The problem is a buy EU problem. We need EU companies to be bought by EU companies. We need consumers to buy EU products so that we don’t have them compromised when we send them to a place that don’t recognise the costs it takes to design things.

  27. Well, the conservative parties in the parliaments need to hear this. They are the ones always trying to make “no more debt”. Yet, as a country you have to spend a lot of money into innovation, health care and basic needs for the population to thrive as well as the economy. I don’t want to throw random numbers, but I read something about a turnaround of 1:40 if the money gets spent into the innovative part of a budget.

  28. Maybe if the EU would stop being the puppet of the USA there would be hope. But since it was created by the USA it is designed to fail and be more and more irrelevant.

  29. The EU needs to become an actual political, supranational union rather than an economic union with some political nonsense tacked unto it.

    So long as one country can block progress there’s no point in continuing.

  30. I’m appalled by so many comments here. It’s not either this or that.
    Innovating in this context refers to a long way, not a split second act. If we can avoid buying american while we innovate, it’ll only accelerate our progress.

    Especially when switching costs are almost zero, it makes a lot of sense to make european choices.

  31. I completely agree with the sentiment of this post, but if Europe wants to innovate, it first needs to realise that it’s been stifling innovation with excessive regulations. You can’t regulate yourself into a leading market position.

  32. ELI5: why has Californian tech taken over the world so successfully? Why has Europe ‘failed’ to maintain a market share?

    Is it because America has a more secure common market to ramp up production?

  33. Brits created them most valuable brand the Made in Germany.

  34. Gets pretty hard to buy nothing from US and China, these days.

    And trust me, i know it personally. I try to buy local for years. It is really elaborate and expensive.

  35. There’s a little thing called marketing that makes worse stuff or useless stuf sell more. Reducing thigns to quality in this context is not the right analysis.

Comments are closed.