Just wondering where I can send the MAGA hat and Trump flag? Europe could build their own chip fabs ya know.
Since AMD and Intel aren't European based companies, no, we can't.
And as far as I know, there's already at least 1 fab I know of of in Ireland which is owned by Intel. You're thinking simple and you say "Trump" where it's out of context. I didn't mention anything about that.
The idea of closing borders and keeping USA out of the exterior is not new. At start of WWII, if you had paid attention to your history class, you would have known they spend half the first part of the war out of the conflict, just selling weapons....until they got attacked and responded. You know the rest.
USA was certainly not having employment problems but you weren't 400M. Now you do, and finding the equilibrium is not that easy.
And closing physical and economical borders in a globalized world don't have the same result as it had in the 30's.
Shit, the only people I know making 4000-5000 a month that I've met in my life either work 60-80 hours a week or own their business. Otherwise, pretty used to seeing people work forty hours a week and "happy" to take home 1200-1500 roughly. Otherwise I don't totally disagree with your points, but I will say that going for some federal statistics has never been accurate to what I've learned in my time in this country.
In Europe you work 37-39h a week, but you're supposed to get paid extra for extra hours. Except either companies won't pay you saying it's "personal development" or they will kick you from the office so you won't be able to justify extra work.
You can't have multiple full time jobs.
You can't work more than 51hours a week (by law), so even if you wish to, you can't. Not legally.
You can't do anything, except having an a-hole job which basically tells you to sell overpriced things or scrap money out of the poorest pockets (rich can protect themselves).
I agree feds stats aren't representative, it's the gov. But the gap between rich people and "normal" people is huge in the US. See the salary of a doctor in the US. Meanwhile in Europe, it's mostly flat.
I worked 70-80h a week, working from 8am to 9pm straight every working day, and at least once or twice in a week we worked until midnight or worse. Extra hours paid ? Zero, nada, niet, nischt.
I did it during 6 years, and know I can earn a decent 2k/month, and I'm pretty good at my job. Now I just need to wait, pass certifications,get always better, and grab little by little each year. If I had not done that I would be stuck very low.
I also could be a shark and go from company to company, grabing 10% at least each 2years, but I think I still have a soul, so I'll keep it by upgrading 4-6% each year in the same company (I've stopped working 70h, now I work 40-45h avg).
The above for the USA is pretty misleading, as it shows wages only for the workforce. That ignores retirees, disabled, welfare cases, and so on. It appears you then go on to compare US workforce numbers to overall wages for Europe (including groups you excluded from the USA). When people retire, they make less money.
Europe :
en.wikipedia.org
Sort the chart at the bottom for avg wage for by year 2018 average high to low. Look at UK, above that line is mostly western europe. UK according to this has average monthly wage of 2,389 Euro = 2830 USD in 2018 - however I suspect this number because this also says their wages droppped from a high of 3755 Euro in 2015. I haven't heard of any economic catastrophe in UK that wiped out 1/3 of their GDP or income from 2015-2018.
Everything above UK on that chart sorted by 2018 income essentially comprises western europe. They range from 3373 for Sweden to 5645 for Norway ( Euro / month ). 3373 Euro right now = $3996/month in USD which is ~$48,000 USD / year. The high for Norway of 5645 Euro = $6,687 USD / month. Both of these are
significantly above the average individual income in the USA. It is only in Eastern Europe that you get really depressed wages. The average individual income in the USA in the same year 2018 was $39642. The questionable number for UK would be roughly on par with the USA about $35K usd vs $39K usd).
USA:
See median & average individual income by year (1962-2022) in the United States. And a tool to compare yearly income with optional inflation.
dqydj.com
Bottom line is, as far as labor cost, the income in the USA is lower than that of a western european country but higher than most of SE Asia and Eastern Europe. There are exceptions to that but that is the simplest way to look at it without getting into minutia of individual countries.
These wage issues are also overblown, I view it as disinformation from greedy corporations. Wages are rarely a big percentage of manufacturing operations costs, they are just an easy to get rid of factor. I believe it is typically 5-10% of cost to make. For all manufacuturing together, it is only 18.5% - and that is for all wages for everything. You'll never have zero wages, and my guess is even if you had literal slave labor for zero you wouldn't even get rid of even half of that cost because you still need marketing, sales, design, legal, executives and so on. Maybe if they got rid of the executives....
The biggest problem a lot of manufacturers have is the corporate tax rate. The corporate tax rate in France is 34.1%, China at 16.6%, and Taiwan at 10.1%. The USA was at 35%, and is now at 21%. Then there is regulations, and the impact that has to costs. The loss of manufacturing to Asia is not a one-dimensional problem, regardless of what self-appointed political partisans may say.
I read the whole thing, and indeed, it could look like we live well, but you have to consider some factors :
- we have VAT at 20-22% across many european countries
- while a 40m² in France costs 500€ to rent in big cities, it's nearly 800-900€ in Ireland, and worse in UK
- all continent opposes us taxes (US, China, etc.)
- we can't get things across Europe without internal taxes, not everywhere. It's not a federal state.
- in France, as you quoted it, tax over income for income for companies is 33% (last I checked), but you forgot a big point : for every euro they pay you, they have to give at least the same amount in social taxes to the country. The money goes to : healthcare, retired people, natural catastrophes, and a bunch of complicated things.
- when you retire you only touch 70-80% of your salary if worked enough (43 years in average) : if you do less, you lose like 5% for each semester not done !! Many people have another retiring system that they pay to compensate the loss of salary, and it's around 300€ a month. Like private retirement funds in the US, but smaller.
And last but not least : if you pay your CPU 500$ it's transformed into 500€ (mostly VAT effect). Magic !!
), but you’re wrong about the income gap: