Why Europe is rich?

[Enrico32]

Europe buys consumer goods from China, food from Latin America (fruit, meat), Africa (fruit) and also China (Chinatowns sell specific fresh food imported from China).

But it sells nothing in return! Larger developed countries (Australia, US, Russia, Saudi Arabia) sell natural resources, so their dependence on imports is justified. But European countries trade mostly with each other, so it remains a mystery how their could afford imported things from Asia, Africa, Latin America.

Cases like European tycoons owning Asian factories or Asian companies maintaining their head/financial offices in Europe do exist but seem exceptions to me. Unless you'd say every European commoner owns something connected with China trade.

[Dirk]

Germany is always among the top 10 of countries which exports cars, machines and other commodities. In some years it is at the very top.

[hoss]

Look here:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statis...trade_in_goods
and here:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statis...Trade_in_goods

[Roubignol]

Maybe because every non-European leaders in the world know that's in Europe where there is the highest concentration of the most brutal humans on this planet.

Nobody has the least interest to see Europeans becoming poor. It's better to buy peace with charms that to wake up the Leviathan.

[Estreeter]

I have a brilliant idea

I think we should make all of Europe poor, poorer than Africa in fact

Just to satisfy you all

And I won’t have another headache thread to deal with

Impoverish Europe please

[hoss]

Just wait. Come the next ice age, Europeans will scramble south. Then Africans and Middle Easterners will have an opportunity to return the hospitality the are experiencing from Europe now.

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

I have a brilliant idea
I think we should make all of Europe poor, poorer than Africa in fact

Just to satisfy you all

I don't know, but most European countries (as well as the US) have trade deficit. It's a common fact yet nobody has explained how they can survive like that.

For smaller countries it's even more puzzling. For example, Iceland exports only fish and metals ($5 billion per year) and imports everything else ($6 billion per year). It gets from China 7% of imports but sells nothing in return (China has enough of fish and metals). Who can explain how is it possible?


Reminds of Communism where unnecessary factories were built and gas-petrol supplied for free for the sake of "international friendship", correct?

[Grisha666]

It sells stability. If you are rich in the PRC or Afrca, you dont trust your government to either keep its word or not to squeeze you later or even perhaps to still be around. Therefore if you have excess funds, where do you invest them. Nairobi/Shanghai/Krasnoyarsk/Caracas or Paris/Frankfurt/London (and New York or Vancouver).



You may have assets in Shanghai, but those are financed with borrowed money from the Municipal Government of Shanghia credit union and your persona funds are in Geneva. Yes you get a lower rate of return but you dont have to worry about confiscation by the next corrupt warlord or party functionary.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by hoss

Just wait. Come the next ice age, Europeans will scramble south. Then Africans and Middle Easterners will have an opportunity to return the hospitality the are experiencing from Europe now.

I've several times shared my time with Africans or Middle Easterners living far better in Europe than European working classes.

[hoss]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

I don't know, but most European countries (as well as the US) have trade deficit. It's a common fact yet nobody has explained how they can survive like that.

The explanation is that these highly developed countries have large and strong domestic markets. They consume themselves a lot of what they produce. It is in fact a typical trait of highly developed countries to have a trade deficit. International trade is not the only way to generate economic growth, that´s the "secret".