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Europeans live the way they do because of unbelievable amounts of wealth and innovation accumulated through centuries which is being spent. None of that is guaranteed in a failing , aging europe. It's not food-safe, nor energy-safe. Not thinking about a sustainable future is fatally myopic

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Or because of unbelievable amounts of rights won through political struggle, which cannot be spent, only lost through getting complacent.

Europe was a lot poorer in the 80's. China today has a higher GDP-per-capita then the EU did in the 80's. India has a higher GDP-per-capita than the EU had in the 70's.

If you have a decent political culture, you don't need a lot of money to avoid the worst kinds of poverty.

I disagree. Basically all Europe were in shambles 80 years ago, Communism was destroyed only 30 years ago. We still 4 wars in the last 30 years in Europe.

The accumulated wealth is long gone.

And Putin is threatening another major war in Europe with NATO, it's pretty crazy to assume that Europe has not issues happening or has gotten complacent just because they don't want to work 50 hours a week.

It's actually a surprise that Europe is a rich part of the world.

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