Mario Draghi proposed a new Marshall plan in investmemnts from national governments.
Mario Draghi wrote a report on European productivity and on why there is such a glaring disparity in productivity with the US.
Mario Draghi is an Italian economist and statesman, who was credited with saving the Euro back in 2012. He made a famous speech saying the European Central Bank would "do whatever it takes to save the Euro", which is credited which restoring faith in the European financial institutions underwriting the Eurozone.
Until 2009-11 EU productivty and GDP was broadly comparable with the US. In the 1990s/2000s Europe had a chance to compete with the US in IT but in todays world that has largely ended.
The chance of creating an European hyperscaler for cloud computing as an example looks to be extremely remote.
Draghi mentions that the educational institutions are not competitive enough and that captial markets need to be integrated. Also that Europe needs to give up trying to create a new Apple or Google and just focus on using the innovations generated by the IT revolution such as LLM's to just leapfrog into future industries and Green technologies.
To retain key competencies in cloud computing but not allocating billions in the hope of creating a trillion dollar enterprise.
What would any posters here propose? Please refrain from doomerism or that it is hopeless.
Only someone unversed in the aerospace industry could make such a claim. The barrier to entry is vast. It isnt like other industries where you can break things and rapidly innovate. Ive seen first hand how hard it is to translate innovation onto the factory floor. For example there is innovation on AI or more accurately neural nets for the complex software governing landing gears that is functionally impossible to implement. What already exists, is essentially a million line IF statement governing every atmospheric condition and different angle gradient. The trick is getting the new innovation past the regulator in such a way that it is demonstrably more safe.
What currently exists, presumably took decades to write and improve and tweak for every possible scenario and is extremely robust. It is also proprietary vital software out of control of both Airbus and Boeing. Meaning it is both expensive and creates a huge amount of leverage on the part of the supplier as no aircraft can be delivered without a landing gear and there is a very limited amount of companies who can produce it.
While the neural nets perform better in lab scenarios it is probable the innovation will never be permitted to be deployed as it is extremely difficult to demonstrate if it is superior and more crucially: safer, than the tried and tested horreondous milion line statement. It could take 5-10 years of further testing and its only objective may be to just have some leverage in negotations (that both parties will know is very weak ammunition).
The second bottleneck is you need a huge ecosystem of suppliers (much like the electric's ecosystem in Shenzhen) which can rapidly and safely fulfill purchase orders. The manufacturing is about the highest most precise manufacturing there is. Just to train someone to install parts on the assembly line can take 12-18 months. Also some suppliers such as CFMA, Rolls royce, P&W, GE will never entertain a small start up because why would they?
They plan production in terms of 5-10 years and they need deep commitments to satisfy their creditors and their workforce. Can a startup sign a 10-15 year service agreement that guarantees revenue for maintenance? Can a start up guarantee other types of corporate agreements on spare parts or engineering workshops or the other thousand myriad different exchanges of information.
These plants produce engines on maybe a monthly or quarterly basis. The parts inside the engines are protected on a national security basis as they are so difficult to manufacture. The engineering IP is a genuine national security risk as it can be translated into jet fighters.
Aerospace industry is about as open to disruption as big pharma is. Its surrounded by arcane redtape such as Airworthiness directives that are designed to make sure no one dies.
Where you could see innovation is electric or hydrogen for short haul flights on smaller planes. The problem is the batteries and hydrogen especially, can be more dangerous than the current kerosene. And again only shorthaul. For long-haul it is likely kerosene is never replaced bar some unforseen revolution in materials science not seen in 50-100 years. You cannot fudge the physics of weight, density and speed versus power output.
The MTOW (Max take of weight) for batteries is vastly higher than kerosene and the energy is used up far faster. The aerospace manufacturers are researching green jet fuel which could be a good way to reduce emissions.
The regulators will never slacken on the rigidity of the regulation. It is so easy to make a minor mistake in manufacturing that can result in a mass casuality event.
In fact for every new engineer that joins Airbus, they are first shown a musuem dedicated to all victims of previous disasters to demonstrate what is at stake and how important engineering excellence is.
If real prices reflected the production costs, the cost of meat would be 3X, 4X the cost. Milk is alreaded traded at a loss by the supermarkets. You'd also see most small medium sized farms gone within 5-10 years and see mass unemployment in many those same isolated villages
Countries like Brazil will become even bigger agri superpowers and finish converting all of the Amazon into a giant pasture for beef.
Anyone who is involved in farming knew this start up was a pie in the sky project. One thing about farming and especially farming in Europe is how regulated it is.
For example, you are not permitted to spread cow manure at certain times of the year due to risk of run-off or you get fined. That is one small example amongst dozens or hundreds (for beef farming). A cow is better tracked in Europe than a person is and I am not exaggerating. It can tracked its entire life from farm to farm and its entire health history is tracked. There are genomics testing, various other iniatives to ensure standards are adhered to. If you sell produce (milk/beef) that has antibiotics or too much bacteria in it, you can forbidden to sell that produce.
You cannot negotiate the price if selling to an abattoir or a creamery. The same exists for vegatables. There is no negotiation. On the Continent food prices change once a month. In the UK it is once a year. The farmer gets assessed for quality of his produce and receives a pre-determined price. No wiggle room no negotiation.
Farming mostly runs at an abject loss and the idea is you have a sliver of profit that is buffetted by a subsidies. It caps at 300k. The objective of this subsidy is also to protect small farms from being crushed by bad seasons and give economic stability to far flung regions and isolated villages.
Europe is also protected by immense tariffs and
barriers to entry that made it difficult for crops that are washed with pesticides (ie Ukranian wheat prior the war) to get into the market.
These tarriffs are reciprocated by other nations. It is functionally impossible for a US farmer to export beef or chicken to the EU due to rules on the presence of hormone, antibiotics for beef and chlorine washed carcasses for chicken.
The historical objective of the farm subsidies was to:
1. protect farmers from what national governments thought of as unfair competition
2. Avoid a repeat of the 'hungry 30's' (especially in Germany). Which destroyed the support for democracy and fuelled the rise of the extremist parties.
3. Give protection to massive peasant populations and stop them from supportng Communist parties post WWII. (France and Italy most especially).
In return other countries got expanded market accessses.
The biggest innovation in Europe specifically in crop growing since the 90s was the greenhouse produced vegatables created mostly in the Netherlands or Andalucia in Spain. However the crops are extremely sensitive to diseasea and blights and any kind of contamination can rapidly spoil a crop.
Agriculture is as highly regulated as pharmaceuticals or aviation, it is more politically rife and riven with competing lobby groups who still have immense sway in many national governments.
Also the European Union as a whole has some really odd views on specific technologies. The eurocrats are very skeptical and horrified by GMO food and effectively ban any usage in this area. This would be crucial for this particular start up for the aforementioned pollution and disease control.
Even pesticide you have to register your name with the local supplier and it is cross checked and verified and you can be subject to an inspection by a Agricultural officer to check if its stored correctly.
My point is this industry is so complex and regulated any disruption should be viewed with heavy skeptism if it isnt coming from either a biotechnology lab or a University with a heavy bankground in Agri-science. (ie Wageningen University in the Netherlands is one of the best in the world).
If you any commenter wants a decent picture of European farming have a look at 'Clarkson Farm' produced by Jeremy Clarkson.
I created an account just to refute this ridiculous comment.
Flaubert genius was he was incredibly economical in his writing. Salambo, Temptation of St Anthony, Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education are all so wildly different. Event translated into English the fragrant, elegance comes through. Nabokov, James Joyce, William James and Cormac McCarthy all tooks lessons from him and recognized the power of his writing.
The papers of Cormac McCarthy have some self inspired French poetry inspired from 'The Temptation of St. Anthony'. Scenes from Blood Meridian are inspired by the violence of certain scenes in the Temptation.
He was a massively talented genius writer. I think you were forced to learn and appreciate literature and any work that is administered in an academic setting loses its charm.
Denigrating Greek literature is incredibly dismissive. Some of the passages of the Illiad (the description of the shield of Achilles or the scenes of Hectors fear of impending death). Or the Odyssey (the dog recognizing Odysseus) remain the some of the most evocative, tragic scenes of all liteature.
Literature reflects the age in which it is written. Simply declaring all social critique is useful between the 60s and 80s robs you of any undestanding of the past.
Madame Bovary is a savage social critique of insipid provincial life. You can feel the scorn and disdain dripping off the pages. Flaubert had opinions on his own characters and was without any empathy for them.
This entire comment is indicative of a tech bro who had a bad experience in public schooling.
Many of the classics are classics for a reason because time is the greatest sieve of quality or they are essential to understanding the Western cannon and by extension the entirety of Western thought.