> Why do so many people, especially on HN, confuse market cap or GDP growth for innovation?
It's not confusion. It's rather an acknowledgement to the reality that to fund a generous welfare state, one needs taxes. To tax, you first need a dynamic private sector economy. Taxing public sector is like shifting money from the left pocket to the right pocket.
GDP or stock market caps are just a proxy for the size of the private economy. Europe has lagged on both. Maybe there is something else which would indicate that European private sector is growing fine and dandy. I am not aware of it. Are you?
CERN innovation is awesome but it will need to be translated into private sector economic activity in order for the society to benefit from it; either directly via products and services, or indirectly via taxation and welfare programs based on that.
It's not confusion. It's rather an acknowledgement to the reality that to fund a generous welfare state, one needs taxes. To tax, you first need a dynamic private sector economy. Taxing public sector is like shifting money from the left pocket to the right pocket.
GDP or stock market caps are just a proxy for the size of the private economy. Europe has lagged on both. Maybe there is something else which would indicate that European private sector is growing fine and dandy. I am not aware of it. Are you?
CERN innovation is awesome but it will need to be translated into private sector economic activity in order for the society to benefit from it; either directly via products and services, or indirectly via taxation and welfare programs based on that.