I live in Germany, which by some accounts, is the third largest economy, and we have literally no answer for what is next, economically. Neither in the public nor private sectors. Nobody is investing, nobody is building new things, nobody even knows what to do next. But the story is the same throughout Europe as far as I can see. All industries hope to keep selling the same old shit. But the 3rd world is catching up. They can manufacture goods that are just as good, and for much cheaper. Heck, some can even do it cleaner too, since they have access to cleaner energy sources. But we also have no real 21st century income streams.
It looks to me as though, only the US and China are undertaking really innovative projects.
Is my reading of the situation flawed? I would love to have your input.
I think that is a very negative view on Germany and Europe that comes mainly from reading too many news. The media always report when something goes wrong, but rarely if something is working right.
One example: passenger aircraft. Boeing is struggling and China does not seem to be able to make the strong impact that was theorised. Europe is the global powerhouse in that regime. And especially Germany is really strong in a lot of areas that dont make the news regularly.
Also look at the transition to renewable energy in the last decade alone. We have a lot of ideas for the future, just not decided what we should do on a big scale.
Tech is just a market where the circumstances in the US and China with their huge domestic markets produce the biggest companies. Europe will probably always lack behind in that.
Europe is in a transition period right now into the 21st century. But both China and the US also have internal problems that will hold them back in the future.