this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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Europe

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Piketty is usually on the money, but this feels incredibly out of touch with what is actually happening on the ground. Calling this "unprecedented prosperity" is a slap in the face to anyone under 40. Sure, on a graph the GDP looks fine, but try telling that to someone in Dublin or Lisbon who spends 60 percent of their income on a moldy apartment.

We are coasting on the success of the post-war era while our current leaders do everything they can to privatize the bits that still work. The "social model" is being hollowed out by austerity every single day and we are supposed to be proud because we aren't living in 1914? That is a pathetic bar to clear.

I am sick of these "everything is fine" takes from people who do not have to worry about their heating bills or whether their pension will even exist in thirty years. If this is the peak of European well-being, then we are in serious trouble. It feels like the elites are just congratulating themselves while the actual quality of life for the working class is in a freefall.