I love it when the only response Europeans can make to the weakness of their own society is to say “oh yeah, well America sucks worse”. No one denies that we have our own issues to deal with here, but I don’t see the same kind of emigration statistics like the brain drain occuring in the old world. What is really hilarious is the mantra that the European economy is stronger than ours. I guess if you keep telling yourself that long enough you might actually start to believe it.
Of course, that does not make it true. No less authority than that liberal bastion called the New York Times has an article dispelling the myth of a higher standard of living in Europe.
All this was illuminated last year in a study by a Swedish research organization, Timbro, which compared the gross domestic products of the 15 European Union members (before the 2004 expansion) with those of the 50 American states and the District of Columbia. (Norway, not being a member of the union, was not included.)
After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.
The next European country on the list was Ireland, down at 41st place out of 66; Sweden was 14th from the bottom (after Alabama), followed by Oklahoma, and then Britain, France, Finland, Germany and Italy. The bottom three spots on the list went to Spain, Portugal and Greece.
Alternatively, the study found, if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro’s statistics suggest otherwise. So did a paper by a Swedish economics writer, Johan Norberg.
Contrasting “the American dream” with “the European daydream,” Mr. Norberg described the difference: “Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 – and the gap is constantly widening.”
Can you imagine how bad it would be if the Euros actually paid for their own defense? Whatever. I stand by the assertion that Europe as we have known it is unlikely to survive the 21st century. If they weren’t so damn arrogant I might even feel some pity as their pathetic society goes the way of the dinosaur. Godless socialism, declining birthrates, staggering Muslim immigration, and an economy in the toilet. All hail the brilliance of our betters for creating a perfect storm of destruction.
Meanwhile, as we watch the former powers of Europe fade into oblivion, the Chinese are making noises. China will be America’s challenge in the coming years. I expect we will prevail but we won’t have the time or resources to bail out our feckless former allies for a third time.
Oh well.
TJ claimed Euroyank’s assertions about Negroponte were unsupported and took him to task for sayign “look it up”. Well Euroyank supported his assertions. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed significantly in Europe in the last four years, yet four years ago we actually talked about and were considering living in Europe for a while. America did change or at least a lot of our citizendry did. They could not get over the fears invoked by 9/11, still haven’t. The war in Afghanistan was not enough to alleviate the fears. The target was too small, the enemy too nebulous and Osama never caught. These Americans remained fearful sothey supported a war in Iraq to show that by golly something was being done. Europe supported our Afghan war just not our Iraq war. If Republicans are the daddies and Democrats the mommies then Europe is the elderly. Been there, done that and learned a few things along the way and simply not as reactive as they were in there youth. I understand that you feel something had to be done and that no matter how tenuous the connecction between Iraq and the terrorist action of 9/11 that there was any connection at all demanded that we nip the problem in the bud. It infuriates yo that Europe did nto support us and you absolutely refuse to step back and examien why that might be so. Ever since then you have delighted in bashing them expecially the French. Guess what they don’t care. They are not flocking to our borders. They like what they have and it is working for them. For all the gloom and doom precidtions their citizens still do a much better job of saving money and their governments do a better job of providing for their citizens. Your critisisms are useless and do nothing. They do not even alleviate your own angst.
Euroyank, 🙁 John is a citified California boy -not one ounce of redneck in him. We feds are much abused and work our butts off and we do it because we are drawn to public service. I dont’ expect you to understand. You are often right in your assessments but your delivery sucks. You have no finesse and no diplomacy. Hmmm, sort of like John.
Carol – sorry for not responding to you; I had written of this thread (due to a certain, (cough) nameless individual).
Yes, I did ask this nameless person to back up his statements and while he may have done so let me just say that I do not have time to go through and pick these details apart (or possibly agree with them, depending on the truth of the situation). I will add that you can make just about anything about just about anyone sound true by presenting one-sided facts … not saying this is the case here, just saying that you always need to consider the source. Additionally, I believe everyone of his comments were off-topic … so even aside from the “I am ignoring him” aspect I have no qualms what-so-ever about ignoring them.
And WRT rednecks … I would like to say that I come from a long line of undistinguished rednecks and while I don’t live that lifestyle myself I certainly should, genetically speaking :). And the rednecks I know are usually better, more honest people than many of the city-folk I work with.
John & Carol – thank you for your service, without the good civil servants to keep the govt atleast mostly on track our system of govt would be a *complete* train wreck.
/TJ
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