Originally posted by NordlysThoug I'm disinclined to compare the U.S. To Finnland or Norway, The Nordics should be commended for the societies they've built. In fact, I don't even lump them in with mainland Europe.
You lump all European countries together. Some have high unemployment rates, some have unemployment rates which are lower than in the US, for example the UK and Norway, which are both examples for the social model.
I should clarify myself on that, when I refer to Europe, I am talking about mainland Europe. I don't include Ireland, Britain, or Northern European nations.
The U.K. is probably more comparable to the U.S. than most, so let's compare. One of the biggest indicators is GDP per capita. The UK has topped for example, France over the last 2 decades. France used to be ahead in that category, but the Brits used better economic policy to reverse it.
The government interventionist economic policies of Europe (when I say Europe, I am talking about the countries in its "core"😉 have proven to be inferior in comparison to the less interventionist British model. (EADS is the name of the parent comany I believe) Airbust and the GPS system are good examples of getting themselves inserted into debacles, (Two co-CEOs representing the interests of two countries is mind boggling) while the British BAE Systems is doing comparitively well.
Also if you compare British and American unemployment rates and individual productivity over the last 20 years, you'll see the British are not exactly worthy of our awe. Respect certainly, but not exactly something we should emulate.
For a good example of the effects of individual productivity, Dublin is an excellent test case. They have made major investments in improving productivity and it has paid off well. Dublin is worthy of our awe.
Consider this:
[U.S.] enthusiasm about the New Europe of the former Soviet empire is not solely based on the fact that its leadership is willing to "salute and shout, 'Yes sir.'" More fundamental reasons were articulated as the European Union considered extension of membership to these countries. The U.S. strongly supported this move. The countries of the East are "Europe's real modernizers," political commentator David Ignatius explained. "They can blow apart the bureaucratism and welfare-state culture that still hobble much of Europe" and "let free markets function they way they should" -- as in the U.S., where the economy relies heavily on the state sector, and the current incumbents [the Bush administration] broke postwar records in protectionism during their first tenure in office.
Since "the freedom-loving, technology-adapting people of the East are paid a small fraction of what workers in the West earn," Ignatius continues, they can drive all of Europe toward "the realities of modern capitalism": the American model, apparently ideal by definition. The model has per capita growth rates approximately equal to Europe's and unemployment at about the same level, along with the highest rates of inequality and poverty, the highest workloads, and some of the weakest benefits and support systems in the advanced industrial world. The median wage in 2000 was still below the 1979 level after the late-nineties boomlet, though productivity was 45% higher, one sign of the sharp shift toward benefits for capital [as opposed to people] that is being accelerated more radically under Bush II
Chomsky, "Hegemony or Survival"
All I'd like to add is that in recent years the U.S. economy has grown roughly 2.4% per annum versus about 1% for the E.U. -- but then, the E.U.'s population growth is virtually 0% per annum versus about 1.6% for the U.S. Indeed, factoring in "illegal" immigration to the U.S. -- largely fueled by the U.S. economy's insatiable need for cheap, exploitable labor -- it can be argued that the population of the U.S. is growing more like 2% per annum. So, factoring out the U.S.'s faster population growth, we find that in "real terms" the U.S. economy is growing only about 0.4% per annum versus Europe's 1%. This despite the almost half a trillion dollars the U.S. federal government annually pumps into the economy on military spending alone (more than all the other nations of the world combined) as a way of artificially buoying American heavy industry and construction ("corporate welfare" ).
Though official US unemployment figures do tend to be lower than the EU's, it should not be overlooked that a far greater fraction of US "jobs" tend to be part-time, temporary, or both. Also unemployment does tend to go underreported more in the US than in the EU simply because, culturally, more stigma is attached to being jobless in the US, and economically, there is less government aid available and more barriers to getting it in the US. A small point perhaps, but not an insignificant one.
Originally posted by knightwestYou think it's a good idea for people who don't actually want children to start having them just to reduce their tax bill?
Your right, declining birth rates in some european countries mean that some societies such has italy, greece and spain have reached the point "lowest low" (i think its called) from which it is difficult to recover. To sustain it's size, a each woman must have at least 2 children. yet in most western european countries these rates are well below 2.
As a ...[text shortened]... start people into having more children, the only way this problem can actually be resolved.
Originally posted by MerkMuch of it paid for by the European Union.
Dublin is an excellent test case. They have made major investments in improving productivity and it has paid off well. Dublin is worthy of our awe.
Britain currently is enjoying some economic prosperity but they have become a miserable lot in the process. The population are leaving in droves. Nearly all my friends over the years now live abroad and the rest wish they did.
The people of France seem a happy lot though.
Originally posted by Bosse de NageOnly Switzerland isn't.
Western Europe is an odd entity to focus on. Which countries does it include? Are they all EU countries?
What most people fail to realize is that things are actually better. Unemployment in the Eurozone has fallen to 7,3%, a 14-year-minimum, and growth has been above the US recently.
But every now and then, Johnny-libertarian gets scared that people will finally start to realize that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the European Union economic policies. So what motivates them? My best guess is fear. They're afraid that facts are proving them wrong, so they come up with the same stale old cliches.
Edit - And by the way, the EU Commission is a market-friendly institution that favours regulation over intervention to compensate for evident market failures. In fact, this is one of the reasons why some of the left get their panties up about the EU. When both Johnny-libertarians and anti-capitalists claim that the EU is in the opposite camp, you know they're doing something right.
Originally posted by WheelyStill dreaming ... 😞
Much of it paid for by the European Union.
Britain currently is enjoying some economic prosperity but they have become a miserable lot in the process. The population are leaving in droves. Nearly all my friends over the years now live abroad and the rest wish they did.
The people of France seem a happy lot though.