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5 Myths About Sick Old Europe
By Steven Hill
Sunday, October 7, 2007
In the global economy, today's winners can become tomorrow's
losers in a twinkling, and vice versa. Not so long ago, American pundits
and economic analysts were snidely touting U.S. economic superiority to the
"sick old man" of Europe. What a difference a few months can
make. Today, with the stock market jittery over Iraq, the mortgage crisis,
huge budget and trade deficits, and declining growth in productivity,
investors are wringing their hands about the U.S. economy. Meanwhile,
analysts point to the roaring economies of China and India as the only
bright spots on the global horizon.
But what about Europe? You may be surprised to learn how our estranged
transatlantic partner has been faring during these roller-coaster times --
and how successfully it has been knocking down the Europessimist myths
about it.
1. The sclerotic European economy is incapable of leading the world.
Who're you calling sclerotic? The European Union's $16 trillion
economy has been quietly surging for some time and has emerged as the
largest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the global
economy. That's more than the U.S. economy (27 percent) or
Japan's (9 percent). Despite all the hype, China is still an economic
dwarf, accounting for less than 6 percent of the world's economy.
India is smaller still.
The European economy was never as bad as the Europessimists made it out to
be. From 2000 to 2005, when the much-heralded U.S. economic recovery was
being fueled by easy credit and a speculative housing market, the 15 core
nations of the European Union had per capita economic growth rates equal to
that of the United States. In late 2006, they surpassed us. Europe added
jobs at a faster rate, had a much lower budget deficit than the United
States and is now posting higher productivity gains and a $3 billion trade
surplus.
2. Nobody wants to invest in European companies and economies because lack
of competitiveness makes them a poor bet.
Wrong again. Between 2000 and 2005, foreign direct investment in the E.U.
15 was almost half the global total, and investment returns in Europe
outperformed those in the United States. "Old Europe is an investment
magnet because it is the most lucrative market in the world in which to
operate," says Dan O'Brien of the Economist. In fact, corporate
America is a huge investor in Europe; U.S. companies' affiliates in
the E.U. 15 showed profits of $85 billion in 2005, far more than in any
other region of the world and 26 times more than the $3.3 billion they made
in China.
And forget that old canard about economic competitiveness. According to the
World Economic Forum's measure of national competitiveness, European
countries took the top four spots, seven of the top 10 spots and 12 of the
top 20 spots in 2006-07. The United States ranked sixth. India ranked 43rd
and mainland China 54th.
3. Europe is the land of double-digit unemployment.
Not anymore. Half of the E.U. 15 nations have experienced effective full
employment during this decade, and unemployment rates have been the same as
or lower than the rate in the United States. Unemployment for the entire
European Union, including the still-emerging nations of Central and Eastern
Europe, stands at a historic low of 6.7 percent. Even France, at 8 percent,
is at its lowest rate in 25 years.
That's still higher than U.S. unemployment, which is 4.6 percent, but
let's not forget that many of the jobs created here pay low wages and
include no benefits. In Europe, the jobless still have access to health
care, generous replacement wages, job-retraining programs, housing
subsidies and other benefits. In the United States, by contrast, the
unemployed can end up destitute and marginalized.
4. The European "welfare state" hamstrings businesses and hurts
the economy.
Beware of stereotypes based on ideological assumptions. As Europe's
economy has surged, it has maintained fairness and equality. Unlike in the
United States, with its rampant inequality and lack of universal access to
affordable health care and higher education, Europeans have harnessed their
economic engine to create wealth that is broadly distributed.
Europeans still enjoy universal cradle-to-grave social benefits in many
areas. They get quality health care, paid parental leave, affordable
childcare, paid sick leave, free or nearly free higher education, generous
retirement pensions and quality mass transit. They have an average of five
weeks of paid vacation (compared with two for Americans) and a shorter work
week. In some European countries, workers put in one full day less per week
than Americans do, yet enjoy the same standard of living.
Europe is more of a "workfare state" than a welfare state. As one
British political analyst said to me recently: "Europe doesn't so
much have a welfare society as a comprehensive system of institutions
geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working." Properly
understood, Europe's economy and social system are two halves of a
well-designed "social capitalism" -- an ingenious framework in
which the economy finances the social system to support families and
employees in an age of globalized capitalism that threatens to turn us all
into internationally disposable workers. Europeans' social system
contributes to their prosperity, rather than detracting from it, and even
the continent's conservative political leaders agree that it is the
best way.
5. Europe is likely to be held hostage to its dependence on Russia and the
Middle East for most of its energy needs.
Crystal-ball gazing on this front is risky. Europe may rely on energy from
Russia and the Middle East for some time, but it is also leading the world
in reducing its energy dependence and in taking action to counteract global
climate change. In March, the heads of all 27 E.U. nations agreed to make
renewable energy sources 20 percent of the union's energy mix by 2020
and to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent.
In pursuit of these goals, the continent's landscape is slowly being
transformed by high-tech windmills, massive solar arrays, tidal power
stations, hydrogen fuel cells and energy-saving "green"
buildings. Europe has gone high- and low-tech: It's developing not
only mass public transit and fuel-efficient vehicles but also thousands of
kilometers of bicycle and pedestrian paths to be used by people of all
ages. Europe's ecological "footprint," the amount of the
Earth's capacity that a population consumes, is about half that of the
United States.
So much for the sick old man.
See I told you Europe is better than you guys, try not too cry too hard
about it ladies.
Wallpapers:
Unrelated stuffs:
posted by Trizzle on Wednesday 10th October 2007, 02:16:32
Sigge on Wednesday 10th October 2007, 04:44:37 (#57149)
3 (3)
Yeah, windmills. Those'll solve the coming energy crisis. 20%
renewables by 2020.. Good luck building 1,1 million wind turbines in 12
years. That's only like 250 a day every day.. peace of cake.
But then theres no way you could crash our computers with
pictures that hate the city of liverpool/princess Di,
Michael J fox (lol)/ Black people/ Dead animals/
demotivation posters and other hilarious pics :)
Trizzle (81.83.160.*) on Wednesday 10th October 2007, 22:03:21 (#57176)
0 (0)
I hope you made that last comment because you didn't really read
the article...
The article compares the economy of the country U.S. to economy of the
continent Europe, what's wrong with that? Economists do it all
the time, it's even an american that wrote that article for the
Washington Post. The continent Europe and the country U.S. are very
economically comparable.
Also what point does that comparison prove? And what do you mean when
you say "our point"? Who's our and what's their
point?
I think the point you made is that, no offense, you are not that
educated, the continent Europe has 48 countries, not 20 or so. (the
country U.S. has 50 states btw, I hope you at least knew that :D)
In June 2004, Swedish economic think-tank Timbro released the findings of a
study comparing quality of living, measured in per-capital GDP of Europe
vs. the United States. The question posed was: "if the European
Union were part of the United States of America, would it belong to the
richest, or poorest, group of states?"
The result of the study, found here (updated 2004 data found here), found that the EU-15, the 15-member
Europe Union prior to its expansion in 2004 (i.e. to exclude the addition
of many poorer states) would have had a per-capital GDP below that of
Arkansas--the third lowest state in the Union--having actually
dropped in rank since the 2002 data.
In fact, only one nation--Luxemborg--manages to rise above the national
average, all others rank below South Carolina--41st in the rankings of US
states. Strum that banjo.
The study also highlighted the differences in what would constitute
"poverty level" in relative terms. For example, the study cites
that 40 percent of citizens living in Sweden would be considered living at
poverty level in the United States. The poor who are "left
behind" by the American economy still manage to etch out higher
material prosperity than their European counterparts (especially since many
can actually find JOBS).
On a different note: holy shit, I was going to turn the original video
where that dildo goes into girl's ass into a reverse gif like that
too. Someone beat me to it.
Trizzle (81.83.160.*) on Friday 12th October 2007, 10:28:43 (#57281)
1 (1)
It took you two days to come up with a study from 2002??? D:
How about you get me some numbers from the year 2007, thats the year
the article I was referring to was written and based on.
You try to take a stab at separate European Union nations, I wanted to
point out that American economy is getting sick and European economy
is getting better and is expierincing the benefits of the European
Union slowly starting to do what it was made for. That implies we were
not doing verry good, I know that. The reason we were slacking was a
big reason as to why the European Union was created, to boost the
economy of the european continent and it's working. All I'm
saying is it's time for americans to wake up and do something
about it, we dit it some time ago, I'm sure you guys can come up
with a brilliant plan too.
As hard as it might be to believe, I haven't read b0g
extensively for two days. Valve's Orange Box released two
new games two days ago and I was playing them. I saw this
journal just this morning.
As for my reply, I didn't consider the EU as a whole,
because the expansion of the EU was to include nominally poorer
nations joining the union, lowering the overall average--an
unfair comparison.
For our even-more damned lies (statistics), here's the
problem: GDP is generally not computed "accurately"
until about two years after the year, so what you'll get are
estimates for something as recent as 2007. If you want to look
at some of the more recent GDP statistics, you can look here (~2005/2006) or do some of your own
research from estimates by the IMF. You will find the article's
position still holds to a great extent.
Now the reason I was pointing out that "old" article,
is that it points out that 1) Europeans, on average, have an
income less than those in America, 2) they are taxed more
heavily, 3) they pay more on average for goods, 4) their
government-oriented/socialist infrastructure increases
unemployment and discourages privatized business. These problems
have not been fixed. The last reason especially is why there
will never be a Silicon Valley in Europe.
Despite the largest terrorist attack in history--on a financial
institution no less--a tech bubble burst, a protracted war in
Iraq, a housing bubble burst, and seven years of GW Bush, the US
economy is still extremely strong, and will continue to be
strong. We've recovered from far worse than this many times
before, and will again, to maintain our front-runner position.
Haha, well, enjoy your position while you can. This
pattern has been repeated many times before. Adopting
the European way of governance... well, that'd
certainly signal a dark age for the US.
Europe is better than you
