OK, so toss them out and use Banco Santander, which has emerged as one of the winners after credit crunch (despte getting Madoff'd for a few billion, lol) the point is, those evil socialist euros aren't quite as different as the Freedom Fries brigade would have you believe.
It is simple. CAPITALISM If it don't make dollars. . . it don't make sense It is not about Europe It is not about xenophobia It is about using any and everything to keep the money rolling. Lobbyist pay to have THERE version of the truth out there they pay everyone . . . senators, representatives, commentators, pundits, etc If making you HATE SOMEONE . . . keeps them in money well . .that is just what the f*** they gonna do Rocket River
I'm not really worried about it, heck I make fun of Europeans every now and then myself. If Americans are trying to seperate the Irish from the rest of Europe considers that the Irish (Republic that is) is more European in practice and outlook than the UK. The Irish Republic uses the Euro and goes along with most of the EU regulations and practices. For that matter a lot of the historical sites that Americans love to visit in Ireland were paid for by the EU.
Except there is a lot of money that can be made from Europe. The article already named a few companies but consider companies like Nestle, Imbev and AG Siemens also invest a lot of money in the US.
But are the people who making money NOW gonna make money THEN? Bird in the hand . .. worth more than two in the bush Rocket River
Yeah America, biggest aggregator of international concepts ever, we must stop borrowing ideas from other nations. I'll happily borrow happy. Though US got on top by putting in the extra work. As the rankings up top get tighter, just means even more work and stress to remain there. Unwinding wont be in the near future. We got recessions, joblessness and internal socialist takeovers to fight, with flu and CO2 around the corner! DARN I feel so upbeat leaving the wife, kids, and family back in the distance for all that.
I know we are very scary. I think that most people who are scared of the "european" way have never been out of the country, let alone in Europe. We are not some communist countries. There is also a lot of differences between countries in Europe. The way I see it is that during the cold war Communism was demonized, and everything which looked a bit more social was immediatly demonized, even though there are also good things about a more social system. This fear is deeply rooted in many Americans. The problem now is that this fear is getting out of control, and some of the Conservative are using this fear to scare people. And we all know how well fear works. I do not believe people are afraid of the "European" way, but some people use Europe to scare people. Which is just sort of sad.
To be fair, there is quite a bit of (unjustified) "U.S. Americaphobia" in some European countries (particularly in France) as well. That's just as silly.
exactly. Europeans WISH they could get some of the same medical specialist America is so plentiful of.
I think the European are just jealous because we took away the most precious thing from these socialist nations That would be their fetish for the word "football", which they really mean soccer. GB is just mad that it is letting the control of English language slips away in the same manner as the the revolutionary war. Do you know that in Europe rich people die all the time due to lack of quality health care? That just won't fly here. As the last true bastion of capitalism, we are the only ones that has the means to take real good care of our important people.
Are you being sarcastic or do you have facts that show that rich people die all the time in Europe because of lack of quality health care?
Things might have changed here since America was founded Let's hope pppbigppp was being sarcastic Indeed I'm very happy with our health care.
This Swedish study is worth reading. Go to the link to read the charts. Link Sorry for the poor copy and paste: Part of the study: 3.4 It is better being poor in a rich country than in a poor one Poverty is a highly relative concept. As we saw in the preceding section, for example, 40 per cent of all Swedish households would rank among low-income households in the USA, and an even greater number in the poorer European countries would be classed as low income earnings by the American definition. In an affluent economy, in other words, it is not unlikely that those perceived as poor in an international perspective are relatively well off. The media image of the American poor is that they have great difficulties to contend with, that they are dossers, junkies and in various ways marginalised. There are of course such groups in the USA, and they are relatively large, but – and this is an important “but” – such groups exist in European countries too. There is also another image of poverty in the USA, namely that the great majority of those considered to be poor have a relatively good material standard of living. Examples are given below. First of all, the percentage of poor people in the USA has diminished over time, concurrently with the growth of the American economy; see Table 3:1. In 1959, for example, 22 per cent of all Americans were living below the then poverty line. Today only 12 per cent are living below the present-day poverty line. Things have also improved for the black population of the USA, whereas for Hispanics the poverty percentage has changed little since 1972.5 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Proportion of households with incomes of less than USD 25,000, % GDP per capita, Index, USA = 100 USA Sweden 5 At the same time it is worth noting that income differences have increased over the past 20 or 30 years. This, however, has been mainly a matter of the rich getting richer, not of poor growing poorer. A similar development has characterised the majority of European countries. For an analysis of Sweden, see Bergström & Gidehag (2001). 22 Table 3:1. Poverty percentages, various ethnic groups. Source: Caplow, Hicks, Wattenberg (2001). What does it mean to be poor in the USA? Major living standard surveys carried out in the USA at regular intervals show the poor to have a surprisingly high standard of living; see Table 3:2. A large proportion own their homes and have one or more cars. Domestic appliances of different kinds are also relatively common, as are one or more TV sets complete with video or DVD. Material prosperity, in other words, is high and not associated with the material standard of living which many people in Europe probably associate with poverty. Good economic development, in other words, results in even poor people being relatively well off. Quite simply, it is better to be poor in a rich country than in a poor one. Table 3:2. Percentage of poor households. Source: Rector & Johnson (2004). 1959 1999 Whites 18 10 Blacks 55 24 Hispanics 23 (1972) 23 Total 22 12 Home ownership 45.9 Car 72.8 2 or more cars 30.2 Air conditioning 76.6 Refrigerator 96.9 Washing machine 64.7 Drying cabinet/tumbler drier 55.6 Dishwasher 33.9 Garbage disposal 29.7 Microwave 73.3 Colour TV 97.3 2 or more colour TV sets 55.3 Cable or satellite TV 62.6 Wide screen TV 26.3 Video or DV 78.0 2 or more video and DVD players 25.3 Stereo 58.6 Telephone answering machine 35.3 Mobile phone 26.6 PC 24.6 Internet access 18.0 Percentage of poor households Percentage of poor households 23 Another indicator of the relatively good material standard of living among the American poor can be obtained by comparing dwelling space among poor households in the USA with average dwelling space in Europe. Table 3:3 compares dwelling space in various countries. Average total dwelling space in Europe is just under 1,000 sq. ft. In the USA it is 1,875 sq. ft for the average household and 1,200 sq. ft for poor households. Adjusting for size of household, one finds that poor households in the USA have slightly more dwelling space than the average European. The average American household has a home that is 80 per cent larger than its average European counterpart. Europeans, in other words, are more crowded in an American perspective. Table 3:3. Dwelling space. Various countries. Source: Rector & Johnson (2004). Austria 2000 2.4 974.9 406.2 Belgium 1991 2.5 928.6 371.4 Denmark 2001 2.1 1171.8 558.0 France 1996 2.5 946.9 378.8 Finland 2000 2.1 823.1 392.0 Germany 1998 2.2 932.9 424.0 Greece 1991 3.0 856.5 285.5 Ireland 2001 3.0 950.1 316.7 Italy 1991 2.1 971.6 462.7 Luxembourg 2001 2.6 1345.0 517.3 Netherlands 2000 3.4 1054.5 439.4 Portugal 1998 2.2 893.1 279.1 Spain 1991 3.3 917.8 278.1 Sweden 1997 2.1 966.2 460.1 UK 1996 2.4 914.6 381.1 Europe, average 2.5 976.5 395.7 USA, poor households 1993 2.8 1,228 438.6 USA, all households 1993 2.6 1,875 721.2 Country Survey year No. persons Dwelling space, Dwelling space per home square feet (square feet) per person 24 4. WHY EUROPE LAGS BEHIND – A QUALIFIED GUESS BY ANY METHOD OF MEASUREMENT, EUROPEAN economic development has been relatively poor over the past thirty years, which of course prompts one to ask: Why? Trying to understand the causes of growth has for ages been a priority concern of economic science. Adam Smith pointed out the importance of division of labour and specialisation, and by the same token to the importance of free trade. He also stressed the importance of rights of ownership and good incentives. Some researchers have pointed to the importance of capital formation and work, while others have shown growth to be determined not only by the quantity of labour and capital but also by their quality and how well they are utilised. The role of human capital, for example, has been highlighted. More modern institutional research has reverted to Adam Smith’s original insights concerning rights of ownership and the importance of other institutional conditions. This latter research tradition has also emphasised the role of politics as the creator or wrecker of good conditions for the growth process. 4.1 High taxes are not without their problems When we turn to consider the impact of economic policy on growth, it is hard not to notice that one particular factor above all is essentially different in large parts of Europe compared with the USA, namely the expansion of the political sphere in general and taxes and the size of the public sector in particular. Economists may disagree as to the demonstrability of a connection between, say, pressure of taxation and growth – and concerning the strength of that connection, if it does exist – but one cannot altogether ignore the fact that Europe (or at least, large parts of it) has chosen an essentially different path from the USA, at the same as the American economy has grown considerably faster. We belong to the economists who believe that this is not a coincidence and that, on the contrary there is a relatively strong connection involved here.6 6 Our picture, even so, is that the overwhelming proportion of research in this field finds a negative connection between taxation pressure and growth. Many of the researchers arguing the difficulty of finding a general connection also put this down mainly to problems of measurement. Pressure of taxation is a general measurement in which many things are included. Within the structure of two equal pressures of taxation, for example, there may be essentially different marginal effects. If poorer countries are included, a bogus connection may appear between rising pressure of taxation and increased growth, since it is common for demand for services which are normally financed out of taxation revenue to increase when the economy grows. 25 This, of course, is because, the higher the tax burden and the larger the public sector become, the greater will be the power of political decision-makers and public bureaucracies. Private players, consequently, will have less scope for deploying their in-comes and assets as they themselves wish to. High taxes also generate counter-incentives to work and entrepreneurial initiative. The larger the public sector is, the more dependent the population will also be on public transfers and the smaller will be the portion of the economy open to competition. This, as we shall be considering in the present section, has a negative impact on economic growth. The tax burden and the size of the public sector are indicators of the extent to which an economy is a market economy or an economy directly and indirectly subject to political decision-making.7 Let us illustrate how the American economy differs from most of Europe where tax burden is concerned. The pressure of taxation is an indicator which tries to capture the size of public commitment. All taxation revenue is aggregated and viewed in relation to GDP. The picture for 1999 is shown in Diagram 4:1. The picture has changed little since then. Diagram 4:1. Tax burden as a percentage of GDP in the USA and Europe, 1999. Source: OECD. 7 At the same time it is again important to remind ourselves that two equally high pressures of taxation can inflict different degrees of harm on the economy, depending on how they are imposed. Basically this is a matter of how marginal effects and tax wedges impact on the economy. Similarly, structural differences in the public sector and transfer systems can affect the workings of the economy in different ways. Further to this point, see Molander (1999). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Sweden Denmark Finland France Belgium Austria Italy Norway EU 15 Netherlands Germany Great Britain Spain Switzerland Ireland USA 26 As will be seen, the USA comes last while, not unexpectedly, the Scandinavian countries top the ranking list for pressure of taxation. There is a very great difference between the USA and these countries. But the USA has a substantially lower tax burden than in large parts of Europe, the difference between the USA and the EU average (for the EU 15) being no less than twelve percentage units. It is quite natural to argue that the USA and Europe have taken very different paths where public sector expansion is concerned. This becomes perhaps clearer still if we analyse the change occurring in the tax burden since 1970. Diagram 4:2 shows how the tax burden changed between 1970 and 1999 in the countries compared. Diagram 4:2. Change in tax burden (percentage units), 1970–1999. Source: OECD. One country, the UK, has actually reduced its tax burden. Taxes in the USA and Ireland have risen very little during the period in question. Tax burden in the USA has risen by a marginal 1.5 percentage units in 30 years. As we all know, large parts of Europe have chosen a different path, and expansion of their public sectors has really put on speed over the past 30 years. This expansion has made more and more private economic deliberations dependent on public decision-making. The return on education, the difference in economic benefit between working or living on handouts, or the possibilities of starting up and running a business all hinge to a very great extent on political decisions. This, to a very great extent, is the situation in Europe as compared with the USA. -5 0 5 10 15 20 Spain Italy Finland Switzerland Sweden France Denmark Belgium EU 15 Austria Norway Germany Netherlands Ireland USA Great Britain 27 4.2 High tax wedges give the wrong incentives It is of course important not only to analyse taxes at macro level. Europe’s generally high tax burden and its extensive welfare systems have created big marginal effects and tax wedges. In many European countries, the taxation system interposes a very big wedge between what is privately and nationally remunerative. Diagram 4:3 shows the percentage of the money paid by the purchaser of a service actually making its way into the service provider’s wallet. As can be seen, there is a big difference between large parts of Europe and the USA. Note that our calculation is based on the total tax wedge. The seller’s income is taken to include social security charges, and the money ending up in the seller’s pocket is net income after all taxes have been paid. Due to the account being based on this, in a manner of speaking maximum calculation, tax wedges will always be very high. Diagram 4:3. Percentage of the buyer’s income entering the service vendor’s wallet (inverted tax wedge). Source: Karlson, Johansson & Johnsson (2004), p. 184. The tax wedge can be termed very high in at least nine European countries. At most, in this group of nine countries, the seller of a service is allowed to retain 25 per cent of the income generated by the purchaser of the service. There are several countries where the tax wedge exceeds 80 per cent. A taxation system like this naturally results in resources in the economy being wrongly used. Here again, the USA is in a class of its own. Even with all taxes and charges included, the seller of a service retains nearly 50 per cent of the total original income from the buyer. Thus not only does the USA have a lower general tax burden, its tax wedges are also appreciably lower. Remainder of earning from buyer 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Belgium Denmark Germany Sweden Finland Italy Netherlands Austria France Ireland Great Britain Portugal Switzerland USA 28 High tax wedges are an undesirable consequence of high tax policy, very much due to the great technical difficulty of constructing a taxation and benefit system without marginal effects. But there are also more intentional effects of the European welfare state which can entail growth problems. Fundamentally, growth is created at micro level. It is a matter of people’s everyday decisions whether to go to work or stay at home, whether they are spurred to invent things and run businesses, whether they are to educate themselves and work hard or go in for a rewarding leisure, whether they are to work overtime or go home. 4.3 Equalisation policy and a large public sector also have their problems High taxes are used in many European countries to finance a comprehensive welfare system having redistribution as its main purpose. Even if the basic principles of redistribution are accepted, there is a manifest drawback. Incentives for behaviour which at individual level is good for the macro economy are impaired, for the simple reason that good behaviour is not rewarded and bad behaviour goes unpunished. The further equalisation goes, the less difference there will be between economically efficient and inefficient behaviour. It is our hypothesis that in large parts of the overripe welfare states of Europe the incentives for choosing behaviour that is good for growth are simply not big enough. This applies, not least, to Sweden. There can also be a problem inherent in large parts of production in several European countries taking place in non-competitive sectors. Lack of dynamic in the public sector is a problem which also contributes towards inefficient use of resources. Every year in the business sector, hosts of enterprises are started up. Many of them grow, others lose market shares and a very large number go bust. This form of dynamic is lacking in the public sector, where start-ups and bankruptcies are practically unknown. 4.4 The Americans work on the job, while the Europeans work at their leisure Another reason sometimes given for the higher quantifiable material prosperity of the USA is that the American works more. According to this hypothesis, poor development in Europe is connected, not so much with bad economics as with Europeans themselves opting to work less. Viewed in this light, Europe’s lower level of material prosperity results from its own choice to have more leisure. In order for the differences in work input to pose a real problem for comparisons of per capita GDP between the USA and Europe, at least two conditions have to be met. We will now briefly examine those conditions. It is true that most European countries have fewer hours worked in the market sector (out of the total number of hours worked) compared with the USA. Table 4:1 shows the so-called LS ratio (labour supply ratio) in a number of European countries and in the 29 USA. The LS ratio (labour supply ratio) relates the actual number of hours worked in the economy’s regular employment sector to the number of hours which would be worked if all individuals of adult age (16-64) worked full time, apart from taking five weeks’ holiday. A ratio of one means everybody working full time, which of course is unrealistic and undesirable. A ratio approaching zero means, in principle, nobody working at all. Table 4:1. The LS ratio for 2000 in a number of European countries and in the USA. Source: Gidehag & Öhman (2002). In these terms, then, the USA uses 74 per cent of its total labour potential as against, for example, 66 per cent in Sweden. The difference compared with many other European countries is greater still. Thus the average American works more in the regular employment sector. It is a well-known fact that not all absence from work amounts to leisure. On top of paid, recorded work, we have unpaid work in the home, the extent of which is of course much harder to measure. Attempts are, however, made to do so by means of extensive inter-view and questionnaire surveys. For Sweden’s part, one such study shows work in the total informal sector, comprising both moonlighting and work in the home, exceeds the work done in the market. Given the tax wedges described earlier, it is a reasonable guess that work in the home and moonlighting are a good deal more common in most European countries than in the USA. Stretching things a little, perhaps Americans work more at the things they specialise in than people in Europe, which of course is basically good for productivity and growth. Are the relatively few hours worked in the market sector in most European countries due to personal choice and not a question of incentives? This is very hard to believe. For one thing, absence from work does not mean leisure and relaxation but probably a great deal of work in the home. Secondly, tax wedges in Europe are very high and the proceeds of work are low. It is in fact something of a cornerstone of economic theory that incentives are truly important: the whole of micro theory is based on this assumption. Why should this not apply to the choice of work input in Europe? LS ratio USA 0.74 UK 0.67 Switzerland 0.67 Sweden 0.66 Finland 0.63 Denmark 0.62 Ireland 0.59 LS ratio Greece 0.58 Spain 0.57 Netherlands 0.55 Germany 0.53 France 0.53 Belgium 0.51 Italy 0.48 30 Needless to say, the above is pure guesswork, a sketch of conceivable cause of European backwardness. Nor is the thesis a very new one, but that does not make it any the less interesting. The expansion of the public sector into overripe welfare states in large parts of Europe is and remains the best guess as to why our continent cannot measure up to our neighbour in the west.
No, you WISH you had a clue. Unbelievable. I'd love to see any kind of link to substantiate this bull****. See the first two quotes as examples of why most of the world thinks that most of Americans are ignorant, arrogant jack asses. There is a reason why.
rhester, can you give us a Cliff's Notes version of what you posted? I'm interested in reading it but that is very difficult. I intend on going back and reading the whole thing eventually but don't have the time.
I am not sure if I can. It is a short read, if you get the time follow the link. The study compares different measures of economic prosperity between the US and European nations. It ranks the economies of European nations with the 50 individual US states. Most Euopean nations are significantly poorer than most all of the individual US states. The study then goes on to quantify the findings and I posted some of the conclusions. From their study I thought the point was that the poor and middle class in the statist European economic systems do not fare nearly as well as the poor and middle class in a more public sector economy, at least what was once considered such in America. I don't tie this with healthcare or any one issue. Just pointing out that by a Swedish study we probably don't want to be more statist and European in our goverance. I really don't know if there is much relevance except to say that the numbers are worth looking at.
I think there may be a difference between governing smaller countries compared to larger, especially when many European countries have very homogeneous populations compared to the US, as well as much smaller populations. It MAY be easier to provide socialized programs to smaller countries where citizens have very similar backgrounds compared to a country like the US that, for the most part, has a very diverse population and is in the upper side as far as population goes. Just a thought.
