Well it is good to have the facts; not the wealthy originated think tank stuff that filters down to ordinary working folks including biz school grads. Turns out Europe does not perform much worse economically. As a tourist my eyes also saw that this was correct. I know all this posters on this bbs, make at least $100k with health insurance, pensions, and 5 weeks vacations; have no student loans etc. However, think of the rest of America. . ******** Learning From Europe By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: January 10, 2010 As health care reform nears the finish line, there is much wailing and rending of garments among conservatives. And I’m not just talking about the tea partiers. Even calmer conservatives have been issuing dire warnings that Obamacare will turn America into a European-style social democracy. And everyone knows that Europe has lost all its economic dynamism. Strange to say, however, what everyone knows isn’t true. Europe has its economic troubles; who doesn’t? But the story you hear all the time — of a stagnant economy in which high taxes and generous social benefits have undermined incentives, stalling growth and innovation — bears little resemblance to the surprisingly positive facts. The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works. Actually, Europe’s economic success should be obvious even without statistics. For those Americans who have visited Paris: did it look poor and backward? What about Frankfurt or London? You should always bear in mind that when the question is which to believe — official economic statistics or your own lying eyes — the eyes have it. In any case, the statistics confirm what the eyes see. It’s true that the U.S. economy has grown faster than that of Europe for the past generation. Since 1980 — when our politics took a sharp turn to the right, while Europe’s didn’t — America’s real G.D.P. has grown, on average, 3 percent per year. Meanwhile, the E.U. 15 — the bloc of 15 countries that were members of the European Union before it was enlarged to include a number of former Communist nations — has grown only 2.2 percent a year. America rules! Or maybe not. All this really says is that we’ve had faster population growth. Since 1980, per capita real G.D.P. — which is what matters for living standards — has risen at about the same rate in America and in the E.U. 15: 1.95 percent a year here; 1.83 percent there. What about technology? In the late 1990s you could argue that the revolution in information technology was passing Europe by. But Europe has since caught up in many ways. Broadband, in particular, is just about as widespread in Europe as it is in the United States, and it’s much faster and cheaper. And what about jobs? Here America arguably does better: European unemployment rates are usually substantially higher than the rate here, and the employed fraction of the population lower. But if your vision is of millions of prime-working-age adults sitting idle, living on the dole, think again. In 2008, 80 percent of adults aged 25 to 54 in the E.U. 15 were employed (and 83 percent in France). That’s about the same as in the United States. Europeans are less likely than we are to work when young or old, but is that entirely a bad thing? And Europeans are quite productive, too: they work fewer hours, but output per hour in France and Germany is close to U.S. levels. The point isn’t that Europe is utopia. Like the United States, it’s having trouble grappling with the current financial crisis. Like the United States, Europe’s big nations face serious long-run fiscal issues — and like some individual U.S. states, some European countries are teetering on the edge of fiscal crisis. (Sacramento is now the Athens of America — in a bad way.) But taking the longer view, the European economy works; it grows; it’s as dynamic, all in all, as our own. So why do we get such a different picture from many pundits? Because according to the prevailing economic dogma in this country — and I’m talking here about many Democrats as well as essentially all Republicans — European-style social democracy should be an utter disaster. And people tend to see what they want to see. After all, while reports of Europe’s economic demise are greatly exaggerated, reports of its high taxes and generous benefits aren’t. Taxes in major European nations range from 36 to 44 percent of G.D.P., compared with 28 in the United States. Universal health care is, well, universal. Social expenditure is vastly higher than it is here. So if there were anything to the economic assumptions that dominate U.S. public discussion — above all, the belief that even modestly higher taxes on the rich and benefits for the less well off would drastically undermine incentives to work, invest and innovate — Europe would be the stagnant, decaying economy of legend. But it isn’t. Europe is often held up as a cautionary tale, a demonstration that if you try to make the economy less brutal, to take better care of your fellow citizens when they’re down on their luck, you end up killing economic progress. But what European experience actually demonstrates is the opposite: social justice and progress can go hand in hand.
Very interesting, glynch. This is something those of us that have spent time in Europe already knew, but it's good to get the info out there again. We don't beat the entire world with our standard of living.
I'm not going to dispute the basis of the article, but this right here is stupid. Picking out the major cities and using them as a point about the economic state of a nation? How many developed nations DON'T have at least one major city that is thriving?
I think the point that is being countered is the article of religious faith particularly popular among the teabagging masses, that anything european (i.e. healthcare) or that involves government regulation is doomed to failure, and that borrowing a concept or two will not, contrary to the screechings of the right, lead to the establishment of a gulag or pol-pot-esque return to year zero. Of course, this audience is too intransigent or vested in this view to be altered anyway so I don't know why he's even bothering.
I get the point of his article, and like I said, I wasn't disputing anything in it. I was pointing out that it's silly to use the major cities to validate his point. Major metropolitan areas are often NOT indicative of the state of a nation. There is normally more commerce and thus more wealth and thus a better economic situation, more education, etc. in the major cities than elsewhere in a nation. I just don't like that he said "Look, Paris is a great city! How can Paris be a great city if France is in economic trouble?!" Also, I don't believe anyone that points to Europe as a failure economically thinks they are "poor and backward." It isn't like Sean Hannity thinks France is Somalia.
Ran across an interesting article in the LA Times a moment ago that seems perfect for this thread. It's about high technology in Spain, not the country usually thought of in that regard. Check out the excerpt and click the link for the whole thing: SPAIN Madrid to Barcelona in a flash Forget flying and all that entails these days -- Spain's AVE high-speed trains are a relaxing and fun way to travel. In fact, they've proved so popular, they're giving airlines a run for their money. By Bruce Selcraig January 06, 2010 When President Obama announced plans in April to spend $13 billion in federal stimulus funds on developing high-speed rail in America, he invoked the usual role models -- Japan, China and France -- as examples of fast-train culture. He also praised another more surprising, high-speed-rail superpower -- Spain. Yes, sprawling, mostly rural yet worldly Spain -- less expensive and slower than most Western European nations, and one not often associated with high-tech innovation. It seems fair to ask how Spain, a little more than 34 years removed from Francisco Franco's dictatorship, has become a world leader in a mass-transit technology that is barely in its infancy in the United States. The short answer is that few nations have enjoyed as robust a democracy as Spain in the last three decades or moved as quickly to embrace progressive ideas for city planning and transportation. Spain's first and very controversial high-speed rail line ran from Madrid, atop a vast interior plain, to Seville in the south, and was unveiled in 1992. Despite early suspicions about its cost to taxpayers and which cities would benefit, the AVE trains (Alta Velocidad Española -- ave is "bird" in Spanish) proved so successful that by this year, Spanish rail officials say they will have more high-speed track (1,386 miles) than any nation, with a promise of reaching 6,000 miles in another decade. That was incentive enough for my teenage son, Cole, and I to spend a train-centric week in Spain last summer, but then we learned that one of the world's newest fast trains was the long-awaited Madrid-to-Barcelona line, which had begun service in 2008. At any speed, we've come to love European train culture, from Milan's mammoth fascist-era Italian masterpiece, the Centrale station, to the restful cafes and local shops that make waiting for a train almost a pleasure. Sure, we miss the pat-down service at American airports, but there's nothing quite like hopping a train minutes before it pulls out, having Yao Ming legroom (even Wi-Fi sometimes) and arriving in the heart of a world-class walkable city, not a $60 cab ride away at Gooberville Regional. Europe's trains are smart and dependable. Spain's high-speed trains have a 98.5% on-time record, second only to Japan's; delays of five minutes or more will get you a full refund in cash, and these things, for us, make transportation a destination. Trains have become our airline antidote, a refuge for intelligent, restorative travel with a view. We hit a lucky patch of mild July weather in Madrid and spent two pre-train days in the capital on our typical father-son itinerary: Walk until weary. Hop on city bus. Eat in glorious open-air plaza. Repeat. We miss some museums and monuments this way, but we find more accidental treasures, such as a pickup basketball game. http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-spaintrain17-2010jan17 Yes, we can learn a lot from Europe.
Well people could point to cities that don't look so good or point to iceland or whatever to counter what i always like to point out from the keep government completely out of business free marketer out there is that there are countries around the world where rich people rule and there is no stinky socialism to take their money. unfortunately they're usaually third world
As much as that article sucks, I still don't see where he says France is backwards and poor. He just says they "tread water" (lol?).
Logically you have a sort of a point, but in reality it is comparing the poorer areas of the US with the poorer areas of Western Europe that the difference is most obvious. It is virtually impossible to find parts of Western Europe that look as run-down and are as crime-infested with social problems as you see in many parts of the US. Better to stick to the tried and true racial explanation that conservatives are often reduced to. "They are so homogeneous".
Well I'm fine with that. If he wanted to say something like "If Europe is so bad, why don't they have decaying urban centers all over there country like we do? Why don't they have high gun violence throughout their nation? Why isn't their urban education piss poor?" I'd get his point. (Note: I'm not saying any of what I just said is actually true as I don't know what their urban education, gun violence, etc. rates are.)
Sam, have pity on the poor teabaggers. They are hurting. Many are so undereducated and often with health problems. They have had their standard of living sink a percent or so a year for 30 years since the Reagan morass. They are hurting, but don't know who to blame and Fox News tells them to blame government, gays, Euros, pointed headed intellectuals with more education, immigrants anyone but Rupert Murdoch, the corporations and the wealthy.
well I wouldn't get hung up on the big city argument that Krugman makes, since the European countryside, in fact ESPECIALLY the European countryside, is FAR superior to the American countryside, and far more enjoyable for the average tourist. France probably has the best rural setting anywhere I have ever been. In fact, more French citizens prefer to go on vacations to rural France than travel elsewhere, and for damn good reason, I envy the heck out of them for having such a beautiful country.
Typical response to conservatives when confronted by Krugman. His facts are just so hard for them to respond to.
This is from second hand knowledge but I have heard that the suburbs of Paris are pretty bad comparable to places like South Chicago or Bed-Stuy. Also some of the counsel housing blocks in the UK I have heard are pretty bad. In Belfast the Shankill Road neighborhood looked almost as bad as some of the poorer parts of America. I remember thinking all it needs is a Walmart and it could almost pass for rundown American town.
