Death Highly Exaggerated
link Europe’s prospects brighten as U.S. fades | Reuters.
I guess anything’s possible. But these kinds of forecasts have been around for a while and somehow, never come to fruition. It’s very fashionable these days to forecast the demise of America with the associated parallels to the Roman Empire, yada yada yada. While this particular author may point to short term statistics that purport to show signs of growth in European economies, given the big picture political background, it’s unlikely to be more than a blip in the longer term declining picture. In an article for The Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, Bret Stephens ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704057604575080602346820226.html ) articulated the fundamental structural flaw with the European way of doing things:
“…All European economic policies are the cultural derivatives of one dominant, nearly totalitarian statist ideology: the state is good, the market is bad,” says French economist Guy Sorman. The free market, he adds, is “perceived as fundamentally American, while statism is the ultimate form of patriotism…”
as well,
“…Then there is the media. Last week, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who leads the country’s market-friendly Free Democrats, took to the pages of Die Welt to lament that Germany’s working poor make less than welfare recipients. “For too long,” he wrote, “we have perfected in Germany the redistribution [of wealth], forgetting where prosperity comes from. For his banal observations, Mr. Westerwelle was roundly accused of “[defaming] millions of welfare recipients” and urged to apologize to them. It takes a remarkably stultified intellectual climate for an op-ed to spark this kind of brouhaha: It is the empire of the Emperor’s New Clothes, adapted to the 21st century welfare state…”
With this mindset entrenched in most European cultures and governments, it is only a matter of time before the events in Greece find their way to the northern neighbors. Once you have granted a set of entitlements to people, it is very hard to take them back. Socialist leaning parties will maintain their grip on government because the masses who think they will benefit from wealth spreading will keep them in power. While it may sound civilized for Europeans to routinely take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks holiday a year, the fact is, someone pays for this. Mostly, this will be manifest by higher prices, higher taxes and decreased productivity. Try to sell this notion to the Chinese or Indians. Canada is well on it’s way to emulating the European model as most government jobs entitle workers 3 to 4 weeks paid holidays a year. If you happen to belong to a union, even better.
Americans have historically operated on a different mindset, that is, the notion of working hard to get ahead. This fundamental notion is the pillar of what makes America, America and created the whole image of American exceptionalism. Of course, at this time, there is strong movement to change this mindset. The entitlement clamor is loud and alarmingly influential. The siren song of getting something for nothing is an irresistible lure. Like a powerful engine with cylinder leaks, the American economy is hampered by drains on productivity rather than aided by contributions to it. The success or failure of this movement may in fact determine whether the U.S. can continue to be the world’s economic engine.
It may be noted that historians have opined that Rome was destroyed by rot from within, not from external forces. It’s hard to disagree with this premise as it applies to the U.S., given what’s happened over the past few years. The most important thing Americans can do to reverse their demise is to excise the rot. As can be seen in Europe, once rot sets in, it’s pervasive. As if Americans want to be cheese eating surrender monkeys who think soccer is interesting.
Recent Comments