A report published on Monday says that despite the current economic upswing, the EU is still losing ground vis-à-vis its global competitors...These are some of the findings of a EUROCHAMBRES study comparing EU and US economies in terms of time distance...The current EU level for income was achieved by the US in 1985. Since the first edition of the study, the time gap has increased by 3 years;In other words, Europeans today have the same standard of living as Americans in 1986. They are 21 years behind us. In the previous study, they were only 18 years behind us. Here's a chart from their article.
The bars represent how far behind us Europe is. If the red bar is longer than the blue bar, they are falling farther behind.
All the red bars are longer than the blue bars.
Anyone for socialized medicine or a European-style welfare state?
H/T: Our College of Cardinals.
3 comments:
Actually this study is misleading - it measures the entire EU, including countries that you may not have heard before, like Estonia, Slovania, Lithuania, among others. If it's an apple-to-apple comparison, it'll be like the entire EU vs the US and South America.
Also, it uses GDP, which actually includes military budget - so US always has the HIGHEST GDP in the world because of its military budget.
Mother Hen,
This study is most certainly not misleading. The EU countries suck because they've pursued counter-productive economic models.
GDP is the standard measure for economic output. See this link for the definition.
Military spending, being government spending, is by its very nature a suboptimal use of resources. The US having to spend all that money to protect the Euroweenies is actually a handicap relative to them, and they are sitll losing.
Mother Hen-- South America isn't economically linked to the US like the EU is to the various groups. They also aren't legally or govermentally linked.
The EU was partly formed to be a "balance" to the US-- I think they're not doing so well.
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