"EU economy 'at least 20 years' behind US"

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A_Wanderer

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EU economy 'at least 20 years' behind US
11.03.2005 - 17:43 CET | By Richard Carter

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The US economy is 20 years ahead of that of the EU and it will take decades for Europe to catch up, according to an explosive new study published on Friday (11 March).

The survey, unveiled by pan-EU small business organisation Eurochambres, is intended as a sharp "wake-up call" for EU leaders as they gather on 22 March for a summit on how to boost growth and jobs in the EU economy.

The EU's current performance in terms of employment was achieved in the US in 1978 and it will take until 2023 for Europe to catch up, the report shows.

The situation is scarcely better when it comes to income per person. The US attained the current EU performance in 1985 and Europe is expected to close the gap in 2072.

But the bleakest picture comes when comparing the two economic blocs in terms of research and development. Europe is expected to catch up with the US in 2123 and then only if the EU outstrips America by 0.5 percent per year in terms of R&D investment.
link
 
Interesting...No, you go to Europe and you can not only compare wages, but sit back and compare the lifestyles that each live. The American media look at money as the trump factor when it comes to quality of life, but the life that many live in Europe is different, not different in a bad way but just not the same. People in Europe care about diffeent things then NA (North Americans). They care more about community, people (as in the disadvantaged), educatiion, health care. These are vital issues to people in Europe that might not be as important to people in NA.

When pensions are the number one issue on a elections platform then you can relize what Europe is really about.

This report, and i've heard many that support it and dispute it, is a falsity. They can say that R&D is far behind but thats like looking at a disadvantaged state and comparing it with the strongest EU country. The EU is trying its hardest to bring countries that are not as strong and not as progresive into the world of democaracy and free market. The US is at that point for decades.

So in conclusion anyone who trys to compare the EU to the US is comparing apples and oranges!!
 
Translation: Europe is still in the Dark Ages because it offers better health insurance--(aka "a poor business climate", since costs of labor are "high", many coprporations won't move there since in places like France you can't turn the factory into a macquiladora), doesn't work part-timers like slaves (at least not like here in the US...generally speaking), and has lots of small busnesses that like to shcedule workers around their daily lives (child care, etc), and in general provodes better social programs for the poor, sick, and elderly. (what we call "the Welfare State.")

By these terms, yes, Europe is behind. But if the US is an example of "what it means to be cool and where it;s at", then Europe should stick to economic trends that are the equivalent, in today's "free trade" parlance, of U2;s early 80's haircuts and stage clothes.

20? of all farmland organic in 10 yrs? That's very backward.

Funny, I;d love to know who Authored this "study." Funny how Bush and snap a finger and get anyone to write anything he wants.\

Research and devlopment? OF what? The latest pharmecutical comoany touting the latest Viagra?
 
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Translation: Europe is still in the Dark Ages because it offers better health insurance--(aka "a poor business climate", since costs of labor are "high", many coprporations won't move there since in places like France you can't turn the factory into a macquiladora), doesn't work part-timers like slaves (at least not like here in the US...generally speaking), and has lots of small busnesses that like to shcedule workers around their daily lives (child care, etc), and in general provodes better social programs for the poor, sick, and elderly. (what we call "the Welfare State.")
Yeah wonderful, you get to have permanently high unemployment and a massive tax burden on the working to support both the bludgers and the ever increasing proportion of those on pensions. The entire system becomes unworkable as the demographics continue to shift in the direction of more dependents on the state and fewer workers to support them.

20? of all farmland organic in 10 yrs? That's very backward.
Yes, organic farms are backwards, pesticides, poorer production, higher rates of crop failure all ending in a system of farm subsidies to keep the farms in business which in turn upsets global trade.

Funny, I;d love to know who Authored this "study." Funny how Bush and snap a finger and get anyone to write anything he wants.
:huh: that makes no sense, just because a paper is written by a pro-Business group does not by definition make it some sort of sinister Bush conspiracy. They obviously have an agenda (like everybody else) but that does not by definition make them wrong.

Research and devlopment? OF what? The latest pharmecutical comoany touting the latest Viagra?
Among many other things, consider computer technology, entertainment, TiVo, industrial tech, medical breakthroughs ~ erectile dysfunction cures make a lot of money, there is nothing wrong with making breakthroughs on that front.
 
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A_Wanderer said:
Yes, organic farms are backwards, pesticides, poorer production, higher rates of crop failure all ending in a system of farm subsidies to keep the farms in business which in turn upsets global trade.

But current farm practices in the United States are not suitable for the long term. They currently consume more energy than they manage to produce. Pesticides, by neccessity, have become more and more lethal--lowering the average age of a farm worker is 40 to 50, I believe.

America has to embrace green economics if they ever hope to survive in the long term.

Ecology 101. (And my professor was a staunch Republican)
 
Teta040 said:
Research and devlopment? OF what? The latest pharmecutical comoany touting the latest Viagra?

I don't suppose you've ever used Google or an iPod, have you?

You and I both know that by any reasonable measure, K-12 education in the US stinks relative to other industrialized countries. And yet, industries and research universities in the US still stay on top, because many of the best minds around the globe keep flocking to our shores.

(Yeah, I know a lot of our companies have armies of code monkeys working from India, but they can't outsource everything.)
 
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AvsGirl41 said:


But current farm practices in the United States are not suitable for the long term. They currently consume more energy than they manage to produce. Pesticides, by neccessity, have become more and more lethal--lowering the average age of a farm worker is 40 to 50, I believe.

America has to embrace green economics if they ever hope to survive in the long term.

Ecology 101. (And my professor was a staunch Republican)
No green economics is useless if it is focused on reducing output and having high rates of wastage. If you can reduce the pesticides used by enabling the crops to give off their own detterents then surely that is a good thing. The EU is putting economic shackles upon itself by scaring it's populations about GM ~ a thinley veiled form of trade protectionism that is often built upon irrational technophobia.

Genetic engineering and nuclear power are the best hopes for a sustainable future and they are both issues upon which mainstream green parties are opposed to.
 
As Bonoman and Teta implied, Europe is perceived as being "in the dark ages" because it:

(1) provides for the poor

(2) provides for the unemployed and aged

(3) doesn't resort to grotesque, illegal measures to fight imagined threats

(4) is not a theocracy

(5) accepts progress and rationality, even where they appear to confict with the gospels of hate...

Only a perverse and evil mentality says this is wrong.
 
This is a POV. I'm sure someone could argue that Europe is "20 years ahead of the US socially".

Here is the mission statement of the group who commissioned the study, perspective is everything especially with studies. Always question who financed the survey or study when reading articles because most of the time, they have a vested interest in a certain result.

Mission and Vision

EUROCHAMBRES forms one of the key pillars of business representation to the European institutions. Its mission is to represent, serve and promote European Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

* To strengthen the voice and position of European Chambers as significant, respected, valued influencers of EU affairs on all major economic issues.
* To develop the participation of European Chambers in projects of value to business.
* To work as a network, delivering network services to our members, developing a European network of services for enterprises, and to strengthen the European Chamber network through linkages and joint programmes.

The vision of EUROCHAMBRES is an enlarged competitive European Union,

* where entrepreneurial behaviour is promoted and rewarded;
* where the legislative and physical environment for profitable business is the best in the world;
* where SMEs are encouraged and supported;
* where competition is free but fair;
* which is open to free and fair trade with the rest of the world.

This is lobbying by a special interest group and there is probably another study somewhere which suggests a different outcome.
 
When it means to catch up with the numbers off the people without health care, old age pension,. education, normal income,...please don`t catch up Old Europe.
 
Rono said:
When it means to catch up with the numbers off the people without health care, old age pension,. education, normal income,...please don`t catch up Old Europe.

I think a lot of these problems can be traced to the state of K-12 education in the US...but that's another thread entirely.

The US still offers a better climate in which a lot of businesses can thrive -- this includes cutting-edge tech firms and union-busting retail megachains alike.
 
The EU's biggest problem right now probably has to do with their notorious anti-immigrant attitudes. This will change, sooner or later, because Europe is in a population decline and, for better or for worse, asylum seekers generally don't pay the bills and someone will have to contribute money to the social programs.

Honestly? If the EU wanted to stick it to the U.S., they could suddenly roll out a series of new business incentives that make it very cheap to set up shop there, and then roll out more programs to attract our educated and creative types. There's a lot of discontent here amongst these demographics.

Melon
 
Melon-good to see you.

Your anti-immigrant comment is right in one way but wrong in another. I dont think EU like immigrants (ie asians, africans, NA) I think that will change as cultures become more multicultural. England is a good example, they are very multicultural, but when you look at Ireland where they have allways seen emigration but now for the first time they are seeing large amounts of immigration it takes time to adjust.

But the EU as a whole is quite easy to get into. If you have a grandparent that was born in the EU then your automatically in. That covers about 50% of people. Countries like Canada and US have massive amount of EU decendents. So on that issue i believe that it can be easy enough to get a passport.
 
Huh?? Europe has anti-immigrant problems? Heck..an awful lot of Germans living in Turkey, and quite content to srty, in sopite of the occasional riot or rumblings from the native-born.

The problem is yes, the US still invents a lot of great things, new technologies, etc, but increasing amounts of the averge "middle class" can't afford them, whether it's iPds of the latest in health care technology or the latest home entertainment gadget. It's not just the dollar being low. It;s more serious long-term weaknesses--more sikleed entry-level jobs de\isappearing, manufacturing jobd being converted to service jobs that are dead-end and poorly paid, (for example: one third of all US adults aged 18-24 have no health insurance AT ALL and another 25% have substandard insurance that lacks such things as dental etc). So half the US population of college age and just above has NO ACCESSto health care, outeide of the emergency room or paying it temselves. A night in a hospital room is $5000--IF they can find one. (More than 100 hospitals have closed since 1990, and 100,000 beds have vanished.) Our Glorious Leader has just passed not toolong ago a bill that effectively denies any access to health care AT ALL for Native Americans on reservations on weekends(the clincs have "not enough funding" and are now being closed Fridays to Sundays.)

And Speedracer...foreign enrollemtn in schools that you boast of has dropped by a thrid in the past 2 yrs. It seems large amounts of Asian and other imigrants are not waiting 2 or more yrs of their lives to see if the HS office declares them a potential terririst or not. They are flocking to Oxford and the Sorbonne etc. Have you read Businessweek, a staunchly conservative mag, any time this year?
Chew on that for awhile.
 
bonoman said:
But the EU as a whole is quite easy to get into. If you have a grandparent that was born in the EU then your automatically in. That covers about 50% of people. Countries like Canada and US have massive amount of EU decendents. So on that issue i believe that it can be easy enough to get a passport.

I wish that extended to "great-grandparents," because then I'd qualify. ;)

Melon
 
Teta040 said:

And Speedracer...foreign enrollemtn in schools that you boast of has dropped by a thrid in the past 2 yrs. It seems large amounts of Asian and other imigrants are not waiting 2 or more yrs of their lives to see if the HS office declares them a potential terririst or not. They are flocking to Oxford and the Sorbonne etc. Have you read Businessweek, a staunchly conservative mag, any time this year?

I realize this. An Iranian student who was admitted to my own department had trouble entering the country and eventually gave up. As far as I can tell, the people that are having the biggest difficulties are from the Middle East. But the effect of our homeland security policies on the enrollment of foreign graduate students is the subject of yet another thread.
 
Whoever 'Eurochambres' really are, those nutty leftists at the World Economic Forum (Davos) apparently don't share their glum view of Europe's economic prospects. The latest edition of their annual Global Competitiveness Index, a ranking of the world's most competitive economies, puts Finland--with its extensive welfare state--ahead of the US at #1. (Sweden and Denmark also made the top 5; Norway, Switzerland and Iceland the top 10; and the UK, Netherlands and Germany the top 15.)


The WEF's GCI has three main legs: the overall quality of a country's economy at the macro level (e.g., budget surpluses good, deficits bad); the state of its public institutions, which includes such measures as the independence of the judiciary and the level of public sector corruption; and the level of its technological innovation.

Finland scores well on all three sub-indexes, ranking third in each. The U.S., in contrast, is easily No. 1 for technological innovation, but its overall ranking is dragged down by being 15th on the macroeconomic environment ranking, one place below Australia, and 21st on the public institutions sub-index, one place below Chile.

Finland is given high marks for prudently running budget surpluses in preparation for the future claims on its social security, pension and health care systems expected to be incurred as its population ages.

The top of the CGI rankings is remarkably stable. Good habits become self-reinforcing and self-rewarding. Finland is No.1 for the third year in four, and nine of the top ten this year are repeats from last year.


(source: Forbes.com 13.10.04)
 
Yes Europe is behind looking at many economical factors, but do we care about that????
I don't think many Europeans would want to catch up with America if that would mean working 49 or 50 weeks a year making 50+ hours a week, losing our socail security system (which I agree, does have to change and is also is changing)
Sure, our economy would probably benefit from it. The Eurochambres people would probably like it, but most other people in Europe will then be very happy to just stay behind...
 
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