Europe ‘Needs 75 Years’ To Catch U.S.A.
Yeah, but we are soooo way behind them on figuring out liberalism and socialism SUCK!
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - TelegraphUK:
The Association of European Chambers of Commerce in Brussels warned that the transatlantic gap had widened yet further in the past five years by all key measures, despite the pledge by EU leaders at the 2000 Lisbon summit to transform Europe into the world’s “most dynamic knowledge-based economy” by the end of the decade.
The EU-wide umbrella group, known asEurochambres said the EU’s overall employment rate was still stuck at levels attained by the United States in 1978, chiefly due to an incentive structure that discourages women from working and prompts early retirement by those in their fifties.
It found that the European Union’s research and development levels were achieved by America as long ago as 1979, while the lag time on per capita income is 18 years.
“It will take the EU until 2072 to reach US levels of income per capita, and then only if the EU income growth exceeds that of the US by 0.5pc,” the study said.
Christopher Leitl, the president of Eurochambers, urged EU leaders to grasp the nettle of reform at their spring summit this month, or face economic death. “It is a question of survival,” he said.
Jose Manuel Barroso, an Iberian Thatcherite, made it his top priority to revive the Lisbon reform agenda - now a byword for hubris and empty rhetoric - when he took over as Commission president last November.
But he has already bowed to French and German pressure over the British-backed services directive, agreeing to water down radical plans to extend the single market to the service sector - now some 70pc of the EU economy.
The French newspaper Le Figaro said Mr Barroso had become ”a prisoner of the Franco-German couple”.
Yesterday’s report included a letter to Tony Blair from the British Chambers of Commerce warning that the swelling costs of EU regulations posed a grave threat to British economic dynamism.
“The damaging impact of excessive labour-market regulation may be about to hit Britain,” said the letter, signed by BCC’s president Bill Midgely. “Britain now faces the threat of losing the opt-out from the working-time directive’s 48-hour working week.” Mr Midgley called on the Prime Minister to put an end to “gold-plating”, alluding to over-zealous enforcement of EU rules that are often skirted or even ignored by other countries - though not by Germany and the Nordic states.
He also called for “sunset clauses” on onerous rules and an “independent arbiter” to assess the impact of EU laws on business.
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HEHE , so even when we are bad, we are still number1
May 31st, 2008 at 4:41 pmWe have Europe in America. It’s called Berkeley.
May 31st, 2008 at 4:49 pmThey’ll never catch up if they continue to kow-tow to the Islamniacs. Instead of an economy equal to the US; they’ll have an economy equal to Mecca in the 7th century. Then Europe will be 14 centuries behind us.
May 31st, 2008 at 4:58 pmJust a bunch of hard workers who dont retire until we’re about 70 lol
how do they ever plan to catch up? dont they take like 4 month vacations in the summer?
May 31st, 2008 at 5:44 pmMy girlfriend is hotter then the chick on the left. An shes from America.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:52 pmJust another indicator those American socialists, I mean progressive socialists, I mean liberal fascists…
I mean just another indicator that the left-wing of the Dimocratic party is not only morally bankrupt like most of Europe, but stupid and lazy too being as they want us to be like Europe.
Thanks but no thanks KKKos and PuffHO ilk. As usual,you’re wrong.
May 31st, 2008 at 6:26 pmThis reminds me of a European visitor to our country whom I showed around for a few days while he visited our lab. This joker came complete with PhD and all. I had been working with him and showing him around DC for a few days before he say an especially fat man walking past us. He exclaimed, “Ah, there’s a real American!”.
Never mind that he’d seen literally hundreds of people before he decided that the overweight gent matched his prejudices. Never mind that he was highly educated and should have known better. Never mind at all - I speak from experience when I say that Europeans don’t impress me in the slightest.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:39 pmI Agree with all of you. In some important ways, their mindset is still in a feudal society where the Lord took care of them. Oh, they worked, but not too hard, and he provided their house, and defense. They truly do not get Capitalism,, competition, and all that. To them it seems like cheating, not fair. The best of Europe LEFT, and came here.
They really believe that by adding another layer of EU bureaucracy on top of their already bloated individual country bureaucracies that they will somehow become efficient, and benefit from economies of scale!
They will never get it. The ones who do will leave, and come here. Meanwhile, their immigrants will discover that they don’t know how to make a modern society work, and Europe will sink into another African disaster.
By then Iraq will have become a kick ass democratic booming Capitalist country, and young Iranians — one hopes — will have kicked the mullahs out, and started doing the same thing as the Iraqis. Maybe the Jordanians will see what’s shakin’ and shape up.
Lots of wild cards, but one can hope. Freedom is an absolutely unstoppable force once it is let loose.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:16 pmBill;
June 1st, 2008 at 1:11 amIt seems to have been stopped in the EU. All you need is sufficiently well organized bribery by state ‘crats of one sort or another, and eventually you have passivity and mediocrity.
You’re right. I wasn’t clear. All the freedom loving Europeans have already, or soon will leave. Eagles want Freedom. Clams just want the tide to keep bringing them some food.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:43 amMark, my wife is hotter than that girl on the left….
June 1st, 2008 at 7:21 amI wouldn’t worry about Europe too much, the muslims will soon be running the show. Appeasement is a powerful tool…
June 1st, 2008 at 7:22 am