"Old" Europe

Ok, this is another one of my boring blogs about politics, and I know many of you don't care about politics and most of you won't bother to read it, but let's face it, I just get a real kick out of seeing my own words all fancy, posted and in print.

The Economist reported today that Germany's GDP shrank last quarter . That's right, amidst the current worldwide economic expansion led by the world's freest economies ( the U.S. and the "tigers" of East Asia and Eastern Europe), the economies of Germany, Italy, and France are all now in recession. This is amazing, and further proves the point that socialistic economies, with their 35-hour work week limits, high marginal tax rates, excessive regulations, and massive welfare states, do a much worse job (or, in this case, no job at all) of creating wealth than free-market, capitalist countries do. France's per-capita GDP has remained generally stagnant over the past decade, and even shrunk during a few of those years.

If things remain the way that they do over the next 50 years, I predict Western Europe will be left on the "ash heap" of history while the dynamic, free-market economies like the U.S. lead the way in creating the world's wealth. Nations like France and Germany will be considered part of the 3rd world if they don't free their economies. The French can talk all they want about their lavish leisure time and shorter work weeks, but the truth is that already the average European today would actually be considered in poverty by U.S. census standards. A little over ten years ago, our own high-tax, socialist Ireland was considered the "sick man of Europe" with enormous poverty rates. But beginning in 1994, its welfare state and high tax rates were slashed, and as a result living standards have more than doubled as investment and business have flocked to the Emerald Isle, now called the "Celtic Tiger." Ireland is now one of the richest nations in Europe (its per-capita GDP is now %120 of the EU average), because it is the 5th freest economy in the world, even freer than the U.S.

The simple point is that, despite what the out-of-touch, left-wing professors try to convince us, history and common sense shows us that capitalism creates wealth, and socialism creates poverty. Americans rich and poor live better today than at any time in history. Let's just hope Hillary Clinton isn't elected in '08 with her agenda to reverse this course, and lead us down the government-run "road to serfdom," or else, I'm moving back to Ireland.