A gentler way

It's a popular ploy with the bloody-minded branch of American capitalism to deride the European economies with their social safety nets. Maybe the Social Darwinism so beloved of hard working, up-from-the-bottom sorts like the Head Frat Boy isn't the only way to approach the organization of an economic world. We here work longer and have poorer health care for more money. You see many fewer of the toothless and tattered on the streets of Europe. Here's a different take from the WaPo.

The European economy was never as bad as the Europessimists made it out to be. From 2000 to 2005, when the much-heralded U.S. economic recovery was being fueled by easy credit and a speculative housing market, the 15 core nations of the European Union had per capita economic growth rates equal to that of the United States. In late 2006, they surpassed us. Europe added jobs at a faster rate, had a much lower budget deficit than the United States and is now posting higher productivity gains and a $3 billion trade surplus.

Read the whole piece here.