April 19, 2005
US Economic Power
That right-wing-rag, the New York Times is at it again, delivering yet another hit piece against statism.
Bruce Bawer, an American living in Oslo, delivers the bad news to his neighbors who are quite convinced that they are "the richest country in the world."
Alternatively, the study found, if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro's statistics suggest otherwise. So did a paper by a Swedish economics writer, Johan Norberg.Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream," Mr. Norberg described the difference: "Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening."
Growing up in the 70's, I was forced to tolerate Disco music; polyester leisure suits; dire warnings of global cooling, the 80s world famine and overpopulation; and liberal glee over the utopias of Sweden and Norway.
Hard to say that music has improved a lot, but it's now Global Warming, underpopulation, people are eating well everywhere there is some degree of freedom, and the light of truth has been shown on the true effects of statism.
Hat-tip: Samizdata