>>On one hand, we have the American pundits saying that the EU is wrong for doing everything wrong, i.e. doing everything differently from the US - having the workers' unions in place, having more than two weeks of vacation, working less than 40 hours a week, having a minimal wage on which one can actually live, having environmental protection in place which should have completely ruined the industry (but somehow still didn't, but surely will, any day now)... while on the other hand they claim that the US productivity is the result of plain technological advancement, while it's actually a result of dividing the income by domestic working hours - or even the value of produced goods at MSRP price, not the average market price, who'd know - not counting how much of the work is actually done abroad, how many of the non-unemployed are just "not in the workforce anymore" etc etc.
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>The key word here is 'pundit.' One-sided view and not all economists share that view. Are there even 'pundits' in Netherlands? Or is that an American thing (read abberation - I'm thinking a disorder or abnormal alteration in one's mental state)...

Nobody's an economist here. I haven't heard of anyone. They're all Masters of Business Arts or some such.

And, well, I wouldn't know - I can't find good online newspaper from home where I'd be able to catch some coordinates as to who's who and where they stand; most of what I find is somebody trying to make a dinar or two translating a five minute session with Google, or somebody paid by this or that foundation or NGO to promote this or that agenda. And in other EU countries I wouldn't even know where to start. Sometimes I read from vesti.ru, but they're also too cheap nowadays, putting together too much sensationalism and celebrity so-called "culture"... takes too long to get the chaff out. So I don't know, and I would like to.

As to the idea that I should go there and see for myself - not too bad, but in the age of intertubes I'd expect that there's an easier way. Like, reading what European economists may have to say (which I may completely fail to accomplish by going there - I'd first take my time to walk the streets, ride a bicycle to somewhere and back, see the people on the streets, and enjoy beer). One would expect the fairness doctrine to audiantur et altera pars, but somehow in the articles criticizing EU, Russia or China that's mostly missing.