>>>>>>Rahter than (too easily) blame it on my percepted negative view, I'd challenge you to fight the reasoning rather than the person telling you.
>>>>>
>>>>>The economy has been precarious for years. There is information going back to the 80s and 90s pointing to this occurring. Really. Just for grins and giggles, I pulled some interesting stuff:
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.economic-policy.org/special_us_panel.asp
>>>>>http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2008/gb2008081_148006.htm?campaign_id=rss_eu
>>>>>http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/01/25/story53496.asp
>>>>>http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/05/musical_chairs.html
>>>>>http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/09/weak_european_p.html
>>>>>http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3550247.html
>>>>>
>>>>>Not interested in the other argument though Walter. I thought you were intelligent enough to get it yourself. Just not interested in it today. Perhaps another day...
>>>>
>>>>I'm not intelligent/sidekick enough to see what your reasoning is behind a blunt statement. I guess you still don't get it that the pessimistic european want to contrast the optimistic american, and beyond that educate the ones about the world outside who never saw it, but are making blunt statements.
>>>
>>>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.
>>>
>>>And on the other hand, is there any such list of articles written by the other side? I'd like to see a view from the other side.
>>
>>The US side or the EU side ?? Jeremy Rifkin has writen quite a few articles comparing the EU and the US in a number of aspects
>>http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,366944,00.html
>>http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/arti2258238/American_economy_will_become_more_European.html
>
>And a couple more that are interesting:
>
>http://w3.cantos.com/08/eiu-807-5wbrd/interviews.php?task=view&cnt=bb&med=asx
>http://www.economistblog.com/2007/11/04/update-eu-vs-usa/

I had no interest in watching a whole video, but my comment on the GPD is that it really not rellevant in the discussions here. The income inequity is too different. If you see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita, you'll see the quatar is the nation with the highest GDP. Also if you see http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_percap-economy-gdp-per-capita, I can't share the conclusion in the article. Several european countries are doing better than the US or at least close to it.

Anyways, what this mean to joe bloggs ?? If all the money goes to the very few, it does not help joe average. In this respect the scandanavian countries are doing far better. There is not such a huge gap between rich and poor. These are very wealthy countries with a good and compatative economies. It is far more insteresting to see graphs of living standards. Like http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_hap_lev_ver_hap-lifestyle-happiness-level-very-happy
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_lif_sat-lifestyle-life-satisfaction

And of course this is the whole point here. Who is better off John Doe (US) or Joe Bloggs (EU) ? It of course has to with the individualism of the americans versus the more social approach in the europe. If you're rich, you're better off in the US, however if not, things are much different.