Dad - good to have you posting again. It's too bad that Ming is bugging you, but she also keeps you on your toes, right? Gives you something to worry about day-by-day.

I'd like to respond a bit to your thoughts on the German economy by pointing out some of the findings in the analysis (the link is to a pdf file) by two Swedish economists entitled "The EU vs. the USA."

America has its problems, but as of last summer (the date of the Swedish analysis), poor Americans had better living conditions than average Europeans!
For example, as broken down in this article, each average American has 721 square feet of dwelling space; each average European has only 395 square feet. But the average poor American has 428 square feet, more than an average European!
Of course, Americans have more room to build, but in 11 of the 13 categories, Americans households were more likely to have modern conveniences than households in ANY of the European countries! (Swedish people have more phones and cell phones than Americans do...) See the article cited above for more...
46% of poor Americans own their own homes. Over 75% have air conditioning. 60% have cable or satellite TV. 73% own a car...

Another way to look at the data is to compare the countries of the EU to individual American states, looking at GDP per capita, as was done in this Wall Street Journal editorial last summer.
The EU average GDP per capita (which was the same as the German average) was lower than 46 of the 50 American states. Germany's average was higher than averages only in Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi!

The Swedish economists attribute the differences to more labor and lower taxes in the United States.

My question then is: when poor Americans are better off than average Europeans, isn't the American model the one to be followed, if one is concerned with the welfare of the poor?

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 6/01/2005 02:25:00 PM