EU versus USA

If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries (EU 15) than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia. Only the miniscule country of Luxembourg has higher per capita GDP than the average state in the USA. The results of the new study represent a grave critique of European economic policy.

Stark differences become apparent when comparing official economic statistics. Europe lags behind the USA when comparing GDP per capita and GDP growth rates. The current economic debate among EU leaders lacks an understanding of the gravity of the situation in many European countries. Structural reforms of the European economy as well as far reaching welfare reforms are well overdue. The Lisbon process lacks true impetus, nor is it sufficient to improve the economic prospects of the EU.

EU versus USA is written by Dr Fredrik Bergström, President of the Swedish Research Institute of Trade, and Mr Robert Gidehag, until recently Chief Economist of the same institute and now President of the Swedish Taxpayer's Association.


Europe = West Virginia

*yawns*

...yet another EU versus USA thread

[edit on 17-2-2006 by infinite]

I agree; what a pointless bore and a ridiculous biased and totally selective proposition.

Not biting.

Originally posted by ElTiante

If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States.

Here you go.....I've done some searching for you.....I think this is what your really after.....

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[edit on 18-2-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Taking diet pills doens't work, but free markets do.

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[edit on 18-2-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

The major disadvantage of using GDP as an indicator of standard of living is that it is not, strictly speaking, a measure of standard of living. GDP is intended to be a measure of particular types of economic activity within a country. Nothing about the definition of GDP suggests that it is necessarily a measure of standard of living.

- Quality of life is determined by many other things than physical goods (economic or not).

- In 'poor' countries, it may just be that everything is cheap, except for a few western goods. So one may have little money, but if everything is cheap that evens out nicely. Thus, the standard of living may be quite reasonable, it's just that there are, say, fewer TV-sets, meaning people have to share them.

- If a nation doesn't spend but saves and invests overseas, such as Japan, its GDP will be diminished in comparison to one that spends borrowed money, like the US, thus accumulated savings and debt are not taken into account so long as adequate financing continues to happen.

A few good points from the English Wikipedia,
en.wikipedia.org...


Per capita GDP basically measures the amount of consumption in a country and also it does not accurately measure the standard of living of the majority, so comparing the living standards of the more social EU with right-wing consumption- based US by using only GDP as a measure is absurd.

Damn materialists.

"In 1992, the richest 1 percent of American households owned about 42 percent of the total national wealth; whereas in 1982, the richest 1 percent owned 32%." (Herbert 1995)


EDIT:

A good example of this is Equatorial Guinea. Due to oil revenues, it has the second largest per capita GDP in the world, but the life expectancy is only 49,7 years (in countries of high standard of living, the life expectancy is usually about 75-80 years) according to the CIA factbook. And, by the way, in the US people have a life expectancy of 77,71 years, but in the EU it is 78,30 years.

[edit on 26/2/2006 by MrPringles]

Mod Edit: Posting work written by others. – Please Review This Link.



[edit on 26-2-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]