EU ranks among the poorest of U.S. States

From:The Swedish Research Institute of Trade.


http://www.investopedia.com/printabl.../04/071404.asp

http://www.thaipro.com/shop/2u-nice%...culture%20box-
B000006OIT.htm




The EU is in an introspective mood. Last week European leaders finally
settled on a constitution to govern the enlarged bloc. Now they face
the daunting task of selling that document to their own electorates,
most of whom are becoming harder to convince.

With good reason. The most striking point about the constitution is
neither how tame it is nor how dangerous - it is how irrelevant it
appears. While Europe's politicians were struggling with a dated agenda
of political integration, two new sets of statistics delivered a
telling reminder of Europe's recent economic failure.

Both brought home the same uncomfortable truth: after a decade of
economic stagnation, most of Europe is now starting to look distinctly
poor in relation to the US.

The Capgemini and Merrill Lynch annual survey of the world's
millionaires painted a disappointing picture of personal wealth
generation in Europe. The number of millionaires grew by just 2.4
percent in Europe last year, much lower than the global figure of 7.7
percent.

"Europe as a whole continued to sustain lower average high-net-worth
individual wealth than North America," the report said. "This partly
can be attributed to the more restrictive European income tax policies,
which impeded personal wealth accumulation."

How many millionaires there are is just one measure of how wealthy a
society is. Offered a choice, many of us might prefer to live in a
country with fewer rich people, and higher average wages.

Yet it matters for two reasons. Most millionaires are successful
entrepreneurs. There are so few of them coming out of Europe because it
has lost its entrepreneurial vigour compared with other regions. Also,
the rich are a valuable source of fresh capital; they invest in the
next generation of business start-ups.

If Europe had fewer rich people, but rising general prosperity, that
would be a trade-off most people could settle for. Trouble is, Europe
doesn't have either any more.

The more striking illustration of how Europe is falling behind the US
comes in a new report called EU Versus USA, published by Timbro, a
Swedish free market think-tank.

Written by Fredrik Bergstrom, the president of the Swedish Research
Institute of Trade, and Robert Gidehag, the president of the Swedish
Taxpayers' Association, it puts a sombre light on the economic gulf
that has opened up.

Using figures for 2001, the study analysed how the individual states
of Europe compared with that other federal superpower, the US. The
finding? They didn't compare very well. Only one European country
managed a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita figure above the US
average: tiny Luxembourg.

The big EU countries such as France, Germany, Italy and the UK had GDP
per capita figures that were lower than all but four of the states of
the US. If any of them had decided they were tired of the EU and
applied to join the US instead, they would have been down there with
the poorer states of Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana and West Virginia.

"The problem is getting worse all the time," says Gidehag. "If you
project it out for another 50 years, then Europe will be looking
dramatically poorer compared with the US."

The reason is simple enough. The US has been growing much faster than
Europe. In the first quarter of this year, the US economy grew an
estimated 4.4 percent, while the euro nations expanded 1.3 percent.

An occasional year of faster US growth makes little difference. When
it happens year after year, a real gulf starts to open up.

We've now reached the stage where Europe looks relatively poor. The
state of Connecticut, for example, is almost twice as affluent as
France and the UK in the study.

Even if the US were to stop growing completely, and Europe were to
expand at its current rate, only one country would catch up with the US
in the next five years: low-tax, free market Ireland.

The one difference between Ireland and the rest of the EU - with the
exception until recently of Britain - is that the country has limited
the share of the economy consumed by the government.

"Almost all economists would agree on this," Gidehag says. "If you
take the period since 1970, most European governments have
substantially increased the state's share of GDP, whereas in the US it
has been roughly stable."

After a decade of underperformance, Europe is almost at a different
stage of economic development than the US - what might be called the
Second World to the American First World. While Europe fails to
recognise that, talk of new constitutions and more integration is
neither right nor wrong. It is just painfully beside the point.

Published on the web by Business Report on June 26, 2004.
© Business Report 2004. All rights reserved.

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
From:The Swedish Research Institute of Trade.

How many millionaires there are is just one measure of how wealthy a
society is. Offered a choice, many of us might prefer to live in a
country with fewer rich people, and higher average wages.


Well exactly. To be a country with a high number of millionaries suggests
there is high inequalities between the population, which usually results in
the poor having very bad living conditions compared with other countries.

In article , Mark Hewitt
wrote:

"Go Fig" wrote in message
...
From:The Swedish Research Institute of Trade.

How many millionaires there are is just one measure of how wealthy a
society is. Offered a choice, many of us might prefer to live in a
country with fewer rich people, and higher average wages.


Well exactly. To be a country with a high number of millionaries suggests
there is high inequalities between the population, which usually results in
the poor having very bad living conditions compared with other countries.

It may suggest it to you, but objectively it is not true for America.
I have previously posted this info:

according to the two U.S. Official government reports, American
Housing Survey 2001 and Housing Characteristics 2001:


Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes.
The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census
Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage,
and a porch or patio.
* Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By
contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population
enjoyed air conditioning.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the average
individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities
throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in
foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
* Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own
two or more cars.
* Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television;
over half own two or more color televisions.
* Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have
cable or satellite TV reception.
* Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a
stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

jay
Tue Jul 20, 2004

Mark Hewitt writes:

Well exactly. To be a country with a high number of millionaries suggests
there is high inequalities between the population ...

No, it does not. Indeed, if the number is high enough, then being a
millionnaire becomes the norm.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Following up to Tim Kroesen

What's "stupid" abut saving electric costs cooking with a microwave vs.
a conventional electric stove?

think about what they put in those microwaves and what they could
have put in a conventional cooker.
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Wasdale-Lake district-Thames path-London "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Eat-walk-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Earl Evleth writes:

More seriously, what great chef uses microwave for basic cooking?

It depends on what he wants to cook. The best way to make scrambled
eggs, for example, is in a microwave oven. Microwaves are also good for
quickly heating just about anything, and for heating things without
causing them to dry out.

You will know which restaurants have microwave. Suppose your plate
arrives too cold and you complain and it is taken back
to the kitchen. If it returns in a minute hot you
know there is a microwave, back "there" but out of sight
and hiding with the cockroaches.

There's nothing wrong with warming something up with a microwave. Works
great for many baked goods in particular (e.g., croissants).

You can¹t do great cuisine with microwave.

See above. Try some scrambled eggs.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Earl Evleth writes:

More seriously, what great chef uses microwave for basic cooking?

It depends on what he wants to cook. The best way to make scrambled
eggs, for example, is in a microwave oven. Microwaves are also good for
quickly heating just about anything, and for heating things without
causing them to dry out.

You will know which restaurants have microwave. Suppose your plate
arrives too cold and you complain and it is taken back
to the kitchen. If it returns in a minute hot you
know there is a microwave, back "there" but out of sight
and hiding with the cockroaches.

There's nothing wrong with warming something up with a microwave. Works
great for many baked goods in particular (e.g., croissants).

You can¹t do great cuisine with microwave.

See above. Try some scrambled eggs.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Following up to Earl Evleth

More seriously, what great chef uses microwave for basic cooking?
Even gas is superior to electric for heat control.

Also, with a conventional oven you can cook from basic
ingredients like dried beans which are *much* cheaper than ready
meals.
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Wasdale-Lake district-Thames path-London "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Eat-walk-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Following up to Earl Evleth

More seriously, what great chef uses microwave for basic cooking?
Even gas is superior to electric for heat control.

Also, with a conventional oven you can cook from basic
ingredients like dried beans which are *much* cheaper than ready
meals.
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
Wasdale-Lake district-Thames path-London "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Eat-walk-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

The Reids writes:

Also, with a conventional oven you can cook from basic
ingredients like dried beans which are *much* cheaper than ready
meals.

What prevents this from being done with a microwave?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.