I live in Germany, and I like to do so pretty much. If live is better in the US, I’m very happy for you and the other Americans, that can enjoy their lives.

When you describe aspects of sustainability of the current lifestyles, your ranting on Western Europe isn’t very realitic, though.
One reason for this, is your believe in immigration. Immigration doesn’t necessarily enrich a country. Especially if you have a social safety net, immigrants may after a very short term of work simply end living from welfare.

Immigration and generally population growth means
- capital dilution: you need to build new streets, schools, houses, factories, etc. but as well create new ideas for new jobs. If the immigrants are less educated than the home population – and Turkish and Arabian immigrants to Europe are less educated, you have to build up new human capital as well
- there are natural resources like water, attractive places for properties, locations for windmills, occasionally metals and minerals, beaches, …
these natural resources are hardly increasable. The less people there are, the more of the natural resources for every single person.

Another point you misanalyse is the dependency on cars and tourism. Actually overall Western Europeans tend to make more vacations elsewhere, than the other way around. How can you laud Turkey and critisise dependency on tourism?
As well Mercedes and BMW aren’t most of Germanies export goods [of course you have to subtract the parts, that Germany imports to assemble the cars] And with regard to precursor products, there are as well German components in Chinese and Indian cars.

Education in Western Europe by the way is overall the best in the world. There are few top universities, but the average Western European university is better than the American, and far better than Eastern European universities. You mention mathematicians. Never thought, the mathematics is a subject, that you can learn without tremendous investment in machinery, without the need for large science clusters, etc.?

Eastern Europe, Turkey and the USA had one thing in common in the last years. Huge current account deficits. If Western Europe would be uncompetitive, than one should expects is currencies to devalue. But you speak of the US, that it may manage to devalue its currency (artificially)? Well, if the Europeans would be the last man standing in not manipulating our currency, the world should be grateful to us, to have at least one major currency, that works the way currencies should work. Against whom do you want to devalue otherwise?

I’m sure you’ve got tons of facts and figures to support that, don’t you?

In fact, despite the tight credit market situation, they will increase their head count from 1,300 to 4,000 at the end of 2009 in their main manufacturing plant in the US; hardly the stuff of experimental R&D outfit.

Also, the few trade schools in the US that train windmill techs are completely overwhelm by the demand from the industry. GM alone wants to hire 3,00 of them during the next 18 months.

I’ll explain:

I was born and was raised in Europe, although for over 25 years I’ve been calling the U.S. my home. I am in Europe right now, and for the past 2 years I have spent most of my time in Europe. Last time I was in France and Germany was in January.

I really think the Western European infrastructure has been deteriorating rapidly these past several years, along with some of the major tourist traps like Paris. I used to love Paris, but now the place really needs a paint job and a scrub as it is looking more and more like Marseilles or Naples. I think France is so dependent on tourism, they need to seriously start cleaning up the place, because I doubt the export of Renaults will keep those lofty social programs going much longer.

As far as Germany goes, it is in a far better position than France or the rest of southern Europe for that matter, but they too have been deteriorating these past few years. The autobahns, for one thing, are in terrible shape. It is actually becoming hazardous to drive on the German autobahns — repainting the lanes would be a nice start.

In my opinion, the “European Dream” is well on its way out. It was 200 years too late to begin with, and the steps toward integration were just too half-baked to make any lasting difference. It’s too late now. Globalization is on its way out, and Western Europe is now just a bunch of small and relatively unimportant nations. It’s only the big dogs that matter now: the U.S., China, Russia, India, maybe Brazil. I think Turkey has a brighter future than France, Italy, or Spain.

Honestly, I think Eastern Europe has a brighter future than the Western part of the continent. Eastern Europeans are much more down-to-earth, much more humble, more sound-minded, and more appreciative of what the U.S. did for them. All I see in places like France and Spain is a sense of entitlement and a holier than thou attitude.

Eastern Europeans are also very well educated. The best mathematicians come from Romania and Hungary. Go to any top university in the world like MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or Princeton (all American universities, by the way), and the best and the brightest students are from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia. These are truly smart people, and America is paying their tuition at these top universities, and when they graduates it gives them permanent residence followed by citizenship.

France and Spain treats Easter Europeans like underdogs, and sends Ph.D.s and M.D.s to work in agriculture. Or, if they ever get to work in a university or hospital, they will always be subordinate to some ignorant Frenchman or Spaniard who gets the higher position simply for having the right sounding last name. Have you seen any decent research come out of France or Spain, ever? And if you do, it’s likely produced by foreigners and the head honcho gets to plaster his name on the study simply because he has seniority. I hardly see how that is conducive to progress.

In French universities all they teach is just how wonderful is the French language, and how awful it is that that terrible English has made Victor Hugo’s tongue irrelevant.

I also don’t see true soul-searching in Western Europe. Even now, with this crisis, all I hear from France is how the crisis started in the U.S. They never seem to mention that their own Societe Generale made its crazy investments in Eastern Europe all on its own. Yet, Societe Generale received over 20 billion of U.S. taxpayer money through AIG. No, the average Frenchman has absolutely no ability to be honest with himself.

OK, I am a psychiatrist, so I study people for a living. You can generalize about people, within certain limits, of course. I think the general attitude in much of Europe is “give us something for free.” The handout mentality. Europe got addicted to freebies after the Marshall Plan. Germany is an exception, because theGermans are actually creative people. But most of Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece) are simply used to living off of tourists that hand over their cash to see ruins the Romans build 2000 years ago or paintings Leonardo da Vinci made 500 years ago.

However, the U.S. is very different. The U.S. actually is a creative nation. Silicon Valley, for instance, and the universities I mentioned above, plus hundreds of other American universities public or private.

Granted, a large percentage of Americans are parasites living off of welfare, but America still has a large enough segment of the population that creates and produces like no others in the world. This segment will save America. However, I don’t see enough such people in nations like France, Britain, Italy, Greece.

Finally, I know Europe better than most Europeans. I know America better than most Americans. America still is by far a better place to live. In contrast, life is hard in Europe. Everything in Europe is overpriced, salaries are terribly low, taxes are high, apartments are small and cold.

Well, all of the above are my honest opinion, for what it’s worth.

Vinny GOLberg

I’d LOVE to have France’s social support structure (with a few tweaks based on lessons learned by France).

We are Argentina over here while Germany and France are pretty solid so far, even with the problems. Can’t say the same for Britain which essentially followed the US model (thanks to Thatcher) into ruin.

Swedish Lex: I am sympathetic to Japan and do NOT believe there should be any punitive action by other countries should Japan devalue the Yen. They are blown away in ways we have yet to reach here (but have a better safety net!).

Let’s see, choose to save your society or save international trade relations? No contest, I would choose to save the society and defuse potential social unrest FIRST. That is the ultimate duty of ANY valid government, to NOT screw its own people for the sake of foreign business. Painful choice in other ways but the right one.

Don’t let your enthusiasm get ahead of you. All of Europe has had a sizeable immigration, legal and illegal in recent years. Not much different from the US on that. France has a positive birth rate. As for their “decrepit” museums, you clearly have not been in France in a long time.

The US unemployment rate just passed France’s for the first time in a long time. They have their problems, but their banks are fundamentally sound, and they didn’t create a real-estate bubble.

At some point, some reality has to creep into your fantasmagoric image of Europe. I love the USA too, but your spew does it a disservice.

A couple of points:

1.) Buy and hold gold.

2.) If you live in continental Europe, apply for immigration to the United States right away.

3.) The Swiss and Norway are wise not to have much to do with the EU. Britain, Sweden, despite being EU members, they might as well not be.

4.) About Europe:
Europe is the new Japan. Last week’s resistance showed by Germany and France to embark upon truly relevant stimulus actions, indicates that Europe will follow the path of Japan. The difference is that Europe is in a far worse position than Japan was in the 90s.

What will Germany do when Americans and Russians stop buying their overpriced, overrated BMWs and Mercedeses, and instead choose a Tata, a new-and-improved GM, an affordable Ford, or a trusty Toyota? And, what will the lazy had-been, stale-glory France do when American tourists stop dishing out thousands of their dollars to visit decrepit Parisians museums and pay $10+ for a cup of poorly brewed coffee served by a sour-faced French waiter, when they can just go to the Met, and drink better coffer in a friendlier atmosphere at their neighborhood Starbucks for a lot less money.

What will France, Spain, Austria, Germany, and now the so-called “progressive” Netherlands do with their nationalist policies (in the case of France, Spain, and Austria bordering on the Fascist)? They despise, openly discriminate, and detest immigration, but at the same time enjoy a negative birth rate. They reject and humiliate Muslims based on their religion, while having lost all their Christian heritage and traditions. They believe in nothing except in their own arrogance. They enjoy their 32 hour work weeks, one-month vacation, subsidized healthcare and education, while expecting America to pay for their defense, Eastern Europeans to do all their work for them, and American stimulus programs to rescues their failing economies. What will happen to them, with these attitudes and policies? They will simply become Third World, very much like Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and parts of southern France already are. France will eat cake (again), and Germany will eat their overpriced BMWs. Bon appetite!

The arrogance of France and Germany continues despite the harsh reality that should have awaken them decades ago. Yesterday and today they have snubbed Turkey again. Very much like they snubbed Eastern Europe a few years ago. I sincerely hope aspiring EU members along with recent new Easter European members will soon recognize the total lack of benefit of being part of this joke called the European Union. And I sincerely hope Obama will soon realize the futility of dealing with them.

Correction to the above: Europe is NOT the new Japan. Europe is the “new Zimbabwe with a twist,” namely it will sport poverty and massive social unrest, while maintaining a stable currency…LOL Yeah, the old Deutchmark in disguise…LOL

5.) Meanwhile, America will rebuild its infrastructure, will somehow find a way to devalue its currency and thus erase/ease foreign debt, will forge new alliances with truly relevant powers like Turkey, Iran, Eastern Europe, and Russia, while distancing itself from irrelevant nations like France, Spain, Germany, or other stagnant had-beens.

Vinny GOLDberg