FOLLOW UP: Woe-is-Europe

Europe continues to be subpar. More than ever since the US stopped funding the continent (Marshall followed by Cold War support) young Europeans are unsure of attaining even their parents’ levels of affluence. It is unclear whether this slow bleeding over decades has taken its toll on the “family money” of the continent, but most likely so. Only through prescience or a complete flight from European investments could they have preserved. Too much, far too much bureaucracy. Far far far too much focus on sensationalism, on news-tainment or the one I like better recently irri-tainment (media so in-your-face and horridly insipid that you can’t stop watching it) especially of the European scandal-tainment variety so well perfected by the Italians to avoid looking at their real problems of impotence, lack of innovation, inability to compete with anglo business models. Meanwhile the Vikings continue to perk in spite of their oppressive socialist staightjacket. One must ask ones self: just how damn productive, innovative, and rich could they have been (or could they become) were this mantle lifted? After all, the apparent source of all the global flows of productivity is in the vicinity of the north pole. People appear to get less productive the further they are from that groundswell. Yet the US is not more than a decade from the European curse. Given an increased (even just maintained) focus on lack of personal responsibility, on socialistic regulation, we’ll be right behind them in the donkey-train leading down to economic stagnation.