Making the US More Like Europe? No, Thanks

Europe is undergoing a traumatic transformation, due entirely to its over-regulation and over-dependency on central government bureaus. Naturally, it is the middle class in Europe that is feeling the greatest squeeze. When governments grow out of control, it is the middle class that pays the greatest price, and this is the case in modern Europe.

The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent’s long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe’s vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad.

Potentially more disturbing — especially to the political and social order — are the millions across the continent grappling with the realization that they may have lives worse, not better, than their parents.

“I have this feeling that there is a wall in front of us,” said Axel Marceau, a 41-year-old schoolteacher living outside of Frankfurt. “We’re just not going to get any further.”

His concerns are well-founded. A study by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin found that the broad middle of the German work force, defined as workers making from 70 to 150 percent of the median income, shrunk to 54 percent of the population last year, from 62 percent in 2000. __NYT__via__OTB

Senator Obama wants to make the US more like Europe. He thinks that Americans want this too. But only uninformed and unintelligent Americans want that, which may categorize Obama's supporters a bit too well for Obama's comfort.

Europe has bigger problems than the middle-class squeeze, however. A demographic collapse of indigenous Europeans (from failure to breed) combined with an out-of-control influx of uneducated and unassimilable third world immigrants, leaves the top-heavy over-bureaucratic state welfare systems of Europe with a shortage of tax paying citizens. Even worse, the resentful and increasingly alienated European third-world underclass is swelling the criminal ranks of an old Europe that had grown accustomed to low crime rates.

For those who examine critical underlying trends in a society, Europe is suffering from some of the worst possible trends a society can experience. Obama would do well to look in another direction for societies to model his brave new world after.