[perl4ever]

1) You can cherry-pick US states too, and;

2) Just look at the chart I linked to - on decadal timescales, the EU was catching up to the US rapidly and then plateaued, in more than one cycle. No idea why, but something significant was happening and then stalling. Obviously history wasn't retroactively occurring and being eradicated.

[ClumsyPilot]

2) It's good data, the graph shows 2008 as an inflection point. I think that's the disastrous austerity programme chosen by political leadership throughout europe. Instead of investing they decided to cut spending in a recession. That's my take anyway.

1) You can't brush off foreign occupation 29 years ago as cherry picking. This dataset starts in 1960s, when all of Eastern Europe were soviet puppets. There is nothing comparable in recent US history.

[perl4ever]

"There is nothing comparable in recent US history."

Of course there is. What transition happened in the US in the 60s, that the country is still not completely out of? You'd know instantly if an American was using it as an excuse (as is quite common) for not matching various European metrics.

[ClumsyPilot]

I actually don't know what you could be alluding to. Civil right movement?