[eldavido]

Absolutely it is, and anyone in denial about that can look at European GDP growth, GDP per capita, youth unemployment, firm valuations, or about 20 other economic metrics to back it up.

You can't start a company there because all this social spending makes it super hard to get going. I think the US is heading this way too now, toward lots of big companies with fat required benefit packages the little guys can never match (even if they eventually go on to become huge).

I wish people who would being so starry-eyed about Europe. One of the 10 biggest companies in Italy is the post office. Lots of industrial power, that.

[Apocryphon]

Well, perhaps labor relations in the U.S. are just so acrimonious- its history is literally soaked in blood and violence- that it's just one patch of grass of Europe that seems greener on the other side. Certainly the idea of more cooperation between labor and management, perhaps the German model of labor unions, wouldn't be so bad.

[astrange]

It’s a similar problem to universal healthcare and the US government structure in general.

The US actually got there first, and hasn’t collapsed in any wars recently, and as such we’re on the old version of all government software so it all sucks yet nobody is willing to risk upgrading. Starting from scratch is a lot easier since there’s nothing to lose. (And of course, having the country collapse is bad too.)