[noduerme]

Americans, who mostly have no experience living or traveling abroad, can be counted on to not be able to find any of the countries you mentioned on a map. They either view all of Europe as either a sort of socialist utopia with fancy prisons and decent healthcare, or else as a bureaucratic disaster of taxes and restrictions. Although some will also say it's merely a museum. (I personally think it's a bit of all those things).

To be clear, though, Paul Krugman doesn't need to be specific at all, because he's simply pandering to one specific audience in America who hold one specific one of those stereotypes.