Maybe it's time to cut down the $700+B/year of spending on NATO and let the proud Europeans pick up the slack?
You’re trying to find a reason why quality of life is worse in the states, compared to Europe and some Asian countries. However, you’re not willing to blame yourselves, and will keep finding an excuse.
Most of people who say the same thing at the same time call Europeans “poor, no growth, no ambition” citizens. And that’s ok. But you can’t have it both ways, you know. Go enjoy your richness or growing stock market.
Also, it's easy to have social welfare when you have a homogeneous high-trust society... The more migrants the EU lets in, the more you see the whole thing deteriorate.
There's no such thing as "free" anyway, it's always paid by someone else. Pension at 60 is unsustainable, free education just devalues it, making it harder to fire people makes it harder to hire people, etc...
Europe is in economic decline, it's in population decline (as many other western nations btw), it's becoming more authoritarian (the UK prolly arrests more people for social media posts than Russia nowadays), and it's failing to compete on the world stage.
As a "3rd worlder" that migrated to Europe, this comment is wrong on so many levels that I have my doubts if you are trolling or are just really stupid. Maybe a little bit of both.
Europe imports people for the very same reason the US imports people (and the US imports A LOT of people). Advanced economies are complex beasts that need manpower and expertise beyond what a single nation can generate - And most European nations are small-ish.
The country I originally moved to actually had unemployment in low single digits. It needed people. It was not because "everyone was living on the dole".
But you are free to repeat your fairly racist and jingoistic bullshit around. It's a free world after all.
For a very long time I wanted EU (and other parts of the world) to rid itself from US influence, that I consider to be malignant to progress. US always leveraged its power (both soft and hard) to its own benefit first and foremost.
What I never expected is that this would happen by the US itself shitting its own pants so hard. I am actually very optimistic that EU will be forced to step up its integration, and other economies will be forced to step up on trading among themselves (not only goods, but also knowledge, services and cooperation) to replace the vacuum left by the former all powerful ally.
Interesting times ahead.
When someone else bankrolls your defense by spending almost a trillion dollars a year that leaves quite a lot of the budget for other things, doesn't it?
However, since this post is about US GDP I'm now curious, what do you think where this money is going and contributing to GDP?
That is the whole defense budget from the US, not how much it spends in Europe.
And yes, EU should stop relying in the US for defense. That arrangement only benefits the US, to be frank, EU should develop its own defense industry instead of strengthening the defense industry of a foreign nation. Especially now that said foreign nation is essentially enemy territory.
(And I'm British, so this isn't some pro American rant)
The UK's pathetic growth, bad under the previous government, now even worse under a new leftist government that is bringing in continental style employment regulations etc, is the main topic of national debate right now
Like post 9/11 Article 5 or Afghanistan or Iraq?
Also decent amount of European defense budget went to US manufacturers. This will probably change with de-facto end of NATO.
Not only could America have had better benefits than Europe but you guys chose over and over again not to yet it’s Europe’s fault.
Love watching you guys shoot yourselves and yell at others. Popcorn has never tasted better.
The social welfare experiment has negative expectation. That's partly why the Europeans are importing young migrants from 3rd world countries who despise them -- they are running out of people who pay into the ponzi scheme.
I can't wait for Trump to exit NATO and show that the European king really had no clothes after all.
See the news about the 800 billion euro investment in Europe for Europe defense? Thanks America. Also did you see the stock market? To think that tariffs would somehow benefit America. All you’re doing is isolating yourselves and forcing decoupli by. Let me know how your relationship with Russia goes. According to history, not very well :)