May 11, 2010
The Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street) is getting ever more aggressive in pushing its anti-welfare state agenda. A front page news article on the Greek financial crisis told readers that: “And though economists and other analysts generally agreed that the program was necessary to prevent a full-blown financial crisis, they also agreed that it won’t work unless European governments follow through on promises to bring down their large deficits and restructure their economies to become more competitive.”
It then added: “‘We can’t finance our social model anymore — with 1 percent structural growth we can’t play a role in the world,’ European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Monday in remarks at the World Economic Forum in Brussels, just hours after European Union finance ministers approved the new program.”
In fact, there is nothing resembling the consensus about the failure of Europe’s social model that this editorial implies. Unlike the United States, Europe as a whole has generally run balance of trade surpluses, suggesting that the European economies are more competitive than the U.S. economy. It is also worth noting that the welfare states in the countries facing crises right now (Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland) rank among the weaker ones in Europe. The relatively healthy economies of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandanavian countries all have much stronger welfare states.
It’s also worth noting how Europe and the world got into this crisis. The problems originated in letting housing bubbles grow unchecked and creating enormous economic imbalances. Apparently, news of the housing bubble still has not reached the Post.
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