Self declared socialist, Bernie Sanders, is hard at work trying to sell the European economic model to the American public, and he’s doing pretty well.
Obviously, the promise of free health care for everyone, free education, and so forth resonates with a lot of people.
As we all know, the most powerful word in the English language is “free”.
But, guess what? Anything free comes at a cost, and so does Bernie Sanders’ European dream.
Here are a few examples. I’ll bet you that most of Sanders’ followers are unaware of these economic stats. If they were, they might think twice.
Using rounded numbers, last month’s unemployment rate in the Eurozone was 11 percent, compared with our 5 percent, that’s a huge difference.
Today, the Eurozone’s economic output is 1 percent below the pre-crisis peak in 2009. In contrast, the output of the US economy is 9 percent above the earlier peak, a 10 percent difference in economic performance, which is also a huge difference.
Since the 2008/2009 financial crisis, our annual economic growth has averaged 2.2 percent (nothing to write home about) but certainly one that beats the Eurozone’s less than half percent annual average growth.
Altogether since 1970, the wealth gap, as measured in per capita income, between the Eurozone and the US, has widened by almost 50 percent.
“Free” always comes at a cost. Unfortunately, a lot of people either don’t know, or don’t seem to care, because someone else will be picking up the slack.
Karsten Malmos
