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DemonKia -> RE: Europe overtakes US as worlds wealthiest region! (9/16/2009 2:12:51 PM)
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Yeah, & there's much less class-stratification in Europe than there is here in the US . . . .
What there is, is a pervasive propagandistic thing on the part of the mainstream US / corporacracy media to depict those evil-socialist-Eurotrash-bastards as dysfunctional to the max, especially as compared with showing the more nuanced situation.
Yes, they have more rigid economic structures in place around labor, environmental & consumer regulations, & etc. Yes, they have somewhat higher unemployment than the US. Yes, they have higher taxes. & yes, they have more comprehensive welfare states that help cushion adversity to a degree rarely understood by those who've been graced but don't feel so graced. (Ie, & this is awful & cynical of me, it's true, I'm a bad, bad, bad person. Duly noted. But, ie, many US citizens, especially the whiny ones with resources in excess of global means & medians, & most especially those who've not had 'too much' adversity . . . .. )
& no, Europe's not on the edge of imminent breakdown, anymore than we are. Or the Chinese. Or India. Fantasies of econopacalypse are mostly just that, sorry, folks.
{Total aside:
I spent a coupla decades belonging to the catastrophe-is-just-around-the-corner crowd, & it was pretty disappointing. Historically & proportionately speaking, yeah, the late 20th century was very mild & well behaved. Nothing on the order of the Burning Times, or the black death. That tsunami, Xmas of '05, that was a catastrophe. But if only a coupla thousand people die, pshaw, that's pissant. When god-the-sadist wants to lash out, he can take out way more than the oh-so-ordinary 40k a year we do just in vehicular crashes just here in the US . . . . .
(Oh, & then I realized that much of it was really projective stuff from my depression. As I dealt with my depression the need to vent off into seeing apocalypse around every corner diminished . . . . . I still like a good disaster tho' -- I'm a sick fuck, but since George Carlin copped to the same enjoyment, I'm owning mine anymore. Alongside the occasional name-drop . .. . . )
Okay, sorry, end off-topic rant.}
Anyways, yeah, all that doom-&-gloom stuff, big grain of salt here.
& I'm unsurprised Europe has exceeded us. We (the US), we're not the inevitable & unending colonial overlords of the planet, not militarily or economically . .. . .
& someday, cheery thought, as a species, we'll give up our addiction to empire, of that I'm convinced . . . .
*strolls off singing "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"*
*stops*
Oh. This is a good place for a Bill Hicks quote:
It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. - Bill Hicks
Remember, that's a dead white guy talking. Respect.
[:D]
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