Hillary & Bernie Promise to Use European Model fo US

[Newt]

Most of Europe Is a Lot Poorer than Most of the United States
Living Standards Are Markedly Higher in the United States


"I wrote previously that many European nations are doomed by demographics to fiscal chaos, but a lot of people don’t care that much about the future.

Bernie Sanders, for instance, looks at nations such as Denmark and Sweden today and says that America should copy their expansive welfare states.

Is he right?

Well, it depends on the parameters. If, for some reason, somebody was holding a gun to my head and demanding that we copy the policies of a nation from the European Union, the Nordic countries would be among my top choices. Yes, their welfare states are too large, but they somewhat compensate for that mistake by having very pro-free market policies in other areas.

That being said, Ireland and the United Kingdom have the most economic freedom among EU nations, and Switzerland would be at the top if the choice was broadened to non-EU nations in Europe.

But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to whether people in places such as Denmark (or anywhere else in Europe) enjoy more prosperity than their American counterparts.

Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has put together some apples-to-apples data suggesting the answer is no. At least if the goal is more economic output and higher living standards.

Most European countries (including Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium) if they joined the US, would rank among the poorest one-third of US states on a per-capita GDP basis, and the UK, France, Japan and New Zealand would all rank among America’s very poorest states, below No. 47 West Virginia, and not too far above No. 50 Mississippi. Countries like Italy, S. Korea, Spain, Portugal and Greece would each rank below Mississippi as the poorest states in the country.

And here’s the table Mark prepared. https://fee.org/articles/most-of-europe ... ed-states/"