Europe's Economic Woes

Instapundit highlighted this interesting analysis of Europe's Economic model. While I disagree with the framing of the piece, i.e. it is not that "Europe’s present social model is unable to tackle the modern challenges of globalization" but simply that reality doesn't allow anyone or any group to simultaneosuly work less and less, consume more and more, and promise greater and greater future benefits -- no matter what politicians might say to the contrary. Nonetheless the data collected is quite interesting and is well presented in the following graphs:




It is also interesting to see that the country most in denial of this data is France. The NY Times reports:

Opinion polls indicate that the French see globalization as a threat, not an opportunity. A sweeping survey of people in 22 countries released in January found that France was alone in disagreeing with the premise that that the best economic model is "the free enterprise system and free market economy."

In the poll, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, only 36 percent of French respondents replied yes, compared with 59 percent in Italy, 65 percent in Germany, 66 percent in Britain, 71 percent in the United States and 74 percent in China.

One politician in France understands at least this much; interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy is quoted in the same NY Times piece as saying:

"There is only one way to reduce unemployment in France," he said. "You have to explain to the French people that they have to work harder."

A statement which would hardly qualify as penetrating insight in the rest of the world, but in France...