The Sick Man of the Developed World

In his column on “The Decline and Fall of Europe,” Fareed Zakaria writes

the European Union has a combined gross domestic product that is approximately the same as that of the United States. But the EU has 170 million more people. Its per capita GDP is 25 percent lower than that of the U.S. and, most important, that gap has been widening for 15 years. If present trends continue, the chief economist at the OECD argues, in 20 years the average U.S. citizen will be twice as rich as the average Frenchman or German.

Two Swedish researchers, Frederik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag, note in a monograph published last year that "40 percent of Swedish households would rank as low-income households in the U.S."

Talk to top-level scientists and educators about the future of scientific research, and they will rarely even mention Europe.

The CEO of a large pharmaceutical company told me that in 10 years, the three most important countries for his industry would be the United States, China and India.

--Newsweek International, 2.20.06
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11298986/site/newsweek/