Please Read This: Why America Should Not Follow Europe

  Hollande: A symbol of European decline
In this article, Nile Gardiner quotes from a pamplet entitled:  Why America Should NOT follow Europe
Gardiner also mentions an important statistic that Americans would do well to pay attention to, their own percentage of world GDP:  "Western Europe's share of world GDP fell from 36 percent in 1974 to just 26 percent in 2011, with a projected fall to 15 percent by 2020. In contrast, the US share has remained steady at about 26 percent of world GDP."

And this is due, as Gardiner points out, to Europe's stifling regulations, very high taxes and resulting unemployment.  Who is going to hire someone you can't fire?  You are only going to hire the cream of the crop, and, of course, even the cream of the crop can become complacent and comfortable with 30 hour work weeks and 2 months of vacation time.  Heck if I got paid well to produce little and had a safety net that wouldn't quit, I would probably produce little. 

And the rest of the slobs?  They just don't get hired in the first place.  So you end up with countries like Spain and France with huge unemployment. 

With Europe in decline, France has just elected itself as the poster child of decline:  "And France is a potent symbol of that decline, with huge levels of public debt, now standing at more than 80 percent of GDP, government spending at 55 percent of GDP, and a tax burden equivalent to 42 percent of total domestic income."