Posted on 10/01/2026 4:42:37 AM PDT by Merrick
I’m in Europe for a few weeks, giving myself some physical (if not mental) distance from Trumpland. So I decided to take a short break from my healthcare series to write about the European economy — specifically the perception that Europe is in economic decline. According to conventional wisdom, Europe is falling far behind the United States. It has lost any dynamism it once had and is quickly becoming a museum of its former glories.
This perception is widespread: at Davos in January Howard Lutnik, Trump’s Commerce secretary, gave a speech that was so insulting toward Europe that Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, walked out. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article under the headline “What happens when Europeans find out how poor they are?” which asserted an equivalence between the European economy and the poorest U.S. states, such as Alabama and Mississippi.
Granted, what would you expect from an Epstein pal, stablecoin profiteer, Trump minion like Lutnick? Yet smart Europeans are also concerned: in 2024 Mario Draghi, one of history’s greatest central bankers, issued a report on EU competitiveness that highlighted Europe’s lagging productivity and raised serious alarms.
(Excerpt) Read more at paulkrugman.substack.com ...
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For those not paying attention - among his many EPICALLY bad economic predictions were his claimed massive decrease in all medical costs once Obamacare is passed.
For those bemoaning the Trump economy, the only real current problems with this economy is that diesel and beef are too expensive - both driven FAR MORE by Biden's policies that put the US cattle herds at historic lows when Trump took office and Newsom shutting down more than 1/3 of California diesel refinery capacity in two refinery closings: Phillips 66 Los Angeles in December 2025 and Valero Benicia in April 2026. That's right - a cost analysis of diesel shows that less than 1/3 of the increase in diesel costs over the last year are driven by increases in crude costs, and more than 2/3 is driven by the collapse in refinery capacity caused by Democrats. Diesel (and gas) refineries are operating at well over 90% capacity - that's why you're paying so much - not because crude costs are up.
But this is putting a bow on it. The American economy is up. Like it or not for those who claim the opposite, real wages adjusted for inflation are up - that didn't happen four years ago. Four years ago real wages were WAY WAY behind inflation. But the real miracle here is that China's economy is in the tank, and Europe's economy is in the tank - but OURS IS NOT.
Do I want a better economy? Sure. But if your economy is doing well while the rest of the economies in the world are in the tank, you should want to stick with what is working and not vote for a bunch of jackoffs saying, "Europe has Socialism - we should, too."
Krugman has to be a double agent. Nobody could be that stupid as he is 100% wrong on everything. Maybe he actually is an alien from bizarro world.
Are there individuals out there who are struggling. For sure. And that needs to be fixed. So we can have Republican majorities and keep improving the economy, or we can have Democrat majorities, and spend all of our time watching impeachment hearings and government shutdowns because they can’t pass a budget. And that’s going to help people struggling today how?
It’s been declining since they lost or gave up their colonies.
That’s a paradigm that should be reconsidered.
Import the third world, become the third world.
Since communism is a religion disguised as a political system and Islam is a political system disguised as a religion and their marriage is death cult, I would definitely say YES !!
Krugman is unreadable.
When the pipeline blew up, rather than fixing it, the EU government who said, “No problem! We’ll just import it.” Their economies have been in decline ever since. Too bad they didn’t see that they needed the pipeline much more than the Russians did.
This is a self-inflected wound.
Economist “expert” Paul Krugman, has a notable history of being wrong about absolutely everything.
My understanding is that the Russians paid for Nord Stream 2.
The Germans will pay for Nord Stream 3 - if they live long enough.
If they strop being parasitic on the US Taxpayers...they are definitely in “decline”.
Germany is on the decline as they have screwed their electrical production. No nukes there now.
In europe, anyone with any “get up and go”, got up and left 300 years ago.
It hasn't been so great for those former colonies either.
all socialist and communist countries are in decline and always will be.
But in order so actually see how bad they affect the countries that implement them, it requires a comparison to a capitalist economy for easy comparison.
That is what killed the soviet union, the easy comparison in the quality of life between them and us.
But with us and Europe becoming more and more socialist by the year, and no other real capitalists anywhere to compare with the commies might be able to fool everyone this time.
All of Europe has been in a decline for over 10 years and accelerating as the immigration disaster they started is not slowing down.
That certainly contributed to the decline - but it neither the whole story nor the biggest contributor.
Exactly! And that’s the real point. There was a time when wanting more and working for more - properly tempered with justice - worked in everyone’s favor. Take on an attitude that working for more is somehow bourgeois and evil and you decline. Hurts both sides of the equation.
So vote to keep the DSA out, the Democrats out, and to replace every RINO we possibly can.
Watch the “GERMAN” Ursula von der Leyen is the President of the European Commission will start a war(WWIII) with Russia and try to drag the US into it
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