We do tend to benefit from the stupidity of Europeans.
Yes very true.
Remember Yankee go home in Germany? Oooops- 30,000 jobs went by by too. Nearly 20 Billion dollars a year dried up. Yes, that's with a "B".
They live in an ideological world where even if all facts refute their view they will just find some whacko who tells them what the want to hear. Why do you think Michael Moore is so popular in large parts of Europe? Even though factually wrong, spun and with situations taken out of context, they like to hear that because he tells "what" they want to hear.
So as an “expert” 2 years ago said “The Americans just can’t spend themselves out of this recession” (He was from the Deutsche Bank), and we cut taxes and did just that. They increased their VAT tax to 16% from 14% (A tax like a sales tax) and their economy is dying. They managed to increase a whole plethora of taxes and the consumer can hardly make ends meat. But they do believe that the war in Iraq was a diversion from the horrid economic conditions in the US. They will be forced into a humiliating economic crises eventually which will force them to adopt change. In the mean time they will push on with blinders, telling themselves the merits of their “Social” economy, the great Kyoto protocol and other crap fed to them by their current demagogues in the SPD and Greens that are leading their country and media.
Ironically the media which is in Germany even partially owned by people closely associated with the political party in power also has to a large degree state ownership of much of the media as well. They point their finger at the US and say “FOX is bad and propaganda” as they watch their state official, on the state run TV channel tell them how great everything is in their “Sozialstaat”.
Being of German/Austrian decent (I'm more German than most Germans), I take the liberty to say that the masses in both of these nations are subjects. People who see “group think” as a good thing that needs practice. People who have replaced religion with a form of government that shall provide from cradle to grave. People who went from UNmoral to Amoral after WW2. Not all are bad, but they are on a downward glide path and can’t even see why; nor do they really want to.
Red6