Fear & Rejection

“Fear & Rejection” was how Europe’s recent slide backwards was written about today by David Brooks, NY Times columnist (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/opinion/02brooks.html?th&emc=th). He cites the many policies that have been rejected in the USA in the past several years but embraced by Europe as the reason for their past decade of decline.

Brooks notes that Europe today has a standard of living 1/3 lower than here, unemployment has remained at a stubborn 8 to 11% and 3% growth has only been hit once in the past 14 years. It will only get worse. “Europe’s population is aging and shrinking. By 2040, the European median age will be around 50. Nearly a third of the population will be over 65.”

One of his more interesting thoughts in the column was Brooks’s observations about momentum for countries. “It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward—where expectations are high—than it is to live in an affluent country that is moving backwards.”

Too many European countries are moving backwards. At Agracel we’ve seen increasing interest in European companies looking to locate manufacturing plants in the USA. I believe that this interest will increase and that we will see more of them making their products in the USA.