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EUROPE: LIKE CIVILISATION, EXCEPT WITH MIRROR BALLS
How far behind the US is Europe? They’re still in the disco era:
The US economy is 20 years ahead of that of the EU and it will take decades for Europe to catch up, according to an explosive new study published on Friday.
The survey, unveiled by pan-EU small business organisation Eurochambres, is intended as a sharp “wake-up call” for EU leaders as they gather on 22 March for a summit on how to boost growth and jobs in the EU economy.
The EU’s current performance in terms of employment was achieved in the US in 1978 and it will take until 2023 for Europe to catch up, the report shows.
1978! 1978! When the game-based US economy stood on the verge of an Atari revolution; when nerds were yet to commence their global takeover; when the Death Star Playset was a gift to honour the birth of our saviour; when art wasn’t; when Harley Davidson made dirt bikes; when bands either needed more drugs or took too many; when cars were a good argument for walking; when the link between diet and acne was still undiscovered; when massive childhood hairstyles obviated any need for bicycle helmets; when fonts were designed by Satan; and when Michael Jackson scared crows instead of children.
Blend all those frightening images into one. Add a Eurodisco soundtrack. Be unemployed. Hate capitalism. You’re now experiencing modern Europe!
UPDATE. The French like it in 1978, and want to stay there:
Planes, trains and metros were canceled, and postal workers and teachers stayed home in a nationwide day of defiance Thursday against government economic policies—notably plans to let the French work longer hours.
Although it’s to think Europe at least had some kind of balls, once…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 12 at 01:11 PM • permalinkBlend all those frightening images into one. Add a Eurodisco soundtrack. Be unemployed. Hate capitalism. You’re now experiencing modern Europe!
Or you’re experiencing modern North Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Except that, unlike Europe, thankfully, we still have out-and-proud Jews
Hey! Just a darned minute here! Are they implying that all those left-wing campus activist types telling us that the EU is poised to crush the US economy are lying?
I’m shocked!
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 12 at 02:03 PM • permalinkAnd then there was this:
But the bleakest picture comes when comparing the two economic blocs in terms of research and development. Europe is expected to catch up with the US in 2123 and then only if the EU outstrips America by 0.5 percent per year in terms of R&D investment.
So at this rate Americans will become ethereal beings able to transcend time and space about the time that Europeans learn to program their Tivos.
Posted by Randal Robinson on 2005 03 12 at 02:56 PM • permalinkNow that’s something. That’s some forward looking research. That’s got edge. That is the kind of stuff that shakes up conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom: U.S. deficit too big, social security problems, etc. Enter: European pension system.
Conventional wisdom: EU is the new reserve currency. Enter: oh, forgot, its a blend of countries that have historically not liked each other. Enter: flashback to arguments about why it shouldn’t have been done in the first place.
Anyways.. you get the idea. All of these cover stories about European shopping trips to America. Soros, Buffet raking in dough on the Euro. The Euro Crash may be the next big story to laugh about.
Seriously, what the hell are they going to do? They are locked into a low-productivity, high unemployment cycle with massive entitlement programs. Talk about a bubble ready to burst!
Wasn’t it French King Louis XV, who lived only for himself say “after me, the deluge”?
One of the ironies of democracy is that people, once they get an entitlement program they like, will fire politicians who threaten that program. For that reasons, politicians keep borrowing more money and rolling the problem forward for as long as they can.
Wasn’t it Groucho Marx who said “why should I care about posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?”
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 03 12 at 05:32 PM • permalink"Even the most optimistic assumptions show it will take the EU decades to catch up and then only if there is considerable EU improvement”, says the Secretary General of Eurochambers.
What are the chances there will be “considerable improvement”?
“Cowboy Capitalism” by Olaf Gersemann is an excellent book detailing the size of the gulf between the US and Euro economies.
Suggesting that Europe will ever “catch up” is consonant with suggesting that the US will adopt the Euro social welfare model, as it is unlikely that the EU can grow faster than the US (necessary to catch up when running behind) given the drag on the economy due to the size of the Euro welfare state.
To “catch up,” Europeans will need to reduce their entitlements (ha!), reduce their vacations (ha!), and increase labor output and private sector jobs (unlikely unless they reduce entitlements and vacations). Strikes me as contrary to the Euro mind-set.
The term Cowboy Capitalism may be used derisively by the Euros, but I think it is worn as a badge of honor in the US (except by Michael Moore lefties--but really, who cares?).
I wonder about how long the Euro currency will hold together. The EU has made it very difficult to undo its currency arrangements - like Argentina in 2001, except more so. I hope there doesn’t have to be the same kind of disastrous slump before the 11 countries realise what a bad idea a common currency was.
So despite the oil price shocks, stagflation, and double-digit interest rates, the American economy of 1978 still outperforms the present-day European economy?
My God. What could we have accomplished if we had had been a real President, instead of a yutz polishing his resume so he could get a gig with Habitat for Humanity?
re: EU falling further behind.
Given that their middle-class barely lives as well as our poor (and the U.S. distribution of wealth and power looks even more egalitarian than theirs), it’s going to be harder and harder to keep little Gerhard and Francois satisfied with their lot, as defined and delivered by their state/nanny.
My sense is we are less different than the European people than time-shifted. They have yet to experience our race riots of the 60s (which they will get someday if they don’t start treating their own guest workers with some respect), or our disgust with non-transparent government and the soft-approaching-hard corruption that culminated in leaders like LBJ and RMH. And they have yet to demand a separation of church (their nanny states that promise to make everything better in return for a vote and a job on the plantation) and business, a mercantilist behavior that only further concentrates power (v. distribute it in the U.S. - where we have the benefit of having learned repeatedly that the government is “not” us - it is just another power player with its own (and hopefully at least some of our) interests at heart, to the diminishment of their average citizen. i.e. in the U.S., not only is power shared between government branches, it’s federalized, and even more power and wealth is distributed among many citizens and their enterprise (where power is freedom to choose, freedom to influence, freedom to direct).
The last dust-up about infant mortality has been telling. A state that delivers (rations) health-care (out of necessity) must sacrifice those outside of the bell-curve. Those in a free(er) societies have the luxury of creating a market that values more of the outliers (letting someone other than the government make choices), and by necessity has greater losses given the definitions that create the opportunity for same (improving everyone’s life in that effort).
One solution for Europe’s problems would be to get rid of us (and the US). That way their own societies (as trapped in the 60s as they are, with their corruption, biases, and slower rates of growth/productivity/individual wealth) would be closer to the top of the heap and wouldn’t know life could be better.
Ouch…
OK, I’m not a genius, and I don’t play one on TV, but I keep on seeing these articles about how the EU stinks, and my layman observations would concur with that assessment, and yet the Euro is kicking the snot out of the dollar. What gives? Should I be putting the kid’s college fund into shorting Euro options?
Posted by propdropper on 2005 03 13 at 12:18 AM • permalinkIt’s reassuring to hear that America’s economy is so strong, but when was the last time you bought a trinket that wasn’t made in a Chicom labor camp?
Some on boats and some on planes…
they’re coming to play basketball.Posted by papertiger on 2005 03 13 at 12:38 AM • permalinkI suspected as much when I came across this widely distributed video from the last meeting of the EU’s Ministry of Culture. Be sure to watch all the way to the end for maximum political impact.
Boris Vallejo not art?
For sheer dauntless bravura, few have ever pushed the limits as does Boris with his beautiful maidens and fearsome monsters.
At least a great song came out of his work.
Posted by Nathan Hamm on 2005 03 13 at 01:03 AM • permalinkmongo78,
No kidding. Is there an EU “Misery Index” they haven’t told us about?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 13 at 01:08 AM • permalinkHeh, life imitates satire.
"French workers should be the most productive in the world, and we will strike until the government can discover why we are not,” said Rene L’ampoule, a spokesman for truck drivers who blocked most of the nation’s major roadways.
In the country’s fifteenth nationwide strike this year, protesting miners, farmers, students, truckers, mechanics, teachers, engineers, entertainers, programmers, police officers, firefighters, and journalists, as well as factory, airline, rail, livery, clerical, and prison workers, said it was the government’s responsibility to investigate. Government employees, meanwhile, said they would join the strike in sympathy.
Uncanny.
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2005 03 13 at 01:30 AM • permalinkNic White—if you want to see why we smack Europe around (as well as Jimmuh Cartuh), read post #25. No one smacks Europe around better than Europeans.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 13 at 01:57 AM • permalinkIf the USA is at least 20 years in front of Europe where do you think Australia is placed...1978? 1988? I have spent time on all 3 continents in the past 12 months. The USA is outstanding in toilet flushing technology and average car size. Europe excels in poor customer service and socialism. Australia excels in back-slapping friendliness and bad 80’s haircuts.
Anyone have any ideas?But, you see, our success is making us unhappy. Richard Layard (hat-tip to Q and O) explains it all. Our Euro-peon brethren just want us to be happy. That must be it. It couldn’t possibly be that they’re just sorry-ass self-righteous layabouts with a bad case of the envies. Right?
I keep on seeing these articles about how the EU stinks, and my layman observations would concur with that assessment, and yet the Euro is kicking the snot out of the dollar.
But this isn’t particularly good for Europe. A euro may buy a lot right now, but euros are harder to earn at payroll --because the strong euro vis-a-vis the dollar makes Europe’s exports less competitive than the US’s, and many US and European products are reasonably substitutable. So it potentially reinforces the European economic stagnation.
Part of the problem is that the dollar inflated like a balloon with an ego problem across the 1990s, but the euro was only inroduced at parity with the dollar in 1999 IIRC. Now that the dollar has corrected, it is holding lower than parity (and the war may have helped drive the dollar even lower).
Posted by anony-mouse on 2005 03 13 at 03:25 AM • permalinkUnfortunately, I have to disagree on the toilet-flushing technology bit. Thanks to Clinton-era environmental regulations, toilets in this country are only allowed to use some ridiculously small amount of water to flush, meaning that a large number of them often need to be flushed multiple times to clear them out, which all but negates any water savings that result.
The EU is in real big trouble; with all their State run industry subsidies and welfare they have painted themselves into a proverbial corner.
Allowing that the US moves fwd 1 year and the EU slips back 1 year
2006 =22 years behind
2007 = 24 years behind
2008 = 26 years behind (beep beep pull over EU, China overtakes)<styles obviated any need for bicycle helmets>
My 1978 hair not only protected me in the event of bike accidents, but also assured me survival after the Nuclear-blast that was sure to come.
As it stands right now, I would pay 10,000 dollars for half the hair I had then.
/rants of a balding American.
Right, rog2, imho: I was wondering why Europe assumes it will catch up at a greater rate than it already has, that is, actually falling behind at some rate. For example, France is already behind the U.S. in GDP/capita to the tune of $1000. I assume this does mean something important - about $2600/person compared to the U.S.’s $3600.
The whole concept of an EU has always seemed flawed to me, to boot.
Here’s another angle on the success of the US economy from Jack Z Smith in the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram:
A minimum-wage earner working 40 hours a week has an annual gross income of $10,712. That’s less than one-15th of the salary of members of Congress, who also enjoy ample benefits and perks not available to most low-wage workers.
...The minimum wage hasn’t been increased since 1997. Since that time, members of Congress have received seven pay raises totaling $28,500, an increase easily exceeding the total annual pay of two minimum-wage workers.
Maybe European workers don’t want a US-style employment market. Could we measure the relative success of the Euro economy in a way that considers quality of life as well? Perhaps we could look at income disparities (rich vs poor), too, when deciding how successful an economy is.
Frankly, nwab, there’s nothing wrong with having a good income by working for it. Indeed, the evidence is that a healthy economy (and not tanking like the EU seems to be) demands increased production. “Income disparity” can either be viewed as a barrier (European Union) or a challenge (United States).
If the Europeans want to sit on their ass to strike because they don’t like the economy (AKA “shooting yourself in the foot"), they have no reason to complain about their economy. That sounds like the old Soviet Union before it went belly up.
Having a growing economy means that those minimum wage jobs are actually stepping stones to higher paying jobs. At least for people who work their way up the economic ladder; I concede that there are people who can’t (or won’t) do better, given unusual circumstances. That’s why we have charities and welfare, although any number of lazy slugs take advantage of other people’s generosity and taxes.
As for Congress......this is not a new complaint. Deficit spending will not go away until Congress stops voting itself bread and circuses. But at least that institution does’t demand a Soviet-era approach to economics. Well, most of them, now that both houses are controlled by Republicans.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 13 at 06:12 AM • permalinkI remember being in Switzerland during the Eurovision song contest in 2002. I had heard about this very prestigious contest for many years but never actually witnessed one.
IIRC, 2nd place went to a dude (forgot which country) whose song consisted of repeating ‘hasta la vista, baby’ about 1,000 times.
Fitting.
Every other song was ABBA type childish melodies.
Later that week there was rioting in Geneva protesting a G8 meeting......
Then France closed due to a public sector strike.
But the Alps are pretty......Hmmm.
1. The downside of raising the minimum wage is that it will decimate those businesses that operate on very thin margins. Sure many businesses can just raise prices, which also affects the very same people you’re trying to help. But it will also impact people at the lowest end of the pay scale. If the work being done isn’t worth the extra cost, then either the work won’t get done at all, or it will simply be shipped off-shore.
I.e. jobs will be lost.
The only way the system really works well is if the market is allowed to define itself. If you’re not getting paid enough, then train yourself, learn a new profession or work harder. I did it and so can anyone else.
I never finished high school and yet I trained myself as a computer programmer. Before I went into semi-retirement I charged about bundle for contract programming. Although, in retrospect, considering how much I’ve been paying in car repairs lately I probably should have gone into automobile mechanics. :/
2. Europe really is headed for a disaster. I’m not a Europhile by any means. I frankly think most Europeans have left America to do all the dirty work for the past 60 years. But it seems the possible endings for Europe aren’t good.
Posted by memomachine on 2005 03 13 at 10:20 AM • permalinkThis is not surprising when both the workers and the governments distrust private enterprise. They really are a paradox… They have one foot in the 21st century (marveling at high-tech gadgets, telecomm, etc) and one foot stuck in the 19th century (viewing successful entreprenuers as robber barons) and something else stuck in the 22nd century (with their permissive views of social issues (ie sex, drugs)).
Another Rovian Conspiracy: St Wendeler
Posted by St Wendeler on 2005 03 13 at 10:24 AM • permalinkMongo — Carter did in fact use the word “malaise”, but since he was trying to order a sandwich at the time, everyone politely pretended not to notice…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 11:10 AM • permalinkTim — Boris Vallejo not art? Didn’t you ever see his brilliant centerfold on the Discovery of America in the National Lampoon Foreigners issue?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 11:13 AM • permalinkJoe Jr. — Hey, those 60’s hair styles still look fair dinkum on the sheilas at the beach…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 11:17 AM • permalinkSorry, that should have read 80’s hair styles (damn French keyboard)...
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 11:17 AM • permalinkYeah, sure, richard, blame the French keyboard! I’d put it on the cheap French wine you’re guzzling.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 13 at 11:24 AM • permalinkActually, it’s a bottle I picked up from the 99¢ Store. It’s an Aussie “ blend”, translation, don’t hose out the stomping vat that mixes chablis, chardonnay and semillion grapes. Let’s just say it needs a lot of ice and shall remain nameless in the interests of global harmony…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 11:53 AM • permalinkYes, it is true that the Unites States is guilty of having laws which prohibit providing employment to people whose labor is of less than a set amount of value. Fortunately, the percentage of people who are affected by such a law is very small, and few of them depend on their own earnings for their entire livelihood. The labor problem facing the US economy is at the other end; a shortage of highly skilled workers.
propdropper #19 above said:
and yet the Euro is kicking the snot out of the dollar----
The flip side is that a low dollar makes US products cheaper thus reducing US trade deficits. This also makes EUnuchstanian exports expensive making it even harder for them to sell to US.It’s all supply and demand there are too many dollars ‘out there’ and they need to come back home as purchases to even things out.
Taspundit — What about the ‘65 Mustang could make you want to walk? Well, trying to ride in the backseat. I don’t want to say it was short on legroom, but Paris Hilton couldn’t keep her knees up around her ears that long…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 13 at 08:56 PM • permalinkre: dollar against euro, trade deficits, etc.
Are both more and less than they appear. We’re exporting a service (called world-wide security, both insurance and warfighting), and charging for those costs (with a significant profit) by “requiring” those governments who practice mercantilism to loan us back our own expensive dollars (that our citizens paid for their goods) that we will repay with much cheaper dollars at a later date (while at the same time increasing our own productivity at a realized rate-of-return greater than those who are making the loans - aka win-win for us, possible to likely lose for them - i.e. their own citizens’ rate of improvement in quality of life suffers relative to ours).
re: minimum wage. besides first-job / teenager / unskilled-gaining-skills and demonstrating responsibility (while all the 10 teen-and-adult members of the immigrant extended family (sharing one home) are working two minimum-wage jobs to raise the family income to over a quarter million per year so they can buy their first store), remember that there is no cheaper place to live than the U.S. We are the world’s market. Nothing costs less (PPP, that’s not subsidized) than twice as much in any foreign market (gameboys to shoes to transportation to 50lb bags of rice and beans to ...). Last I looked, 50 lbs of rice was $25, 50 lbs of beans was $13. Call it food for one for three to six months. Work a week (at minimum wage), eat for a year.
If I was poor and could choose, I know where I’d want to live and work and raise a family (for less than minimum wage if that’s all my skills were worth, even if I lacked the ability or reliability to “move up"). Of course, many do make exactly this choice and they and us are much better for it (including the parents of our current attorney general).
Apropos of nothing, that wine I was accused of this morning is called “Swagman’s Kiss.” Are you guys taking the piss with some of your branding?
I’m on a much nicer Rosemont Estate Grenache/Shiraz blend tonite…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 14 at 01:15 AM • permalinkAri Tai — I’ve always said I’ll worry about this country when I see people paddling from Florida to Cuba. And remember that mass emigration of the snivelrati we were warned about? Strangely, it doesn’t seem to have materialized…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 14 at 01:17 AM • permalinkOh, those guilt-producing “income disparities”. I’ve suffered throughout being unable to stifle my secret desire for a greater income each year. And an unbearable burden it is indeed, my friends, when it happens, to think of leaving myself behind in the squalor of inequality.
However, now I atone, I hope: I am technically “poor” at last, and so are many of my good friends.
Even my sister is poor. But she lives next door to some “real” [classic] poor. They are 3-4 adults + 1-3 children, + 4 dogs, 40 rabbits and rats, 3 cats, 4 cars, a couple of snakes, enough equipment in their backyard to outfit 2 public parks, and so on - all on about $1500/month, in a large house in a well-off municipality, but “middle class”. They recently vacationed for 2-3 weeks in Florida.
Another of my poor friends lives next door to some real poor, 7 of them, including a registered child molester. Only two of them take welfare, Social Security, the rest being quite comfortable on little work, being housed, clothed, and fed to the point of offering my friend and her family deserts and books on gardening every so often. They have about 6 cars, a house and 3 trailers which serve. They seem to not notice being poor.
My friend’s family, being so poor making about $20,000/yr. via two incomes, has 3 horses, etc., owns two houses and about 6 cars also. Her twins get $60,000/yr. in college grants between them. They don’t drink, but are “disabled” in being 1/8 Atabascan Indian, which they did not use to get the grants.
Somehow we “poor” scrape by despite the efforts of Bill Gates and Wal Mart. I hope this does not distress nwab.
And while I’m at it, there is no “health care crisis” in the U.S.. Everyone can get care if they can walk or get transportation. The latest attempt to show a crisis created the concept of “medical bankruptcy”, where the average medical bill was about $11,000. This amount does not bankrupt anyone! Thus the bills are being payed already.
The only crisis is that relating to the fact that the Government wants to control everything involving money, and that medical spending threatens other spending, possibly, such as that on new cars and tourism. But there is nothing inherently wrong with spending money on medical care.
This is not to say that things like tort reform, making all medical expenses tax deductible, and offering real catastrophic insurance are not needed to effect some control or balance. But there is no crisis as billed, and the “poor” are not suffering this either. Has anyone heard of global warming?
JP
Somehow we “poor� scrape by despite the efforts of Bill Gates and Wal Mart. I hope this does not distress nwab.
The U.S. is a great country. In large part because of Microsoft and Wal-Mart.
Also, our poorest citizens tend to also be our fattest...with a cell-phone for each of them.
No doom, no gloom.
I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, which is drag a comedy thread down. Please forgive me, but it gets annoying after a while to hear some rubbish spoken.
First of all, please stop referring to the EU as if it was a single entity. It isn’t, and never has been in the past. Some think it will be in the future, but some don’t, and, lacking a crystal ball it would make sense to tackle the EU as it is today.
Next, Wass refers to ABBA still being popular in Europe. They aren’t; simple as that. I once had a co-worker who nobody liked because she listned to ABBA. The looks of revulsion on the face of everybody else were quite revealing in that respect.
Comment #18 was filled with mistakes.
Their middle-class live as well as our poor
Rubbish. I’m a middle class British person, as are most of my friends, and they certainly do not live like American poor. I once spent a summer travelling around the southern states in America, and the number of people living in one-room shacks, while not large, was not inconsiderable. My friends, on the other hand, live in large, suburban, detached or semi-detached houses, and can afford a perfectly pleasant existence. This could have been an interesting point - the USA has a higher average wage, and lower prices according to the Consumer Price Index, but that point was eschewed for a lazy generalisation.
The US distribution of wealth and power looks more egalitarian than theirs.
No, it doesn’t. The Gini Index, which measures Income Equality, places the USA at 40.8, which while far from the worst on the list, is comfortably in the bottom half, well behind Denmark at 24.8, and Belgium and Sweden at 25.0. You could argue that these countries share an equality of poverty, but as Australian readers, who have probably been inflicted by Swedish backpackers for years, will probably know, the Swedes in particular don’t lack disposable income. I’m certainly not arguing for their economic policies, which are most of the reason why nobody really cares what Sweden thinks, yet everyone cares what America thinks, but America is far from being able to claim economic equality.
On the issue of distribution of power, the US fares worse. Because of the large amount of money required to stand for Congress, some research has estimated that comfortably over 80% of Americans simply could not afford to stand, and have a decent chance of winning. And when was the last time somebody entered Congress on an independent ticket? Compare that to the UK, where I live - in the constituency bordering mine, we have an Independent MP, who completed the raising of the requisite £1000 fee, and finding of 50 signatures, campaigned on a local issue, and won a seat in the Commons. Compare that for a moment - to get a seat in the Senate, a personal fortune of at least $100,000 is required, but to get a seat in the UK only £1000 and a bit of time to campaign is required.
They will get someday [our race riots of the 60s] if they don’t start treating their guest workers with respect.
Suddenly, the argument switched from the view that the countries of the EU are inhabited by lily-livered pansies, to now being inhabited by shaven-headed racists. Both views are caricatures. Neither are correct in more than a minority of cases. I, for example, am neither, and I can say the same about nearly all my acquantances.
They have yet to demand a separation of church . . . and business.
Sorry? I’ve held a fair few jobs over the years, and i’ve never been called to midday prayers. This makes no sense.
I don’t mean to pick on anyone - I’m sorry. Nor do I disrespect America - I think it a wonderful nation, with many, many virtues, and I consider it to have many enviable freedoms. It is, I should think, an excellent place to live. However, the countries of the EU are not exactly a vision of Hell, and it would be nice for just a few people to acknowledge that.
Sorry for the length of this comment.
Compare that for a moment - to get a seat in the Senate, a personal fortune of at least $100,000 is required, but to get a seat in the UK only £1000 and a bit of time to campaign is required.
That’s not a good comparison. In the US, in addition to the federal legislature, there are fifty state legislatures, and in each of those fifty states there are dozens or even hundreds of city and county/township governments. These seats often require much less than $100,000 to enter, and some can serve as excellent “stepping stones” on the way to a federal seat. At each step, your public exposure—hence, funding base—is increased. At least one recent federal legislator from the State of Colorado (name escapes me at the moment, sorry) ascended by that route; he didn’t need a fortune, just a little more time, by which he established a proven track record and convinced other people that they should provide him with campaign funds.
Here’s another way to look at your numbers: A population of 60 million Britons elects 659 MPs to the House of Commons, a ratio of about 1:91,000. In the US, a population of 300 million elects 100 senators and 435 representatives, a net ratio of about 1:560,000. 560/91 implies that a federal seat in the US will be roughly six times as competitive as one in the UK parliament (which I think is a fair comparison, since you won’t get elected easily if people don’t know who you are).
£1000 is nearly $2000 USD. 6 * $2000 = $12,000 USD compared to an actual cost of $100,000 means that, competitively adjusted, it is only about eight times as expensive to get a federal seat in the US as it is in Britain. But that’s ignoring the fact that that some states (by virtue of population size) are more competitive than others, and that there are many more opportunities for a US political aspirant to move up through smaller governments first.
I think the take-home lesson from the above is that there is no inherent advantage to being an aspiring politician in Britain or the US, it just takes a little dedication in either case.
Posted by anony-mouse on 2005 03 14 at 05:18 PM • permalinkI’d like to thank Anony-mouse very much for his answer to my comment. There can be no denying the numbers provided, which do indeed show that competitiveness is a factor.
I would just make a couple of points - while a seat in the Senate is undoubtedly much more fiercely contested (there being only one hundred of them, they matter much more to the two main parties than a British constituency does to ours), there are in fact more candidates on the ballot in almost every British constituency. Partly the result of the low cost to enter, this allows smaller parties and independents a much better chance of success.
The second point I would make is that the system outlined in the comment, while in many ways deserving of approval, does lead to two notable disadvantages - firstly, a person who is mildly politically motivated must make an early-career decision to enter politics or not, and there can only be a ten-year or so window for that decision, and secondly the system inevitably means that those coming through a route of service in state legislatures will be getting on in age when they arrive at Congress. My experience of older British politicians is that they’ve started to get silly sometime ago, and frequently propose daft ideas and solutions to problems, or are overly serious and grandiose. The other issue, of course, is that elder Congressmen, rightly or wrongly, simply perpetuate the stereotype of the rich, aging white man in power, and this causes skepticism in the electorate.
However, I do have a lot of time for the American model of a weaker central government and a stronger local representation. Britain could do with a healthy dose of this.
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HEY! Harley Davidson never made dirtbikes, you rice-grinder-riding trash, you! Those POS wannabe mopeds were crap Italian imports AMF stuck the Harley logo on! That’s a big part of the reason Willie G. bought the company back.