US Economy Beats Brains Outta EU’s

How can the US economy be trouncing EU’s when Americans relatively suck in education scores? Seems the classless but capitalist Yankees run rings around smarty pants socialist Euros via a “risk-taking culture.”

Note how Edward Conard frames the dichotomy in a recent WSJ op ed: “Economists never cite one of the most significant statistics about the US economy. According to data released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, only about 12% of Americans score at the highest levels on internationally administered academic tests” while Germans & Scandinavians are by far more consistent in getting either high or nearer to high scores … Yet … While Europe has created 14 companies worth more than $10 billion in the past 50 years with about $400 billions of market value, Americans have created nearly 250 such companies, worth $30 trillion. That success has driven up America’s middle-class incomes. For example, the median disposable US household income is now 25% greater than the median German household & 60% greater than the median household in Italy. Did he say US has a successful “trickle down economy”?

Think how American entrepreneurs at innovative companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft & Amazon have tapped into an army of talented [at least, in the creative sense] workers who [after getting theory-driven college degrees] get mucho on-the-job training, work long hours, and are encouraged to take risks, failure be damned. And, compare that to the Euros who spend far more of their time on Utopian mandated lunch breaks & vacations. Conard goes on to argue in favor of, well, stealing whatever brainy talent pool Europe has to gain an even greater competitive advantage over Europe. Dunno about that one. Seems doing a better job of improving our K-thru12 educational system at home’s the smarter policy.

Davd Soul