I say this because this explanation is put forth every now and then when the other narratives no longer have cred. Are we moving into a phase like that?
The US (and the UK) had their recessions in 1990-91 and 2001-2002. ole Europe had theirs in 1993 and 2003-04, each time about 2+ years later.
So whenever you do comparison that start at the beginning of a decade (1990 or 2000, you start at, or very close to the bottom of the US cycle, but nowhere near the bottow of the European cycle. Typically, a 1990-2000 comparison starts off with a structural 5-10% advantage for the USA (the one-two years of recession in Europe which were years of growth in the US; the period does not include a US recession but does include a European one).
Similarly, a lot of the crowing by the anglo-saxon is based on numbers for the past 2 years, which are indeed not really good for Europe, but (at least in the case of France, and more generally when you take growth per capita numbers) if you take the last 10 years, which includes one recession for each zone, then the differences are not so stark (2% growth per capita per annum in France vs 2.1% in the USA for 1994-2004).
The dotcom bubble eventually burst, even though it took a lot more time than the bears predicted. The housing and debt bubble WILL also burst, and the less leveraged economies of France and Germany will fare a lot better after that.
i also look forward very much to the day when State-owned EDF becomes the cash cow of France as it produces the cheapest electricity around at a time when energy prices are skyrocketing, and everybody (well, mostly the Brits and the italians) pays through their nose for French nuclear power... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
