I am hopeful that Europe does continue to show significant growth, with more equal distribution of income, and maintenance of its more socialized, as compared to the US.  I, for one, think that different approaches to business and economics is good for everyone, since it will lead to systems having the ability to look at other economic models, and adapt features that work.

In fact to some degree these changes are already happening, though not really rapidly, as both systems are somewhat satisfied with their current approaches.  for example, from the Economist article

Some European countries are beginning to contemplate (and, to a limited extent, undertake) economic reforms. If they push ahead, their growth could actually speed up over the coming years. Once investors spot this, they are likely to conclude that the euro is a better bet than the dollar.

And the American economy is in some areas moving in a more socialized direction--one example would be the expansion of a drug benefit for Medicare, people over 65.    But as with Europe, many people believe the change in America is too slow.

But I think one needs to review the data over time, think through it analytically, and come to reasoned conclusions.  I don't have time to write about his now, but some examples would be, first,  Jerome's comment that the US "is going deeper into debt".  while there was a period of a year or two where this was accurate, when the country was raising spending on Iraq while coming out of the tech boom and 2 quarter recession of 2001, the US budget is now under the guidelines that the EU uses for defecit spending as a percentage of GDP (3% or less), and under the actual performance of the EU zone.  (Jerome believes that you should not look at this in percentage terms, but in absolute terms--I, and I think most economists, agree that % terms which adjust for the size of various economies is the proper analytical view.)  If you look at this at the householder level, a basic question in addition to the savings rate is what is the net worth per household.

Second, what are the growth rates in GDP per capita?  The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Table 6,"Table 6. Real GDP per Capita" of this link shows the US growing at 2% per capita versus 1.6% for France and Germany (I don't see an EU 15 summary) from 1980--2005, a 25% US advantage in the growth rate.  The disparity was much higher in the last two years for which data was available, in favor of the US--2004 and 2005.  I haven't seen 2006 data yet.  So why does productivity grow faster in the EU, but GDP per capita grow slower?  I would like to see the data on productivity growth, but it wasn't referenced in the article.  But there are a number of issues to look at regarding productivity growth, and with the American economy moving to more and more service related industries, ex. financial services, how accurate are the measures, and how relavent are the comparisons to more industrial economies?

While an interesting article, I find it light on data and analysis.