In the piece, our author asks why Spain’s unemployment is up at 25% while Germany’s is down at about 7% (this past April):
‘Why should Germany thrive while Spain implodes? That’s like asking why Facebook is worth a lot and Myspace is worth nothing. It’s a winner-take-all world. Countries that do well have to do a few things extremely well. Germany makes the world’s best machine tools, some of the best heavy engineering equipment, not to mention autos. German manufacturing dominates innumerable key niches. The Spanish don’t do anything well. ‘
Because the world, and global markets are ruthlessly competitive on this analyis. Germany is specializing and competing, Spain is not, and the only thing holding them together is the Euro:
‘Spain shows how quickly a seemingly prosperous country can come apart when its entrepreneurial engine stalls.’
Eventually, some social and political analysis might be relevant as well. Francis Fukuyama recently suggested that instead of thinking about Europe in terms of the “two Europes,” Protestant, more individualized, more modern statecraft northern….against Catholic more familial, more insular, clientelistic Southern, the key is that these Southern countries have kept the old structures in place and simply grafted an image of the modern State atop it. They can modernize if they get over these old ways. But for now, they are not economically sustainable. Of course, for Fukuyama, the solution is a a more Hegelian model of the state, endlessly perfectible,which perhaps he envisions here in America as well: Francis Fukuyama At The American Interest-’The Two Europes’
Related On This Site: Have you downloaded the apps…and the concepts of Enlightenment and post Enlightenment liberty that can lead to runtime errors and fiscal failure? Sachs and Niall Ferguson duke it out: CNN-Fareed Zakaria Via Youtube: ‘Jeff Sachs and Niall Ferguson’
Joel Kotkin Via Youtube: ‘Illinois Is In A Competition’…From The WSJ: ‘Joel Kotkin: The Great California Exodus’
Catholic libertarianism: Youtube Via Reason TV-Judge Napolitano ‘Why Taxation is Theft, Abortion is Murder, & Government is Dangerous’
Covering the law and economics from a libertarian perspective: Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution Journal: ‘Three Cheers for Income Inequality’…Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘Death By Wealth Tax’
