Europe

For more than fifty years US leaders have looked longingly at Europe and their great social programs, starting with universal healthcare but the time has come to evaluate the costs. The GDP per person in Europe is $53,000 vs $85,000 in the US. With the help of various government programs, the Europeans have lost the work ethic that has made America great. Shorter work weeks, longer vacations and earlier retirement ages have offered benefits not available to US workers. They are overrun with regulations and have very little innovation. Today they find themselves unable to compete with the rest of the world. They bragged to the world about being the leaders in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar as they shut down their coal and nuclear power plants. They refuse fracking based on environmental concerns. They freely signed the Paris Accords while the US dropped out. They opened their borders to immigrants who failed to assimilate. They accepted the protection from the US for their national defense. They failed to notice that their population was in decline and now the trend is irreversible. This has resulted in high energy cost (electricity and natural gas) costs are 3.5 times higher than in the US. When they try to raise the retirement age the people riot in the streets. They are now deporting immigrants at an accelerated rate. Their industries are relocating to China and the US. They are restarting their nuclear and coal plants. Their relationship with the US is suffering as they face additional cost of defense spending and new tariffs.