Victor Davis Hanson on the decline and fall of Europe

Since Greece is the cradle of European civilization, it makes sense that it is the cradle of its downfall.

From Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review Online:

That Europe's socialist model had led to relatively modest growth over the last decade in comparison with other advanced economies, that unemployment in Europe was likewise chronically high, and that worker productivity was static were always downplayed or at least balanced by "quality of life" counterpoints. Who cared that, over the last decade, much of Europe saw economic growth at only 50 to 75 percent the U.S. rate per annum, or that it struggled with 10 percent unemployment, or that it discouraged start-up companies, when the quality of life there was so much better for so many more people than anywhere else?

The wonder of the Greek implosion was not that it came so soon, but rather — given the pan-European phenomena of early retirement, declining populations, bloated public sectors, and militant unionism — that it took so long. In some sense, the dream of the European Union — a continental democratic socialism that offered a Western liberal antithesis to the United States — is now finished. Let us count the reasons why.

Yes, he counts them.

Meanwhile, President Obama is busy Europeanizing American.

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