Survey says!

Ok I admit I’ve been hard on France when it comes to their economic policies and its affect on the country. Unfortunately for France they have become so engrained in the idea of getting more for less that reform is almost impossible. Though many of the politicians understand what’s needed to save the country economically, it’s evident by the mass protests that despite all their education the French people will continue to live in denial.

But what about the rest of the Euro area? I’m always comparing France to the U.S and that just isn’t fair. France is part of a much larger European Union that is attempting to create an economic zone similar to the United States. So comparing France to the U.S. would be like trying to compare Michigan to Australia. So how about we compare the U.S. to the Euro zone as a whole?

Today the Economist has latest statistics on the two, lets take a look shall we at whose system is more successful.

GDP: U.S. 3.2% E.U 1.7%
Unemployment: U.S. 4.8% E.U. 8.3%
Retail Sales: U.S. 6.1% E.U. 0.9%
Industrial Production: U.S. 3.3% E.U. 2.5%
Wage Growth: U.S. 3.5% E.U. 2.4%

And my favorite:

Trade Balance: U.S. (792.6 billion) E.U. 18.1 billion

Numbers don’t lie and hands down the U.S. and our system of limited protectionism (at least for now), low taxes, flexible labor laws and the ease to start a business is the proven way to go. Hopefully these numbers will also squash the argument that France is just an anomaly. Also I would like to point out the trade balance number. Again I will stress that trade deficits don’t matter (Chuck Schumer) and that trade surpluses historically have not correlated with economic growth in developed nations and actually have been present in countries with economic stagnation.