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Monday, December 05, 2005

Back from The Netherlands

I've been to Europe on vacation or for business about a dozen times in the last 30 years. I'm struck by how little it changes. It seems as if the whole place is stuck in the 1970s. Whereas California is radically different with huge amounts of building and migration. Even Boston (where I lived before coming to California) has visible signs of economic growth. But Europe has few such signs.

What's interesting about that to me, is that the numbers tell the same story. There has been significantly GDP per capita growth in Europe since the 1970s than here in the United States. And it shows.

2 comments:

Oroborous said...

Even Boston [...] has visible signs of economic growth.

Not all of it good; the MEDIAN price for condos in Boston is like $ 300,000 now - insane !
(Yes, San Diego has way too many condos going for three-quarters of a million dollars, but at least San Diego is Paradise).

There has been significantly [less] GDP per capita growth in Europe since the 1970s than here in the United States.

And the gap is only going to grow larger going forward, since over the next forty years the U.S. will enjoy robust economic growth, whereas the Eurozone may well have NO real, net growth over the same period.

Bret said...

Your right. The fact that Europe's future growth is likely to be as poor as the recent past is a very important point that I left out. In 2020, Europe will still be stuck in the 1970s.