Bill Bonner, meets an American having lived in France for twenty years, and reminds us:
In terms of debt and deficits the country that most resembles France is the United States of America. Both are going broke. But so are many other “European” nations…and eventually, probably all of them.
There are the nations of Europe. Then, there are the nations of Europeans – Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US.
The point is, most of them are going broke. Their model is exhausted. This was the social welfare model derived from Bismarck – take from workers; pay to non-workers. It was okay as long as the pool of workers was growing faster than the pool of non-workers. But that’s no longer the case.
Curiously, the nation furthest along on the road to bankruptcy is a non-European nation that picked up the model early, Japan. Already, there are more people retiring in Japan than there are people entering the workforce. Overall, the population is falling, while the number of people over 65 increases at 3% per year. In 1990, there were more than 4 people working for every retiree. Now there are barely two.
Practically all the European nations, and all the nations lived in predominantly by people from Europe…as well as Japan…are headed down this dead-end road.
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