November 13, 2003
Europe Hates America – Part 3
A report published in the Los Angeles Times concluded that Italians get 42 days of paid vacation every year, the French 37, the Germans 35, and the British 28. Americans, meanwhile, take off only 14 of the 16 days to which they are entitled. Figures from the US Government’s Bureau of Labour Statistics show that Americans also work a 49-hour-week, which adds up to 350 more hours of labour a year than the typical European worker. I hear cries of “quality of life” from Champagne Socialists in Hoxton. (Note to Father Christmas – As I’ve been a good boy this year, please may I have a Tomahawk cruise missle for Christmas……just one will do..)
A good way to sum up Americans’ views of vacations is to study the habits of George W. Bush during his summer break. He retreated to his ranch, where the temperature regularly exceeds 100F, to clear brush. For relief from that vacation activity, he met his foreign policy team, then his economic advisers, then travelled to national parks to push his plan to reduce the incidence of forest fires, then on to California for a fundraising tour.
Even bloated Eurocrats are starting to express real worry. Not only is the American economy more productive than Europe’s, the gap is widening — output per man-hour in the US continues to rise, as the infrastructure left behind by busted dot-coms becomes more and more efficiently deployed. Worse still for those who want to play catch-up, America’s outlays on research and development, a harbinger of future improvements in productivity, continue to outstrip those of the EU. But how can that be, now that Brussels is trying to create a Workers Paradise?
The bad news for Europe is that the mediocrity of our politicians is manifest in their lack of understanding of both macro & micro economics. They espouse the advantages of not working, rather than to implement policies that make work more attractive. Gordon Brown lusts after America’s productivity performance, but continues to raise taxes so as to make work less remunerative.
Bush has done the opposite and cut marginal tax rates. Perhaps he is looking over his shoulder at the Chinese, who seem to view leisure with even greater suspicion than do Americans. I’ve lived in China & witnessed this first hand.
As a closing thought, let us once again revert to the wise words ‘our skipper’, Sir Winston,
“We must also never allow………the growing sense of unity and brotherhood between the United Kingdom and the United States and throughout the English-speaking world to be injured or retarded.”
House of Commons, 1 March 1955