Conservatives live in constant fear that the United States is becoming more like that haven for socialists and layabouts known as Europe. But a quick glance at the news reveals that Europeans have a more sanguine reaction to the recession compared to the fear and panic keeping many Americans awake at night. As Ezra Klein points out, the social safety nets found in most developed European nations are softening the recession’s blow for their citizens. A job loss doesn’t deprive them of basic health care, education, and food. Americans, lacking such guarantees, tend to keep a wary eye on neighbors and colleagues during tight economic times and sharply pull back their spending when they see that the family down the street lost their home or several close friends lost their jobs. And this kind of massive spending curb only makes recessions worse.
We Americans may have arrived at one of those critical decision points that comes along once in a generation. Do we sacrifice a little economic growth for quite a bit of peace of mind? Or do we countenance the shantytowns springing up in American cities as the price to pay for the next boom?
The end of the economic crisis is April the first. Spread the news. At least that’s what Dexia Bank, one of the main finacial institutions is predicting. When looking at several parameters, they see that -among other things- there is still a lot of purchasing power, even when people are unemployed for some while, and quite a number of people only cut down their expenses because they think they should, since they are fond of aping one another.