The European Welfare State Is Collapsing
Alvaro Vargas Llosa:
Every decade since the 1970s the economic performance of the 27 countries that make up the European Union has deteriorated. In the 1970s, economic growth averaged 3.1 percent. In the 1980s the figure was 2.5 percent. In the 1990s it was 2.1 percent and in the last decade, 1.4 percent.
Obviously these averages don’t tell the whole story—some countries have done better than others. But the bulk of Europe has let the parasitical welfare state devour its social and economic energy. [Fox News, November 17]
