Reply #25: I see longer term problems in Europe

[tritsofme]

Despite spending markedly less on defense than the United States, nations such as Germany and France are racking up budget deficits that are comparable to ours in terms of GDP.

Growth in the eurozone has also been highly anemic for the past several years, unemployment has recently hit a post-WWII high in Germany, with other eurozone countries such as France not too far away from 10% either.

IIRC the unemployment rate for the entire eurozone is over 9%, take that against 5.4% in the United States.

There is also a massive pension crisis in Europe that eclipses totally any problem we have with social security. Add that with the extremely low birth rate. They need to either get to work making a lot more babies or accept a great increase in immigration.

A weaker dollar isn't necessarily a bad thing either. During the Clinton years we kept the dollar artificially high, and while this stamped out inflation, it also hurt American manufacturers. A weaker dollar will help US manufacturers by making our goods relatively cheaper overseas and making imported goods relatively more expensive here at home. This should eventually start to bring our trade imbalance in to line as well. However much of this is prevented by countries such as China pegging their currency to the dollar and other Asian countries artifically propping up the dollar to keep their exports cheap in the States.