Comments on: Trans-Atlantic Contrasts

By: DLS

DLS — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:52:57 +0000

"Dependence on government benefits varies a great deal among the developed countries. It is relatively low in the English-speaking world, and in two countries — Australia and the UK — it is projected to drop steadily in the future. In 2040, according to CSIS projections, public benefits will make up 33 percent of the after-tax income of the elderly in Australia, 37 percent in the United States, 39 percent in the UK, and 46 percent in Canada. In every continental European country, the share exceeds 50 percent today and will still exceed 50 percent in 2040, suggesting that the countries that most need to cut benefits may find it the most difficult to do so. Japan is an exception among high-burden countries. The public
benefit share there is relatively low today and will still be low in 2040: just 38 percent, about what it will be in the United States."

[2003]

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/aging_index...

By: DLS

DLS — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:45:32 +0000

Europe needs huge amounts of tax and regulatory reform, but they need the spending reductions, too. That's going to be a problem because Europe's future demographics will make its retirement-welfare-program problems worse than ours will be, while dependence on government for a living in Europe is much greater (much worse) than here in the USA. (The English-speaking nations hold most of the private retirement-savings wealth in the world.)

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/pension_pro...

NOTE: CSIS's Aging Vulnerability Index report is being revised and should become available later this year.

By: Assertiveness and business, how to stay in control | Assertiveness A2Z

Assertiveness and business, how to stay in control | Assertiveness A2Z — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:15:09 +0000

[...] The Moderate Voice – jolts from institutions that lie outside the free market, than is Europe, which is traditionally more comfortable with governmental and institutional intervention. Could it be that economic policy derives more from temperament (American assertiveness More Assertiveness [...]