Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Bordeaux, France…
Net Zero… Diversity is our Strength… LGBTQIA2S++ Pride Month… Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor… Multiculturalism… People Over Profits… Workers of the World, Unite!
When it comes to shrill left-wing rally cries and bleeding heart policies, Europe is about as hoarse a hemophiliac as you’re likely to find. From London to Paris, Brussels to Oslo, Riga to Madrid, so-called democratic socialists (aka, wolves in sheep’s clothing) hold sway over much of the Continent’s production… or conspicuous lack thereof.
We arrived in La Belle France late this afternoon, after a brief sojourn in Portugal’s plaintive capital. (A few melancholy chords from their native music, known as fado, will have you crying into your sardines.)
It is our first time in Bordeaux, despite our many years researching the region’s famous, namesake export. We’ll let you know our impressions, in due course…
But just being in La République again is a thrill in itself. Your editor journeyed here back in the early 2000s, with a copy of Henry Miller’s Travel Sketches under his arm and hair still on his head. The river has of course changed since then… as has the not-so-young man… but we are still stunned by the towering architecture, the grand boulevards, the ornate buildings and imposing monuments.
Constant Change
The Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeau, depicted in the short flâneur clip above, deserves an essay of its own. Over 1,000 years old, it was first mentioned in church documents dating from 814… half a century before the Norwegian vikings settled Iceland… more than half a millennium before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue… and 950 years, give or take, before Captain Cook set eyes on Botany Bay, claiming Australia for the English crown.
A lot has happened here on the Continent since then, both to man’s fleeting credit… and his everlasting shame. Standing amidst these mighty capitals, former seats of virtually unimaginable power, with empires stretching around the world such that the sun itself dared not set on them, one is left to wonder:
Whatever happened to the 21st Century’s Greater European experiment? We asked as much in one of these Notes a couple of months back…
With a population roughly a third larger than America (the US has around 331 million people, while the EU has about 447 million), one might think that a cooperative economy of scale alone would see to it that our minimum-wage earning welfare aficionados would comfortably outpace their stubbornly individualist, American peers.
And yet, the data shows that, thanks largely to the obsessive meddling of his feckless Eurocrat overlords, the average continental worker is considerably worse off, financially, than the average American. And the wealth chasm is fast widening...
In terms of the raw size of their respective economies, the EU and US were on very similar trajectories in the early part of this century, with growth in the EU even outpacing the US for a few years there... before they almost reached parity back in 2008, right around the $15 trillion mark.
Since then, the nearly-kissing cousins have made very different life choices...
Here it is viewed from another angle, this one from the International Monetary Fund:
What is to blame for Europe’s flaccid underperformance? Is it simply a matter of life choices? Or is it a case of prioritizing la dolce vita over “mere” economic gains? What, exactly, is “degrowth,” and how did this vile, anti-human philosophy come to infect European thinking?
All that and more, in future Notes. In the meantime, last week we took a look at how free markets are combatting poverty down at the End of the World… plus, we shed a crocodile tear for one of late night comedy’s ingrates, Stephen Colbert. Please enjoy…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
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Cheers,
Joel Bowman
