Malaise Euro-Style

Paul Johnson, the great historian, has a good piece on European economic inflexibility and why it could portend a major European economic recession. The European economy is essentially straightjacketed by a system of social welfare programs that prevent European companies from making the changes that a worldwide market demands of them. Europe’s fundamental inability to adapt means that it would take little for the European economy to suffer a major long-term shock… a shock which would rapidly spread across the entire globe.