Every now and then, I want to use this platform to illustrate blatant examples of ugly American exceptionalist thinking. And this article by Joseph C. Sternberg of the Wall Street Journal was a glaring example.
First of all, look at the title.
Notice anything?
It frames the argument right away. People who do not ask questions or see the inherent prejudice in the clear and obvious premise (like supporters of MAGA) will then take this as fact and run with it.
Then he continues with this train of thought in the very first sentence in this article:
Do Europeans understand how poor they are? And what will happen when they find out? Those are the Continent’s big political-economy questions for the next few years—perhaps decades.
Yes, Europeans surely are poorer than Americans. Apparently, they are not smart enough to have figured it out. Stupid Europeans, thinking themselves our betters, or even our equals, right? They should just learn from our superior American example. That's pretty much what you would get from reading the title, and the article elaborates on that premise.
Now, there are some problems with this inherent logic. True, Americans historically have had more consumer goods than Europeans, and indeed, the rest of the world. Americans also tend to have bigger homes and cars, too.
But there are some things which, apparently, Sternberg never seems to consider. Things like Europeans having far more guaranteed paid vacation time than Americans do. Europeans also get paid maternity leave, and family leave, which Americans are not guaranteed. Also, no Europeans go bankrupt because they cannot afford their medical bills. Healthcare is regarded as a right, and not just in Europe, of course. Literally in every country in the industrialized world EXCEPT for the United States. This is the only developed nation that sees tens of thousands of people go bankrupt because they cannot afford their medical bills. Tens of millions of Americans are uninsured, and tens of millions more are underinsured.
Those are some of the inconvenient facts that people like Sternberg apparently consistently choose to ignore (some might suggest hide) from their readers (some might suggest intended targets). If you accept the premise that Europeans are much poorer, than the logical conclusion is that they are living poorer lives in every way. That they are much more vulnerable than Americans tend to be, that they cannot possibly have certain things which, in fact, maybe most Americans might themselves like to have, if they were made aware of them in a clearer way.
If all you hear and read are opinions like those of Sternberg in this article, you might really get the impression that the American model is systematically superior. That criticisms of it - especially from Europeans - is born of jealousy and lacks substance. That in fact, there surely is no truth to any serious criticisms regarding the American way of life.
We do things better. We are superior and always have been. They should be following our model, not the other way around. Perish the thought that we might learn anything from their way of life.
Yet, Sternberg does sound convincing in his arguments. He even uses numbers to back up his arguments. Take a look:
The widening gap between American and European prosperity is among the most important facts of the global economy. The clearest manifestation is the chasm in per capita gross domestic product: $94,400 in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with $65,300 in Germany, $61,000 in the U.K. and $52,000 in France.
Wow. Those sound impressive, don't they? If you don't explore the matter anymore than that - if, in short, you simply take Sternberg's word for it - then the argument seems clear cut. We Americans clearly are still doing things in a superior way to Europeans. That is what accounts for our superior way of life, right? It has long been the case and, according to Sternberg, it will long be the case, to boot. For the next few decades, right?
Hell, you might even overlook some of the major and obvious problems which this country has been facing in recent years. Or at the very least, you might walk away thankful, thinking that maybe we got some problems, but at least we don't have it as bad as those miserable Europeans, with their faux sophistication, looking down their noses at us. In fact, they are the ones who are so much worse off, and just too damn stuck up to realize it, right?
At least, you might come away believing that if, again, you simply accept Sternberg's word on this. If he is the authority which you turn to and believe and never, ever question, than yes, pretty much everything is still fine in this country. We are still the envy of the world, even if it seems like the rest of the world is increasingly beginning to resent us Americans, even in some cases, hate us.
Okay, fine. Some might argue - might if they are not too far down the brainwashed path - that those are some valid points. However, I am losing focus, going off on a tangent. This guy is talking about salaries and economic productivity. Clearly, I veered wildly off topic somehow or other, right?
Well, I would argue that all of those things which I mentioned actually are part of the economic outlook for a country. Trust me, the older I get, the more potential medical expenses somewhere down the road as an American begin to weigh on me. While I have been relatively lucky in terms of vacation time and having managed to raise my child to adulthood, I am nonetheless aware that many, if not most, Americans often are not as lucky as I have been. But that aside, nobody really is exempt from concerns regarding our medical expenses. And the older we get, the more that greater expenses become a very distinct possibility.
There are other, very real things, which certainly cloud the rosy picture which Sternberg paints favoring the "American way," if you want. Real things that have a very real impact on people's lives. Things like debt and actual salaries.
Actual salaries? What do I mean by that?
Let me explain:
According to Sternberg, using those IMF numbers, Americans on average make $94,400.
Wow, that's incredible, right?
Indeed. Until you learn that it is not really true. That this figure is actually quite misleading. Here is another number regarding the typical American annual wage for you:
The average annual wage in the United States is approximately $69,847, according to the Social Security Administration's National Average Wage Index.
Just under $70,000. Yet, even that is misleading.
In fact, those numbers themselves are exaggerated, because they include the salaries of the wealthiest Americans.
Oh, come on, Charles, you might say. I'm tried of hearing how much just a handful of Americans make. They can't make that much, can they?
Well remember, Elon Musk briefly became the world's first trillionaire. I don't believe that he stayed there very long, but he or someone else will likely get back there soon enough. Also most likely, if we keep going in the direction we are going in, there likely will be a time when we see multiple trillionaires in the country. Because the one thing that we know, and which really is not debatable, is that the current American economy is advantageous for extremely wealthy people. Nobody argues that. More Americans are arguing that this might not be good for the country are a whole, for the rest of us, of course. But that the wealthiest Americans are doing exceptionally well is not really up for debate. Everybody knows that as the truth.
Then if you add their tax benefits and other incentives, things get even rosier for the wealthiest Americans. Of course, this comes at the expense of the rest of us, as it is paid for by the American taxpayer. Yes, we are footing that particular bill.
Then if you exclude, say, the top 1% of Americans - who also are generally extremely wealthy - suddenly it becomes much more sobering. Because those relatively few high-salary earners kind of tip the scales far more than their percentage of the population, we can exclude them to get more of an accurate feel of what the rest of the 99% of us are going. And if you do that, than the average annual salary for an individual American in the United States (again, excluding the top 1%) is estimated to be somewhere between $55,000 to $60,000. Then if you look even closer, to try and get rid of all of the skewed numbers regarding the estimated national mean salary for Americans, the median earnings for most Americans is around $48,000 to $62,000, although a lot of that hinges on their part-time vs. full-time status. So anywhere between $48,000 to about $62,,000.
Not anywhere near as rosy a picture as Sternberg wants us to believe, with the $94k+ salary he was boasting about, eh?
And of course, you would never know that particular fact if you read those numbers by Sternberg without any kind of scrutiny or better context. If you simply take his word for it, you truly get the impression that, generally speaking, Americans are still far ahead of Europeans in terms of overall salaries, which then might give the impression that it is okay that Americans do not have all of those wonderful things like 5 weeks paid vacation, or guaranteed paid maternity leave, or affordable universal healthcare with cost ceilings in place to make sure that people do not get fleeced, like Americans are getting with their healthcare system.
Okay, now let's get to debt. Debt is a real problem, and it is widespread across most western nations. Certainly, both Europeans and Americans are hardly excluded by it, and are in fact, greatly affected by it.
Remember Sternberg proudly hailing those numbers which favor the American way? In case you forgot, let me give you a reminder. According to Sternberg, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has numbers which, according to Sternberg, clearly illustrate the "chasm in per capita gross domestic product: $94,400 in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with $65,300 in Germany, $61,000 in the U.K. and $52,000 in France."
That's pretty damning right?
Except that it does not provide the full picture. As mentioned earlier, those salaries are not quite the way that Sternberg portrays them, especially when you remove the top 1% of Americans, who tip the scales dramatically. Then, those wonderfully positive numbers which make the American way clearly superior suddenly seem not even close.
If you then take a look at debt, you get an even drearier picture. Because Americans are heavily indebt, generally speaking. This is true both on the scale of everyday Americans, as well as the national government. And the debt which Americans face often is very different than the debt which Europeans have. Because we lead the industrialized world by far in areas like medical debt and student debt, which basically do not really exist in many other industrialized nations. And of course, those are not the only kinds of debts which Americans are plagued with, but the kind of debts which, in the case of student debt and medical debt, only Americans among the industrialized nations are burdened with.
Here are some more numbers to throw out at you. And these comes from the same International Monetary Fund (IMF) which Sternberg used to illustrate American superiority. According to the IMF Global Debt Database, here is the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios among those developed nations specifically mentioned by Sternberg:
United States: 121%
France 113%
United Kingdom - 101%
Germany 64%
Now let's look at national debt. The United States presently has more debt than any country in world history has ever had. Only Japan currently has a higher percentage of debt to GDP, at 200%. But the United States, which currently has over $39 trillion, stands at 124%. France is not all that much better, at 116%. The United Kingdom is at 102%, which is still quite high. Germany is at 63%, or almost half of what Americans currently have.
Suddenly, it feels like Sternberg might just have cherry picked the numbers that he wanted to use to make his Americentrist suggestion of the superiority of the American way. Because in fact, the American way seems to be all about burdening yourself with debt. Look at the numbers from the source which Sternberg himself seems intent on relying upon.
So the next time that you see headlines like this one by Sternberg, perhaps ask some crucial questions first before embracing this. Sternberg is conservative, and that is saying something here in the United States today. It is even more telling when he is trying to sell you on the idea that Americans have it just so much better than Europeans do. He is clearly trying to sell you something. In this case, it is the idea that however bad things may seem to you here right now, they are always worse elsewhere. Which is simply not true.
Look, I have spent quite a bit of time in France in recent years. And the standard of life there is quite high, although it is the lowest, according to Sterngerg, among the countries he specifically listed. But say what you will, here are some facts about the French financial outlook for typical people there: they have far more guaranteed paid vacation time than Americans do, they have far better guaranteed family leave (both parents), and there is nobody - not one single French person - who goes bankrupt because they cannot afford their healthcare expenses.
Say what you will, but to me, that means something. It seems quite telling to me that Sternberg made no mention of things like this. In fact, it suggests to me that what someone like Sternberg is not saying is actually more important than what he is saying. Because those numbers clearly are trying to paint a very rosy picture which falls apart as soon as you examine it more closely, with facts.
Whether we like it or not, our American way hardly seems like the best way for average people anymore. Although it sure works extremely well for the very wealthiest and most privileged among us, doesn't it?
Even Sternberg likely would not be able to argue that.
What Happens When Europeans Find Out How Poor They Are? by Joseph C. Sternberg April 30, 2026:
The Continent trails far behind U.S. economic output. Politics is bound to catch up sooner or later.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-happens-when-europeans-find-out-how-poor-they-are-270cff5d?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwY2xjawSjYGBleHRuA2FlbQEwAGFkaWQBqzKsH86kunNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4D6EExy73A-dRJTBSqzwTL4SZnm1WdignJTLNTPL7_1EqCY5vLh_Mcu2F2TQ_aem_yc4iotThqkF7j9eAyuWQ3Q&utm_campaign=120207446090830106&utm_content=120244863657060106&utm_id=120207446090830106&utm_medium=paid&utm_source=fb&utm_term=120233532115630106
What Happens When Europeans Find Out How Poor They Are? - WSJ
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