Breaking News ... Europe's Economy Keeps Getting Weaker

Most of Europe is teetering on, if not already in, recession. That's hardly newsworthy.

What may be newsworthy about their deepening economic troubles, however, are the lessons on display for We the People and our American politicians to learn.

As time goes on, Europe's unemployment situation becomes worse and it's propensity to grow government as a share of the overall economy becomes stronger.

Governments are plundering the private sector in an effort to fix their economies. But the way they're proceeding will only make economic growth weaker, unemployment higher and their debts and deficits more troublesome.

Unemployment in Euro Zone Rose to New High in August has today's breaking news:

"PARIS — The euro zone’s jobless rate rose to a record this summer, official data showed Monday, underscoring the pain inflicted by the slowing world economy and the euro crisis on citizens of the world’s largest market.

Unemployment in the 17-member euro zone rose to 11.4 percent in August, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union reported from Luxembourg. The agency revised up the figure for June and July to 11.4 percent from the previously reported 11.3 percent, already a record. . . . 

 

The agency estimated that there were more than 25 million people out of work in Europe, including more than 18 million in the euro zone. . . .

 

Austria had the euro zone’s lowest jobless rate, at 4.5 percent. Spain continued to have highest, at 25.1 percent, with 52.9 percent of people under 25 years old being classified as unemployed.

 

The European jobless numbers, which compare with the official August rate of 8.1 percent in the United States, suggest that Europe’s recession is still deepening. . . .

 

Jennifer McKeown, an economist with Capital Economics in London, noted in a report that data show that while the economic strain is being felt most heavily at the “periphery” of the euro zone, in places like Spain and Portugal, “the situation is bad in the core too,” with the French jobless rate at 10.6 percent. Last week the government said the number of jobless had passed 3 million, the first time since 1999.

 

The data Monday “suggest that the industrial sector is experiencing a sharp downturn,” Ms. McKeown wrote, “and with unemployment at a record high, the outlook for the consumer sector is gloomy, too.”

 

She estimated that euro-zone gross domestic product would shrink by 2.5 percent next year.

 

Summing Up

 

The false security of government spending growth as a percentage of the entire economy is on full display in Europe.

 

The worse things get in their economies, the more government intervenes, thus making things even worse.

 

Let's hope our politicians and We the People are paying close attention to what's going on across the pond.

 

It's a lesson well worth learning as quickly as we can. To do so means only that we need to open our eyes and see what's really real instead of what we wish were real. Growing the government can't save any economy. Neither can increased taxation.

 

But it sounds so good and seems so easy when the politicians claim otherwise to get votes and be popular.

 

Sounding good and seeming easy aren't reality, however. Not even close.

 

Thanks. Bob.