{"id":350199,"date":"2010-02-22T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T18:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/america-is-beating-the-crap-out-of-europe-right-now-2010-2"},"modified":"2010-02-22T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T18:19:00","slug":"america-just-came-back-and-started-beating-the-crap-out-of-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/350199","title":{"rendered":"America Just Came Back And Started Beating The Crap Out Of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"float_right\" src=\"http:\/\/static.businessinsider.com\/image\/4a8aeadd26a5ec1b7bcbf2da\/boxing-punchjpg.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"boxing-punch.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><div style=\"float: left; padding: 15px 15px 15px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ntweetmeme_source = 'moneygame'; tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Remember when, at the height of the crisis, critics were lambasting the American economic model and praising the stability of Europe?<\/p>\n<p>Well beyond European sovereign debt fears, there&#8217;s a simple damning fact for Europe in the recent GDP data.<\/p>\n<p>As highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, in the fourth quarter of 2009 U.S. GDP growth was annualized 5.7% while that of Europe was just a near-double-dip 0.4%.<\/p>\n<p>Even if the U.S. economy was boosted by some one-off effects in Q4, the wide disparity between these growth rates implies that, as the WSJ says, &#8216;a few things were done right in the American response to the economic crisis of the past two years, and a few things less right in Europe.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>One important difference that caught our eye was that U.S. banks appear to be in better shape than those in Europe right now.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/banking-budgeting\/article\/108880\/lessons-emerge-as-us-economy-outpaces-europe;_ylt=AtC80CatYbkawOyqQwzFFeG7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTFhOWhlMXRjBHBvcwMyBHNlYwNzcGVjaWFsRmVhdHVyZXMEc2xrA2xlc3NvbnNlbWVyZw--\">WSJ via Yahoo:<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Our policy has done more, and sooner, in that direction than Europe has been able to do, or in some cases, wanted to do,&#8221; says Mr. Mussa [a former IMF economist].  In addition, though the U.S. hasn&#8217;t succeeded yet in legislating a full change in its financial-regulatory system, regulators&#8217; moves in that direction have helped to prod banks to clean up their balance sheets, reduce their leverage and shore up their capital.  <strong>Data show that American banks have written down bad assets and raised new capital faster than their European counterparts, and have reduced their leverage further. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thus for all their failings, the &#8216;stress tests&#8217; might have done some good. Stimulus too:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As a result, financing is at least starting to move more normally through the U.S. banking system.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">And, yes, that stimulus package has added some to growth. Perhaps best of all going forward, one of the complaints voiced a year ago by critics of the stimulus &#8212; that its big infrastructure projects would take so long to roll out that they wouldn&#8217;t be of much immediate help on the jobs front &#8212; has proved correct. That means there&#8217;s more in the pipeline to be spent this year than was rolled out last year.<\/p>\n<p>The tables can turn fast, but right now the U.S. is killing it, relatively. Jobs are still a huge problem. But even on this metric the U.S. could soon be looking better than Europe. Employment is, unfortunately, a lagging economic indicator, so it will look good only once everything else does. Which will still be awhile.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong><br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/america-is-beating-the-crap-out-of-europe-right-now-2010-2#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>See Also:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/dennis-gartman-points-out-how-germany-and-greece-are-acting-like-five-year-olds-2010-2\">Dennis Gartman: Germany And Greece Are Just A Couple Of Five-Year Olds<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/soros-the-euro-is-doomed-even-if-you-save-greece-2010-2\">Soros:  Even if You Save Greece, The Euro Is Doomed<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/its-time-for-europeans-to-renounce-their-petty-sovereignties-and-become-a-single-nation-2010-2\">It&#8217;s Time For The Eurozone To Become A Single Nation, Or The Euro Is Toast<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/bB5cWHmM6ss\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember when, at the height of the crisis, critics were lambasting the American economic model and praising the stability of Europe? Well beyond European sovereign debt fears, there&#8217;s a simple damning fact for Europe in the recent GDP data. As highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, in the fourth quarter of 2009 U.S. GDP growth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}