In the summer of 1972 our family was an intermittent host in Rocky Mountain National Park to Ineke and Nikki, an energetic, attractive pair of teenage girls from Holland. They were there because they were good friends of Dies Lynn, daughter of my brother Scott. Scott married a professor’s daughter in Holland while he was doing post-graduate study there, which explains the Holland connection.
Those full-of-energy young women come to mind because they were being supported by their government, which at that time gave generous sabbaticals to high school graduates. I don’t remember the details 40 years later, but the fact that high school graduates and college students were given living and traveling allowances was so extraordinary to me that it stuck.
Ineke and Nikki come back to mind today because of the wrenching readjustments the nations of western Europe — sometimes called the “lifestyle superpower” — are being forced to make to deal with new fiscal and social realities.
Generous — no, lavish is more accurate — social benefits have been the hallmark of Western Europe for two postwar generations. Six-week vacations, retirement at 60 or younger, year-long sabbaticals, national health care systems, subsidized housing, child care, bonuses for having babies, child allotments from then on: cradle-to-grave comfort and leisure for all.
And, yes, high taxes and low military spending to make it all possible.
IT WASN’T really a house of cards. It worked well for Ineke, Nikki and their generation and the one that followed. But cracks began to show. The devil was in the demographics and in the violent swings of the world economy.
Most of the nations of Europe are aging even faster than the United States because, even with bonuses for babies, birth rates aren’t keeping up with death rates. As the number of retirees continues to grow and the number of workers shrinks, the pressure on national budgets increases. More and more European nations are living on borrowed money to pay those mounting social welfare bills.
Greece is an extreme example. Presidents and parliaments there yielded to the political temptation to win and hold power by pushing the retirement age lower and lower for a larger and larger percent of the population — and pay the pension cost by selling bonds. Then the worldwide recession hit, revenues fell and Greek credit went negative.
The picture isn’t that dire in all of Europe. Norway, for example, keeps its budget in the black with revenue from its oil and gas. Germany has become an economic powerhouse with its exports and good management. Switzerland’s banks, watchmakers and tourists keep it sound. Most Scandanavian countries have pulled back from their excesses and understand that more retrenchment must come. But France, Italy, Portugal and Spain are in budget trouble that can be resolved only by reducing the cost of their social welfare benefits.
The challenge will be to teach acceptance of today’s economic and social realities while maintaining political order. French youth, for example, have been taught that they can achieve political goals — such as free university educations — with street riots. The French have had successful democracies for centuries and will make the adjustment. So will the British, who are also facing huge budget deficits.
How the nations of the south will cope is more iffy. Political opportunists seeking power will make unkeepable promises and play to the restive mobs. Responsible leaders who preach economic and social reality and ask for the people to understand and show discipline will find audiences difficult to convert.
Lovers of peace and freedom who also can do math must hope good sense overrules demands for a never-ending free lunch.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
