Nuanced thinking may do in the EU Constitution

Investor's Business Daily a good short summation of the problems Europe faces in the push for ratifyingthe EU COnstitution:

Chirac and others who have pushed for an enlarged and much-empowered European Union have failed to deliver growth and jobs in their own economies. So why let them control more?

Europe has just lived through a lost decade, with some alarming trends. Despite a late-1990s boom, Europe's joblessness stands near 9%; in the U.S., by comparison, it's 5.2%.

As for growth, Europe has very little. Since 2000, Europe's 15 core economies have added $478 billion in total output. Sounds good, again until you compare it with the U.S., which has added $1 trillion over the same time — with 100 million fewer people.

A series of recent reports — from the EU and European think tanks — warn that Europe is falling further behind the U.S. Unless something's done, it'll only get worse....

There's a growing sense, too, among Europeans that they've lost control of their demographic destiny. Thanks to liberal immigration laws, 20 million or so Muslims now live in the EU. They're now the fastest growing segment of Europe's population.

As such, they might soon become the most powerful political bloc. That could mean an end to Europe's experiment in social liberalism and the start to an era of ugly ethnic strife.

Europe has big problems. Many of the Brits don't want the EU because it will impose even more controls on them. A lot of the French don't want it because it will reduce controls on them. A lot of Dutch are displeased that liberal imigration laws have led to the port of Rotterdam being 47% Muslim- and apparently including a fair number of pretty intolerant anti-assimilationist Muslims at that. You couldn't pay me enuf to put my family downwind of all the stuff in that port. Way too tempting a site for a major attack.

I'd be interested to see the Dutch Muslim population data by national origin, tho. I expect that there are a lot of Indonesian descent, and they have traditionally been rather moderate compared to a lot of the Arab groups. Still, there are plenty of the bad guys there, as Theo van Gogh found out.

As long as the French and Germans and their cohort are unwilling to cut the social spending which requires high tax rates, and cut the business laws which make hiring and firing so unattractive, capital will be invested in more friendly places. And that is where the jobs will be.