I mentioned a couple days ago that I finished reading The United States of Europe. I thought I'd share a few more thoughts on the book before they slip my mind.

Socialized Medicine: This was just flagrant cheerleading. He promoted it as a godsend to Europe, and how wonderful it was with only anecdotal evidence. Mostly he just talked about how his daughter had a minor injury, they went to a London hospital and were shocked when they didn't have to pay anything. But he went on and on about how wonderful it was. He talked very little about how testing done in the U.S. is many times refused in Europe because of the cost, and how patients are given little choice in the matter. He doesn't talk about the experiences of people who had much more serious conditions than his daughter... and relies on very little statistical evidence. My suggestion here is not that the U.S. medical scene is wonderful... but his suggestion was that socialized medicine was the cure. I've studied this particular topic a lot (I debated it when I was on the high school debate team for an entire year), and I would have ours over theirs any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

European Unemployment: He barely touched it. Given the fact that he talked extensively about the powerhouse European economy... this shocked me. His basic conclusion was that he didn't see an end to the growth Europe's economy will see... while totally ignoring the staggering cost of unemployment. He also didn't seem to concerned over Europe's aging population, and population decline. He also barely talked about it.

So while I got some interesting information out of the book, I wouldn't call it an even handed look at Europe by any means.