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| Europe |
| French study says Europe fading |
| 2003-05-15 |
| Europe is predicted to become a second-ranking economic force over the next 50 years, its share of world output almost halving from its current 22-percent share to 12 percent, a top French think tank reported Wednesday. Over the same period, the United States is expected almost to retain its 25-percent share, which will by 2050 be matched or even outpaced by China as the world's dominant economy. "The enlargement of the European Union will not be sufficient to guarantee parity with the United States," says the report from the prestigious French Institute of International Relations. "The EU will weigh less heavily on the process of globalization and a slow but inexorable movement onto history's 'exit ramp' can be foreseen." Even that decline to a 12-percent share of the global economy is based on IFRI's assumption that Europe welcomes 30 million young immigrant workers from North Africa and the Arab world, to swell its thinning labor force. Europe's falling birthrate, along with rigid labor markets and early retirement, means that even the enlarged EU won't be able to keep up with U.S. and Chinese growth rates over the next five decades. I wonder what impact 30 million Arab immigrants combined with a low birthrate and an aging (native) population would have on Europe demographically. If France is 10% Muslim now, what would they be in 50 years? The IFRI report, titled "World Trade in the 21st Century" carries some sobering political implications for European policy-makers. Currently no match for the United States in military or political weight, the EU prides itself on being America's economic and commercial equal. But a shrinking economic weight in world affairs will render Europe even more marginal politically. The report could strengthen those in the Bush administration who argue that Europe's stalled economies and feeble military strength means that it is less and less important to U.S. strategic concerns. And coming from a think tank in France, a country that has long sought to build up the EU as a counterweight to U.S. predominance, the IFRI report suggests that the United States has little to worry about and the EU has few cards to play. The IFRI report suggests that Europe could delay, but not fundamentally alter, the process by creating a European economic space that would include Russia and former republics of the Soviet Union, along with Turkey and North Africa to create a larger trading zone. But given the political difficulties Europe currently experiences with large-scale Muslim immigration, and the resistance to Turkish aspirations to join the EU, it is far from clear that Europe's voters would agree to save their economic status by changing their largely white and Christian club into an increasingly Islamic entity. Even if it does absorb 30 million new immigrants by 2050, the European population is still expected to decline in the years 2000-2050, from 493 million to 434 million. In the same period the population of China is expected to grow from 1.34 billion to 1.5 billion with North America — the United States, Mexico and Canada — rising from 413 million to 584 million. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #10 I have some knowledge of the computer vision (CV) aspect of robotics. The next chip that I get to play with will run edge, motion and stereo algorithms in real-time for dual video cameras while disippating less than 5 watts. The chip is already on the market in the $100 range (in quantity). These are the three biggest compute hogs in CV. The higher level software is getting to be fairly sophisticated. One more generation on the family should give it enough horsepower to handle generic CV. At that point, vision based robots should start to become widely available. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-05-15 21:41:20 |
| #9 Ptah I agree with your analysis and would like to add one thing. China's growth has been fueled largely by abundant cheap labor. Robots have yet to achieve critical mass. We can build robots, but we can not build them cheaply enough to find new applications and achieve a virtuos circle of better and cheaper through increasing volume, increasing R&D, etc., in the way we did with PCs. I am still optimistic that we see this effect soon with robots. If we do then I see switch away from China as the value of cheap labor for repetative tasks decreases. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2003-05-15 19:06:50 |
| #8 Old Patriot - your right about ching expanding into russia. even 5 years ago there were more illegal chinese in siberia than russians. and the ecomomics of this area takes it's cues from china and not moscow. makes me wonder way the russians tried to play with the french - long term not a good policy. |
| Posted by: Dan 2003-05-15 16:07:51 |
| #7 There are three main problems with the assessment presented here. One problem this "think tank" isn't addressing in this article is the decay of western European infrastructure. The highways are jam-packed, there isn't any room to build any more highways, and there isn't the incentive necessary to maintain what they have. Increased immigration to Europe of non-Europeans will place an even greater strain on infrastructure, without doing anything to ease the situation. Another problem is their assessment of China. China is a population time bomb, set to go off at the slightest whim. Even if they had a one-for-one replacement birthrate, the ability of China to support their ever-growing population, especially coupled with a higher standard of living, will strain the nation's capacity to support itself without major changes in political, economic, and social customs. That will play havoc within China, and frighten off outside investors. The third problem is sheer numbers: China with 1.5 Billion people, India with a billion, and Europe, North and South America with a half-billion each. Population pressures are going to force the Chinese into an expansionist policy. The only alternative is to expand northward into eastern Russia. Both China and India are perfect breeding grounds for new diseases (I.E., SARS), with poor sanitation, huge populations living close to each other, and an economy aimed at producing goods, with poor environmental controls. The next fifty years are going to be "interesting", but I doubt the French prediction will carry much weight, other than European continuing decline. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-05-15 10:49:58 |
| #6 Bio&nano tech,as well as alternative fuels(fuel cell & fusion).Thats where the next great brek throughs are going to be. |
| Posted by: w_r_manues@yahoo.com 2003-05-15 10:20:04 |
| #5 Bio&nano tech,as well as alternative fuels(fuel cell & fusion).Thats where the next great brek throughs are going to be. |
| Posted by: w_r_manues@yahoo.com 2003-05-15 10:19:39 |
| #4 Beats me why the Euros couldn't have gazed across the former Iron Curtain and concluded that central planning and rampant socialism lead to distortion and decay. The bad news for them is that their potential new EU members and their immigrants don't have much capitalist training. I don't see the EU as much long-range economic competition -- just as a diplomatic headache as we have seen with France and Germany recently. Oh, and 10% Muslim is a more-powerful influence than even 90% watered-down pseudo-Christian any day. Current-day France will seem like a picnic compared to the cultural clashes that lie ahead. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-05-15 10:10:50 |
| #3 ...it is far from clear that Europe's voters would agree to save their economic status by changing their largely white and Christian club into an increasingly Islamic entity. Europe Christian? Hah. In name only. Most of the "economic power" of China is currently driven by mass manufacturing of low cost goods thanks to low cost labor for sale in the United States. Most of this manufacturing is highly concentrated in an economic "bubble zone" in which the normal socialist interference from the Chicom government is suspended. One must congratulate the ChiCom leadership for resisting what must be an overwhelming temptation to "step in and show how good they can run things." Most of these economic analyses of the future are usually based on a host of assumptions, all subject to failure because there is no accounting for the natural stubbornnes of human nature to resist some changes, paradoxically coupled with the inability to predict the products of human ingenuity that introduce changes that massively benefit those humans capable of handling change well. These guys could probably predict quite reliably the growth in economic power as China masters the technology of computers, based on what happened to the US economy as computers and computerization infused it. However, they CANNOT predict the NEXT THING that will kick the US Economy into its next stage of growth: If I could do that, I'd be out there getting filthy rich DOING IT instead of talking about it. What I am confident of, and what these guys cannot assume in their study (because they can't quanitfy it) is that there WILL BE a "next thing", and that it is a very good bet than it will be a free people that will discover it and exploit it, provided they will be allowed to profit from it. I'd put my money on bio-tech, nano-tech, and highly personalized manufacturing facilities, driven by advanced robotics capable of producing both low and high volume runs of personalized and customized goods. (Look at the indie industry in music, and see how it was revolutionized by the ability to generate individual CDs inexpensively and advertise over the internet.) Imagine the shock to the fashion industry if ANYONE could design sensible, elegant, and attractive clothing, distribute the design over the internet, get a cut of every dress made with the basic design, and customers could order individual items, have them manufacured on an individual basis, and delivered to their home. I daresay some people would do a lot better than 95% of the French Fashion Design clique. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-05-15 09:49:57 |
| #2 Amen to that, Chuck, except a truly robust free market economy could possibly assimilate Arab/Muslims into French culture, eliminating any Arab/Muslim influence. But France is drunk on socialist politics, and is trying to pass the bottle to oher Euro countries to make them them drink. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-05-15 08:37:41 |
| #1 They left out the caveat: were they to alters their economic and social practices to truly reflect a free market economy, they'd have a chance. Otherwise, a European economic space will resemble that town at the beginning of the first Star Wars movie, run down and full of aliens. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-15 07:55:46 |