The Real Reason Why Europe is Struggling So much....

We all hear on an almost daily basis about how Europe and the Euro zone is in a crisis. How the Euro as a currency is a failure and how the entire eurozone concept as a whole is about to collapse upon itself. Well, all of this is very possible and could very well happen within the next few years but I'm not going to write about the inevitable. I'm going to try to explain to you why what we are seeing now in Europe was destined to happen from the start.

First lets start by looking at one fundamental difference between Europe and North America; Vacations. The average worker in Europe used to get somewhere between 4 to 6 weeks of PAID vacation. Let me say that again....they get 4-6 weeks of PAID vacation. I've been working at BMO for over a year and all I get is 10 business days off (2 weeks). This is one of many things that will be changing over the next few months as part of the austerity measures being introduced (in countries like Greece) to help stave off the utter failure of their financial system.

Add to this fact that the average working day in Europe (France in particular) only lasts until 3:30 in the afternoon or involves a rather long midday break (in the 2 hour range) and you start to get the sense that Europeans have no idea how hard we work over here in comparison to how they work there.

Let's get right to the heart of the matter, Europeans have had a much better quality of life over Canadians and Americans for decades because they have had the chance to actually live their lives instead of working their lives away like we do here. The average worker in North America works between 45-60 hours a week just tpo make ends meet. That drops to 37 hours a week on average in Europe (which is an increase of 5 hours a week for them over the last 3 years alone).

I don't know about you but those two things alone make me want to go work in a European city.  When you couple the shorter hours they work with the longer vacation times, you can see how any changes being forced upon them will lead to protests and riots (like the ones we are seeing in Greece). The biggest surprise about how they have lived for decades is the fact that despite somehow NOT having huge amounts of personal debt (like we do here in North America), their governments have rung up MASSIVE amounts of debt because of their refusal to have a proportional tax system.

The rich in Europe must still think they are royalty or something as they have not been (as is the case in Greece, Portugal and Spain most notably) paying their own fair share of taxes, which has created massive amounts of government debt. On top of that, government staff (especially in the 3 aforementioned countries) get benefits that would make some members of royalty blush; Pensions that go on and on even after they pass away, multiple uncapped pensions from various levels of government (depending on where they worked and years of service), free living accommodations even after leaving public office, free vehicles (with gas, insurance and maintenance covered by the government for life) or free driver service.

Just in Portugal alone, there are 33 former ministers who are earning pensions like this or some variation of this type of pension. No wonder the people are revolting. Instead of focusing on their own sweet "Golden parachutes", the current ministers of nations like Portugal and Greece are instead cutting into the average working mans' pensions, making it harder to get their hard earned money, while sitting back knowing that they will get to ride off into the sunset in the lap of luxury.

Many ordinary everyday people in Europe have been living the good life for years and now that their governments are starting to hack away at things that have made their lives so much easier then ours here in North America (like their pensions, the length of their working days and their vacations), now they are starting to understand what we have had to live with for so long, hence their reluctance to just bend over and take it.

The inevitability of their downfall comes from the fact that unfortunately our world is just moving way too fast to accommodate the kind of lifestyle that they live. The pace that they live their lives is actually ideal; work a little, play a little, enjoy both life and work at a pace that makes life worth living. The problem is that we are living in a world where people want everything done a minute ago and they want everything open 24/7, 7 days a week. They want banks open everyday until 8 and on Sundays too because it fits into THEIR schedule.

People are too selfish now to understand the enormous burden that this kind of pace puts on others. Why do you need a bank open until 8 pm or on Sundays when there are about a million other ways to do your banking? Why do you need McDonald's open 24/7 when you have a fridge and/or freezer full of food sitting at home? It's selfishness and greed. There are actual people who of course want/need to work those hours to fulfill their need to have more. They believe in the old Gordon Gecko modo that "Greed is Good". They forget that there was a 2nd Wall Street movie that came out recently where even the man who said that regrets that sentiment as it not only ruined his family life but nearly made the entire financial system go bankrupt.

We don't need to work as much as we do here. What we need is for everyone to pay their fair share and have the kind of work/life balance that existed in Europe. The only reason they are screwed now is because the rich were unwilling (and still are) to pay their fair share in taxes, stealing (essentially) from the rest of the people in their respective nations. And that is why their fall was inevitable; the rich got rich by keeping what was theirs (and/or taking what was yours as well). Their refusal to do their part has pushed Europe to the brink of collapse. All these politicians rushing in with Eurozone bailout packages and forcing austerity measures on the regular everyday working citizen is only going to continue to lead to more and more protests and demands for change until the root cause of the problem is addressed.

That simply won't happen since that is not the focus of these politicians and their bailouts.

So the financial collapse clock should continue to tick away until the term "revolution" begins to resonate with these politicians. It happened in France in 1791 when the people were starving as Royalty sat on golden chairs and ate all the finest foods. Now, the politicians with their Golden Parachutes are pushing the Eurozone to the brink of another political revolution. Only time will tell.