coming decades will see countries forced into "winner" and "loser" categories more clearly than the last few decades have done.
Western European countries have been integrating their economies into the single largest market in the world. Add to it the contiguous, highly educated, law wage peoples of the former communist bloc and you have the makings of an economic juggernaut. Once the European integration is complete, an American company competing against a German company in Italy will find that the Germans have the advantage. The Europeans are already looking past the United States to Japan as their chief competitor.
One popular explanation for America's weakness in the global economy is that the Germans, Japanese, Koreans and other countries have simply bested America at its own game. Their automobile executives are paid less than ours, but they plan better for the long term. Their governments can impose additional taxes to remedy deficits; ours cannot without facing political peril. Their students spend evenings studying ma
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