Blumneconomics XIII: On second thought, Germany is the Western European socialist nation the U.S. should emulate

Roughly two years ago, Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner was touting Spain as the model for the U.S. economy.

With Spain hot on the heels of Greece on the road toward fiscal ruin, however, Blumner needed a different example with which to inspire the envy of downtrodden American workers.  How about ... Germany?

Since 2003, Germany and its 82 million people have either beaten China in export sales or about tied China for first place. The country is arguably the world's leading industrial power, even as its workers enjoy high wages, six-week vacations and other benefits that an American worker only dreams about.

Yeah, Germany!  There's the ticket!

As usual, Blumner was inspired by a book authored by a liberal/leftist.  This time it was a labor lawyer from Chicago by name of Thomas Geoghegan.  And, once again, the message is that socialism is good.

I haven't read Geohegan's book, so I won't critique that.  But Blumner's cherry-picked statistics and incomplete truth-telling are fair game.
Blumner:

And for those who claim that the cost of European socialism is endemic high unemployment, German unemployment at 7.7 percent is lower than the U.S. rate.

The cherry-picking:  Germany ordinarily trails the United States in terms of unemployment rate during recent history.



The rest of the story:  During the recent recession, Germany has kept its unemployment artificially low by cutting back on the number of hours worked.  Part of Germany's recent success may be attributed to Germany's gravitation toward free market principles in its economic reform movement.

My, that was inconvenient.

Blumner again:

Our lower taxes boost per capita GDP but also mean that we are on our own for collective-type goods like college education, retirement, health care, transportation and child care — things that are efficiently bought with taxes for everyone in European social democracies.

Eh.

I'll be setting up a pool/poll so that readers can vote on which European socialist state Blumner would have us emulate after Germany falters.