I know what you're talking about, but I don't see much of that in this particular report. There's no "because socialism" here and it would be utterly ridiculous considering that "socialist European welfare state" correlates positively with "rich".

We can't discount valid criticism just because we suspect it may be motivated by the wrong political agenda. We have to ask if it's true.

Admittedly, the report doesn't make it easy to do that because it doesn't explain how exactly they calculate these rankings, and some of the sideswipes against privacy concerns are clearly misplaced and irrelevant.

But I think there can be very little doubt that Europe's digital economy is lagging badly behind the US and arguably falling further behind. If we don't wake up before the digital revolution eats Europe's auto industry and in the process ruins high tech equipment makers and robotics, we are on a trajectory to become a third world economy.

Yes the "digital evolution index" does sound a nebulous rag-tag list of stuff that the sponsors MasterCard and DataCash would like govermnets to implement or remove for them.

A complex issue no doubt - but I can't stand opinions dressed as "sciencey" research.

I've noticed that "bad news" about Europe as a rule pop up ahead of a weakening dollar. Just an observation. It's just these "news" are getting more and more ludicrous over time.

It's not just the US doing it. I always read newspapers from both sides of the pond and it was especially entertaining during the big financial crisis. Many European publications acted as if the US is collapsing but Europe will be largely unaffected and American ones anticipated swift recovery for the US and deep EU crisis. Even newspapers that you wouldn't normally associate with nationalistic sentiments (like the New York Times) engaged in some serious fear-mongering.

People also respond to these kinds of messages. I visited the US this August, when the euro crisis was often making the news. Several people were seriously and non-sarcastically concerned with my capacity for paying for my own lunch or hotel. They were very surprised when I told them that the euro is worth more or less the same as always in relation to the dollar.

Its sounds like the sort of thing naive/stupid politicians trying to get to grips with the blinkey light boxes lap up.

I cant wait for Steve Bongs take on this in the register

If you bury your head in sand that's exactly what you'll think. Try getting out of Europe more often and see what the rest of the world achieves in a year and then you'll come to the same conclusion. Even in case of already advanced countries like Japan, in certain sectors, they are years if not decades ahead of Europe.

As the op said, there is no "Europe" and talking about it as if there's a single entity is, to European ears, quite ignorant. Practically the only thing Italy has in common with Poland has in common with France has in common with Holland is that they're all very generally liberal democracies. Otherwise, on the spectra of backwater-to-scifi, honest-to-corrupt, socialist-to-capitalist, religious-to-secular, nationalist-to-egalitarian, dynamic-to-sclerotic, authoritarian-to-permissive, you will find everything in every permutation, somewhere.

I get that the US is big and diverse and dynamic. But the EU is far bigger (population wise) and far more culturally / economically / politically diverse.

Japan is not a good example as it lags in many other areas Plumbing for one