> has very conservative capital and tax and employment systems

I agree with you to a degree on capital and tax (although there are exceptions within Europe if you take the time to look).

However, if you say Europe should be adopting the US employment system, I'll tell you right now that you can stick that where the sun doesn't shine. Sure the European employment model is not perfect, but by god is it a gazillion times better than the Wild West model deployed in the US.