Europe needs a DOGE

This is not about a new electric car to compete with its equivalents and more affordable Chinese cars. DOGE is the English acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency that Donald Trump will promote in his second term.

This is not about a new electric car to compete with its equivalents and more affordable Chinese cars. DOGE is the English acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency that Donald Trump will promote in his second term as President of the United States, which will officially begin on January 20. It will consist of a commission that Trump has tasked Elon Musk (entrepreneur and founder of Tesla and many other companies) and Vivek Ramaswamy (an anti-woke guru who was at one point Trump’s Republican rival and is now one of his main supporters) with the goal of directing this government department aimed at reducing bureaucracy and federal spending.

The data on the economic decline of European citizens

A few days ago, I explained in this forum how the pillars of the welfare state have been crumbling in Europe for years due to poor management of public spending (subsidy policies in exchange for votes at their base) and the accumulation of deficits and debt. What is happening to Spaniards in terms of wealth per citizen, a situation largely extrapolable to the hard core of Europe, is summarized in this analysis from Our World In Data developed at the University of Oxford by social historian and economist Max Roser:

"The levels of GDP per capita recorded in Spain are already 41% below the peaks reached twenty years ago. If we take the latest data from the World Bank for 2021, we can see that Spain reaches a GDP per capita of approximately $38,000, compared to nearly $64,000 that the North American country achieves.

If we adjust the data from 2001 to account for inflation and differences.

DOGE