Economic Juggernaut

I’ve been in Philadelphia this weekend to hear the speech by Dr. Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, where she spoke movingly of the close traditional ties between Ireland the United States.  But she also spoke with pride of Ireland’s emergence as an economic powerhouse and amazing progress in education.  She spoke about how Ireland was now part of the European Union, and how the EU was becoming a global political and economic power. It was a great speech; I will post it if I can get the transcript.

Coincidentally, the local paper – the Philadelphia Inquirer – also began a promising new series of reports (free registration required) on the EU as an economic rival to the US, with a focus on the impact on the local Philadelphia economy.  I hope the next time the neoconservative National Review publishes an article that demonizes Europe it considers this bit of information found in the Inquirer report:

In 2003, direct investment in the United States by the 15 EU members was a staggering $855.7 billion, or 62.1 percent of total foreign direct investment in the United States, according to the federal government. U.S. direct investment in those countries was $844.7 billion, or 47.2 percent of the total foreign direct investment.

As of 2002, the most recent year for which data are available, foreign-controlled companies employed 233,400 workers in Pennsylvania and 228,600 in New Jersey, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Nearly two-thirds of those companies were European.

In this age of globalization, when Americans buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, a Brooks Brothers shirt, a Snapple iced tea, or a quart of Quaker State Motor Oil, they are patronizing European-owned brands.