Europe's Promise By Steven Hill

In Europe's Promise, Steven Hill asserts that the European way is the best hope. He attempts to make the case the Europe is superior to the United States. One focus of the book is a vast array of services that are provided to Europeans at a low cost or even no cost. Another claim is that Europeans are healthier, their healthcare system is better, their diets are better. A third claim is that the European way for energy is superior. All of those claims are questionable. "Europeans on average, are enjoying the highest of living standards and the most economic security, with health care for all, paid parental leave (following the birth of a child), affordable child care, monthly kiddie stipends, paid sick leave, free or inexpensive university …show more content…
There is the notion that every young person should be able to attend college and that is part of the reason that college is expensive. Schools can charge as much as they want as long as students are willing to pay for it. A second common complaint about college costs is the high interest rates that come with student loans. Interest rates for are based on risk to the bank. Most eighteen year olds haven't established a good credit history, and there is no guarantee that borrowers will ever be able to pay back the loan. If someone doesn't pay the mortgage, the bank takes the house to recoup the loss. If someone doesn't pay back the student loan and there is nothing to repossess and the bank has lost out. Hill claims that the unemployment pay, job-retraining, and health benefits that Americans receive while unemployed is insufficient. As far as the kiddie stipends, and child care and parental leave are concerned, it doesn't show that Europe is pro-family or has family values. What it really says is that children are so horrible that the only way to get people to have kids is by paying them to do it. What Hill doesn't make a good argument for is why paying people to do nothing is a good …show more content…
may have houses four times larger than that of Syria, but even Syrians don't want to live in Syria. The U.S. population is roughly half that of Europe, with the same amount of land, Americans use more space because there is more space. Hill gives undeserved praise to the windows in Germany, he may think it's wonderful to be able to turn a latch a different way and open the window wide, or tilted, but the small houses on small lots that are too close each other, and the roads, opening the windows at all means hearing traffic and noisy neighbors twenty four hours a day (personal experience). The trains are not as wonderful as he makes them out to be. Just like subways in U.S. cities, the trains in European cities are just as noisy, crowded, and unpleasant. Boarding a train, with strangers two inches away is not better to getting into the car alone, on one's own schedule, even if the train is faster, cheaper, and