Every red-blooded American knows the Europeans are a bunch of effete, latte-sipping, wine-swilling communists. We’ve got it way better over here. Just look at the poor bastards, with their sky-high unemployment, graying populace, and shriveled GDP. My God, how can they live like that?

Of course these days our unemployment rate is worse than many of their larger nations, but still, we’ve got the better of them, right?

Not according to Thomas Geoghegan’s new book Were You Born On The Wrong Continent? In the showdown between the American and European (specifically German) economic models we come out looking the worse.