Compared with the awesome strength of America and the raw power of emerging Asia, Europe is sometimes portrayed as a has-been, excelling in luxury goods, fine food, wines and fashion but weighed down by too many old industries and old ideas.
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America enjoys awesome advantages over Europe. It is a huge, truly single market with a relatively youthful, growing population. It is the world’s economic superpower, with much higher productivity than its competitors (though productivity growth has recently been disappointing, and last year was slightly below Europe’s). It has world-class universities that work hand in glove with business. Americans have not only won more Nobel prizes, they have turned more scientific advances into profitable businesses than anyone else. Many of these firms have gone on to become the giants of modern business.

It may have been a British scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, working at a laboratory in Switzerland, who invented the world wide web, but America is the home of the internet and all the business sectors it has spawned. And even where Europe is holding its own against America, it seems unable to retain its advantage.