When you're entirely dependent on the government

Unreported Truths: "Europe is in trouble" - "And its crisis goes a long way to explaining why the American left remains a longshot to take power durably, despite the big gains it will probably make next month."

Europeans have seen the heavy hand of government in a way that Americans, even blue-state Americans, cannot imagine. French local and national government spending makes up 57 percent of the country’s domestic product. In other words, taxpayers (or bondholders) pay for almost three out of every five euros of economic activity. Italy and Germany are at 50 percent. (The United States is at 38 percent.)

That stifling bureaucracy makes starting companies in Europe hard and growing them next to impossible.

The trend is most clearly seen in technology, where Europe is not even an also-ran.

That 57% economic activity statistic is just wild: over half of the country's economic activity depends on the government coffers.