Pretty sure they became a 'superpower' by not getting bombed back to the stone age during World War 2 and being able to rapidly convert their military manufacturing industry into a more domestic oriented manufacturing industry to help rebuild Europe. It provided a huge boost to the economy but too many lacked the foresight to recognize that it was a temporary bonus rather than a reflection of a new-era. Eventually Europe would finish being rebuilt, then what? Oh yeah that's right, all those 'crap' jobs got outsourced to Mexico, India, or China.

It was more of a right place at the right time situation. As is becoming more and more apparent as that economy starts tanking.

I also don't think this whole US - EU thing is a fair comparison. It's like comparing a single band vs. a record label.

Out of interest which is the single band and which is the record label?

I'm guessing the U.S is the single band.

That's what I thought, but isn't the record label the all powerful entity and doesn't that describe the USA better than the EU?

Yes of course, but it was the fact that the United States was a union with a strong centralized government that made this happen. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration was probably the most centralized in the history of the United States. It would have been less likely if the States were a loose confederation.

Were talking about the merits of federal union versus a confederate union, right now the US operates as a federal union, the EU a loose confederation of independent states bound by no central governing force.

The issue of confederation versus federation has been a major issue of debate since the begining of your history....you did fight a civil war over it, but what can i say, I'm a Alexander Hamliton kinda guy, a federalist at heart, guilty as charged.

Its a tough question. While obviously stronger, federalist governments are more efficient in pretty much everything, they're also significantly more dangerous to the rights of individuals than a decentralized power. Take for example some of the legislation passed in the United States in the last couple of years. The rights of civilians, and our right to privacy, has pretty much disappeared entirely under the various acts to protect us from 'terrorists'. (See: Freedom of Speech Zones, NDAA 2012 Section 1021 and 1022, The Patriot Act, Homeland Security Act, the new definitions for terroristic or suspect activity, etc). People before me have cited a large federal government as responsible for the protection of individual rights- such as the rights of blacks and women in the United States. I should point out, with rare exception, the vast majority of rights in the United States were hard earned. Women got their right to vote by protesting, being raped in the streets and being beaten. Blacks have a similar tale to tell, with leaders such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King forcing governments to acknowledge their rights. Without their actions, the federal government would never have changed anything. Why? Because governments only give power where its necessary to appease the civilian population. This is true throughout history. Had the tumultuous 1960s not ended with reasonable legal progress for the rights of Black Americans...? The federal government would have faced a massive uprising.

I do not think you can really compare the US to the EU as you are comparing one government to a system of many. And in that group of many IE EU there are some governments that worked well and some that did not work as well. Take Greece for example..this is a country where very few people pay their taxes, where public-sector jobs are secured through family ties and where contracts for work, public or private, are rarely signed without someone in a position of power asking for a backhander. And then they believed that by going into a single currency, this would somehow make things better?

Than you have a country like Sweden. I am Swedish and yes we do pay high taxes. But I do not really care about that in so much that I know I will get my taxes back in the forms of subsidized preschools, free school, free university, a universal health system, public transport, etc. I do not have to worry about unemployment thanks to my union and the money I pay to them every month. So the one benifits the many and many think like this which benifits the country as a whole. I know there are *****s in the system but there are *****s in every system.0

So there you have two different government systems and two different ways people of a country think..that makes sense because we are from two very different countries. Therefore it is hard to compare the EU to the US.

I do not think it really comes down to the specific governments as it is to the people that elect them (unless you are in a dictatorship and then of course it does not really matter). But I do not think that the US will really improve until its people start accepting the fact that if they want a system that includes universal health care, better public transport, social security..you are going to have to pay for it. That means raising your individual federal taxes much higher than what you currently pay. And if this causes an uprising and people protest that they cannot possibly do this than there is no point even talking about universal health care or higher welfare situations for the individual because it is not going to happan.