My take is that a lot of Europe has not gone for growth-at-all-cost, in particular with immigration, and so has offset lower salaries with more manageable soci

My take is that a lot of Europe has not gone for growth-at-all-cost, in particular with immigration, and so has offset lower salaries with more manageable social programs and lower cost of living generally. There are downsides, but "managed decline" is not necessarily a bad thing. I think western europe is actually going to become an increasingly popular destination for people leaving US + commonwealth countries.