Spending on automobiles ground to a halt, until government stimulus programs in many countries revived it. But schemes such as public subsidies for scrapping old and fuel inefficient cars simply led many people to re schedule their purchases.

In his memoirs, Greenspan revealed that his favorite economist was Joseph Schumpeter, inventor of the concept of creative destruction. In Greenspan s summary of Schumpeter s thinking, a market economy will incessantly revitalize itself from within by scrapping old and failing businesses and then reallocating resources to newer, more productive ones.

The EU s role in fostering productivity gains, economic growth, and employment should increase, with as much as a quarter of spending from the EU budget devoted to human capital and research. Research spending should be made more effective by scrapping bureaucratic management by the Commission and Council and opening all national research funds to EU wide competition.