Europeans arriving in America for the World Cup are experiencing culture shock. They are in disbelief over the free refills and portion sizes.
Some of this is just taste. There is probably not much demand for a place like Buc-ee’s in France, just as there is little demand for Georgian khachapuri in Arizona. But the deeper reaction is not about cuisine.
It is the recognition, however unconscious, that Americans simply have more. That abundance is not luck. It is the product of deep capital markets, low taxes and lighter regulation while Europe has spent two decades choosing stagnation.
The clearest evidence is the economic data. Adjusted for purchasing power, American GDP per capita is $86,601, while the European Union average is $62,660. That gap is widening. The GDP per capita of Mississippi, the poorest state in the union, now exceeds Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom.
Another measure of American abundance is the markets. America’s seven largest technology companies are now worth more than the entire annual economic output of the European Union.
The continent that gave the world the Industrial Revolution now plays only a limited role in the digital one, because it taxes too heavily and never built the deep equity markets that turn savings into the next great firm.
When businesses are able to thrive in a market, both the business owners and employees generate more revenue and can receive higher wages. Under favorable regulatory conditions that incentivize investment in businesses and people, both human capital and capital in the form of money and investments flourish.
This capital makes a worker more productive, and productivity is what pays wages. Punish people for taking risks and building things, and they will stop. Why risk your savings to grow a company that the tax authority will harvest? From that perspective, it is better to eat, drink, and be merry. La dolce vita is exactly what is a tax code that punishes investment cultivates.
The talent leaves, too. In 2025, Harvard College graduates had a median starting salary above $90,000. For Oxford graduates, the number is around $42,000. A mind sharp enough to win a place at Oxford can run that comparison in their head, and many do, which is why so much of Europe’s best talent now resides in the UAE, where the income tax is zero and the economy is actually growing.
Europe is an incredible place, but its economic policies have turned it into a museum. The NYU professor Scott Galloway captured it: “the U.S. is the best place to make money and Europe the best place to spend it.” Unless, of course, you want free chips and salsa. Beauty and culture do not create wealth. Without incentives to realize the full value of their people, the beauty of Europe is only a backdrop concealing its decline.
The free refills are not American excess. They are the visible form of flourishing productivity and capital that Europe’s governments decided their citizens did not need. The tourist should not just marvel at the soda choices at a gas station in America. He should ask why his own leaders left him poorer than Mississippi.
