This is John Batchez speaking to my good colleague, Joseph Sternberg, Wall Street Journal editorial

page. He writes political economics. He's in London, observing the action in Germany where they've freed

the debt limit and they're going to spend money, the action in London where they're looking to take

money from the welfare state and spend it on rearmament and growth.

Other countries are following along or watching very closely.

And what else about rearmament?

Joseph introduces here the idea that Europe has noticed for quite some time

it lacks a Silicon Valley in subsequent digital hubs

and is ready to spend money on it. Perhaps welcome Europe to the 21st century. More of this

later tonight. Here's Joe. Well, I think that, you know, in tandem with this military debate has been an understanding

that something needs to be done to revive Europe's economy.

So you're starting to see plans from some of the national governments and also from the

European Union to do a bigger overhaul of things like economic regulation or financial regulation or any of the rest of it,

to try to create the conditions where you can start having some of these European champion companies that could compete with the innovators in America, Silicon Valley.