Europe lagging...
As in, "the lemmings are not running fast enough to prop up our fruity fur trade."
We all know that Europe is just one bunch of people with the same characteristics. The Greeks and Germans... all the same, right?
I have some sympathy with the writers though. If you're young you won't remember that Keynsian economics is left-wing voodoo from a time when governments were by far the largest financial entities and we didn't have global markets. With all the right-wing governments indulging in it, it must be very confusing. Eek! we don't have any money... I know, let's get further into debt! Our current politicians don't appear old enough to remember that it didn't work in the 70's either. I'm not sure if they are too dumb to work out its a bad idea or just want to be seen to be doing something when they are too scared to do the right thing and let their financial friends take the hit on dodgy investments.
Financial tricks are what caused this mess - the Euro, ridiculous credit levels, massive insurance levels of bad business practice (rather than unforeseen force majeure), the spreading of risk around the entire economy and letting any company become so large that risk is transferred from the shareholders to taxpayers, while profits remain with the shareholders. What could possibly go wrong with that?
As for tablets - they are nice toys but they are not investments. They cost almost as much and do very little compared to a pc. Unless you need the form-factor, you can safely not bother keeping up with the Joneses.
Make your money, *then* spend it. That solves all sorts of problems.