Unlike most European countries, the United States has the luxury of printing money and borrowing almost at will.

CNN: Europe's pain is coming America's way

Unlike other European countries, it has a big non-prime mortgage market too.

ECONOMIST: The global economy

Apple attributes most of the price differences to the European countries' value-added taxes, which, unlike U.S. sales tax, is baked into the price of goods.

FORBES

Kosovo still does not have an international telephone dialling code - and, unlike other Balkan countries, its citizens cannot travel visa-free to the European Union.

BBC: Kosovo marks fifth year of independence from Serbia

And, unlike the US, the eurozone economies do not have demography on their side: in most European countries the labour force is now shrinking, and so, probably, is the long term potential growth rate.

BBC: Could the US economy go the way of Japan?