At the end the 30% productive part is socially recognized as the evil by Trade Unions (the other cancer of European economies).
5 countries will kill the Euro
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At the end the 30% productive part is socially recognized as the evil by Trade Unions (the other cancer of European economies).
Have you ever lived for a week in Sweden, Denmark and Norway?
They have the best welfare in the world but they are light years far from being socialistic coutries.
In Denmark, for example, Trade Unions count zero and there is no safe job, from the lowest level to public top managers, everyone has to reach results every year (great system). This gives them the best productivity levels and best efficiency in Europe.
In socialistic countries to talk about firing a public employee is a blasphemy, even if that one steals or has zero productivity.
IMO Socrates is doing some pretty huge reforms to fight the debt and he's done some pretty good stuff in the school sector too (free laptops for kids, even though they are a piece of crap). Funny enough, the opposition is going to support him with those reforms because everybody knows that they need to send out some very strong signals to the markets.
I also like that he's going to keep the TGV line to Madrid alive while making cuts in a lot of places. The new airport that they are going to build in Lisbon is something that they should kill because it makes no sense at all.
Agree though that in PT, being a public employee is where you need to be at if you are lazy and want a "secure job". You get a salary for doing nothing and you basically can't be fired unless you are nationally exposed.
A dictatorship under the WAS, and the BEING, and the IS TO COME, our Lord God Almighty.
Until then no human rule is absolute. So, don't worry too much. Get money + Get paid.
This statement pretty much proves you've never been to "redneck texas" so .....
LOL LordB
LordB LOL
You mad? I didn't bring up cheap Indian labor!
and yea living in a small socialism "light" country like the ones you mentioned sound really great. Are you really free when you work for the government, pay 60-70% in taxes and recieve free housing, healthcare, daycare, etc provided by the government.....I think not.
Hey, I never said that I supported socialism. But just look up north on how to make it work.
5 Months to be precise last year. And roughly 2 months last to last year. And hopefully about 4 months this year.
Something tells me that YOU have no idea about how stuff runs in Sweden or Norway -- both the countries where I have really close friends and family running businesses.
It is socialism. Not fucked up socialism like in soviet russia or china or somewhere else but it is still socialism -- just look at their policies. The fact that they are doing it right by assimilating the good points and ignoring the bad parts (like the one you mentioned above) tells something.
But anyway, they could do without all the muslims they are importing who are fucking it up by being leeches...
Precisely the hypocrisy I was trying to point out dude. If others talk about your country, they are not qualified to even discuss it because they are foreigners. But you people have some sort of moral right to give judgements and generalize about countries YOU have NO IDEA about.
It usually goes like this if it is about US or US Policies.
You, Popeye, Hellblazer et. al. after being cornered and proven wrong about all the points you are making resort to -- You eurofags are not Americans and don't understand the American Culture. So you are not qualified to discuss about the topic and only we are right here.
Yet, if the topic is about europe. Oh we have never been to your country and we have only heard it from Fox News yet we are superior to you and know it it all. So you have to listen to us.
Oh boy! The hypocrisy. If you want others to shut up about your country and not form any generalizations, maybe start by shutting up about theirs and not generalizing them?
Actually Nordic countries have exactly everything like that -- a lot of people work for government there, personal taxes are really high (yet there are loopholes -- and btw corporate taxes are lower than US), free housing if you qualify (but who the fuck wants to live with a bunch of shithead muslims they are importing?), free healthcare (yes, totally free as in nothing to pay except 100 SEK and no insurer to deal with unlike US' genius idea), free care for old people and totally free education. All of top-notch quality because they have ways to make internal competition work... and yet give companies a way to operate freely.
Yet they work very well -- because they are taking the good aspects and fixing aspects which made other countries fail. If you ever get your passport made, it is not very expensive to fly to Europe and take a quick trip to these countries to see for yourself.
Yes -- these countries are not perfect. But your country is pretty fucked up too in a lot of aspects -- and I have seen you agree with that in a lot of threads. And yes, even my country has a lot of good aspects and bad aspects.
So just generalizing and classifying it as a failure is where you failed in your post. Not saying I totally agree with these countries' policies but you have to be real in analyzing the situation and look at it from a distance without the distorted vision glasses.
Europeans (and I am one) talking about american healthcare don't get this point (they're not stupid but our media is even more dominated by leftists). There is a sinking marginal utility for healthcare spending. But rich people in a free market spend more anyway (because they're worth it). This is good. It drives innovation and makes it more attractive to work hard. The lack of public funding for incrementally better private alternatives in europe makes everyone but the very wealthy choose the mediocre public alternative. This makes the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare lower. Incidentally, the system also guarantees everyone a minimum of healthcare. This does not mean that the european system is more effective. It's a result of the two (largely) unconnected factors of greater political will for redistribution and the unwillingness to have the healthcare system be anything but a centrally planned one-size-fits-all thing.
No it's not. Unless, of course, you by work mean "has certain redistributive functions that I want." The lightly regulated private healthcare system for expats in dubai works great. (If you can afford it.)
Didn't need a synopsis on hypocrisy.
Just saying you sound hypocritical as well when you call Americans "redneck texans" all the time.
Not sure this really gives the full picture.
What proportion of these debts are owed to foreign governments as opposed to investors who happen to be based in other countries?
For example most government debt here is owed to UK-based pension funds (and such like), whereas America owes a very large chunk directly to the Chinese state. I suspect this graphic mixes inter-governmental bailouts and loans with assurities sold to private firms and therefore gives a skewed picture of the situation.
What proportion of these debts are owed to foreign governments as opposed to investors who happen to be based in other countries?
For example most government debt here is owed to UK-based pension funds (and such like), whereas America owes a very large chunk directly to the Chinese state. I suspect this graphic mixes inter-governmental bailouts and loans with assurities sold to private firms and therefore gives a skewed picture of the situation.
Actually, in the case of paying off debt, some inflation helps pay off the debt. Assuming you also make more money, you now have more dollars to pay off debt that does not inflate in value.
Boom, there you go Italy, Greece, and everyone else, just inflate you currency and you'll be able to afford your debt. Problem solved. Send the check to my PO box. Thanks.
That would be the obvious shortcut a government will have to take if it doesn't want to lose votes. The only alternative is to cut spending and increase earnings, which directly translates into people (voters) losing jobs, having to pay more taxes, earning less, having to cut back on their living standards.
The shortcut doesn't solve the problem, but unfortunately, in the eyes of a public office, it's the only viable solution.
On this statement I quite agree.
Just moved my business to Norway and bought an house there.
I'd be scared that now I'm in socialism
Wow, welcome to WF.
This is a very one-sided view of how inflation works.
When you inflate, interest rates rise. With central banking and rates set by fiat, they may not rise quickly, but in foreign exchange rates, and when selling government bonds, long term rates will rise over time. So while you can inflate to "pay off" current fixed debt, you will lose the capacity to finance more debt, or to refinance revolving debt.
The only solution to debt, is to slash spending and pay it off
OR
Repudiate it. Go bankrupt/bad on the debt.
Also, inflating does allow you to make more money nominally but is really a technique used to lower real wage rates and "stimulate" economic growth.
You don't get more purchasing power by printing more notes. Purchasing power always comes from production. What you produce (for yourself or for trade) is what you can consume. Nothing more.
Inflation can erode debt, but it also erodes any savings. As prices rise, savings purchase less than they did when they were first saved. This creates two more negative outcomes.
One, people start to consume those savings before they become more worthless, depleting the pool of capital for investment in the economy, slowing economic activity further.
Two, a depleted real savings pool forces the state to directly provide credit to the private sector. This can only be done by adding more debt, or inflating more. So we're right back where we started. Inflating to eliminate debt just forced the state to inflate more or borrow more.
The best comparison I have seen of inflation policies was made by Ron Paul. It's like a guy on heroin. Every time it hurts, he gets high again. Each high has diminishing returns and each high raises the pain level for withdrawal, making it harder to stop. At one point, the addict drives himself to death by overdose to avoid the pain of going clean.
If anyone is interested in the basics of debt cycle theory, in an entertaining way that everyone can understand, this video is great.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541bajR4k8g"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
I have a family in Oslo running a business there. So I can tell you from first hand experience, corporate taxes are at-par with US. So if you are smart in tax-planning, you really will get your way through without too much tax-pains.
Another thing to remember is that Norway has shitloads of money from Oil and StatOil is state owned and it is squeaky clean in terms of corruption. They are not getting fucked anytime soon at all. The problem I mention with all the muslims there is more social than economic.
Inflation has it's dangers to be sure, but this statement is a bit off (not all the way off Guerilla, just a bit).
Inflation causes an erosion in savings of currency only. It does not erode all capital, quite the opposite since most forms of capital rise in "price" or "value" (or however you want to term it since we're dealing with Fiat prices anyway) as inflation forces all prices up. The effect this has is mainly forcing people to invest their currency in a less liquid form of capital. Businesses, real estate etc always see an influx of investments as inflation goes up and this can be a good thing, which is why fiat monetary policy always seeks to have "some" inflation.
In a fiat monetary system (not my choice, but it's our system) inflation is a tool used to spark investment of currency into more productive forms of capital. Assuming the banks will make the right investments with all that currency is generally not a good idea - as we have seen.
No.
This is incorrect.
Inflation as we are using it (correctly) is an increase in the money supply. When you inflate the money supply, you are not raising values, you are only increasing nominal valuations. Huge difference.
I don't have the time to go through this from A to Z, but as with many of these discussions about economics, you're only looking at the first order, obvious effect of inflation. You're not accounting for the long term consequences of discouraging saving in the means of exchange (liquid money) and encouraging speculation in other asset classes (seeking the returns no longer available to cash) and over consumption in an economy with a shrinking capital base.
This is never a good thing. It is a market distortion. If it was a good thing to invest in real estate, it would occur naturally in the market. Forcing it to happen creates bubbles which lead to panics, recessions and depressions.
It isn't used to spark investment into more productive forms of capital.
What it does is get people to invest currency immediately (because saving it leads to depreciating value) into projects which cannot be completed. This initial investment phase, is the boom, complete with resources being bid up higher and higher in the market (the higher prices = prosperity idea) but ultimately, those higher prices are completely unjustified and the path is unsustainable, which leads to the bust.
Watch the video I posted. You'll learn a ton.