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'Europe is poor so should live within its means'

 

  • 'Europe is poor so should live within its means'

    BBC

    For decades the West has lectured the East on how to manage its economies. Not any more.

    Now the emerging economies of Asia look like models of steady, consistent policy and sustained growth while Europe, America and Japan are mired in debt and are growing achingly slowly, if at all.

    So what can the West learn from the East? ...

    "Europe... has lost a lot of money and therefore you must be poor now relative to the past," he reasons in an interview with BBC World Service's Business Daily.

    "And in Asia we live within our means. So when we are poor, we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson that Europe can learn from Asia."

    Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16918000

    "Or shall I perhaps know, That I was happy oft and oft before, Or must I be content with discontent..." - Edward Thomas, The Glory
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  • I come back to these forums from time to time, in the hopes that there might actually be discussions (music discussions, on the last.fm forums? ahmhagahd), but all I ever see is a load of shitty game threads and you posting links to BBC articles.


    I don't get why this place sucks so much. It's not like last.fm has any shortage of members. Maybe the forums are too 'hidden', but then... The kinda person that couldn't find them probably isn't the kinda person that would contribute much of worth, I guess.

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    • lawynd said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 12:45
    You did see that this forum is called 'In The News', right? Pillock. If you don't like it, feel free to sling your hook.


    As for the OP, there are some good points but I find it highly ironic that the lecture to the West is coming from the former PM of a country where the gap between the haves and have-nots is more a bottomless chasm than the gap between the train and the platform edge.

    Official recorder of Schrödinger's Tampon.

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    • dankine said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 14:09
    steal_briefcase said:
    I come back to these forums from time to time, in the hopes that there might actually be discussions (music discussions, on the last.fm forums? ahmhagahd), but all I ever see is a load of shitty game threads and you posting links to BBC articles.


    I don't get why this place sucks so much. It's not like last.fm has any shortage of members. Maybe the forums are too 'hidden', but then... The kinda person that couldn't find them probably isn't the kinda person that would contribute much of worth, I guess.

    >.<

    someone can't read then.

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
    "I don't want to believe, I want to know"

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  • lawynd said:


    As for the OP, there are some good points but I find it highly ironic that the lecture to the West is coming from the former PM of a country where the gap between the haves and have-nots is more a bottomless chasm than the gap between the train and the platform edge.

    Who cares where it is coming from? Europe has a massive debt/currency problem and the entitlement culture of Western Europe providing cradle to grave government assistance isn't solvent (shocking!). Hopefully America's left will at some point realize what's happening in Europe and realize we can't keep spending the way we are.

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    • lawynd said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 16:11
    Actually, Europe, by and large, doesn't have a massive debt problem. Certain specific countries do, and it has nothing to do with social responsibility, or dirty Communism as you'd probably call it. And given that a huge part of what happened over here lies squarely with the American spending culture and stupidity in taking on excessive debt, I'd be careful where you're throwing those stones. The biggest mistake the EEC made was integrating Spain, Italy and Greece into the single currency when their economies were not robust enough and their public spending was far exceeding their income; France, Germany, the UK and others simply aren't in that position, although we do have our own problems to deal with, not least amongst which are the remnants of two wars you dragged us into.

    Official recorder of Schrödinger's Tampon.

    Quote of the moment - selfsurprise:
    "My rolo yoghurt pots bring 'dem kids to the yard, and i'm like 'its better than ya'lls'
    yer damn right its better than ya'lls'
    I can teach you but i'll have to charge (+VAT, duty stamp tax, etc et all)"
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    • dankine said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 16:16
    And a third incoming...

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
    "I don't want to believe, I want to know"

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  • Issendorf said:
    Who cares where it is coming from? Europe has a massive debt/currency problem and the entitlement culture of Western Europe providing cradle to grave government assistance isn't solvent (shocking!). Hopefully America's left will at some point realize what's happening in Europe and realize we can't keep spending the way we are.
    I would suggest doing some research on the economic situation of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, etc, before you make such rash statements.

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  • Obviously there are exceptions to every rule. You mention Spain, Italy, and Greece being mistakes to be thrown into the EEC when their economies were not robust enough. Italy has the 8th largest economy in the world (4th largest in the EU behind Germany, France, and the UK). You also failed to mention that Ireland has also been struggling with massive debts (as a shareholder in an Irish national bank, I have seen this first hand : ( ). Germany and the Scandinavian countries are far and away holding down the Euro, but to say there isn't massive debt problems in Europe is absurd. Hell, France had their debt downgraded by the S & P a couple of weeks ago. I know the US fucked up the global economy, but that doesn't mean Europe hasn't contributed to some of its own problems.

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    • dankine said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 19:13
    problems that "largely" occurred after the collapse a while ago.

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
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  • Issendorf said:
    Obviously there are exceptions to every rule. You mention Spain, Italy, and Greece being mistakes to be thrown into the EEC when their economies were not robust enough. Italy has the 8th largest economy in the world (4th largest in the EU behind Germany, France, and the UK). You also failed to mention that Ireland has also been struggling with massive debts (as a shareholder in an Irish national bank, I have seen this first hand : ( ). Germany and the Scandinavian countries are far and away holding down the Euro, but to say there isn't massive debt problems in Europe is absurd. Hell, France had their debt downgraded by the S & P a couple of weeks ago. I know the US fucked up the global economy, but that doesn't mean Europe hasn't contributed to some of its own problems.
    Europe has contributed to it's own problems, but welfare isn't the major issue, like your original post suggested. Before the collapse most European countries were doing fine and it was other issues that have harmed them (ridiculous building booms, unregulated banks, unstainable trade deficits, a poorly constructed euro). France was downgraded most likely because it was in the Euro not because it's economy is tragic.

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  • How can you say welfare isn't a major issue? Some European nations have massive entitlement programs, whether it be healthcare or lavish pensions and they simply don't have the money to pay for all of it. So when the governments try to trim the entitlement fat, you get riots in the streets.

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    • sgath92 said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 21:37
    Issendorf said:
    How can you say welfare isn't a major issue? Some European nations have massive entitlement programs, whether it be healthcare or lavish pensions and they simply don't have the money to pay for all of it. So when the governments try to trim the entitlement fat, you get riots in the streets.

    The key word is some. Some don't. If social programs were fundamentally incapable of working, then it would not work in all cases.

    Care to comment on why the Canadians are doing so much better than we are right now? If it's just that "evil socialism" then it should be reversed right now in North America with the United States persevering while the Canadians suffer a "lost decade."

    Ross Parrot told us in 1992 that if we got on the free trade band wagon, we'd hear a giant sucking nosie as all our jobs & wealth left the country. He couldn't have been more right. Our trade deficit with places like China is making our economy bleed out, independent of domestic policy, and will continue to drag us down in the same way that China was forced to deteriorate with their 19th century trade imbalances. Meanwhile our corrupt politicians care more about censoring the internet and jailing megaupload executives than tackling the very real problem with China ignoring copyright law to commercially clone all of our consumer & military technology from iphones to stealth aircraft. Some of said that this problem with China "stealing" the west's technology through intentional piracy is one of the biggest transfers of wealth in human history. No shit we're broke.

    Did you know that if an American company were to set up a factory in China, the Chinese government normally makes you sign a contract allowing the Chinese government to eventually take ownership of the entire operation [I think the default number involved is 10 years?]. So if Buick were making cars in China, after 10 years the Chinese could come in and take the entire factory, tooling, dies, etc and start pumping out Buicks.

    In the Cold War era United States we had a saying "Through Industry We Thrive." Our industry and manufacturing is gone. All we have left are service jobs, which pay min wage. While DC talks about eliminating the min wage and bringing back child labor. Whether social welfare programs exist under this scenario is wholly irrelevant.

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    • sgath92 said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 22:02
    And, btw, this is not a new conversation.



    A hundred and thirty years ago our leaders knew what would happen to the people if we played along with this "free trade" nonsense.

    So rather than fund the government off the backs of the masses with an "income tax" the federal government was funded almost exclusively using job saving tariffs.

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  • What exactly Canada doing better than us? In terms of healthcare I would argue no, they aren't doing better. In terms of government debt, I'm personally not familiar how much debt they have in terms of their GDP. Our problem in the United States in terms of entitlements is the baby boomers. The US is growing older and we have a shrinking workforce that has to support a growing retiree population. That's why, at least temporarily, entitlements have to be reformed, else they will contribute to the US going bankrupt.

    In terms of manufacturing, you are absolutely correct. There are many reasons that China is far more competitive in the arena of production. The lower labor costs are obvious. But trade agreements that have been made with Asian nations (especially Korea and China) have been lopsided in terms of who they favor (SPOILER: it isn't the US). It also doesn't help that China manipulates the value of the Yuan, keeping it cheaper compared to the dollar, making their products all the more attractive in the global marketplace.

    I totally agree that we need to strengthen the manufacturing base in the US. That's the one aspect of Rick Santorum's campaign that I love: 0% corp. tax on manufacturing corps.

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    • sgath92 said...
    • User
    • 9 Feb 2012, 22:08
    The damage being done can't be fixed by playing around with tax rates. Besides, any major corporation is already not just paying zero taxes but is raking in government subsidies. General Electric was paid millions of dollars last year. Not "they paid millions of dollars in taxes." but they received millions of dollars in subsidies.

    You can actually get gov kick backs for sending jobs offshore if you know what loop holes to take advantage of!

    We have two choices:

    Have an economy with manufacturing & industry, where anyone can get a job regardless of age, education, or ability.

    Or

    We could have an economy with only jobs using specialized skills/education, where anyone incapable of obtaining those skills [due to either physical/mental defect, being "too old," or not being able to afford the education requirements] is put in an unemployed permanent underclass dependent on social welfare programs to keep them fed & entertained. Not everyone can be an engineer or a scientist. You're going to have Joe Blow down the street who struggled to get his GED, and if you have no factory to put him in he's limited to wage slave service jobs [flipping burgers, cleaning toilets, selling the cheap chinese crap at walmart].


    Yet either of these cannot create a scenario where social welfare is unnecessary because technological improvements are making efficiency increases which lower the amount of employees needed to make the same amount of product. If global demand for corn is 5 billion units, and it takes 5 million workers to produce the market's demand; and then farming innovations come in and boost the efficiency so that you only need 3.5 million workers to produce 5 billion units: now you have 1.5 million workers with nothing to do. Traditionally we would say "they can go find another field to work in."

    That was great 100 years ago [sort of, it was largely why we started supporting child labor bans & this concept of retirement: to try to get less people working!], but our technological improvements are boosting efficiencies in so many fields that the market cannot produce enough jobs to keep up with the workers who have been obsoleted. There's going to be more and more people with nothing to do, because the market doesn't need them. Yet if we were to, for example, kill them off: that would decrease market demands and make even more workers unnecessary. What do we do with all the people the market doesn't need?

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  • Totally agree with you on GE. Immelt is on Obama's jobs' council, yet routinely creates jobs in China and holds cash off-shore to avoid taxes. Not only that, during the bailouts, GE capital was handed a substantial bailout from the government, and paid no income tax last year even though they had record profits.

    But, you don't really offer any solutions to the problem. You say that there is either a specialized labor economy or a manufacturing economy - almost implying that they are two complete seperate entities. What we have now is a fusion of the two, and that is probably the best case we can hope for.

    You mention that flipping burgers and cleaning toilets are "slave service jobs." There are actually a lot of janitors, especially in urban areas, who are unionized and actually do pretty well in terms of wages - same for bus drivers and other members of the public labor union workforce. Flipping burgers, at least at McDonalds, is where you have to start. But, if you spend enough time with the company and work your way up, you can wind up running your own store which pays a pretty respectable salary. Is it as glamorous as being an engineer or a doctor? No. But if you can support yourself and your family and its honest work, why does it matter how you get the paycheck?

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  • Issendorf said:
    How can you say welfare isn't a major issue? Some European nations have massive entitlement programs, whether it be healthcare or lavish pensions and they simply don't have the money to pay for all of it. So when the governments try to trim the entitlement fat, you get riots in the streets.
    The thing is the countries with the biggest entitlement programs are the nordic countries, you will also find the nordic countries are doing just fine (with exception of Iceland, but is another story). And these high tax economies are also large exporters of goods, explain that. The problem in Greece and Italy etc, is corruption and uncompetitive economies.

    And also the riots are to be expected especially if people can no longer afford food and rent and where jobs are none existent of course, people would be upset if you cut off all money supplies.

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  • sgath92 said:
    Did you know that if an American company were to set up a factory in China, the Chinese government normally makes you sign a contract allowing the Chinese government to eventually take ownership of the entire operation [I think the default number involved is 10 years?]. So if Buick were making cars in China, after 10 years the Chinese could come in and take the entire factory, tooling, dies, etc and start pumping out Buicks.

    Couldn't be argued that the west got rich fucking over the rest of world, so it is within there rights to do the same to get up to our level. I know China was never colonised, by the British forced them trade to with us at on our terms, so can't they get there ownback (I understand the USA didn't colonize in a European sense, but you benefited from it.

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  • Perhaps the case being made is the West is too reliant on financial services which cause the crash while developing countries like Brazil and China are weathering the storm through their manufacturing sector and exports.

    It's hard to deny too must European leaders are in denial that the house is collapsing in and around them.

    "Or shall I perhaps know, That I was happy oft and oft before, Or must I be content with discontent..." - Edward Thomas, The Glory
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  • yellowcarpet said:
    The thing is the countries with the biggest entitlement programs are the nordic countries, you will also find the nordic countries are doing just fine (with exception of Iceland, but is another story). And these high tax economies are also large exporters of goods, explain that. The problem in Greece and Italy etc, is corruption and uncompetitive economies.

    And also the riots are to be expected especially if people can no longer afford food and rent and where jobs are none existent of course, people would be upset if you cut off all money supplies.

    I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. I said that Germany and the Scandinavian countries are largely holding the Euro together. Are all European countries that have large entitement programs also having major debt issues? No, no they aren't. I would argue that the nations that aren't having major debt issues were either A) insulated from the full devastation of the 2008 meltdown or B) had really good financial situations before the meltdown. I never said that a large entitlement program kills a nations' economy (I'm personally opposed to them for other reasons - I'll spare you the tangent). But you can not possibly deny that a large entitlement culture has amplified the problems France, Italy, and Greece are having.

    As for the exports, just wondering what your standards are for being a large exporter. The top Scandinavian exporter is Norway at 29th. Italy, which you glossed over as the 8th largest economy in the world is also the 8th largest exporter.

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  • Issendorf said:
    I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. I said that Germany and the Scandinavian countries are largely holding the Euro together. Are all European countries that have large entitement programs also having major debt issues? No, no they aren't. I would argue that the nations that aren't having major debt issues were either A) insulated from the full devastation of the 2008 meltdown or B) had really good financial situations before the meltdown. I never said that a large entitlement program kills a nations' economy (I'm personally opposed to them for other reasons - I'll spare you the tangent). But you can not possibly deny that a large entitlement culture has amplified the problems France, Italy, and Greece are having.


    Ah sorry, I thought you were implying they were the problem. I am sure they have played in role in amplifying problems in Italy and Greece, but I think that is the less important issue. In Greece the government and the elites were incredibly corrupt and much of there economic data was falsified and no-one payed there taxes, the government then used entitlements to gain votes, obviously for them the corruption was far more problematic than the entitlements.

    Italy is bit more complicatedas the North is actually very wealthy, but the problem is the mafia ruled south is possibly worse than Greece. Italy's main problem is its politics, like Greece, Italian politicians are all corrupt and stable government is rare, due to coalition politics. Then much of its debt issues come from debt it accumulated in past but never dealt with. I believe there is actually widespread support for debt-cutting in Italy so I presume most people are happy to give up some entitlements. The main reason people thing Italy is fucked is because Italy has the worst politicians in Europe, if Italy had stable government it wouldn't be too bad.

    And France's problem is that it is in the Euro, other than that, don't know.

    Issendorf said:
    As for the exports, just wondering what your standards are for being a large exporter. The top Scandinavian exporter is Norway at 29th. Italy, which you glossed over as the 8th largest economy in the world is also the 8th largest exporter.    Trade Deficits are the bigger issue not overall trade, all Scandanavian countries export more than they important (this should explain), Italy doesn't ,Italy is a much more populous country, as well.

    Edited by yellowcarpet on 10 Feb 2012, 23:26
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  • Fair points about the corruption - the extent of corruption of the Italian govt. is a joke in the states.

    "Italy has the worst politicians in Europe" - I guess you aren't a Burlasconi fan? ; )

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  • dankine said:
    steal_briefcase said:
    I come back to these forums from time to time, in the hopes that there might actually be discussions (music discussions, on the last.fm forums? ahmhagahd), but all I ever see is a load of shitty game threads and you posting links to BBC articles.


    I don't get why this place sucks so much. It's not like last.fm has any shortage of members. Maybe the forums are too 'hidden', but then... The kinda person that couldn't find them probably isn't the kinda person that would contribute much of worth, I guess.

    >.<

    someone can't read then.


    I'm perfectly aware of what this sub-forum is for. The main point was that the OP just throws around BBC news articles, like that's all there is.

    A load of them (e.g. the Britain becoming more 'Nordic' or whatever bullshit it was) aren't really 'news'. Why not use some slightly more in depth websites, or ones that don't just cover the same old areas of the world over and over?



    Anyway, the points I would have made about it not being a Europe wide issue, and free trade, etc. seem to have been at least partially looked into. So fuck this place. ;p

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    • dankine said...
    • User
    • 10 Feb 2012, 14:50
    steal_briefcase said:

    I'm perfectly aware of what this sub-forum is for. The main point was that the OP just throws around BBC news articles, like that's all there is.

    A load of them (e.g. the Britain becoming more 'Nordic' or whatever bullshit it was) aren't really 'news'. Why not use some slightly more in depth websites, or ones that don't just cover the same old areas of the world over and over?

    Anyway, the points I would have made about it not being a Europe wide issue, and free trade, etc. seem to have been at least partially looked into. So fuck this place. ;p

    According to what you posted you aren't. The very fact you asked for music discussion, most likely not news for the most part, highlights this.

    Yeah Pobbin c/ps a load of crap, mostly about Ireland, but a lot of it just sinks cos it is dull and just c/p with a poorly written "intro".

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
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