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Shocking wrote:

Jay wrote:

Shocking wrote:

The entire continent here shared in the 90s economic boom in the US. GDP and average disposable income have grown massively over the past 20-30 years.

That's nice. Germany and France also averaged 10%+ unemployment and half our growth.

Germany had to absorb the DDR post-soviet union and rebuild its economy. They maintained growth all throughout that enormously costly project and ended up having the largest economy on the continent. My country never topped 8% unemployment in the span of 20 years and had an average GDP growth of 3,4% from 1987-2001. The US averaged 3,4% as well in the same period. (world bank data). The rest of the continent didn't do too bad either and LOTS of money has been funneled to eastern Europe, which is doing much better growth wise.

Stagnant? No way. The US has a much higher average disposable income because of its low tax rates (as much as 14,000 USD more on average in comparison to my country - gross the numbers are much closer), yet your economic growth doesn't show this. Why? Because business friendliness makes an economy boom, not the size of an individual's disposable income.

But you don't have business friendliness. You have an environment where it is obscenely costly to hire anyone. High minimum wage laws, expensive taxes to cover health care, job for life laws like France has etc. Socialism causes economic stagnation, there's just no getting around it.

Socialism and the regulations that go with them are the kind of economy you adopt when you simply want to maintain your position economically. It's an ultra-conservative risk-averse economic ideology that is incompatible with growth. If you want proof, look at the people that advocate socialism. They're generally fearful, ignorant, and pessimistic.

Jay

monetary union without fiscal union

You do the math. If you do something you have to do it right.

Last edited by Shocking (2012-08-14 08:12:34)

Jay wrote:

But you don't have business friendliness. You have an environment where it is obscenely costly to hire anyone. High minimum wage laws, expensive taxes to cover health care, job for life laws like France has etc. Socialism causes economic stagnation, there's just no getting around it.

Socialism and the regulations that go with them are the kind of economy you adopt when you simply want to maintain your position economically. It's an ultra-conservative risk-averse economic ideology that is incompatible with growth. If you want proof, look at the people that advocate socialism. They're generally fearful, ignorant, and pessimistic.

Your corporate income tax is higher than ours. And I'd like to quote wiki here;

There is no capital gains tax in the Netherlands.

Socialism has many different forms. It can be very unfriendly to your economy. The movement is mostly concerned with morals and ethics though so rather than shitting on corporations, they usually target 'the rich'.

Jay wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Jay

monetary union without fiscal union

You do the math.

You don't need fiscal union, you just need the banks in each country to stop making stupid decisions. The only reason Germany needs to keep bailing out Greece is because their national banks invested so heavily in Greek debt. For some reason, the idiots over on your side of the ocean feel it would be better if Greece could leave the union so they could inflate their way out of debt, as if that's any different from a default.

It is a default and it's mainly proposed by idiots. Fiscal union is simply a requirement to make a monetary union stable & to make it work. Yes, in this case, the solution to preserving the euro would be more government. You don't want your country to crash because of the stupid economic decisions of another. Yes, we are bailing out greece because we have a lot invested in Greece.

Government isn't always evil jay.

Shocking wrote:

Jay wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Jay

monetary union without fiscal union

You do the math.

You don't need fiscal union, you just need the banks in each country to stop making stupid decisions. The only reason Germany needs to keep bailing out Greece is because their national banks invested so heavily in Greek debt. For some reason, the idiots over on your side of the ocean feel it would be better if Greece could leave the union so they could inflate their way out of debt, as if that's any different from a default.

It is a default and it's mainly proposed by idiots. Fiscal union is simply a requirement to make a monetary union stable & to make it work. Yes, in this case, the solution to preserving the euro would be more government. You don't want your country to crash because of the stupid economic decisions of another. Yes, we are bailing out greece because we have a lot invested in Greece.

Government isn't always evil jay.

What fools ye be. Are they going to take away each countries ability to levy taxes too? Are you going to prevent them from issuing debt? No. So it wouldn't make a bit of difference, it just means an expansion of power for those that crave that sort of thing.

You don't need fiscal union. Countries rose and fell on their own economically when everyone was on the gold standard too, which is the same exact concept as having a single currency like the Euro. You can't prevent economic collapse no matter how many bureaucrats you pile on. Hell, we have cities declaring bankruptcy and states teetering on the brink right now and it had almost nothing to do with the recession, it was a long time coming.

But that's not the way he was talking in 2005, when he gave a speech to the Atlas Society, a group dedicated to promoting Rand's beliefs.

In that speech, Ryan said, "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff."

He went on to say that "the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

Barf

Well recently got back from voting, now lets see who ends up being the Republican candidate for National Senate and hopefully sits next to Ron Johnson next year.

Last edited by War Man (2012-08-14 14:48:38)

Spark wrote:

Jay wrote:

Shocking wrote:

It is a default and it's mainly proposed by idiots. Fiscal union is simply a requirement to make a monetary union stable & to make it work. Yes, in this case, the solution to preserving the euro would be more government. You don't want your country to crash because of the stupid economic decisions of another. Yes, we are bailing out greece because we have a lot invested in Greece.

Government isn't always evil jay.

What fools ye be. Are they going to take away each countries ability to levy taxes too? Are you going to prevent them from issuing debt? No. So it wouldn't make a bit of difference, it just means an expansion of power for those that crave that sort of thing.

You don't need fiscal union. Countries rose and fell on their own economically when everyone was on the gold standard too, which is the same exact concept as having a single currency like the Euro. You can't prevent economic collapse no matter how many bureaucrats you pile on. Hell, we have cities declaring bankruptcy and states teetering on the brink right now and it had almost nothing to do with the recession, it was a long time coming.

???

It's pretty accepted that a monetary union only works with a fiscal union (which only works with a political union). I mean, this isn't controversial stuff...

Really? Please explain your position.

Spark wrote:

Because of exactly what you have now, really. The weaker, unproductive countries can't devalue to make themselves competitive. But with a fiscal union, you can at least aid the weaker parts of the union using the excess growth of the stronger parts. It's exactly what happens here, for example. Does this violate national sovereignty in some way? Most likely, which is why you need a political union as well. Which is basically why there's an increasing school of thought that the Euro was doomed to fail anyway.

I mean, this is really not controversial.

The 'weaker countries' didn't have to devalue their currency, they simply had to adapt to reality and change the way they conducted business. They didn't do that. Look, the Euro is no different from a return to the gold standard that countries used before. The gold standard was designed to allow for trading between nations with a currency set on an international level. Sound familiar? After the removal of the gold standard, the American dollar became the currency the world used to conduct business in because it was relatively stable. Again, it was a situation not that far removed from the gold standard or any other common currency.

The point is, the world got along just fine without a global government making sure that everyone kept the right level of debt in order to keep the value of the common currency inflated. A political union will do nothing to stop individual governments from continuing to go into debt, at this point it's as much a part of their culture as it is my own country's. The only people who stand to gain from further federalization of the European Continent are those that wanted some pan-European government in the first place. Now they can point to a crisis and say 'see, you should give us more power, we'll prevent this from happening in the future'. Bullshit. That's like saying you should feed McDonald's to a fat man in order to make him thin. The EU should be disolved, not expanded.

Last edited by Jay (2012-08-14 20:50:25)

None of these countries have enacted austerity at all. Even Britain's austerity is mostly a hoax, all they did was maintain current spending while promising to slow the future growth in deficit spending, not stop it.

Greece has what? 43% or so of the population on the government payroll? Of course they can't lay off 30% of the population, they lack the jobs to send the newly unemployed to. They're completely fucked, and I honestly don't see a way for them to get out of their malaise. If they try to fire people, or extend the retirement age, or cut any benefits, the people will revolt.

Ben Franklin wrote:

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

No outside source can fix that mess. Rapid devaluation would have no effect except completely fucking over the foreign lenders that have kept the country propped up for decades, prevention of which was the entire point of creating the Euro in the first place. They'd still have a bloated government workforce taking up exactly the same percentage of the national economy except now their private sector would have an insanely difficult time securing loans except at usurious rates. The rest of Europe should've denied them the bailout and cut them off from future bond issuance.

Jay wrote:

A political union will do nothing to stop individual governments from continuing to go into debt, at this point it's as much a part of their culture as it is my own country's. The only people who stand to gain from further federalization of the European Continent are those that wanted some pan-European government in the first place. Now they can point to a crisis and say 'see, you should give us more power, we'll prevent this from happening in the future'. Bullshit. That's like saying you should feed McDonald's to a fat man in order to make him thin. The EU should be dissolved, not expanded.

The proposed political unions are mainly concerned with controlling other countries' debt levels and the eurobonds proposal. You can figure out which countries support what, obviously it's not in the best interest of northern Europe to pool debts in the form of eurobonds, and obviously it's not in the best interest of (more like embarrassing for) southern Europe to hand the reigns to the north.

dissolving the union will do nothing but exacerbate the existing problems. Do you have any idea what it would mean for our economy if Greece (and Spain) failed? As a consequence Italy fails and after that France. Up north we will be left with lots of goods and services with no buyers, it'll plunge us into depression. Globalisation caused an increase of trade relations and economic interdependency between many countries across the world. The process sped up even more on the continent, a huge amount of our import/export depends on the countries in our direct vicinity. It's not about people who jack off to the idea of a union it's about the necessity of one to preserve stability.

And no, people won't be able to find jobs elsewhere easily if their country fails, either. This isn't the states, there's some 20 language barriers that prevent people from moving to northern Europe en masse. Not to mention that there won't be enough jobs up north because of aforementioned trade relations.

Spark wrote:

Should the EU do this? No, which is why the Euro is broken. Not until there is a strong popular movement for federation, which there most definitely isn't.

I don't believe that it would be necessary to actually become a single country. Not at all. There just needs to be some form of control within the monetary union which there wasn't. They created the euro and didn't follow up with any sort of fiscal oversight. As a result everyone was ignorant about the situation in Greece etc until it blew up in their faces.

Popular support seems to be 50/50. It dropped because there is a crisis, kind of paradoxical really. There's a lot of people living in some sort of makebelief world where if the euro and EU are allowed to blow up everything will somehow return 'back to normal' or get better. It's an absolutely ridiculous thought.

Whether you're for or against the union and euro you'll have to admit that, as the economist put it, 'the euro project has never been more alive than now'. The outcome of this crisis will decide what Europe looks like for the coming century and beyond.

Last edited by Shocking (2012-08-15 00:46:54)

What you see as 'trying' is generally regarded as a bunch of bullshit over here. Just like their 'military integration' talk of the past 50 fucking years. Once in a blue moon they get together, create some new ministry or organisation chaired by their mates without giving it any sort of authority to follow up on what was actually supposed to happen.

You really thought France had at all been interested in trying anything until the crisis? Their national policy seemed to be to undermine any sort of integration pre-euro and to prevent any after the currency was established. They've also been trying their best to sideline anyone else who would be a 'threat' to their influence on the continent (pushing off the UK etc).

Shocking wrote:

Jay wrote:

But you don't have business friendliness. You have an environment where it is obscenely costly to hire anyone. High minimum wage laws, expensive taxes to cover health care, job for life laws like France has etc. Socialism causes economic stagnation, there's just no getting around it.

Socialism and the regulations that go with them are the kind of economy you adopt when you simply want to maintain your position economically. It's an ultra-conservative risk-averse economic ideology that is incompatible with growth. If you want proof, look at the people that advocate socialism. They're generally fearful, ignorant, and pessimistic.

Your corporate income tax is higher than ours. And I'd like to quote wiki here;

There is no capital gains tax in the Netherlands.

Socialism has many different forms. It can be very unfriendly to your economy. The movement is mostly concerned with morals and ethics though so rather than shitting on corporations, they usually target 'the rich'.

this^. socialism is not simply "kind of economy" one "adopts". socialism is very complex construction, focusing more on the development of the society (hence, the name) than economy. dismissing socialism as "ineffective economic model" only shows that our friend jay there knows nothing about it.

Last edited by Shahter (2012-08-15 03:45:57)