Crisis in europe

[MaV]

France managed a bit thx to luxury goods (the more expensive the better...) and also some industry (Cars, Nuclear stuffs, trains, planes...) but it is far from perfect compaired to Germany (we are exporting nothing at the moment...)

Germany's economy is nearly completely based on exports. But in order to compete globally and in particular with China, they started dumping the wages years ago. True that mostly hit the low paid jobs, but had an effect on the whole country as well.

Besides that, they have institutionalized long-term unemployment with Hartz IV. There's hardly a chance to get out of this. Last I heard these people are not even added to unemployment statistics anymore (unemployed + Hartz IV unemployed makes about 13% unemployment rate I've been told). This puts pressure on the middle class -> there's wage dumping there as well.

Then people with Hartz IV are used for cheap labor (1 Euro Jobs comes to mind).

You can't compete with an economy that's made all of the above steps, and the European countries will fall one after another - some sooner some later - if nobody is coming to reason. I mean how is Spain going to compete with Germany if the former is a mostly agrarian economy (+tourism) and the latter export oriented and mostly industrial production with highly optimized processes (and competing globally).

As a side note: Conditions in Germany have worsened so much that the largest group of foreign workers in Austria are now Germans (~140.000 in 2010). Of course it's easier to migrate to a country that speaks the same language (mostly).


What I forgot to add in my last post: Adam Smith and Karl Marx have one thing in common IMO. Both of their works are good in theory, but implementation has not worked out well. And worse than that, you cannot falsify these. After one or the other failed in practice there's always people telling you that some parameters were not correct, it's not been implemented in the spirit of the theory, etc. I call bullshit to that.
Come to think of it: you cannot falsify any of the economic theories. It's mostly just make-believe.

Anyway, rumblings from someone who hasn't had any education in economy.

[steve]

Judging by results, no-one knows anything about how economies work, either that or they are simply maximising their profits while the economy goes to hell, there was one very rich man who was quite proud that he destroyed a country's economy and made billions from it.

[Gryzor]

You touch too many issues here...

To talk about the situation in Germany: of course it's a sham, how they measure unemployment and they take out different segments - that's what they always do, everywhere. Hence the real numbers are always much higher, which is tragic really.

Here in Greece every now and then you'll hear how we must be like the Germans who agreed and took cuts to their wages etc etc etc. Of course, not a word about how Greeks are the least well-paid in Europe, or how prices in Greece are sky-high. Or, the most important of all: this is NOT development. Development is measured by a host of criteria, such as happiness, quality of life, distribution of wealth etc etc. Growing your exports or GDP might be a way of economic growth, but it's not development.

About Smith and Marx: well, Marxist theory has two legs: on one hand, Marx analysed and wrote a critique of the capitalist system, which is about totally correct, no matter what your ideological view. On the other hand, he expanded on that critique to predict what is going to happen in a capitalist environment but also what the peoples must do. And yes, it's pretty utopian in its nature.

Smith, on the other hand, wrote a with the disadvantage of a hundred or so years less experience, but he wrote very well. The current 'freedom of markets' though is not based only on his writings; his theory has been greatly expanded over the years by various economic thought schools. Nevertheless, it has been proved time and again that there has been no true implementation of free economy or laissez-faire (much like communism or socialism has never been put to practice), because simply enough, the basic premise and prerequisite, an efficient market, is a pipe dream.

For the sake of discussion and penny philosophy we could argue that Marx trumps Smith-ian economists in that he takes into account the human nature and all its vices (he was a sociologist after all), while those who promote a totally free market pretend that everything and everyone is perfect and the only discussion should be about the markets themselves. By the way, I'm currently reading  Fool's Gold, a great book (if you can stomach discussions about CDOs, CDSs, ABSs etc) detailing how blindness and greed rose to amazing heights exactly because some people (read: bankers) argued that no regulation is necessary, that the market can fix itself[nb] of course, markets *do* fix themselves. They *always* come to an equilibrium. The problem is that this happens after a market crashes and millions of people are destroyed, made homeless or poor[/nb]. This naturally is not the first case - see Enron, Worldcom, Drexel and his junk bond empire and a multitude of other world-scale screw-ups.

@Steve: arguably, economics is a "soft" science inasmuch as it is a social science, which gives a great margin of errors. That said, not even the basic principles are observed when economic policy is drawn and implemented, since there are too many interests on the table. For instance, the guy that first taught me macroeconomics went on to become a Minister of Finance; guess what, he did the exact opposite of what he used to be teaching...

[MacDeath]

Anyway, Marx is so 19th century...


To be fair I think 20th century only created dystopia, no utopia at all.

I mean... can you name a 20th century utopia that made it into a best seller book ?

on the other hand, cyberpunk, 1984, dark future & grimdark science fiction....shitton of it.


This is such a shame as the 21st century (now) have to use what 20th century created.
Nothing actually.


No serious nor credible "alter/ecologist" model was actually created to really become mainstream thinking... but the few retards who think living like middle age is the solution.


oh yeah... "capitalism" is said to have won upon "Communism"... I suppose it is then a superior system.
But hey, was it even actually communism ?

do you really think russians could do it properly, coming from a middle aged regime ?
Ok, Stalin managed to get them from pre-industrial revolution (almost) into nuclear and space age... well... with a shitton of millions of victims in the process.

Far from what was promised in the book...
Orwell didn't prophetised what was to happen, he simply gave them the method to do it.... so it happened too.

d'oh!



Voices are calling from somewhere bellow melting on the eastern shore Rain is falling down on me, been waiting for eternity... I'll be there! Freedom for us all!

(gamma Ray, rebellion in dreamland...shit was so cash...)

[robcfg]

Rebellion in Dreamland is such an awesome song! 

[AMSDOS]

Peace!! As Harry Belafonte once said "It's Just a Song!"