United kingdon and the EU

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Also, it's debatable how much of the EU subsidy actually benefits the poor in "shit countries".

Indeed, but its undoubtably benefiting the big multinationals.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Well yeah but you're probably less likely to be mugged by someone who lives a few thousand miles away.

Also, it's debatable how much of the EU subsidy actually benefits the poor in "shit countries".

If you replace the words "shit people and poor people" with "big business" it doesn't make any difference to my actual point.


If you live in glasgow you're not exactly that likely to be mugged by someone living in London.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

Ive just finished writing a bachelor thesis about the german economy, and I have been reading everything in the news about the german economy for the last 2-3 years. Im probably better informed than yourself.

Not really, its not a law, its a posibility. There is countries with similar labour costs as Germany, who fear much better. Countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Austria. I will get back to this point.

they are also in the EU(except norway). they just have better systems / governments.

EU, Euro & EMU has been a disaster for Germany. First you have paid large ammounts of money each year to stupid agricultural subsidies, subsidising purchase of more fishing boats (not needed at all), building roads nobody is going to use in Spain and allowed Ireland to grow with slashing corporate taxes (and thus undermining investment in Germany). And stupid as the average german taxpayer are, you continue to pay, even if your GDP per capita is now below that of Ireland and the UK (not to mention other countries like Luxembourg, Sweden, France etc).
EMU has taken away the option to spend more on the public bugdets, while Germany actually needs a bit off a kickstarting.

others pay more than they get out aswell, even france now. germany just pays most, because its the largest country. i think per capita its the dutch who pay most for beeing in the eu. i partly agree with you though, we need a new deal for who gets what.
there is no way to defend the CAP, but sooner or later it will collapse on itself, because noone wants to pay anymore. sure, it would be nice to have a few billion more to spend, but compared to the benefit we get out of the common market, its worth it.
thank god they are not allowed to spend even more money. with all those structual problems, like still most of eastern germany for example, defict spending wouldnt help us much. look what happened to Japan in the last 10-15 years. they now have a debt of 130% of the GNP and it brought them exactly 0 growth.

The Euro has made your export sector, whitch Germany depends on, get worse condition, since the Euro is generlally very strong. Not to mention that Japan, US, China, South-Korea etc all have dumped their currency at some time (or done so consequently).

the export-sector is the least of our problems. other than the US and Japan at least we managed to keep our share in world trade. the domestic demand is the problem, and i guess for that its 75% psychology, 25% burocrazy and overregulation and exactly 0% the EU thats causing it.

Germany cannot live on machine-builiding alone, even if the country has large comparative advantages in this area. 1) This sector will not expand 2) Becouse of continuing automatization there will be less and less people employed. 3) Competion is likely to increase..

no, ofc, not only, that was just an example, but there are a few other sectors that arent doing so bad either.

Japanese and american firms are investing heavily in Hungary, the former Chechoslovakia, Poland and other low-cost countries to outcompete German labour on simple price.
German firms have alot of their plants in Germany (Opel is in a bad position having plants in Bochum, Russelheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenarch in Thüringen).

Opel is in a bad position because they build crappy cars and have a bad management. sure you can build cars in slovakia and sure, there is harder competition today than ten years ago, but thats not necessarily a bad thing.

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Seriously dude it's not like the french and germans and irish are all out to get you. If the only fundamental problem is that people find it impossible to trust those of different nationalities generational change will solve that problem, assuming we avoid irrational ungrounded perpetuation of various ethnocentric (wrong word but nationcentric sounds shit) myths. Of course there actually are real economic problems with the EU but personally I attribute those to the half-assed mega-confused "what the **** are we trying here?" way the EU goes about things.

I don't believe they are all out to get me personally, that's just paranoia. (I know it's only the Belgians) but the various EU members are all in it to combat a fear of their various regional bogeymen ,mostly the germans (but that's history's fault more than anything else) and the russians. I agree with your comment about it being a "what the **** are we trying here? thing. Perhaps a case could be made for one country to be the guiding light for Europe but the last time I bothered to investigate further, the best economy I could come up with was Luxembourg and having been there, I don't think ANYONE would want to be in a Europe run by people from such a smelly dirty country.

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

It's been successful! Since its inception (the EU) these countries haven't invaded each other, gone to war*cough* Britain *cough* [against each other at least... ] and I think that ehm having your neighbour invade you would be quite detrimental to your economy!

Your invading neighbour's economy would rock though

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

If you replace the words "shit people and poor people" with "big business" it doesn't make any difference to my actual point.

I think it does. If you're talking about whether people should choose to fund (a) the welfare state in the UK which helps some poor people one way or the other, or (b) big business via subsidies to other countries, it's fairly obvious that a distinction can be made.

If you live in glasgow you're not exactly that likely to be mugged by someone living in London.

Indeed, but people are used to national economics and it's pretty difficult to imagine a system being in place before the next election where you vote for more welfare state in Glasgow but less in London. We've currently got nation-state based welfare systems and as such it makes sense to support social stability closer to you. I don't think it's purely racist to be slightly more concerned (for a variety of reasons) about people who are close to you and can physically affect you more directly. This isn't a boolean care yes/no, but generally people will be more concerned for the people on their street, then the people in their town, then the people in their region, etc, etc.

Sure, if I'm Glasgow then it's not like I'm psychically linked to the people of London but at the same time it's reasonable to assume that the well being of the people of London probably affects me slightly more directly / immediately than the well being of people in Slovakia.

Of course, it's all misplaced due to increased immigration these days, but it's not exactly dribbling insanity either.

[JonnyBGood]

My actual point dante.


Okay but there seems to be a suddenly I don't care at all shift once you move outside the national perspective which is rather irrational.

[berten]

Originally Posted by Perle

yes you are right, it is very hard to believe. I didnt believe it either.

If you can speak german, thats an article describing how 26000 people in the states of niedersachsen have lost their jobs in the meat industry. and thats just one small sector.
they fire regular workers and employ "entrepenuers " from poland. those poor people have to work 12-16 hours a day, live in barracks and they only get 2-3 euros/hour.


http://www.flegel-g.de/eu-und-fleischer.html

I'd say u have a serious issue in Germany, as for one i know that's not allowed in Belgium, unless they don't report it to taxes, which would make it illegal also.


your governement better do something about that then

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by berten

I'd say u have a serious issue in Germany, as for one i know that's not allowed in Belgium, unless they don't report it to taxes, which would make it illegal also.

your governement better do something about that then

Its a) Completly legal b) Even encouraged by the EU (for instance trough defining everything they can as services..). c) Trade unionts in Germany isnt that strong anymore.

[Flayer]

Originally Posted by berten

I'd say u have a serious issue in Germany, as for one i know that's not allowed in Belgium, unless they don't report it to taxes, which would make it illegal also.


your governement better do something about that then

Exactly, don't they have concepts like minimum wage and employment rules in germany?

Also, I think this perle guy is talking out of his ass. I think the euro is great, I don't know anyone who got poor because of it, and it's just great to travel around europe with the same money.
On a sidenote, I think the referenda were bollocks; people answer to questions not asked. They try to punish their government, and I don't think regular john has read one letter of the actual constitution.

[Phang]

Originally Posted by Flayer

Exactly, don't they have concepts like minimum wage and employment rules in germany?

they've got the European 40-hour week. But hey, we're being EMOTIVE and REASONABLY XENOPHOBIC and OBJECTIVELY MORONS here. Facts don't enter into it!

ps the sooner we build a seventy-mile wall around western europe and impose 90% taxation on everyone within the better.

[Flayer]

heh

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Flayer

Exactly, don't they have concepts like minimum wage and employment rules in germany?

if i understand this correctly, they arent employed by the german company (for which all our laws would apply), but by some company in poland which then provides a service (i.e. the people) to the german company.
intresting concept.

[Perle]

Originally Posted by berten

I'd say u have a serious issue in Germany, as for one i know that's not allowed in Belgium, unless they don't report it to taxes, which would make it illegal also.


your governement better do something about that then

and it will get much better.
in 6 years the "niederlassungsfreiheit"(i dont know how it is called in englsih) is given to all eu members. the law protected the german labour market from cheap workers from eastern europe. in 6 years, they dont even have to fake "entrepreneurship". they can be employed in germany totally legaly as regular employers. ohh the wages are gonna fall so rapidly. the germans will have to work for a third of the money or get fired.

The EU is so great. we will all get poor!!

19th century, here we come.

[Perle]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

as i said in my first reply, the fluctuations never were not that large before, and most likely they would have moved in the opposite direction.
.

The fluctuations WERE large.
in the 80s 1 $ was worth 3,5 mark, in 94 1 $ was worth 1,3 mark, in 99 it was 1,75 mark.

you are just talking out of your ass.

Originally Posted by wu_trax

yes, more regulations would certainly make companies invest more money here. if anyone knows how much someone should earn its the state. we never had a minimum-wage, we have something called 'tarrif-autonomie', meaning that the state has no bloody buisness in messing around with the wages.
.

so, protecting your middle class companys from cheap labor invasion who destroy their existence is regulation???
what are you? the spoke person for multinational companys?

Originally Posted by wu_trax

what about the 2.6 million(or whatever, probably its even more) people who kept their jobs because of the EU?
.

stupid lying made up statistics by idelogical morons

Originally Posted by wu_trax

if you would be from spain or greece, then fine, argue against the extension of the EU, but especially for us and the market most companies here are set up in the extension of the EU was the best thing that ever happened.
.

it was a tragedy.

Originally Posted by wu_trax

yes, and lets aswell put 50% tarrifs on all imports, that will teach the evil foreigners. its ofthen hard to see, but we live in a market economy and if you cant compete, then MAYBE you should do something else.
.

pathetic , im talking about protecting small buisinesses against cheap 1 man buisinesses from eastern europe and your talking tarrifs. how stupid are you??
the "mittelstand" creates 75% of the jobs in germany. If we let the "dienstleistungsfreit" destroy them, the entire people will get poor
this doesnt have anything to do with tarrifs. we had the no tarrif deal before the extension.
I never criticised that

Originally Posted by wu_trax

if they buy a german car with the money they earn, then were is the problem? its simple competiton.
.

will that money benefit anyone in germany?? or will it go in the pocket of multiational companys who arent paying any taxes in germany anyway??
and how are they gonna buy a 30000€ car when they are earnig 2 €/hour

are you nuts?

Originally Posted by wu_trax

'everyone' means all the retards who have no idea what they are talking about and want to score some cheap points with nationalism / scaring people?
.

this isnt nationalism, you idiot.
I am not german. i dont give a rats ass about nationalistic feelings. Its a shame to see the german society go down the toilet because of idiots who make laws that hurt the german society.

Originally Posted by wu_trax

our entire retail-sector is about the most competitive in the world. they make maybe 1-2% profit on their sales volume, if even that, espcially since this whole 'geiz-ist-geil'-madness started. even walmart, despite beeing the number 1 in the world, didnt earn a single cent here yet, other dont even want to enter the market, because its so damn hard to make any money here, and yet you claim to be overcharged because the greek around the corner now takes 50cent more for his gyros? eat somewhere else then.
.

you truly are stupid. the retail sector is competitive because the euro has made the people poorer. they all go and buy their products from cheap mass stors like lidl and aldi. people dont spent money because they feel that the politicians have screwed them with the euro. the retail stores havent had any real growth since 2002. a coincidence???
I think not

Originally Posted by wu_trax

no, i mean depression, yes, you are stupid.

you meant deflation, dont lie.
A deflation doesnt necessarily lead to a depression.

[Marilyn Manson]

I remember Perle's performance in the 'Imperialism' thread.

He appears to be siding somewhat with Zhukov's argument here.




.









'Nuff said.

[All Systems Go]

Originally Posted by Perle

and it will get much better.
in 6 years the "niederlassungsfreiheit"(i dont know how it is called in englsih) is given to all eu members. the law protected the german labour market from cheap workers from eastern europe. in 6 years, they dont even have to fake "entrepreneurship". they can be employed in germany totally legaly as regular employers. ohh the wages are gonna fall so rapidly. the germans will have to work for a third of the money or get fired.

The EU is so great. we will all get poor!!

19th century, here we come.

Get some minimum wage legislation going.

[Perle]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

if i understand this correctly, they arent employed by the german company (for which all our laws would apply), but by some company in poland which then provides a service (i.e. the people) to the german company.
intresting concept.

why doesnt this concept disturb you??

they are firing people who earn 9-10 €/hour and pay in the social systems and replacing them with work slaves from eastern europe who work for 2€/h 16 hours a day , and live in barracks under inhumane conditions.

and all you have to say is : interesting concept??

[Perle]

Originally Posted by All Systems Go

Get some minimum wage legislation going.

1. germany is in a state were the people all believe the neo-liberal crap about competition and making the country more attractive to investors.

2. minimus wage doesnt apply here. the workers are "entrepreneurs". they arent employed.

3. our politicians will not do it.

4. idiots like wutrax vote for those politicians

5. in 6 years, they can come here and get employed without the "entrepreneurs" cheat concept. by that time, we cann all go work in 19th century style factories.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Perle

why doesnt this concept disturb you??

they are firing people who earn 9-10 €/hour and pay in the social systems and replacing them with work slaves from eastern europe who work for 2€/h 16 hours a day , and live in barracks under inhumane conditions.

and all you have to say is : interesting concept??

Maybe he doesnt give a shit about those people. Plenty of people on these boards have no care for others, as long as they can play poker and pretend to be smart*, they seem happy.

And its not a new concept. Not even in modern Germany after WWII.

*Dont worry, several of them are uneducated fools who doesnt read newspapers (hi MM).

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

*Dont worry, several of them are uneducated fools who doesnt read newspapers (hi MM).

I don't know why you have such a massively inflated superiority complex. It wouldn't be so bad if it was even remotely justified.

'Insecurity'


Were you bullied at school, Zhukov?

We feel your pain.

[G.K Zhukov]

You see Perle (and other newcomers), this is MM's best line of defence (as he is unable to come up with any kind of descent argument).

[arbondigo]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

You see Perle (and other newcomers), this is MM's best line of defence (as he is unable to come up with any kind of descent argument).

Just like you then Zhukov

[Dante Hicks]

Maybe we should debate the issues rather than calling each others names.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Maybe we should debate the issues rather than calling each others names.

People on the left have been calling each other names and refusing to debate the issues for at least a hundred years. What makes you think it's going to stop now?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

People on the left have been calling each other names and refusing to debate the issues for at least a hundred years. What makes you think it's going to stop now?

Well so long as it's unique to the left then that's OK.

And besides; pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will and all that.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Perle

The fluctuations WERE large.
in the 80s 1 $ was worth 3,5 mark, in 94 1 $ was worth 1,3 mark, in 99 it was 1,75 mark.

you are just talking out of your ass.

exceptions

so, protecting your middle class companys from cheap labor invasion who destroy their existence is regulation???
what are you? the spoke person for multinational companys?

stupid lying made up statistics by idelogical morons

yes, ofc it is. it would be just one more reason not to invest in this country. and you are the one who posts links to what obviously is a KPD-propaganda websites.

pathetic , im talking about protecting small buisinesses against cheap 1 man buisinesses from eastern europe and your talking tarrifs. how stupid are you??
the "mittelstand" creates 75% of the jobs in germany. If we let the "dienstleistungsfreit" destroy them, the entire people will get poor
this doesnt have anything to do with tarrifs. we had the no tarrif deal before the extension.
I never criticised that

if the people from poland come here, theyll have to pay our prices to buy stuff. if they just take their money to poland and buy their stuff there prices there will increase and sooner or later the situation in poland will adjust to ours. and i seriously doubt that the entire mittelstand will suddenly hire people from poland to do their work, i even doubt that many of them will want to work here.

will that money benefit anyone in germany?? or will it go in the pocket of multiational companys who arent paying any taxes in germany anyway??
and how are they gonna buy a 30000€ car when they are earnig 2 €/hour

are you nuts?

yes, the evil multinational cooperations who have nothing better to do than exploit the poor. now that sounds like 19th century.

this isnt nationalism, you idiot.
I am not german. i dont give a rats ass about nationalistic feelings. Its a shame to see the german society go down the toilet because of idiots who make laws that hurt the german society.

oh, yes, the end is near and its all the fault of capitalism. so, at best lets bann competition in the service sector.

you truly are stupid. the retail sector is competitive because the euro has made the people poorer. they all go and buy their products from cheap mass stors like lidl and aldi. people dont spent money because they feel that the politicians have screwed them with the euro. the retail stores havent had any real growth since 2002. a coincidence???
I think not

yet you claim that prices rose because of the euro, that doenst make much sense. oh, and the retail sector didnt have any real growth since that short boom after the reunion. but i guess if you think about that long enough you can find a way to blame the EU for that.

you meant deflation, dont lie.
A deflation doesnt necessarily lead to a depression.

you can end up in a depression or at least a recession without a deflation. something around 1% would already be bad enough for us.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Perle

why doesnt this concept disturb you??

they are firing people who earn 9-10 €/hour and pay in the social systems and replacing them with work slaves from eastern europe who work for 2€/h 16 hours a day , and live in barracks under inhumane conditions.

and all you have to say is : interesting concept??

no, actually i think about if because of this i can somehow hire someone to clean the house for 2€ an hour. that would be great.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

if the people from poland come here, theyll have to pay our prices to buy stuff. if they just take their money to poland and buy their stuff there prices there will increase and sooner or later the situation in poland will adjust to ours.

And in the long term, we're all dead.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

they are also in the EU(except norway). they just have better systems / governments.

Germany's public sector is not far behind Norways in terms of efficency for instance.
It's a very easy way of for you, just blaming "better systems/goverments", like there is not a bad goverment in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Austria. What you do you really know about the goverments in these 5 countries the last 10-15 years for instance?

others pay more than they get out aswell, even france now. germany just pays most, because its the largest country. i think per capita its the dutch who pay most for beeing in the eu. i partly agree with you though, we need a new deal for who gets what.
there is no way to defend the CAP, but sooner or later it will collapse on itself, because noone wants to pay anymore. sure, it would be nice to have a few billion more to spend, but compared to the benefit we get out of the common market, its worth it.
thank god they are not allowed to spend even more money. with all those structual problems, like still most of eastern germany for example, defict spending wouldnt help us much. look what happened to Japan in the last 10-15 years. they now have a debt of 130% of the GNP and it brought them exactly 0 growth.

Germany payed as much as 70% of the net contributions, even in 2000 (when Germany was already in deep trouble) Germany took 50% of the net contributions. Germany might be the biggest economy in terms of total GDP, but like I wrote before: there is now many countries who have a higher GDP per capita. The money that Germany have spent over the years, specially those wasted on agriculture and fishery subsidizes, could now have been used to support the new Länder. Or who could have made Germany nearly dept-free, instead of soon reaching the 60% limit that EMU forbids you to top (I wonder whats going to happen then..).

the export-sector is the least of our problems. other than the US and Japan at least we managed to keep our share in world trade. the domestic demand is the problem, and i guess for that its 75% psychology, 25% burocrazy and overregulation and exactly 0% the EU thats causing it.

The export-sector has been driving German economy since the Wirtshaftswünder. And even before WWII.
Do you have any good arguments for the "25% burocrazy" thing?
Wouldnt some public spending, thus creating some optimism (which Germany so desperately needs), use more of their money on spending? People who are afraid to loose their jobs, are not going to use up their savings, but rather save more. (This is logical, and also backed up by reaserch)

no, ofc, not only, that was just an example, but there are a few other sectors that arent doing so bad either.

Im sure there are a few more sectors that are doing quite well, like parts of the car-industry (BMW, Audi), but Im curious to know what these sectors are, and how they are going to create more jobs.

Opel is in a bad position because they build crappy cars and have a bad management. sure you can build cars in slovakia and sure, there is harder competition today than ten years ago, but thats not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, Opel have not done the best for themselfs. But I was using them as an exampel for a German firm (yes, I know its owned by GM) who are tied up in Germany (with its high cost) due to having invested in factories. And they are facing competition from someone whos built their factories in Hungary and Slovakia. Were there is low tax, lower envirmental standards, hardly any unions, and cheap labour.

Even Audi and VW is or will face problems. The car-industry employs one of every 7th industrial worker in Germany, so the sector is quite vital to Germany in terms of employment.
Germany and Slovakia are not level playing fields. And the factories built in Slovakia are top-modern when it comes to automatization and the new ways of organizing production (lean production, just-in-time).





MM's massive contribution to this thread:
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showth...06#post2891906

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Well you can't make an omlette without a complex political structure governing the exchange of commodities and enforcing private property whilst similtaneously harmonzing such regulations across political boundaries.

You could just feed people lard.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

And in the long term, we're all dead.

Stealing from Keynes, are we?

[Perle]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

no, actually i think about if because of this i can somehow hire someone to clean the house for 2€ an hour. that would be great.

All right, that´s it. you are a stupid and an evil person. The quoted post just demonstrated it to me.
I no longer wish to discuss with you.
Your motives are selfish and appaling.

shame on you!

[arbondigo]

Originally Posted by Perle

All right, that´s it. you are a stupid and an evil person. The quoted post just demonstrated it to me.
I no longer wish to discuss with you.
Your motives are selfish and appaling.

shame on you!

What exactly is wrong with what he said? If he's hiring someone to clean his house then why shouldn't he choose the cheapest person? If that person doesn't do a good job then he can choose someone else who charges a bit more. He has the right to choose who wants to clean his house regardless of cost provided he can afford it.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I thought that's what we were doing.

Not in the third world, alas, alas.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by arbondigo

He has the right to choose who wants to clean his house regardless of cost provided he can afford it.

This is forbidden capitalist thinking! If Comrade Poleski free to sell labor at price of own choosing then what prevent evil wu_trax from exploiting him? Instead, bourgeois wu_trax must be forced to clean own house while being taxed to support Comrade Poleski (who is obviously being oppressed or would not be trying to sell labor so cheaply).

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

Germany's public sector is not far behind Norways in terms of efficency for instance.
It's a very easy way of for you, just blaming "better systems/goverments", like there is not a bad goverment in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Austria. What you do you really know about the goverments in these 5 countries the last 10-15 years for instance?

norway has a lot of oil-money though. there systems seem to be more effective than ours (like education for example) here, to me everything just looks like managing the chaos instead of doing something against it.

Germany payed as much as 70% of the net contributions, even in 2000 (when Germany was already in deep trouble) Germany took 50% of the net contributions. Germany might be the biggest economy in terms of total GDP, but like I wrote before: there is now many countries who have a higher GDP per capita. The money that Germany have spent over the years, specially those wasted on agriculture and fishery subsidizes, could now have been used to support the new Länder. Or who could have made Germany nearly dept-free, instead of soon reaching the 60% limit that EMU forbids you to top (I wonder whats going to happen then..).

sorry, but you are somewhat wrong there. according to this (couldnt find anything better that fast) our net contribution to the eu was about 5 billion. what are 5 billion more for the east? we spend almost a trillion in the last 15 years and it didnt do any good. and how do you want to pay back at least € 1trillion of debt with that?
if you set our net contributions in relation to the gdp per capita we dont pay that much. i had a good source for that once, but i cant find it anymore. search yourself if you dont belive me.

The export-sector has been driving German economy since the Wirtshaftswünder. And even before WWII.
Do you have any good arguments for the "25% burocrazy" thing?
Wouldnt some public spending, thus creating some optimism (which Germany so desperately needs), use more of their money on spending? People who are afraid to loose their jobs, are not going to use up their savings, but rather save more. (This is logical, and also backed up by reaserch)

just a random guess. just look around at all the regulations and general insanity. enviromental regulations, 'bebauungsvorschriften', 'pendlerpauschale', 'eigenheiumzulage', 'anti-dekriminirungsgesetz', the most complicated tax-law the world has ever seen and so on. on their own all these things may make perfect sense, but all put together its just too much to get any economical dynamic whatsoever.
sure, some optimism would be great (thats my 75% psychology), but you cant archive that with a little deficit-spending.

Im sure there are a few more sectors that are doing quite well, like parts of the car-industry (BMW, Audi), but Im curious to know what these sectors are, and how they are going to create more jobs.



Yes, Opel have not done the best for themselfs. But I was using them as an exampel for a German firm (yes, I know its owned by GM) who are tied up in Germany (with its high cost) due to having invested in factories. And they are facing competition from someone whos built their factories in Hungary and Slovakia. Were there is low tax, lower envirmental standards, hardly any unions, and cheap labour.

Even Audi and VW is or will face problems. The car-industry employs one of every 7th industrial worker in Germany, so the sector is quite vital to Germany in terms of employment.
Germany and Slovakia are not level playing fields. And the factories built in Slovakia are top-modern when it comes to automatization and the new ways of organizing production (lean production, just-in-time).

yes, sure, competition is harder today and probably will become even harder in the future, but thats not a bad thing. as long as we are better than they are, we dont need to be as cheap. my point was that if our exports are still increasing (and even stronger than the world trade), they cant be the problem right now. domestic demand is.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

norway has a lot of oil-money though. there systems seem to be more effective than ours (like education for example) here, to me everything just looks like managing the chaos instead of doing something against it.

We have, but that doesnt save us alone. Norway has the highest productivty per hour in the world.
Our education system is on the verge of beeing destroyed as we speak, besides the German apprenticeship model is very respected for its quality. Its probably much better than the Norwegian model. However, Germany needs less mechanics, and more engineers.

I could also name alot of other stupid things the norwegian goverment does, and I could name exampels of good governance from the German side (like efforts from Sachen to support Mittelstand firms in the training of youth).

You still havent made a sound argument.

sorry, but you are somewhat wrong there. according to this (couldnt find anything better that fast) our net contribution to the eu was about 5 billion. what are 5 billion more for the east? we spend almost a trillion in the last 15 years and it didnt do any good. and how do you want to pay back at least € 1trillion of debt with that?
if you set our net contributions in relation to the gdp per capita we dont pay that much. i had a good source for that once, but i cant find it anymore. search yourself if you dont belive me.

5 billion euros not much? And this is from 2002, now that the net contributions should be nearing 30% of the total. In what position do you think Germany are?
Besides that, 5 billion euros * 30 years (and now Im not even taking in interst nor that the loss was higher before) = 150 billion euros. Realisticly, the loss is well beyond 200 billion euros.

just a random guess. just look around at all the regulations and general insanity. enviromental regulations, 'bebauungsvorschriften', 'pendlerpauschale', 'eigenheiumzulage', 'anti-dekriminirungsgesetz', the most complicated tax-law the world has ever seen and so on. on their own all these things may make perfect sense, but all put together its just too much to get any economical dynamic whatsoever.
sure, some optimism would be great (thats my 75% psychology), but you cant archive that with a little deficit-spending.

No regulations make it difficult for people to take money out from an ATM and use it to by a computer. Besides, Norway is also riddled with regulations (so is Sweden and so on).
Besides, the saving rate in Germany (according to The Economist), is not that high. Certainly much higher than in the US, UK and Australia, but still.
People in Germany knows that the goverment will be forced to sack people, in order to try to limit their budget deficits to less than 3%. The usual role of a goverment in such times is actually to hire them. Also 200billion euros could have been use to upgrade infrastructure in such areas as Ruhr, invest in the universitites (so they could have taken in more students), subsidies big-bizniss (in order to attrackt invesment, like the AMD plants in Dresden).
You certainly do not create optimism by sacking people and cutting back on welfare (so that people have even less to spend, lo hartz IV)

yes, sure, competition is harder today and probably will become even harder in the future, but thats not a bad thing. as long as we are better than they are, we dont need to be as cheap. my point was that if our exports are still increasing (and even stronger than the world trade), they cant be the problem right now. domestic demand is.

Germany doesnt manage with this level of competion, what makes you think that Germany will cope with even harder competion? (Last numbers out show a strong decline in German exports btw)

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

We have, but that doesnt save us alone. Norway has the highest productivty per hour in the world.
Our education system is on the verge of beeing destroyed as we speak, besides the German apprenticeship model is very respected for its quality. Its probably much better than the Norwegian model. However, Germany needs less mechanics, and more engineers.

I could also name alot of other stupid things the norwegian goverment does, and I could name exampels of good governance from the German side (like efforts from Sachen to support Mittelstand firms in the training of youth).

You still havent made a sound argument.

yes, there are probably good and bad examples for both countries, but i seriously doubt that any scandinavian country has pushed the regulation madness as far as we did.
and yes, we need to increase our productivity if we want to keep our relativly high wages, but how do you do that without investments?

5 billion euros not much? And this is from 2002, now that the net contributions should be nearing 30% of the total. In what position do you think Germany are?
Besides that, 5 billion euros * 30 years (and now Im not even taking in interst nor that the loss was higher before) = 150 billion euros. Realisticly, the loss is well beyond 200 billion euros.

and divided by 30 its 5 billion again. the Bund alone had a budget of more than 250 billion last year, the Länder together about the same. the liabilities for pensions of state employees equal a few 100 billion until 2020 and they are not part of the national debt yet.
while 5 billion is enough to be not completly insignificant, its hardly enough for eternal salvation.

No regulations make it difficult for people to take money out from an ATM and use it to by a computer. Besides, Norway is also riddled with regulations (so is Sweden and so on).
Besides, the saving rate in Germany (according to The Economist), is not that high. Certainly much higher than in the US, UK and Australia, but still.
People in Germany knows that the goverment will be forced to sack people, in order to try to limit their budget deficits to less than 3%. The usual role of a goverment in such times is actually to hire them. Also 200billion euros could have been use to upgrade infrastructure in such areas as Ruhr, invest in the universitites (so they could have taken in more students), subsidies big-bizniss (in order to attrackt invesment, like the AMD plants in Dresden).
You certainly do not create optimism by sacking people and cutting back on welfare (so that people have even less to spend, lo hartz IV)

If you take away half of the peoples money, admister it (which costs a lot of money) and then redistribute it, that very well makes people think twice before they spend their money.
the savings rate is somewhere around 10% i think. the last figure i heared from the US was somewhere around 0.2%. while that figure is not desirable either we could do with a little less saving and a little more spending.
the state must not hire even more people, its bad enough as it is. this state could do with a little 'lean management'. we are running a budget deficit of more than 3% just to hold the status quo, we simply cant go on like this forever and certainly cant spend even more money for deciit spending. if we have 6 million unemployed after the state sacks some people, then fine, at least we wont have to pay for useless overhead anymore.

Germany doesnt manage with this level of competion, what makes you think that Germany will cope with even harder competion? (Last numbers out show a strong decline in German exports btw)

source? it doesnt look so bad here:
http://destatis.de/indicators/d/gkah612.htm

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

You see Perle (and other newcomers), this is MM's best line of defence (as he is unable to come up with any kind of descent argument).

When going up, some people get vertigo. Going downwards doesn't lead to such problems, therefore it is clearly better.





Sorry :|

[KaneED]

The EU was setup originally as a means for stabilising Europe after the war.

On that point, its a win!

I don't know much about it in other terms because I studied a module on it last semester, so naturally I know **** all about it.

[Perle]

Originally Posted by arbondigo

What exactly is wrong with what he said? If he's hiring someone to clean his house then why shouldn't he choose the cheapest person? If that person doesn't do a good job then he can choose someone else who charges a bit more. He has the right to choose who wants to clean his house regardless of cost provided he can afford it.

read the discussion above.

I asked him why it doesnt disturb him, that thousands of his countrymen are fired from their jobs, become dependent of the states welfare programs and are replaced by slave workers from poland,who are treated like animals and are living under inhumane conditions.

his answer was: great, now i can get someone to clean my house for 2 €/h

I don´t know about you, but I do not wish to discuss with a person like that.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

Stealing from Keynes, are we?

In this instance, he's got a point. It's possible to be mindlessly "long term" about pretty much any problem. Even the second world war was only a minor blip in terms of population & economic growth (if you take a long enough view of these things). Saying "in x years it'll be sorted out" offers nothing to the very real problems caused in the mean-time. I notice the "Oh don't worry, in a few decades the market will have resolved it all" crowd are often (though not exclusively) the people who are comfortable during this "interim period".

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

yes, there are probably good and bad examples for both countries, but i seriously doubt that any scandinavian country has pushed the regulation madness as far as we did.
and yes, we need to increase our productivity if we want to keep our relativly high wages, but how do you do that without investments?

Well, as its hard to come up with any sensible (and correct) statistics on the area, its not easy to say. But I sincerly doubt that Germany have much more regulation than any scandinavian Nordic country. Just ask Lidl, they seem to have "some" problems coping both in Norway and Sweden (oh, did we have to fill in a form to be allowed to sell beer? Oi, there is quality standards on minced meet?).
And on increasing productivity... most of the increased productivity comes from "better human capital" today, so educated fewer mechanics and more engineers seems to be the obvious solution.

and divided by 30 its 5 billion again. the Bund alone had a budget of more than 250 billion last year, the Länder together about the same. the liabilities for pensions of state employees equal a few 100 billion until 2020 and they are not part of the national debt yet.
while 5 billion is enough to be not completly insignificant, its hardly enough for eternal salvation.

Exactly, the cost of EU is coming on top off all of this. Instead of this extra cost, you could have money in the bank, not to mention the "opertunity cost". Look at Ireland, see what they have managed with investing wisely. On top of that Germany should stop have stopped subsidizing industries with no future, like coal and textiles. That money combinded with the EU money could have given you a blooming IT-sector perhaps, which has a rather good future.

If you take away half of the peoples money, admister it (which costs a lot of money) and then redistribute it, that very well makes people think twice before they spend their money.

This sounds familiar. Which nordic country are you talking about now?

the savings rate is somewhere around 10% i think. the last figure i heared from the US was somewhere around 0.2%. while that figure is not desirable either we could do with a little less saving and a little more spending.
the state must not hire even more people, its bad enough as it is. this state could do with a little 'lean management'. we are running a budget deficit of more than 3% just to hold the status quo, we simply cant go on like this forever and certainly cant spend even more money for deciit spending. if we have 6 million unemployed after the state sacks some people, then fine, at least we wont have to pay for useless overhead anymore.

Last numbers I saw (the economist a month ago) suggested 6-7%. Agree, lowering a percent is still safe.
So unemployed people is not a cost off the bugdets? First they are going to claim unemployment benefits. Then they are claiming social security money (not much after hartzIV, but still). Not to mention the increased spending on police, prisions and child-protetion etc etc.
Even the usually retarded liberal-economists in Norway have started to figure out that our public sector is a advantage for the private companies, as it provides a number of services who lessens their costs and provides well-educated and rather optimistic labour who are capable of taking iniatives etc. Another point, is that the norwegian business culture is far more relaxed than the German one. The German approach seems to be very macho-like and not focused enough on treating its labour as human beeings (thus reducing its value as human capital).
Long-term unemployment also decreses the value of the human capital.

I would suggest less paper-movers, and more people at the front-lines (nurses and doctors for instance, this will improve health-services who will lead to higer productivity and less costs for the employers).

source? it doesnt look so bad here:
http://destatis.de/indicators/d/gkah612.htm

A norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten. It was the latest numbers for the last month(s). I can't bother to find it again, since its in norwegian (your norwegian is prob worse than my german, hehe)

I know German export is still strong (The Economist: Germany 10% of World Exports). But I think it will decrese in the near future, due to competition from east-europe, NIC-countries and China (as chinese exports will start moving up the value ladder). But even if the exports keep up with competition, its not likely to increase employment in Germany. And employment is the main problem.

And a big HURRAH for me, since I got A on my bachelor thesis today \o/

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

In this instance, he's got a point. It's possible to be mindlessly "long term" about pretty much any problem. Even the second world war was only a minor blip in terms of population & economic growth (if you take a long enough view of these things). Saying "in x years it'll be sorted out" offers nothing to the very real problems caused in the mean-time. I notice the "Oh don't worry, in a few decades the market will have resolved it all" crowd are often (though not exclusively) the people who are comfortable during this "interim period".

Indeed. And even on Adam Smith's time it was obvious that the market was not able to manage itself. Not to mention the obvious repeats of this. Its not even strange, consider how short-sighted the market is, and its ability to do stupid things (lets not give the workers enough in wages, so that they cannot buy any products, and then lets complain that we dont get our products solved, hello 1933).

Maybe for Britain the WWII was a "minor blip", but for the countries worst effected (particular the Soviet Union) it was a disaster. Just notice the polish reaction to demands from German "expellies" about compensation

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

Well, as its hard to come up with any sensible (and correct) statistics on the area, its not easy to say. But I sincerly doubt that Germany have much more regulation than any scandinavian Nordic country. Just ask Lidl, they seem to have "some" problems coping both in Norway and Sweden (oh, did we have to fill in a form to be allowed to sell beer? Oi, there is quality standards on minced meet?).
And on increasing productivity... most of the increased productivity comes from "better human capital" today, so educated fewer mechanics and more engineers seems to be the obvious solution.

that human capital is some problem here. if we save money on anything its education, there is no lobby for that and who cares about a few students who protest?
and if something about it pops up in the media, like after that Pisa-study our great system of government makes sure that nothing happens, because now our brilliant politicians start arguing about who gets to spend the money.

Exactly, the cost of EU is coming on top off all of this. Instead of this extra cost, you could have money in the bank, not to mention the "opertunity cost". Look at Ireland, see what they have managed with investing wisely. On top of that Germany should stop have stopped subsidizing industries with no future, like coal and textiles. That money combinded with the EU money could have given you a blooming IT-sector perhaps, which has a rather good future.

my point is that the costs for the EU are rather small. by dropping susideries for coal for example we can save more money

Last numbers I saw (the economist a month ago) suggested 6-7%. Agree, lowering a percent is still safe.

my figure was from destatis.de, i think for Q1/2005.

So unemployed people is not a cost off the bugdets? First they are going to claim unemployment benefits. Then they are claiming social security money (not much after hartzIV, but still). Not to mention the increased spending on police, prisions and child-protetion etc etc.
Even the usually retarded liberal-economists in Norway have started to figure out that our public sector is a advantage for the private companies, as it provides a number of services who lessens their costs and provides well-educated and rather optimistic labour who are capable of taking iniatives etc. Another point, is that the norwegian business culture is far more relaxed than the German one. The German approach seems to be very macho-like and not focused enough on treating its labour as human beeings (thus reducing its value as human capital).
Long-term unemployment also decreses the value of the human capital.

I would suggest less paper-movers, and more people at the front-lines (nurses and doctors for instance, this will improve health-services who will lead to higer productivity and less costs for the employers).

i dont want to cut the jobs that have a 'productive value', the administration itself is the problem. if we would for example simplify our taxation system we would a) need less 'Beamte' to manage the system, b) attract more foreign investments and c) either have more money to spend on investments or be able to cut taxes so that the people could spend more money

A norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten. It was the latest numbers for the last month(s). I can't bother to find it again, since its in norwegian (your norwegian is prob worse than my german, hehe)

I know German export is still strong (The Economist: Germany 10% of World Exports). But I think it will decrese in the near future, due to competition from east-europe, NIC-countries and China (as chinese exports will start moving up the value ladder). But even if the exports keep up with competition, its not likely to increase employment in Germany. And employment is the main problem.

And a big HURRAH for me, since I got A on my bachelor thesis today \o/

noone exports as much as we do, we are number one again after 15 years
I think we have less trouble than some countries in southern europe. for example we dont need to worry about cheap chines textils, because we dont produce any anymore.

sure, on the long term there may be trouble (because of competition or outsourcing), but right now the domestic demand is the problem, not the exports.

[Stew]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Precisely what's the actual difference to an economy if the Government spends money or people spend it?

The government don't pay tax?

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Precisely what's the actual difference to an economy if the Government spends money or people spend it?

people usually know better where to spend it on (with some exceptions, like education, healthcare etc)

[Nusselt]

Just been scrolling through the argument, im not particularly against any one side (though the amount of times people start trying to riducle each other rather than just discuss is just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're retards with insecurites and issues, eh Mr Manson, i noticed this in skiddy's thread as well )

but wrt to the polish workers in germany and when it'll even out etc, well its not forever its forecast to be around 2010 - when they join the euro, the various banks and banking institutions thought about this fairly carefully over a decade ago, the new members had to meet the copenhagen criteria to join and from there on the the economies were/are being slowly brought up to speed (for 15 - 20 yrs!) until they adopt the euro 2007/10 (ish). So the time that the imbalance will last is forecast to be that long, i know someone who worked on Basel II and thats what he said (ie i don't know that much im just passing on info, though the dates do match up (ish) on the web).

The bringing up to speed of the various ascession countries is relatively straight forward, its been done before and they're not really sweating it, . The really interesting thing is that they expected the market reforms that germany and france current'y 'need' to go through and are slightly 'uhmm' about it not going through and the people not supporting it. The french and german economies were meant to be becoming more effecient and powerful to take up the slack right about now, if i remember correctly. The bankers want one thing with europe - a free economy europe with a massive population to make them rich, the politicians want to keep their influence within europe but make europe powerful against the US and Asia, and the people just want their jobs to be secure and a relatively unstressful life.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

people usually know better where to spend it on (with some exceptions, like education, healthcare etc)

Its becouse people like you will use those money to hire polish workers (who take all the money with them home) and a some fancy new electronics whitch is produced in South-Korea or China. On top of that you vote for politicians who want to give away alot of money to the spaniards so they can build roads who isnt going to be used and money to french farmers so they can produce more un-needed agricultural products. And the same politicans also voted for the EU, so german firms can move production to Hungary instead, and Danish Crown can fire all their employees and replace them with poles. Thats why there is no money to educate more IT-engineers in Germany.

Thats why the German economy is poor, and its all wu_trax fault.