EPTJonny I think you are confusing capitalism with the private property regime.
The European Debt Crisis and the Euro - Page 156
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
Jonny I think you are confusing capitalism with the private property regime. | ||
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ACrow
Germany6583 Posts
On September 11 2014 07:01 radiatoren wrote: It is interesting to see a french socialist economy commissioner. I expect he is on the austerity team since he was chosen by Hollande? Having a british tory commissioner for finance seems even more questionable. Not to add that the danish commissioner as a competition commissioner is quite a risky choice given her previous very liberal almost laissez faire on many regulation issues. And don't get me started on a thrown out conservative german digital agenda commissioner without any experience in that field and 61 years of age... This seems to be a horror cabinet. Let us hope the tiered system works out cause those choices for the technical commissioners are controversial. This can end in internal struggles or very questionable legislation very fast. Not exactly what the doctor ordered in terms of dealing with the economic issues. The Juncker comission is a joke. The British commissioner has indeed to be the biggest joke about it - he has one of the most important jobs, the EU is the only political body that could effectively regulate the London finance sector, and they put a guy there that is from London, is well connected to the finance sector and whose only political agenda so far has been lobbying for the finance sector? If the matter wasn't so serious I'd laugh. And don't worry about Oettinger, the man has no desire to do any harm (or do anything) as digital agenda commissioner and even if he had, that office doesn't have any means to do much anyways. It is just a second tier office, he has to report to the Estonian commissioner, who is the coordinating vice president and has the real say in the matter. With the amount of anti-German hate in this thread, I'm not gonna complain about the biggest EU country getting one of the least important posts (plus, considering how incompetent Oettinger is, I wouldn't want a bigger job for him anyways). | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On September 11 2014 15:26 IgnE wrote: Well if there's negative growth and there's three of you, then 2 out of 3 of you would be losing money on your investments, even if you, the lone investor in a growth sector, are reaping profits. In an environment like that you are going to have people who are wary of investing at all because the likelihood is that the return will be negative. Without investment, the whole thing breaks down. The pie isn't getting bigger, the workers know it. There isn't even an illusion of upward mobility, as wages are frozen, and the capitalist class stops investing, preferring to sit on their accumulated wealth. The old economic fairy tales, like the American Dream eventually get replaced with modern-day fiefdoms. Jonny I think you are confusing capitalism with the private property regime. Marx explain that better than anyone else : the desire for profit and capital gain from the owners of capital leads to a situation where future profit tend to fall. It is the idea behind the tendancy of the rate of profit to fall : through their desire to gain more profit, capitalist trade "living" labor against "dead" labor, effectively reducing and killing future demand. Growth and rate of profit are two completly different things that should not be mixed up : rate of profit is not necessarily higher during growth time, what makes profit are real interest rate, the risks, the split of added value (between labor and capital), taxation and the inflation level. All those things are at a good level right now. It is not capitalism that need public investment in europe, it's the people who have no job. Quite the contrary, a broad investment in europe would effectively create inflation, forcing rich people and capitalists to invest their savings, effectively putting their capital at risk while, in the current situation, there are no risks at all (buying public bond is not risky). It's true that without investment the whole thing break down, because at some point poverty and unemployment are not sustainable (but since the state basically assure people to get income at subsistance level it could take some times) but rich are still getting richer in the entire europe right now, no doubt about it (see Germany, or even in France dividend are 30% higher than last year !). | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On September 11 2014 15:26 IgnE wrote: Well if there's negative growth and there's three of you, then 2 out of 3 of you would be losing money on your investments, even if you, the lone investor in a growth sector, are reaping profits. In an environment like that you are going to have people who are wary of investing at all because the likelihood is that the return will be negative. Without investment, the whole thing breaks down. The pie isn't getting bigger, the workers know it. There isn't even an illusion of upward mobility, as wages are frozen, and the capitalist class stops investing, preferring to sit on their accumulated wealth. The old economic fairy tales, like the American Dream eventually get replaced with modern-day fiefdoms. Jonny I think you are confusing capitalism with the private property regime. I demonstrated a few pages back that you can turn a profit with negative growth. The rest of what you wrote has more to do with what people want, than what capitalism wants. In other words, you can have a capitalist, communist, feudal, whatever economy and want growth. Edit: On September 11 2014 11:18 SnipedSoul wrote: Capitalism only cares about short term gains. Who cares about suppressing wages to the point where no one can afford anything if it means next quarter will have higher profits? The downside is that in the long run, you won't have any customers if people can't even afford to feed themselves, let alone buy your products. Negative growth is fine as long as the sector I'm investing in continues to grow. Says who? If you only cared about the short term you'd never buy new equipment or expand to new locations. If you can't make money next quarter your bondholders and shareholders take losses. Where does that idea even come from? | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On September 12 2014 16:33 IgnE wrote: Well Jonny if turning a profit was all that there was to capitalism you'd have made a point. How do you define capitalism ? But I see your point that, in the long run, searching for growth is not a sustainable solution, and a structural unemployment at 5 to 10 % is also a problem, but in our era, with so many stupid people in the highest sphere of power, there are no possible alternative, no words to describe a viable future society that would not revolve around the constant running around for "more growth". Personally I don't care about growth, I only care about jobs. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18240 Posts
On September 12 2014 16:40 WhiteDog wrote: How do you define capitalism ? But I see your point that, in the long run, searching for growth is not a sustainable solution, and a structural unemployment at 5 to 10 % is also a problem, but in our era, with so many stupid people in the highest sphere of power, there are no possible alternative, no words to describe a viable future society that would not revolve around the constant running around for "more growth". Personally I don't care about growth, I only care about jobs. If you had been to Cuba, you wouldn't say this. Everybody has a job. Everybody is dirt poor, except for people who manage to act on the black market, which is... a capitalist construct. Cuba is quite interesting in any case: everybody gets a pretty good education and good health care, Nobody gets anything other than that. This is a pretty good starting point, However, there is absolutely NO incentive beyond altruism to do anything innovative. You won't get more money, or better in any material way at all, because you have to invest your own money, but pay 80% tax over any income. So clearly just giving everybody a job is not a long term solution.You need people creating new jobs. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On September 12 2014 20:49 Acrofales wrote: If you had been to Cuba, you wouldn't say this. Everybody has a job. Everybody is dirt poor, except for people who manage to act on the black market, which is... a capitalist construct. Cuba is quite interesting in any case: everybody gets a pretty good education and good health care, Nobody gets anything other than that. This is a pretty good starting point, However, there is absolutely NO incentive beyond altruism to do anything innovative. You won't get more money, or better in any material way at all, because you have to invest your own money, but pay 80% tax over any income. So clearly just giving everybody a job is not a long term solution.You need people creating new jobs. Ho I never said having full employment is the only goal for every society everywhere, and the only long term goal at that. I'm just saying in europe we need job, there is a 10 to 12 % average unemployment rate, 25 % in spain more in Greece, it's the only thing that needs to be fixed fast right now. | ||
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SilentchiLL
Germany1405 Posts
On September 13 2014 00:26 WhiteDog wrote: Ho I never said having full employment is the only goal for every society everywhere, and the only long term goal at that. I'm just saying in europe we need job, there is a 10 to 12 % average unemployment rate, 25 % in spain more in Greece, it's the only thing that needs to be fixed fast right now. How? You talked about idiots leading our society, so I'm sure you have ways to fix this simple problem | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On September 20 2014 19:07 SilentchiLL wrote: How? You talked about idiots leading our society, so I'm sure you have ways to fix this simple problem Invest (substantial budgetary stimulus, to get a 2 to 4% inflation across europe, with 4% in the north and 2% in the south), rule against social dumping, protect industries (protectionism will maximize the effect of the multiplicator) and firms against countries that have mercantilist strategies (china, germany) and destroy the euro (to restore commercial equilibrium in the union). Basically do what every other nation do. In an utopian world : change law on the property of natural ressources (everything goes public) and change fiscal policies (with heavy tax on capital at the european level). | ||
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SilentchiLL
Germany1405 Posts
On September 20 2014 22:03 WhiteDog wrote: In an utopian world : change law on the property of natural ressources (everything goes public) and change fiscal policies (with heavy tax on capital at the european level). What you described was utopian already, you could never push those policies through as a politician. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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maartendq
Belgium3115 Posts
On September 21 2014 05:35 Nyxisto wrote: I'm all on board with higher taxation and making resource revenues available for the general public, but I think protectionism is a really awful idea. For the practical reason alone that it almost always goes hand in hand with anti-immigration and nationalism, see FN. While I am an advocate of the Schengen treaty, it cannot be denied that the free migration of labour is causing unfair competition in some markets. Belgium, for instance, has a hard time dealing with Central Europeans who work here in construction for dumping prices and whose employer does not need to comply with Belgian social security standards. They basically undercut the competition. Of course, one could say that the Belgian construction market has to adapt (i.e. lower salaries), but fact is that Belgium is a lot more expensive to live in than any Central European country, and that wages competive with those countries would push Belgian construction workers into poverty. Needless to say, this kind of situation causes resentment towards foreigners as well: "they're taking our jobs." An easy solution would be to pay and tax workers who go work abroad according to regulations and standards of the country they work in, but I don't think the EU is ever going to do that. This would pretty much divide the EU into East and West, and North and South, further fragmenting an increasingly fragmented Union. In short: free movement of people = good free movement of labour = bad | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
Free market have no use when your opponent in the "pure and perfect" competition use social, environmental and fiscal dumping. On September 21 2014 04:54 SilentchiLL wrote: What you described was utopian already, you could never push those policies through as a politician. Maybe. | ||
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radiatoren
Denmark1907 Posts
On September 21 2014 06:50 maartendq wrote: While I am an advocate of the Schengen treaty, it cannot be denied that the free migration of labour is causing unfair competition in some markets. Belgium, for instance, has a hard time dealing with Central Europeans who work here in construction for dumping prices and whose employer does not need to comply with Belgian social security standards. They basically undercut the competition. Of course, one could say that the Belgian construction market has to adapt (i.e. lower salaries), but fact is that Belgium is a lot more expensive to live in than any Central European country, and that wages competive with those countries would push Belgian construction workers into poverty. Needless to say, this kind of situation causes resentment towards foreigners as well: "they're taking our jobs." An easy solution would be to pay and tax workers who go work abroad according to regulations and standards of the country they work in, but I don't think the EU is ever going to do that. This would pretty much divide the EU into East and West, and North and South, further fragmenting an increasingly fragmented Union. In short: free movement of people = good free movement of labour = bad People are moving towards regressive parties for a reason. The problem with labourers pressuring the price is that you cannot dictate in contracts where in europe people can work and even more: The local law enforcement cannot and should not be able to pry enough on private construction crews to be able to stop black market polish workers. The lack of enforcement capacity is the main problem when it comes to these matters. Usually you would find a way around it like taxation of the problem or bans, but this one is difficult to do anything about because of Schengens anti-discrimination and the competition clauses. We simply have to live with it. Mainly because these types of economic equalisation is working completely as intended. It just so happens to be the richest countries getting pulled down to the poorer countries instead of the vision of the poorest getting pulled up by the richest. Now politicians are fighting to save the ship by showeling water overboard. But maybe. Just maybe: The ship is the problem, not the bad weather and high seas. | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
The European Central Bank may unleash fresh measures to stimulate eurozone growth and battle low inflation as soon as December. A key gauge of inflation expectations plunged to a fresh low of 1.77pc on Friday, prompting Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, to repeat that policymakers were united in their commitment to fight low inflation. Prices grew by 0.3pc in September on an annual basis, down from 0.4pc in August, according to a initial estimate by Eurostat. Mr Draghi, who has all but ruled out further cuts in interest rates, suggested that full-blown quantitative easing was an option if expectations drifted down further. "The governing council is committed to move forward with other measures depending on the new outlook on medium term inflation expectations," he said on Saturday. "Monetary policy remains accommodative and becomes more and more accommodative as we assess our medium term outlook." Central banks in the eurozone and the ECB will release in December their latest assessment of inflation expectations over the next three years, while ECB staff projections are due in March. However, Mr Draghi said the ECB's commitment to buy bundles of bank debt, known as asset backed securities (ABS), and offer cheap loans to banks in order to stimulate lending was the correct first course of action in an environment where borrowing costs are already very low. "When you reach the lower bound you only have one instrument. It’s very clear that if we are going to go down this route [of QE], we have a spectrum of interest rates and spreads which is already very low. That’s why we started with addressing flows in the private sector, because we believe flows will directly affect private lending." ... Source Eurozone stuttering once again. There's a fear of the area falling into another recession, and mounting pressure on Germany from its neighbors to throw a bit of support behind stimulus. At the very least, stop getting in the way of it. | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6271 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15364 Posts
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Rassy
Netherlands2308 Posts
On September 12 2014 16:40 WhiteDog wrote: How do you define capitalism ? But I see your point that, in the long run, searching for growth is not a sustainable solution, and a structural unemployment at 5 to 10 % is also a problem, but in our era, with so many stupid people in the highest sphere of power, there are no possible alternative, no words to describe a viable future society that would not revolve around the constant running around for "more growth". Personally I don't care about growth, I only care about jobs. Why is searching for growth not sustainable? We have been growing for 6000 years at an exponential rate and we are still growing at an exponential rate. Nothing I see indicates that this would not be sustainable. No plague ,2 worldwars or nuclear bomb has been able to stop us from growing. Technological progress can sustain growth till infinity. And marx,he is right in his own context but his context is wrong. When reading marx he seems to assume that the amount of money in circulation is fixed,and yes if you have a fixed amount of money and a small group of people slowly acquiring all of that money then demand will drop. But we can just expand the amount of money and everyone gets richer (as long as productivity keeps up) ,demand does not need to fall. If tomorrow every job would be done by robots we would not be poor, we could simply pay the robots nothing and give everyone there regular paycheck. The economic education of today is horrible for some reason but in the end it is very simple. Economics is about 2 things. 1-making a pie 2-dividing the pie. The pie is the only thing that is real,it is the only thing that matters. Just look at how the pie is made and how the pie is divided and you can see how the economy works and what factors are a threat to our economic system. | ||
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Rassy
Netherlands2308 Posts
Didn't knew Germany didn't invest in infrastructure. It seems odd to say the least, the country that does not invest at all has the best roads in Europe. But yes,the pressure is now on Germany. Its the last country that stands between civilization and total corruption by the financial world. I realy hope Germany holds foot but deep down I already know they will give in to the wishes of the imf and other organisations to start a European qe and make the bubble a bit bigger. Maybe somewhere halfway next year Germany will give in is my guess,it will be a sad day for humanity  | ||
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