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ggrrg
Bulgaria2716 Posts
On March 01 2010 18:43 sh02hp0869 wrote: The 2 richest countries in Europe are the 2 that are not in EU, figures. Germany and France are the two economically most powerful countries in Europe and both are in the EU... @topic Also they have the biggest impact on the value of the Euro, so Greece's crisis can lower the value but it surely cannot make it worthless. | ||
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tenacity
1587 Posts
On March 01 2010 21:46 ggrrg wrote: Germany and France are the two economically most powerful countries in Europe and both are in the EU... @topic Also they have the biggest impact on the value of the Euro, so Greece's crisis can lower the value but it surely cannot make it worthless. He was referring to per capita and not to absolute numbers. | ||
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aqui
Germany1023 Posts
On March 01 2010 21:08 Velr wrote: Lol, italy. Haha that summarizes Italy so well. Gotta love them. As for the topic, after paying for the houses of white trash people in the US the Greece situation seems an improvement^^. Hope we will see some moltke magic here. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On March 01 2010 22:02 aqui wrote: Haha that summarizes italy so well. gotta love them. As for the topic, after paying for the houses of white trash people in the US the Greece situation seems an improvement^^. Hope we will see some moltke magic here. Have you ever been to EuroDisney? | ||
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Intr3pid
Switzerland336 Posts
The Government is a joke, precisely because monopolies are always inefficient, destructive, and have no pricing mechanism, ergo always result in over-use and artificial scarcity. Why do you think public health systems always have long waiting lines for everything? When you feel you are getting something for free you are naturally going to over use it, and since Gossen's Third Law rules everything, you will enivitably run into a problem where whatever supply you do have is quickly gone. As a PhD student in economics (and a Keynes follower) I'm pretty much disgusted by this neo-libertarian nonsense. Although you seem to know what you talk about you twist the evidence the way it fits your world view. What about public goods and how to provide them? It has been shown plenty of times that markets fail to efficiently distribute public goods. Also, monopolies don't necessarily have to be destructive, maybe you remember high fix costs and how monopolies can maximize social welfare? And about the public health care system I had to "lol", just because you in the U.S. have no working system in that respect whatsoever doesn't mean it can't be done efficiently by treating it as a public good. (ask some guys from Sweden). And ontopic, this flaw has been pointed out several times in literature, but the Euro is in no way going down because of it, it's mostly medial exaggeration. | ||
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ZeaL.
United States5955 Posts
On March 01 2010 20:55 Velr wrote: The export industry and tourism is getting problems because of it. But going for short trips around Europe and the USA is awesome atm ^^. I visited switzerland last june and it was really beautiful but the exchange rate absolutely destroyed us. Ended up getting food from Migros everyday after we ate out once and got owned. | ||
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Intr3pid
Switzerland336 Posts
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aseq
Netherlands3975 Posts
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Kusimuumi
Finland99 Posts
The Euro has quite sane requirements for its members, and if those requirements are abided, the currency will work in theory. They weren't abided in the case of these few countries. Shit hits the fan, things need to be put truly in shape. EU is 'not going to bail out but is prepared to help if neccessary' according to this one French financial woman who forbes ranks quite high in girlpower. You never know about them, French. Although this one did speak English without a wince. There's also good talk about admitting that self-regulating banks and corporations might not neccessarily think about the public's good as much as those under governmental regulations, but those words reverberate with a bad connotation in the soul of many. Some have even hinted about *gasp*, regulating and taxing the global derivatives casino. The same proponents have even listened to Obama's words regarding the same ideas and smiled. Sweet Jesus if he could push them through there. Now, when it comes to country-specific monetary crisises in a situation where the currency is shared, the only options are either to cut the cancer out and hope it doesn't grow back, or to ..uhh.. chemo? Either way, you either help or you don't. But you're not really sure if its good to help either. If countries still actually owned themselves, and were able to, for example, issue their own currency, this situation would be different. Now we're stuck in a situation where we've got a freely floating common currency and if shit hits the fan, countries will have to look up to the greater EMU for help since they have surrendered their right to handle their monetary problems by themselves. History shows several cases where when faced with a monetary crisis of catastrophic form, the country has unpegged their currency, and printed out muchos money to pump into government sanctioned jobs and via aiding local enterprises etc and joined the world again once they've got their shit together. It turned out that printing money didn't lead to hyperinflation afterall when it was allocated to projects. Instead it brought unforeseen prosperity to the community. This is naturally blasphemy to free-trade advocates, so please forget it and don't incinerate me. Trading with other countries gets shafted in this scheme, though, but commodities have been traded for a globally assessed face value without the need of opening one's currency to the other participant of the trade before. While historically proven to be extremely - once even devastatingly - efficient, (and some laissez-faire opponents even claim it to be ideal for sustenance) EMU countries have surrendered this right for the leisure of having better inclination for supposedly free trade. Which the common currency naturally makes easier; although some countries have gotten shafted because high value of the currency pushes up prices for your exports, giving an exporting edge to other countries, but that's worth another novel. But they do get to enjoy some of the perks which freely floating currencies give without being a small player, but instead being in the party of some bigger players. So, uh, yeah. Things are not always as simple as they seem, and I need to get to sleep. -j | ||
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Hansel
Germany311 Posts
On March 01 2010 22:38 aseq wrote: Why the EU has to include so many crappy countries that we don't need, I can't figure it out. Good thing Turkey isn't in it yet, although who knows when that will happen. Should have stopped after western europe and at least have a chance not to go bankrupt, i'm tired of working for these noob countries anyway (hehe yes i'm at work now). The reason for this is the eu is mainly an economic zone in the sence of the NAFTA and the participants hunger for markets and cheap labor. Countries like germany e.g. have a ridiculous onesided economical balance, most of the gross domestic product is obtained by trade with foreigners (and those foreigners are mainly participants of the eu, the other big contributer to german gross domestic product beeing the u.s who kindly gave us their nice "structured financial products" in exchange for fast cars :-)). To my understanding one of the main reasons they expanded the eu is that you can not use tax nor your currency to keep products of other eu members out of your country (you might want to do this to keep labour inside). Also keep in mind that the euro is pretty stable because certain currencys (like the reminbi) are artificially kept low out of political reasons (boosting economy/creating labor). If the price of the Yuan would rise the euro would relativly loose "buying power". Germany has been accused to use the same technique (keeping wages low & subvention) to sell their surplus goods on the world market. I am not an economist nor did i study politics, so feel free to correct me if im wrong. I am quite surprised by the way that there seems to be an interest in economics on a gaming forum :-). And some very well framed posts at that. | ||
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
On March 01 2010 22:17 Intr3pid wrote: As a PhD student in economics (and a Keynes follower) I'm pretty much disgusted by this neo-libertarian nonsense. Although you seem to know what you talk about you twist the evidence the way it fits your world view. What about public goods and how to provide them? It has been shown plenty of times that markets fail to efficiently distribute public goods. Also, monopolies don't necessarily have to be destructive, maybe you remember high fix costs and how monopolies can maximize social welfare? And about the public health care system I had to "lol", just because you in the U.S. have no working system in that respect whatsoever doesn't mean it can't be done efficiently by treating it as a public good. (ask some guys from Sweden). And ontopic, this flaw has been pointed out several times in literature, but the Euro is in no way going down because of it, it's mostly medial exaggeration. Keynes has been thoroughly discredited already. So the only thing you could be is a neo-Keynesian which incorporates some of the neo-liberal stuff. I'm also pretty sure that Rothbardian's line is along the classical liberal and anarchic line of reasoning. He's really really radical. You can be disgusted but that's just your visceral emotional reaction and contradicts your entire world view. It has no logical underpinnings. Public goods derive from lack of imagination by economists and an underestimation of creativity of entrepreneurs by politicians; it's a coordination of resources problem that may require social support but usually doesn't require coercion. Again some exceptions apply, but the variety of public goods is far fewer than the academic society thinks. Monopolies with respect to naturally high barriers to entry are naturally monopolies. Monopolies derived from artificial high barriers to entry are rent-seeking entities. Usually in the course of history, government have created unnatural monopolies but railed against natural monopolies. There is no coherent argument that government manages monopolies with the best of intentions of the general public. Sweden, if I recall correctly, is moving away from a public goods model of health care and introducing private practices. Swiss model is nice and sustainable, but that's like what Massachusetts has and it's expensive. I don't know how much sense it would be for the entire EU to implement uniform health care system, but that would be the European equivalent if the US were to adopt some national health care system. There's plenty of flaws to be found in the regulated US healthcare economy, but that's neither here nor there when juxtaposed against the planned health care system of European nations. A haphazard system that responds to the demands of consumers would be just fine. | ||
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Intr3pid
Switzerland336 Posts
Keynes has been thoroughly discredited already. This is absolutely not true. Of course Chicago School and associates try to discredit it in favor of monetarism (which is very nice if you want a weak government and no or lower taxes), but I can guarantee you that monetarism's reputation in the economic world is by far smaller than you might think (at least it has very much decreased in the last 10 years. It is only so popular because it is very very strongly believed in by the financial sector, which we know how has been doing lately. I don't want to go deeper into that discussion, since it's clearly ideology biased, let me say that you can pretty much prove any economic theory if you have the "right" data. I just want to say that it was the government who bailed the companies out of their mess, but everyone wanted to abolish any regulation while they were bathing in their imaginary profits. And I am disgusted because he has a very black/white and undifferentiated view on things, which I consider pretty lackluster. Fact is, the world is much more complicated and there is no absolute truth. Monopolies: yes, there are many government monopolies which are not run efficiently, but there are also many examples where this has been done far better by a government than by the public market, take as an example the railway in England, which has pretty much turned disastrous after its privatization under the Hatcher regime. I agree that it should be carefully selected where a monopoly should be constituted, but to say "monopoly = bad" is just wrong. Sweden is not at all privatizing the health care system as a whole, it is possible that they adjust some things and make it "less public", which probably would make sense, still it has the best health care system in the world - and the people are happy and content with it. The Swiss healthcare system is ok, but it is really really expensive and not applicable in that form in every country. Again, most things are personal taste, but some things are just wrong. Like saying the root of all problems is the government. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10661 Posts
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
The way I see Keynes is an attempt to centrally plan the economy to stave off recessions and keep booms going. Central planning has always failed miserably. Economists of the Keynesian type are blinded by their hubris and conceit. On March 02 2010 03:57 Velr wrote: Problem with the Swiss healthcare system are politics or in other worlds the multiple lobbies influencing our politicians. The system itself is good, the assurances companies work VERY efficient and have nealry no room to exploit their "customers". A lot of the high cost of healthcare in US has to insurance hiding the costs and doctors and hospitals ignoring their moral obligation of altruism and charity in their line of work (not legal obligation but moral obligation.) Costs of those unable to pay are no longer being borne by the doctor or hospital out of a duty to heal but instead share by the healthy individuals who have paid for insurance. The industry has also been playing to the hubris of doctors for miracle surgeries and expensive operations such as cardiac bypass surgeries. There are many other factors at play including a suppression of supply of doctors, and regulations that make it cost-prohibitive for any business model except the largest HMOs to operate. Amongst all of the mumble jumble is insurance to hide and obscure true costs from the health care patient, and it causes all sorts of problem in the market place like the prevalence of cardiac bypass surgeries. Unlike you, I believe that showing the patient the full bill ahead of time would allow patients to make informed decisions, and the hiding of costs by charging high insurance premiums would be really exploiting the customer. As of right now the US health care is in no-man's land, in limbo between a planned system and a free system - without many of the cost control mechanism of either. Naturally, costs run very high. Many of the efforts to "privatize" public enterprises fall into this category of inefficiency. Other times privatized public enterprises fail because market cannot support such an enterprise. Some do eventually thrive. | ||
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citi.zen
2509 Posts
Austria-Hungary. Czechslovakia. Today the Euro zone is certainly in trouble. It is far from dynamic on its own demographics and does not attract the same high-quality immigrants as the US or Canada (still?) do. Nationalism is on the rise and can easily derail any real conversation about integration and change. Look at Greece now: they dug their own hole for years, yet now are crying about Germany and the WW instead of looking closer to home. When there is no strong common identity this is a real threat during a crisis. I won't get into the Keynes vs. Friedman/Chicago arguments, both positions are easy to caricature and people often talk past each other cherry picking their "evidence". It all seems off topic. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10661 Posts
More old people. More people that need care. More ambulant treatments (at least in switzerland, because stationary treatment costs are *flat tax* per day and on ambulant treatment you can bill E V E R Y T H I N G). Our medicaments are to expensive anyway, but that's not even the big problem (but the easyest to solve...). | ||
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Intr3pid
Switzerland336 Posts
I think it was wise of the UK Sweden etc. not to join the monetary union, and It was because of reasons like this. Still, even if the Euro should fail, I don't think this has necessarily a downfall of the EU as a consequence. It would be a big hit though. | ||
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Nesto
Switzerland1318 Posts
On March 01 2010 21:08 Velr wrote: Lol, italy. Altough that summarizes Italy quite well, I still want to point out, that Italy has had a debt of over a 100% of GDP since a dozen years, and no one really cared. They're economy is ...well I don't think that "strong" really describes it... But they were always able to handle the big debt, and they don't look that bad at the moment. There huge debt just came up in the discussion about greece, but it's really nothing special. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
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KwarK
United States42368 Posts
On March 02 2010 04:58 TanGeng wrote: Great Britain is going balls out on Keynesianism to fend off a recessions Simply not true. In 1999 Britain's economy was growing and the national debt had all but been eliminated. What followed was 9 years of record borrowing during a period of economic growth. That's not Keynesianism. That's just trying to have your cake and eat it with improved services and low taxes before losing an election and leaving the shit for the next guys. | ||
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