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On April 22 2015 05:03 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 04:49 WhiteDog wrote:
then you basically state that its a cultural habit inscribed in the mind of the greek that produce reality (which is exactly Nyxisto definition of culture in his previous post), when in fact it's a relation, and exchange, some kind of back and forth between on one side a set of institutions, customs, habits, and on the other side the social and economical context, that create, almost everyday, what we call "culture".
So are you completely denying that this is possible? Because right now there are many states in which certain ideologies or aspects of their culture, for example extreme forms of religion, are so dominant that they have made the development of education and a modern economy impossible and pretty much defined how any other aspect of society looks, economy included.
Yeah, and when you look at their history, you see that the development of such extreme forms of religion has reasons, and that those forms of religion dominate because they have institutions that assure domination and reproduction of certain cultural scheme from generation to generation, etc.
So I'm saying, why is it that Greek don't pay their taxes ? Tell me ? Because of the sun ? The mediterranean Sea ? The Feta ?
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blitzer -> you are clearly suffering from a complex, and assuming that everyone who says something is hating on your own country rather than being reasonable. I'm sure some people you know are acting like that, but the ones in this thread are for the most part not, and you are treating them as if they are.
You also clearly have an anger issue stemming from unpleasant personal experiences. I'm here for civil discussion.
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You also clearly have an anger issue
It's cultural.... >
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On the other hand, it is totally fine to say that the evil Germans building a fourth EU Reich are at fault because they were so mean to lend you money, obviously plotting your downfall with that.
To me the situation is quite obvious. Some countries wanted to take on a lot of debt, people gave them money for cheap because they were part of the EU, and then it turned out that if you take on a lot of debt and don't do anything useful with the money, that is not be a genius plan in the long term and especially not a sustainable system. Now they are looking for someone on the outside to blame for that bad decision, instead of looking at the politicians and other parasites who mismanaged and wasted that money.
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On April 22 2015 05:12 zlefin wrote:
blitzer -> you are clearly suffering from a complex, and assuming that everyone who says something is hating on your own country rather than being reasonable. I'm sure some people you know are acting like that, but the ones in this thread are for the most part not, and you are treating them as if they are.
You also clearly have an anger issue stemming from unpleasant personal experiences. I'm here for civil discussion.
Ah yes? What are you going to tell me next, that I have to go see a doctor/specialist? Stop patronizing me.
I'm not talking to everyone. I'm talking to this clutz guy. If someone spreads wrong informations, it has to be dealt with.
Saying that our main export is agricolture is not reasonable. It's wrong. Saying that our economy was less developed than France/Englad is not reasonable either. It's wrong. Wrong information has to be dealt with.
On April 22 2015 05:16 Simberto wrote:
On the other hand, it is totally fine to say that the evil Germans building a fourth EU Reich are at fault because they were so mean to lend you money, obviously plotting your downfall with that.
To me the situation is quite obvious. Some countries wanted to take on a lot of debt, people gave them money for cheap because they were part of the EU, and then it turned out that if you take on a lot of debt and don't do anything useful with the money, that is not be a genius plan in the long term and especially not a sustainable system. Now they are looking for someone on the outside to blame for that bad decision, instead of looking at the politicians and other parasites who mismanaged and wasted that money.
I never said that. Good job putting words in my mouth. You are exactly the kind of people I was talking about.
If you actually bothered to read my 3 posts in this thread, you would have realized I'm not blaming Germany, BUT I'm blaming the politician who built the EU.
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On April 22 2015 04:58 zlefin wrote:
warding -> cultures can change too, so I don't see why that makes it a terrible word to describe things.
They can, but they are much more an effect than a cause. Have Germans live in 1990's Portugal and they'll adopt the same culture as the Portuguese due to the institutions in place. You don't change a culture by decree but you can change institutions through political reform. Therefore it's much more useful to think in term of quality of institutions than in terms of culture. Explaining it in terms of culture "the Southern Europeans are lazy and corrupt" is indeed borderline racist.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
agree with warding, and as far as the crisis is concerned level of debt was not the main determinant of debt crisis. it is really about how well the local economies performed and this is largely trade imbalances
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blitzer-> you are lying so I will speak to you no further. You weren't just talking to clutz, I looked back through the last 3 pages and you've been responding to several different people in this thread. You are being persistently rude as well.
warding -> culture can have feedback loops, but putting people from one place into another doesn't mean they'll quickly adopt the same culture and standards, though they will tend to over time.
I wouldn't say it's an effect or a cause, but a state.
You can also change culture through cultural reform.
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On April 22 2015 05:16 Simberto wrote:
On the other hand, it is totally fine to say that the evil Germans building a fourth EU Reich are at fault because they were so mean to lend you money, obviously plotting your downfall with that.
To me the situation is quite obvious. Some countries wanted to take on a lot of debt, people gave them money for cheap because they were part of the EU, and then it turned out that if you take on a lot of debt and don't do anything useful with the money, that is not be a genius plan in the long term and especially not a sustainable system. Now they are looking for someone on the outside to blame for that bad decision, instead of looking at the politicians and other parasites who mismanaged and wasted that money.
Explain Ireland, Spain, Finland.
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On April 22 2015 05:24 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 04:58 zlefin wrote:
warding -> cultures can change too, so I don't see why that makes it a terrible word to describe things.
They can, but they are much more an effect than a cause. Have Germans live in 1990's Portugal and they'll adopt the same culture as the Portuguese due to the institutions in place. You don't change a culture by decree but you can change institutions through political reform. Therefore it's much more useful to think in term of quality of institutions than in terms of culture. Explaining it in terms of culture "the Southern Europeans are lazy and corrupt" is indeed borderline racist.
Yes, but those institutions have some inertia. If an institution gives the impression that it is corrupt, people will feel justified in also using corruption to deal with it and other parts of their lives because that is just how things are done. This inertia is really hard to get rid of, and as far as i understand this is what people mean with "culture is at fault"
You have a wide-spread institutionalized assumption that things will work a specific way, and even if you try to change the rules of those institutions, you still keep the inertia of the habits that they instilled in people, which will on it's own try to change the institutions to fir the habits.
Once again, the main problem is that culture is really badly defined, and thus everyone hears something different when that word appears. This makes reasonable debate really hard, but there are also no more exact words to describe most of the things that are called culture, at least not in the common vocabulary used by non-native english speakers on the internet.
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On April 22 2015 05:28 zlefin wrote:
blitzer-> you are lying so I will speak to you no further. You weren't just talking to clutz, I looked back through the last 3 pages and you've been responding to several different people in this thread. You are being persistently rude as well.
You got me. I also typed a one liner answering why Easter European and Baltic states are doing well for now and I also typed another one liner about a sentence that didn't make any sense.
I guess I really am the one being "rude". Not the people putting words in my mouth or the people spreading wrong information.
My fault, I'm sorry.
How about you care about people posting wrong stuff instead of caring about people saying they are wrong? I found clutz posts very offensive to me and my country, but apparently people are spinning the situation in such way that I'm the bad guy? Are we serious right now? People should expect aggressiveness after posting such things.
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zlefin, what is cultural reform? How do you go on about doing it? In Portugal it has been fashionable for decades to blame the countries problems on the "people's mentalities". Politicians claim it's necessary to "change mentalities". Nobody has ever given an explanation about how one goes on to do that.
Institutions are objective and we know what works and what doesn't. Corruption depends on the quality of institutions. Tax evasion depends on the quality of institutions.PT example: every retail establishment was forced to change to new regulated registers that are connected to the tax authorities -> tax evasion on sales VAT went way down, within one year. Create the right systems, people will change behavior. Tell people to change behavior, they'll ignore you. People respond to incentives, not to lecturing.
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On April 22 2015 05:30 Taguchi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 05:16 Simberto wrote:
On the other hand, it is totally fine to say that the evil Germans building a fourth EU Reich are at fault because they were so mean to lend you money, obviously plotting your downfall with that.
To me the situation is quite obvious. Some countries wanted to take on a lot of debt, people gave them money for cheap because they were part of the EU, and then it turned out that if you take on a lot of debt and don't do anything useful with the money, that is not be a genius plan in the long term and especially not a sustainable system. Now they are looking for someone on the outside to blame for that bad decision, instead of looking at the politicians and other parasites who mismanaged and wasted that money. Explain Ireland, Spain, Finland.
Ireland's economy seems to be recovering with 3.5% projected growth this year (and the fasted growth EU wide last year), and what's the deal with Finland?
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On April 22 2015 05:34 BlitzerSC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 05:28 zlefin wrote:
blitzer-> you are lying so I will speak to you no further. You weren't just talking to clutz, I looked back through the last 3 pages and you've been responding to several different people in this thread. You are being persistently rude as well. You got me. I also typed a one liner answering why Easter European and Baltic states are doing well for now and I also typed another one liner about a sentence that didn't make any sense. I guess I really am the one being "rude". Not the people putting words in my mouth or the people spreading wrong information. My fault, I'm sorry. How about you care about people posting wrong stuff instead of caring about people saying they are wrong? I found clutz posts very offensive to me and my country, but apparently people are spinning the situation in such way that I'm the bad guy? Are we serious right now? People should expect aggressiveness after posting such things.
If Italy was, in fact, so developed as you claim, and the EU lets countries flood other people's markets with products to their own gain, why didn't Italy just do that? Because that's not how the EU works. You can't just flood peoples markets by saying so, you sacrifice something for the ability to do that, that's how all international markets work. China has a primary surplus even with different currencies.
This is not an attack on Italy, which probably should not be lumped into the "PIIGS" because of some of the things you have talked about, but alas they did fall into some similar missteps that caused them to have interest rate problems following the financial crisis. Most of these discussions are about Greece, and if they spill over its about how its not that good to be more like Greece at the moment (or you think that you are getting screwed slightly less than Greece).
Edit: Also. Why are people trying to separate institutions from culture? The are inseparable, at least as much as trying to determine what aspects of something are caused by "institutions" or "culture" is impossible.
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warding -> I'd start by identifying some specific behaviors or attitudes to change, and then see if a consensus can be achieved that they should be changed.
It's hard to give specifics on Portugal because I'm not familiar with it. As to why your politicians dont' have specifics, I'd guess it's the same failure found in all politicians: incompetence, and not wanting to say anything specific because then they can get blamed.
If you have some links to explanations on Portugal I might be able to come up with a few specifics.
Certainly it's also good to make changes that improve the institutions or just make it hard to commit crimes, as much crime is a result of opportunism.
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On April 22 2015 05:51 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 05:34 BlitzerSC wrote:On April 22 2015 05:28 zlefin wrote:
blitzer-> you are lying so I will speak to you no further. You weren't just talking to clutz, I looked back through the last 3 pages and you've been responding to several different people in this thread. You are being persistently rude as well. You got me. I also typed a one liner answering why Easter European and Baltic states are doing well for now and I also typed another one liner about a sentence that didn't make any sense. I guess I really am the one being "rude". Not the people putting words in my mouth or the people spreading wrong information. My fault, I'm sorry. How about you care about people posting wrong stuff instead of caring about people saying they are wrong? I found clutz posts very offensive to me and my country, but apparently people are spinning the situation in such way that I'm the bad guy? Are we serious right now? People should expect aggressiveness after posting such things. If Italy was, in fact, so developed as you claim, and the EU lets countries flood other people's markets with products to their own gain, why didn't Italy just do that? Because that's not how the EU works. You can't just flood peoples markets by saying so, you sacrifice something for the ability to do that, that's how all international markets work. China has a primary surplus even with different currencies. This is not an attack on Italy, which probably should not be lumped into the "PIIGS" because of some of the things you have talked about, but alas they did fall into some similar missteps that caused them to have interest rate problems following the financial crisis. Most of these discussions are about Greece, and if they spill over its about how its not that good to be more like Greece at the moment (or you think that you are getting screwed slightly less than Greece).
Because Italy's production, much like France in a sense, has never been oriented toward high quality good with high out of price competitivity. It's either high end goods (in design and fashion) that do well in the current economy or middle class goods for the entire population, and the euro does not permit that kind of production (not to mention inequalities).
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On April 22 2015 05:50 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 05:30 Taguchi wrote:On April 22 2015 05:16 Simberto wrote:
On the other hand, it is totally fine to say that the evil Germans building a fourth EU Reich are at fault because they were so mean to lend you money, obviously plotting your downfall with that.
To me the situation is quite obvious. Some countries wanted to take on a lot of debt, people gave them money for cheap because they were part of the EU, and then it turned out that if you take on a lot of debt and don't do anything useful with the money, that is not be a genius plan in the long term and especially not a sustainable system. Now they are looking for someone on the outside to blame for that bad decision, instead of looking at the politicians and other parasites who mismanaged and wasted that money. Explain Ireland, Spain, Finland. Ireland's economy seems to be recovering with 3.5% projected growth this year (and the fasted growth EU wide last year), and what's the deal with Finland?
My post wasn't about recovery, Simberto argued that countries took on a lot of debt and thus got into problems which doesn't explain the issues with these 3 countries at all.
About Finland: http://www.businessinsider.com/finlands-got-a-lot-of-problems-2015-4?IR=T
edit: Also, if you have the time, you need to take a long, hard look on where various EU economies were prior to the 2008 crash and currently. And compare to other parts of the world that also suffered greatly from the crisis but followed vastly different policies to tackle the issues, like the USA.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the official german narrative of events is pretty self serving and this can be seen reflected in some of the posts itt. in the u.s. it's pretty much universally recognized that e.u. institutional design problems caused the crisis and it's no use moralizing on particular bad actors given that 1. you are not going to change those 'cultural' things anyway 2. institutions both domestic and eu level is what's fundamentally decisive
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On April 22 2015 05:51 cLutZ wrote:
Edit: Also. Why are people trying to separate institutions from culture? The are inseparable, at least as much as trying to determine what aspects of something are caused by "institutions" or "culture" is impossible.
Culture is subjective. Institutions are objective. You can change institutions through political reform, you can't change culture through political reform.
Also, current leading academic research on economic development focuses on institutions.
zlefin, when was the last time a nation gathered around to decide if they wanted to change their own culture? That sounds like an awfully awkward proposition.
Look at how Sweden handled its road safety with Vision Zero. They lowered speed limits in cities, installed road bumps, analyzed all problem roads where accidents happened and changed them. Change the institutions/system and you change behaviors.
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On April 22 2015 06:05 Taguchi wrote:
edit: Also, if you have the time, you need to take a long, hard look on where various EU economies were prior to the 2008 crash and currently. And compare to other parts of the world that also suffered greatly from the crisis but followed vastly different policies to tackle the issues, like the USA.
I don't buy the US recovery story. Median household income is on the level of 1985 and way below it's peak in 2000. QEing yourself into the next bubble economy is not economic recovery.
The much hated 'structural reforms' aren't supposed to make your account balance look nice five years in the future, the goal is to restructure economies in a way to make long term competitiveness and growth possible.
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EPT
