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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
and i am aware that colonization is not identical to "neoliberalism." no shit economists are in favor of strong property rights. thats a total non sequitur. the argument here concerns the thesis: "development is always underdevelopment" so far we have tiny city states and south korea as major counterexamples | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
was explained by gains from freer trade. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Angela Merkel dashes Emmanuel Macron's eurozone dreams – POLITICO In the end, Emmanuel Macron may wish he hadn't bothered. After more than eight months of waiting for Angela Merkel to respond to his proposals for reforming the eurozone - a progressive vision aimed at bullet-proofing the single currency against another existential crisis - Macron received the answer in the form of an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the Sunday bulletin of Germany's establishment. The gist: Berlin will put a little more money on the table and accept a bit more risk-sharing, but France and the rest of the eurozone can bury any lingering hope that Germany will pursue a great leap forward in eurozone integration by endorsing anything resembling a full-fledged fiscal union. Macron's only hope to salvage what remains of his eurozone vision is to focus on the few areas where Merkel shows a readiness to move. Given the pressure on Macron to show some success on the euro front, it's easy to see how Merkel's proposals, which aren't far from those the two governments have been discussing, could merge, after a few technical compromises, into what the European Commission also proposed last week. Though her answer came much later than Macron would have liked, Merkel has now said how far she's willing to go. Modest as the proposal is, Macron probably has little choice but to accept it. source | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18219 Posts
On June 05 2018 02:53 RvB wrote: I focused on Europe because we're in the EU thread. ANyway it's true growth in western Europe hasn't been stellar. Then again their are many reasons for that like demographics, politics etc. Growth has been quite strong the last few years though. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Slovenia, Czech, Macau, Ireland. There arent that many honestly but there aren't really many developed countries in general. The IMF lists 39. Anyway what I'm frequently missing from critics of current day capitalism is their lack of an alternative. I'd be interested in what your proposal is to replace and/or improve what we have now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country#cite_note-qq-9 A currency devaluation isn't some magical move. The problem in Greece was that nobody was willing to buy their bonds due to their insane deficit and large debt. So they had two options. Go bankrupt and crash out of the EU or take their emergency loans. Romania will have the same choices if it comes that far. Go belly up or go to the IMF for funding with strings attached. Romania does have another option since they have their own currency which is to fund their deficit by printing money but that (coupled with large deficits) will only cause mass inflation as we're seeing in Venezuela. A currency devaluation can cushion the blow but it doesn't solve the deeper issues. Of course. I'm not saying currency devaluation will solve all of Romania's problems. If they want to keep receiving cash injections from the IMF, I'm sure the IMF will dictate terms. But at least they *can* devalue their currency in a bid to incentivize foreign investment. Whereas Greece was still incredibly expensive for foreign investors despite that high currency not working at all in their favor. And moreover, placing a stranglehold on Greece in terms of debt payments. As you can see, in either case it won't be fun for Romanians, but having the extra tool available in a country where government is overspending can also help to curb that overspending: not much point in borrowing more and more money if that money just becomes more and more worthless on the international market. Also, regarding whether or not Greece would have benefited from devaluing because of their main products, I don't know. Nyxisto mentioned their main export is refined oil products. I don't really see how it matters that you have to import oil for that: the added value to Greece is in the price of local labor and the infrastructure in refineries: these are paid for in Euros now, and alternatively would be paid for in Drachmes, at a fraction of the cost in Euros. Given that the price of gasoline (and other refined products) is, very roughly: cost of crude + cost of refining + profit, that means that if "cost of refining is lower" due to wages being paid in Drachmes, then either "profit" is larger, or the final price is lower, which in a free market should lead to Greece taking a larger slice of the pie than its competitors than before. Furthermore, it should lead to investors looking at Greece and considering building their new refinery in Piraeus instead of I don't know where... Algeciras? Tunis? Because its competitive position has increased. Can you obtain this same effect under the Euro? Possibly. You could obviously drop the minimum wage in Greece, and create other impulses to get this type of benefit... although to what point you can do that without creating a working class of indentured servitude I am not sure. That said, being in the Euro brings other advantages: for starters, investors run less risk of their investment evaporating due to Greece continuing to mismanage their economy and the Drachme hyperinflating: Germany to a certain extent guarantees this will not happen in the Euro, which is in its own right a good reason for foreign investors to build their next refinery in Pyraeus and not Tunis. And clearly the Greek government decided that the political and economic benefits of staying in the Euro outweighed whatever benefits they could get if dropping out of the Euro, and that the economic reforms "imposed" by the EU would just have to be accepted (and I say "imposed", because whichever way you turn, if Greece had chosen to drop the Euro and return to the Drachme, they would still have been forced to reform if they wanted to continue borrowing money: and bankrupcy is never a good option for a country). | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12392 Posts
On June 05 2018 02:53 RvB wrote: Anyway what I'm frequently missing from critics of current day capitalism is their lack of an alternative. I'd be interested in what your proposal is to replace and/or improve what we have now. Mostly go toward the nordic systems for starters, then we can go from there. But I'm mostly here to comment that this mechanism is something that I find quite annoying. I don't pretend that I have everything figured out, and I don't want to tell you what should happen, I'm not a leader. If we can identify that there are problems with the current situation then I'd much rather we work together toward attempting to fix them. If I'm here offering the solution, you can then criticize the solution that I'm offering, and you've managed to switch from defending a situation that is potentially problematic to attacking a vision that is, I have no doubt, criticizable. That is very convenient in terms of argumentative strategy, cause offense is easier than defense, but more importantly it's also something that allows the problems that we may be able to identify to go unchallenged. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:08 SoSexy wrote: Great talk by Conte today at the Senate. Things are going to change hard, boys. 'If being populist means listening to the needs of the people, call me populist' So how mad will you be when the sellout regarding the EU happens? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:08 SoSexy wrote: Great talk by Conte today at the Senate. Things are going to change hard, boys. 'If being populist means listening to the needs of the people, call me populist' My English language sources are coming down pretty hard on the speech. Are there any other English language reporting from your country that give the other side as well? Citizens income, tax cuts, tough immigration policy. Italy has good negotiation power (I’ll believe it when I see it). Hmm. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:24 SoSexy wrote: LOL baited. Don't worry Nyxisto, we are not going to exit EU but we are going to ask for a better treatment. Also, the word 'populist' has become a joke. It is used by the establishment against what they perceive as the enemy. The meter is just off - i.e. when Renzi was in power, one of his actions was to give 500 euros to whoever was becoming adult (18 year old) in 2017. This money is described as 'culture bonus' but you can also buy iPads, metal concert tickets etc. If 5s were to do something like that, you can imagine every newspaper would shout 'populism!!!!!!! they are trying to bribe the young in voting them!! they are buying them!'. It's all fluff. Interesting, Macron had exactly the same proposal lol | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22103 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:08 SoSexy wrote: That's pretty much the definition of populism.Great talk by Conte today at the Senate. Things are going to change hard, boys. 'If being populist means listening to the needs of the people, call me populist' Saying you will listen to the gripes of the people that mainstream parties are not addressing. Only to get into power and discover things are not so simple. | ||
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:25 TheDwf wrote: Interesting, Macron had exactly the same proposal lol Yeah, that was a populist move. But hey, Eugenio Scalfari (very famous left-journalist) said that 'the democratic party (PD) is the only non-populist party', so done by Renzi = good, done by others = fascism is coming back. | ||
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
On June 06 2018 03:28 TheDwf wrote: By the way, is it true that your new Minister of Family said some homophobic stuff? As far as I understood, I think he referred to the fact that in our Constitution there is no distinction between hetero and homosexual people. He precisely said 'gay families don't exist'. Public opinion interpreted in two ways: gays went crazy about this is Germany 1933 again, the others said that he simply stated what is written in the Constituion. You decide. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Edit: LoL gay families don’t exist. If are a fiction created under the constitution and cannot be real, for the constitution defines what can and cannot be a family. | ||
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