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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On July 13 2015 03:43 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 01:30 c0ldfusion wrote:
I don't think I agree. Because if that's truly the play Germany is going for, they're going to overextend their hand and it's going to blow up in their faces.
Syriza would see to a Grexit before stepping down voluntarily and that would set a very dangerous precedence and it would be a very big gamble on Germany's part. The threat in Greece is not limited to default, per se. Germany wants Syriza to resign because that would be a symbolic victory over the grass roots self-organization going on in Greece, and that has been going on in Greece for the last 5 years. We've seen the proliferation of alternative currencies, community-based politics, and general rebellion against the neoliberal European order and that serves as a greater threat to European stability in the troika's eyes than a haggling over some billions here or there. It's the authenticity of Syriza's leaders and the rejection of fear-driven politics that makes them an important symbolic target.
And my point is that their personal feelings is quite some distance away from the political reality if they think they can force a full Sypriza resignation.
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On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p
Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics.
It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread.
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On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread.
I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy."
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On July 13 2015 02:06 Yuljan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 01:13 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 00:20 Nyxisto wrote:On July 12 2015 23:00 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition".
Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency !
No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity. So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact and that was my point since the beginning. And when I said capital in all its form I include institutions (which are also something you accumulate). If it's a matter of having a good bureaucracy instead of a bad one rather than big government vs small, how do you get there though? If the same people are still in charge that couldn't fix it, how do we guarantee that they don't end up with a big, bad government? I don't have the solutions, i was just pointing out that this idea that less is better is idiotic, even regarding democracy. Whatever Greece structural problems are. On July 12 2015 23:18 Yuljan wrote:On July 12 2015 21:47 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity. Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification. Again I would be very grateful for sources. I am always happy to learn something new. For who do you think the sick man of Europe expression has been tailored ? The 1993 recession in France is largely linked to the indirect cost of the reunification that we europeans agreed to paid - altho without any democratic decision - in exchange for an increased implication of Germany in the Europe. Once again, I do not trust your arguments. I dont see how France was paying for the reunification or has higher productivity than other European countries or had to support Europe largely on their own in the last century. I do know however know that French tend to overestimate their own contributions so I would be very grateful for any independent sources on the subject that uses rational rather than emotional arguments.
Let's dig into the reunification a little and do some history.
When the reunification started, it created a boom of activity in Germany, and a huge transfert of ressources from the east to the west. This was somewhat beneficial for the entire Germany, even if it create problem (and debt) especially an increase in inflation (from 1.3 % in 1988 to 5.1 % in 1992).
As we know Germany do not like inflation (or at least the Bundesbank). So it decided to react and pushed their interests rates from 4.3 % in 1988 to an absurd 9.5 % in 1992 - without any concertation with its european partners (because fuck Europe right ?).
At the time, the Maastricht treaty was already in action in order to prepare the euro and one of the condition of that treaty was the stability of exchange rates of the country that would get the euro. The french - and all the other european countries that would get into the euro zone - decided to respect the treaty (stupid idea) and thus increased their interest rates in order to mimic what the german did. The problem was that they all had, at the time, a lower inflation (since they had no reunification and thus no important fiscal transfer / stimuli). In France the interests rates jumped to 10 %, and on average interests rates jumped to 11 % in the european union (with only a 2% inflation rate compared to the 5 % of Germany).
Of course, inflation being lower in France than in Germany with the same nominal interest rates, real interest rates were higher in France than in Germany : the increase in interest rates created a recession (with higher real interests rates, you don't want to endebt yourself and invest so it create a contraction of agregate demand) and virtually gave a competitivity advantage to Germany (because we played for the team euro lolz) and created unemployment in France (I don't remember the estimations, but somewhere 100 000 unemployed). Not to mention that due to this sudden increase in interest rates, french debt increased from 30 % of GDP in 1991 to 60 % in 2000.
And of course, next to that, the european union helped the reunification, with french (and others) tax. So yeah, we paid a price for the reunification.
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On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy."
He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable.
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On July 13 2015 04:51 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 02:06 Yuljan wrote:On July 13 2015 01:13 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 00:20 Nyxisto wrote:On July 12 2015 23:00 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:
[quote]
I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity. So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact and that was my point since the beginning. And when I said capital in all its form I include institutions (which are also something you accumulate). If it's a matter of having a good bureaucracy instead of a bad one rather than big government vs small, how do you get there though? If the same people are still in charge that couldn't fix it, how do we guarantee that they don't end up with a big, bad government? I don't have the solutions, i was just pointing out that this idea that less is better is idiotic, even regarding democracy. Whatever Greece structural problems are. On July 12 2015 23:18 Yuljan wrote:On July 12 2015 21:47 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity. Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification. Again I would be very grateful for sources. I am always happy to learn something new. For who do you think the sick man of Europe expression has been tailored ? The 1993 recession in France is largely linked to the indirect cost of the reunification that we europeans agreed to paid - altho without any democratic decision - in exchange for an increased implication of Germany in the Europe. Once again, I do not trust your arguments. I dont see how France was paying for the reunification or has higher productivity than other European countries or had to support Europe largely on their own in the last century. I do know however know that French tend to overestimate their own contributions so I would be very grateful for any independent sources on the subject that uses rational rather than emotional arguments. Let's dig into the reunification a little and do some history. When the reunification started, it created a boom of activity in Germany, and a huge transfert of ressources from the east to the west. This was somewhat beneficial for the entire Germany, even if it create problem (and debt) especially an increase in inflation (from 1.3 % in 1988 to 5.1 % in 1992). As we know Germany do not like inflation (or at least the Bundesbank). So it decided to react and pushed their interests rates from 4.3 % in 1988 to an absurd 9.5 % in 1992 - without any concertation with its european partners (because fuck Europe right ?). At the time, the Maastricht treaty was already in action in order to prepare the euro and one of the condition of that treaty was the stability of exchange rates of the country that would get the euro. The french - and all the other european countries that would get into the euro zone - decided to respect the treaty (stupid idea) and thus increased their interest rates in order to mimic what the german did. The problem was that they all had, at the time, a lower inflation (since they had no reunification and thus no important fiscal transfer / stimuli). In France the interests rates jumped to 10 %, and on average interests rates jumped to 11 % in the european union (with only a 2% inflation rate compared to the 5 % of Germany). Of course, inflation being lower in France than in Germany with the same nominal interest rates, real interest rates were higher in France than in Germany : the increase in interest rates created a recession (with higher real interests rates, you don't want to endebt yourself and invest so it create a contraction of agregate demand) and virtually gave a competitivity advantage to Germany (because we played for the team euro lolz) and created unemployment in France (I don't remember the estimations, but somewhere 100 000 unemployed). Not to mention that due to this sudden increase in interest rates, french debt increased from 30 % of GDP in 1991 to 60 % in 2000. And of course, next to that, the european union helped the reunification, with french (and others) tax. So yeah, we paid a price for the reunification.
Those mean Germans with their common currency! ... but wait? Isnt it an open secret that this was France's condition for the reunification of Germany? Seems strange that france of all people would complain about the costs associated with moving towards something they always wanted.
""European monetary union may not have come about had it not been for Germany's reunification," says former Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pöhl. "Kohl knew that he had to promote European interests in order to make reunification acceptable," says former Mitterand advisor Hubert Védrine. Bernd Pfaffenbach, then a high-ranking Chancellery official under Kohl, adds, "The German position had previously been that European political union must precede monetary union. But the German government sacrificed that position in the course of the negotiations.""
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-unity-was-the-deutsche-mark-sacrificed-for-reunification-a-719940-4.html
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On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable.
Um... we agree?
I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something
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On July 13 2015 05:54 Yuljan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 04:51 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 02:06 Yuljan wrote:On July 13 2015 01:13 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 00:20 Nyxisto wrote:On July 12 2015 23:00 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity. So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact and that was my point since the beginning. And when I said capital in all its form I include institutions (which are also something you accumulate). If it's a matter of having a good bureaucracy instead of a bad one rather than big government vs small, how do you get there though? If the same people are still in charge that couldn't fix it, how do we guarantee that they don't end up with a big, bad government? I don't have the solutions, i was just pointing out that this idea that less is better is idiotic, even regarding democracy. Whatever Greece structural problems are. On July 12 2015 23:18 Yuljan wrote:On July 12 2015 21:47 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity. Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification. Again I would be very grateful for sources. I am always happy to learn something new. For who do you think the sick man of Europe expression has been tailored ? The 1993 recession in France is largely linked to the indirect cost of the reunification that we europeans agreed to paid - altho without any democratic decision - in exchange for an increased implication of Germany in the Europe. Once again, I do not trust your arguments. I dont see how France was paying for the reunification or has higher productivity than other European countries or had to support Europe largely on their own in the last century. I do know however know that French tend to overestimate their own contributions so I would be very grateful for any independent sources on the subject that uses rational rather than emotional arguments. Let's dig into the reunification a little and do some history. When the reunification started, it created a boom of activity in Germany, and a huge transfert of ressources from the east to the west. This was somewhat beneficial for the entire Germany, even if it create problem (and debt) especially an increase in inflation (from 1.3 % in 1988 to 5.1 % in 1992). As we know Germany do not like inflation (or at least the Bundesbank). So it decided to react and pushed their interests rates from 4.3 % in 1988 to an absurd 9.5 % in 1992 - without any concertation with its european partners (because fuck Europe right ?). At the time, the Maastricht treaty was already in action in order to prepare the euro and one of the condition of that treaty was the stability of exchange rates of the country that would get the euro. The french - and all the other european countries that would get into the euro zone - decided to respect the treaty (stupid idea) and thus increased their interest rates in order to mimic what the german did. The problem was that they all had, at the time, a lower inflation (since they had no reunification and thus no important fiscal transfer / stimuli). In France the interests rates jumped to 10 %, and on average interests rates jumped to 11 % in the european union (with only a 2% inflation rate compared to the 5 % of Germany). Of course, inflation being lower in France than in Germany with the same nominal interest rates, real interest rates were higher in France than in Germany : the increase in interest rates created a recession (with higher real interests rates, you don't want to endebt yourself and invest so it create a contraction of agregate demand) and virtually gave a competitivity advantage to Germany (because we played for the team euro lolz) and created unemployment in France (I don't remember the estimations, but somewhere 100 000 unemployed). Not to mention that due to this sudden increase in interest rates, french debt increased from 30 % of GDP in 1991 to 60 % in 2000. And of course, next to that, the european union helped the reunification, with french (and others) tax. So yeah, we paid a price for the reunification. Those mean Germans with their common currency! ... but wait? Isnt it an open secret that this was France's condition for the reunification of Germany? Seems strange that france of all people would complain about the costs associated with moving towards something they always wanted. ""European monetary union may not have come about had it not been for Germany's reunification," says former Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pöhl. "Kohl knew that he had to promote European interests in order to make reunification acceptable," says former Mitterand advisor Hubert Védrine. Bernd Pfaffenbach, then a high-ranking Chancellery official under Kohl, adds, "The German position had previously been that European political union must precede monetary union. But the German government sacrificed that position in the course of the negotiations."" http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-unity-was-the-deutsche-mark-sacrificed-for-reunification-a-719940-4.html
Yes, Mitterand thought the european union would bind the Germans, who pushed europe to suicide two times in the XXth century. To makes them accept the euro, the central bank was put in Franfurt.
Still Mitterand was a dick and an idiot who misunderstood the role of a currency in an economy. This is irrelevant to my point : the reunification was costly to the entirety of europe, Germany was indeed on europe back for a decade.
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On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something
So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets?
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On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets?
systemic crisis? np, just cut govt spending.
gravity? np, just eat less pie (more for me hehe).
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On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets?
I think he's going to give you an F for that answer.
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On July 13 2015 06:34 nunez wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets? systemic crisis, np just cut gubimint spenidng.
Were not talking about Greece anymore. We are talking about how long term government debt its reducing long term growth in favor of short term QOL improvements. And about how a large percentage of sovereign nations are pursuing that strategy at once, which means there is likely to be more defaults, or stagflation in the future for much of the developed world. So, perhaps you have a different solution for that?
On July 13 2015 06:37 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 01:3 c0ldfusion wrote:
I have no idea what you mean by that Bernanke and Yellen comment. I don't see any situation in the US parallel to the Greece crisis. They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe) Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets? I think he's going to give you an F for that answer.
Probably, because I'm pretty sure he thinks the global socialist revolution is the solution, based on his posts in other threads.
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Debt is not reducing long term growth, but it's financing short term growth and creating long term economic unstability.
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On July 13 2015 06:42 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:34 nunez wrote:On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:29 bookwyrm wrote:
[quote]
They are completely parallel. Bad private sector debt gets bailed out by governments turning them into big vulture funds and triggering sovereign debt crises. In fact theyre not even different they are part of the same global economic crisis of the US and its vassals (ie europe)
Read mark blythe on austerity if you think I dont know what I am saying So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait. 2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread. Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands. Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets? systemic crisis, np just cut gubimint spenidng. Were not talking about Greece anymore. We are talking about how long term government debt its reducing long term growth in favor of short term QOL improvements. And about how a large percentage of sovereign nations are pursuing that strategy at once, which means there is likely to be more defaults, or stagflation in the future for much of the developed world. So, perhaps you have a different solution for that?
make ursury illegal.
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As i said before on another forum.
No those demands are not madness.
The single most important thing in international agreements is trust, because there are very few ways of forcing a foreign nation to follow through with an agreement.
Greece has pissed all over international trust by repeatedly breaking previous agreements and reverting reforms that were made.
The Eurogroup wants to keep Greece in the Eurozone but for that Greece needs money (again). How can the Eurogroup be assured that Greece will not again break agreements?
You demand hard reforms and assurances (the 50 billion of assets for example should already have been privatized by Greece in the 2012 accord, now they want them to be handed to a 3e party who will ensure that actually happens).
This 'humiliating' agreement is one of the few ways the Eurogroup can assure that Greece keeps up their end of the bargain this time.
Greece is reaping what it sowed when it pissed over international trust.
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On July 13 2015 06:15 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 05:54 Yuljan wrote:On July 13 2015 04:51 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 02:06 Yuljan wrote:On July 13 2015 01:13 WhiteDog wrote:On July 13 2015 00:20 Nyxisto wrote:On July 12 2015 23:00 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:
[quote]
How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on.
It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity. So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact and that was my point since the beginning. And when I said capital in all its form I include institutions (which are also something you accumulate). If it's a matter of having a good bureaucracy instead of a bad one rather than big government vs small, how do you get there though? If the same people are still in charge that couldn't fix it, how do we guarantee that they don't end up with a big, bad government? I don't have the solutions, i was just pointing out that this idea that less is better is idiotic, even regarding democracy. Whatever Greece structural problems are. On July 12 2015 23:18 Yuljan wrote:On July 12 2015 21:47 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity. Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification. Again I would be very grateful for sources. I am always happy to learn something new. For who do you think the sick man of Europe expression has been tailored ? The 1993 recession in France is largely linked to the indirect cost of the reunification that we europeans agreed to paid - altho without any democratic decision - in exchange for an increased implication of Germany in the Europe. Once again, I do not trust your arguments. I dont see how France was paying for the reunification or has higher productivity than other European countries or had to support Europe largely on their own in the last century. I do know however know that French tend to overestimate their own contributions so I would be very grateful for any independent sources on the subject that uses rational rather than emotional arguments. Let's dig into the reunification a little and do some history. When the reunification started, it created a boom of activity in Germany, and a huge transfert of ressources from the east to the west. This was somewhat beneficial for the entire Germany, even if it create problem (and debt) especially an increase in inflation (from 1.3 % in 1988 to 5.1 % in 1992). As we know Germany do not like inflation (or at least the Bundesbank). So it decided to react and pushed their interests rates from 4.3 % in 1988 to an absurd 9.5 % in 1992 - without any concertation with its european partners (because fuck Europe right ?). At the time, the Maastricht treaty was already in action in order to prepare the euro and one of the condition of that treaty was the stability of exchange rates of the country that would get the euro. The french - and all the other european countries that would get into the euro zone - decided to respect the treaty (stupid idea) and thus increased their interest rates in order to mimic what the german did. The problem was that they all had, at the time, a lower inflation (since they had no reunification and thus no important fiscal transfer / stimuli). In France the interests rates jumped to 10 %, and on average interests rates jumped to 11 % in the european union (with only a 2% inflation rate compared to the 5 % of Germany). Of course, inflation being lower in France than in Germany with the same nominal interest rates, real interest rates were higher in France than in Germany : the increase in interest rates created a recession (with higher real interests rates, you don't want to endebt yourself and invest so it create a contraction of agregate demand) and virtually gave a competitivity advantage to Germany (because we played for the team euro lolz) and created unemployment in France (I don't remember the estimations, but somewhere 100 000 unemployed). Not to mention that due to this sudden increase in interest rates, french debt increased from 30 % of GDP in 1991 to 60 % in 2000. And of course, next to that, the european union helped the reunification, with french (and others) tax. So yeah, we paid a price for the reunification. Those mean Germans with their common currency! ... but wait? Isnt it an open secret that this was France's condition for the reunification of Germany? Seems strange that france of all people would complain about the costs associated with moving towards something they always wanted. ""European monetary union may not have come about had it not been for Germany's reunification," says former Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pöhl. "Kohl knew that he had to promote European interests in order to make reunification acceptable," says former Mitterand advisor Hubert Védrine. Bernd Pfaffenbach, then a high-ranking Chancellery official under Kohl, adds, "The German position had previously been that European political union must precede monetary union. But the German government sacrificed that position in the course of the negotiations."" http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-unity-was-the-deutsche-mark-sacrificed-for-reunification-a-719940-4.html Yes, Mitterand thought the european union would bind the Germans, who pushed europe to suicide two times in the XXth century. To makes them accept the euro, the central bank was put in Franfurt. Still Mitterand was a dick and an idiot who misunderstood the role of a currency in an economy. This is irrelevant to my point : the reunification was costly to the entirety of europe, Germany was indeed on europe back for a decade.
World war I was caused by no single nation and world war 2 by the sanctions imposed on Germany which where almost mostly French demands since they will never forgive Germany for the insult given at its birth. But getting back on topic:
100,000 people who lost there jobs are an increase of 0.35% if we assume that the active French workforce is c. 28,000,000. Which isnt to much but given that these are probably all private sectors jobs and half of the active workforce in France is paid by the government and has to be subsidized by the actual value creating french, I acknowledge that this might have a small impact but would not cause a recession. Also, its not like the reunification or the Maastricht treaty created the need of France to follow suit to any movement by the Bundesbank.
"By contrast, Germany's export-based industry thrived under this system because European exchange rates could fluctuate only within preset limits. That same European stricture was a disadvantage for Parisian financial and monetary policymakers, who found themselves helplessly at the mercy of the humiliating dictates of Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. Every time the Bundesbank raised its interest rates, the French were obliged to follow suit. And every time prices in Germany rose a little faster than those of its neighbor west of the Rhine River, Paris had no choice but to devalue the franc. The system was thus a globally recognized symbol of economic inferiority. "We may have the nuclear bomb, but the Germans have the deutsche mark," officials at Elysée Palace, the office of the French president, apparently said.
In an attempt to defuse the conflict, the European Council -- the combined EEC heads of state and government -- assigned European Commission President Jacques Delors in the summer of 1988 to draw up a plan for European economic and monetary union. Just under a year later, Delors presented his plan for the phased introduction of a common currency"
Taken from the previous article since I am lazy.
France also had the option to drop-out of the Maastricht principles like the UK did. Also its is quite naturally that two countries as interlinked as France and Germany will suffer if one of them is doing badly. Costs for reunification for Germany was 1.9 trillion dollar so the competitive advantage from increasing the interest rate must have been enourmous to offset that. Given the 100,000 jobs lost figure you mentioned I doubt the advantage was that big.
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Yes it's our sanctions that Germany didn't pay that forced hitler to invade half the world and kill jews en masse. Logic.
Boring discussion, you always answer off. It's well known than both Tatcher and Mitterand feared the reunification and that Europe was also tailored as a way to bind a reunified Germany to its neighbors.
But how is that relevant to what I said about the cost of German reunification for Europe ?
I gave you facts to support my point and you respond to me that you "doubt", why even trying to discus ? You are basically arguing that going from 4 to 10% interest rates only had a small impact on France in 1993 ...
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On July 13 2015 06:56 nunez wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 06:42 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 06:34 nunez wrote:On July 13 2015 06:29 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 06:14 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 2015 05:20 cLutZ wrote:On July 13 2015 04:14 IgnE wrote:On July 13 2015 04:00 c0ldfusion wrote:On July 13 2015 03:54 bookwyrm wrote:On July 13 20immediate crisis on our hands. And its the same crisis.5 03:48 c0ldfusion wrote:
[quote]
So 1, your comment is extremely superficial. I don't know who or what you're trying to bait.
2, let's say you're not trolling, even if you struggle to find some kind of analogy you're going completely off-topic and you're trying to derail the thread.
Frankly, it's embarrassing to me as an American that you're trying to promote your personal view about US policy in a European thread when we have a very real and very immediate crisis on our hands.
Im not baiting anything im just trying to help you understand the current global conjuncture. We ALL have a real and Immediate crisis. Its the same crisis. Its what you might call a crisis of the world-system. Trying to analyze these things according to naive conception of geographical political boundaries is a bad epistemic framework. If you want to understand the crisis you have to understand it in its global dimensions because it is a crisis of globalizing capital. Duh! :p Every post you have made has been derived from some sort of political fantasy of yours and lacks basis on the reality of European politics and economics. It's now pretty obvious that you're either a troll or extremely misguided. In either case you should probably limit your participation from this thread. I think you should elaborate on what you mean by "political fantasy." He thinks there is going to be a true, Marx-style socialist remaking of our society. Whereas the political reality is the potential systemic crisis is many governments taking on unsustainable debt simultaneously which appears to be impeding the very growth needed to make the debt sustainable. Um... we agree? I know it's a crazy idea but if y'all would stop assuming you already know what I think and read the things I'm saying, you might learn something So...you agree that governments need to cut to achieve balanced budgets? systemic crisis, np just cut gubimint spenidng. Were not talking about Greece anymore. We are talking about how long term government debt its reducing long term growth in favor of short term QOL improvements. And about how a large percentage of sovereign nations are pursuing that strategy at once, which means there is likely to be more defaults, or stagflation in the future for much of the developed world. So, perhaps you have a different solution for that? make ursury illegal.
Non sequitur. Not only does no government face rates traditionally thought of as usurious, they also are sophisticated bodies (unsophistication of the debtor is generally the primary justification for usury laws), and people no longer extending loans at X% interest rate does not solve the long term problem that the countries may face of being unable to service debts without taking out more debt, thus generating more debt, which later on cannot be serviced at all. Your solution is the equivalent of modern day Greece, without any bailout provisions.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJvEHIvUkAAi1n-.jpg)
