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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 February 17 2015 23:28 Sent. wrote:
Do we know why the situation is that bad only in Southern European countries?
I've never really understood that either, and I'll ask why equatorial countries are historically poorer than northern countries. It seems like warmer climates would have a competitive advantage with tourist dollars, longer days, and not having to burden yourself with heating your population in the winter.
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On February 17 2015 22:58 Taguchi wrote:
So how else could one restore competitiveness and growth? Same way you do it inside your country's borders, fiscal transfers! Have an industry that can be located in a relatively remote region without major trouble? Provide employment for that region by striking a deal about factory getting located there! Does infrastructure really suck out there, even though everything's functional and pretty in the capital? Pay for that infrastructure with money generated in your wealthy regions!
That would require an amount of sovereignty loss that would create a giant shitstorm. Creditor nations would never accept that amount of fiscal cooperation without any kind of political cooperation. It only works in the US because the US are already a single nation.
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On February 18 2015 01:19 Wolfstan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 23:28 Sent. wrote:
Do we know why the situation is that bad only in Southern European countries? I've never really understood that either, and I'll ask why equatorial countries are historically poorer than northern countries. It seems like warmer climates would have a competitive advantage with tourist dollars, longer days, and not having to burden yourself with heating your population in the winter.
It's not simply a north-south divide. Catalunya in Spain and Northern Italy are as strong economically as northern Europe while parts of Northern Europe like Northern Netherlands aren't very wealthy at all.
I think a lot of it is down to the political situation, IE Spain which was in a dictatorship under Franco.
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On February 18 2015 01:22 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 22:58 Taguchi wrote:
So how else could one restore competitiveness and growth? Same way you do it inside your country's borders, fiscal transfers! Have an industry that can be located in a relatively remote region without major trouble? Provide employment for that region by striking a deal about factory getting located there! Does infrastructure really suck out there, even though everything's functional and pretty in the capital? Pay for that infrastructure with money generated in your wealthy regions!
That would require an amount of sovereignty loss that would create a giant shitstorm. Creditor nations would never accept that amount of fiscal cooperation without any kind of political cooperation. It only works in the US because the US are already a single nation.
Correct, which is why this would be the longterm solution (federalization, which is Juncker's dream).
Something far more palatable and implementable would be this. This proposal would have definitely been floated in EU, and subsequently dismissed, not aware of the dismissal reasoning though. Read it if you have time, it's quite interesting if only to get a better perspective of who it is your government is dealing with (and a possible hint at discrediting attempts that have already been made, see Spiegel's 'is Varoufakis anti-semitic', Schaeuble's very recent 'I feel sorry for the Greek people', demands that the Greek government replaces Varoufakis and so on).
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Greece's government has called for a vote to scrap its austerity programme on Friday, the same day that the eurozone has declared a deadline for it to seek an extension to its bailout.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called for parliament to vote on social reform bills that go against the terms of the austerity programme.
"We will not succumb to psychological blackmail," said Mr Tsipras.
On Monday night, Greece rejected a plan to extend its €240bn (£178bn) bailout.
The Greek government called the proposal by the Eurogroup "absurd" and "unacceptable".
Greece wants to replace the bailout with a new loan that it says would give it time to find a permanent solution to the debt crisis. But eurozone countries have rejected this and have given Greece until Friday to decide if it wants continue with the bailout programme.
"We are not in a hurry and we will not compromise," Mr Tsipras told parliament.
[...]
Earlier, Germany's Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said that Greece needed to make up its mind whether it wanted to extend the bailout programme.
"None of my colleagues so far understands what Greece wants... whether Greece itself knows is not clear either," he said.
[...]
The apparent deadlock in Brussels is hardly surprising, because the two sides have very different goals.
The Greek government wants to scrap the current bailout deal, because of the very painful programme of spending cuts and other austerity measures that come with it. Instead, it wants a bridging loan to help it meet its short term needs, while a new deal is hammered out. Having been elected on an anti-austerity ticket, it can't afford to back down, or it will be accused of betraying Greek voters.
But other members of the eurozone, and Germany in particular, have a very different agenda. They want Greece to accept an extension to the current deal - with the rather uncertain promise of "flexibility" if it plays ball.
They don't want to show any signs of weakness, because of the signal that could send to anti-austerity movements in countries such as Spain, Portugal or Cyprus.
It would also be politically toxic in Germany, where many voters dislike the idea that they are paying for Greece's mistakes.
That doesn't mean a compromise is impossible. It simply means any deal would have to be presented as both an end to the current austerity programme and a continuation of it. A political fudge, in other words - and Brussels has plenty of experience in putting those together. So a short-term solution is possible, but far from certain.
source, BBC
German reuters thinks the chance of Grexit actually happening is around 50% by now. In contrast:
(Reuters) - Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling told the Kurier newspaper that chances of keeping Greece in the euro zone had improved and negotiations were going on.
"The signals are more positive than on Monday, there are constant negotiations," he was quoted as saying in an interview published on the paper's website on Tuesday.
Asked if he would be back in Brussels on Friday for more talks, he said: "That depends on what Greece offers and whether the Greeks' ideas are acceptable for the other 18 countries."
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On February 17 2015 23:28 Sent. wrote:
Do we know why the situation is that bad only in Southern European countries?
here, it was, it is, the thieving politicians.
communism in its later stages, bred about 2 generations of pure thieves. the motto back then was: how can we (we = everyone from the average joe to the higher ups) steal from the state. that ideology perpetuated itself well after (decades after) Ceausescu was deposed.
ex-informers for the communist security agencies and ex-communist party members became politicians, judges, members/functionaries/in charge of our current intelligence and counter intelligence agencies, mayors, prefects ...etcetcetc... so the stage was set from the beginning.
the current administration is trying to clean some stuff up but:
-nationally, it's very hard because corruption is everywhere and bribing still rules
and
-internationally, our anti-corruption agencies hit a brick wall when they tried to follow the millions and millions of dirty money stashed in Swiss banks; 'cause you know, they're all neutral and shit.
Klaus Iohannis is trying is all i can say for now.
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Southern european country and communism ? Like really ?
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He's hinting at the strong tradition of clientelism I assume, which existed in Eastern European communist countries and which also exists in Greece, and for example, Italy. It's not such an absurd comparison.
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On February 18 2015 03:57 Sent. wrote:
He means Romania
Ho, okay. But Romania is not part of the euro zone....
On February 18 2015 04:00 Nyxisto wrote:
He's hinting at the strong tradition of clientelism I assume, which existed in Eastern European communist countries and which also exists in Greece, and for example, Italy. It's not such an absurd comparison.
Yeah if you're short sighted I guess it's a perfectly fine comparison.
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What's short sighted about it? Sure clientelism in the Ussr was largely political while in Southern Europe it's a mix between politics, large wealthy families and shady business, but the symptoms are the same. Legislation tailored to keep these people in power, inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, problems for foreign or non corrupted business to compete etc. Talk to people in Italy, especially people coming from the South, no one's denying it.
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WhiteDog doesnt want you to slur Communism with the Communist experiment of USSR and its puppet regimes because WhiteDog is also a communist and the pure communism in France or Germany would have worked. Duh.
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i started with "here" so i meant here in Romania but i read Southern European as SouthEastern European for some reason, my bad.
everything else is valid.
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On February 17 2015 23:28 Sent. wrote:
Do we know why the situation is that bad only in Southern European countries?
Its not look at WhiteDog's graph. The problems are just most pronounced in those economies because they were weaker going into the Eurozone.
On February 17 2015 21:25 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +However, that is not the path, and no it is not about Greeks needing to buy from Greeks, because even in your example the currency exchange rate means that they could have (probably) produced goods at a cost that Germans wanted. I don't understand this sentence. I'm not putting aside america's exemple EXACTLY because america fit my description perfectly. "More friendly to business" my ass, what makes poorest american state okayish is that they receive fiscal transfert through the federal state... something that does not exist in europe. In fact, Krugman used to make a comparaison between Greece and some american state (kansas I believe ?) just to enlight this fact (that the core of the problem is the inexistance of fiscal transfert in a monetary union). Greece "enjoyed a higher standard of living" : this is irrelevant to the point at hand. I'll stop respond until I take the time to actually write a full explanation. You're purposely focussing on Greece and putting aside the fact that it is entirely a result of the euro area, that what happened in Spain, Portugal or Italy is exactly the same thing (even if the desequilibrium is less and thus the adjustment is easier). Greece is not the problem of the euro zone, the euro zone is overall in a difficult position (the eurozone is doing worst than Japan since the crisis...). + Show Spoiler +"Common currency is not flawed" => read optimum currency area on wiki. It's not inherently flawed, it needs specific things to work out.
Those factors on the wiki seem fairly unsupported, particularly the Chicago Fed and AER sources do not support the fiscal transfer system being necessary. The other factors that I would focus on, which IMO are part of Greece's downfall is the lack of financial and human labor mobility in and out of the country (when compared to an American state). That is because those factors are strong, implicit, controls on reckless government spending/borrowing, because in a bad environment people and businesses will just leave your state. This is why, in the United States, its California and Illinois and New York with high spending levels: they are already rich and attractive areas.
Now, I couldn't easily find a chart that is similar to this for Greece, but here is a breakdown of UK spending.
+ Show Spoiler +
Normally, at 1% interest rates you have to be an idiot to not be able to make a return on your investment (Greece during the boom was ~3%, but its still a great rate). But when you look at the chart (assuming Greece's spending is similar) you aren't investing 100% of the principal, so you actually need to get a higher % return to pay off the interest and simply break even. Social protection is 30% off the top now you need 1.4% (4.2% in Greece) to break even, still not bad. But personal services are 4%, healthcare 19% (some might be R&D, infrastructure, etc), military 5% etc etc. If we assume they are actually making investments in the categories that are ostensibly investments (27%) and somewhere between 10 and 50% of the ambiguous categories are investments you are actually investing between 31% and 49% of the principle (generous). At those rates you only need a rate of return of 2-3% if you have a 1% interest rate, but at Greece's old interest rates you need a 6-10% rate of return (find me that investment manager!). Now at 8+% interest rates they need absurd 16-25%+ rates of return.
The reasons that countries often in the past escaped these problems was by inflating away the costs (which is why debt rates used to be much higher pre-Euro in a lot of these countries) and/or because the private economy, where government derives revenues, was larger than the public economy such that a small % of GDP growth would dwarf the size of interest payments. When Government spending is nearly 50% of GDP the second way to escape debt is no longer viable so when you hit a debt crises you look to inflation. But once again, that is forward looking, when the real issue was malinvestment (and nearly impossibly high needed rates of return) with the previously taken out debts.
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On February 18 2015 04:13 Sub40APM wrote:
WhiteDog doesnt want you to slur Communism with the Communist experiment of USSR and its puppet regimes because WhiteDog is also a communist and the pure communism in France or Germany would have worked. Duh.
No I believe "communism" to be a failed experiment, altho what happened has nothing to do with marxism since marx barely write anything about what would be, to him, a "communist society". This doesn't change the fact that what happen in europe has nothing to do with communism - Romania is different tho.
Those factors on the wiki seem fairly unsupported, particularly the Chicago Fed and AER sources do not support the fiscal transfer system being necessary. The other factors that I would focus on, which IMO are part of Greece's downfall is the lack of financial and human labor mobility in and out of the country (when compared to an American state). That is because those factors are strong, implicit, controls on reckless government spending/borrowing, because in a bad environment people and businesses will just leave your state. This is why, in the United States, its California and Illinois and New York with high spending levels: they are already rich and attractive areas.
That they don't think it is necessary doesn't make it wrong. Everybody know that the fiscal transfer system is a necessity, it's really basic economy, but the only question that remained was wheither the fiscal transfer was needed at first or could be created afterwards (which is the idea of the euro : the existence of a common currency would have, in the decision makers mind, forced the creation of a fiscal transfert system ex post).
The financial and human labor mobility is the idea of the schenghen treaty... I'm sorry but the last sentence is your own interpretation, nothing is said about public spending in the model, since any problem that would occur because of that are completly risk free in a system of fiscal transfer. Not to mention that you still continue to make the comparaison with the US, and still putting aside the fact that the federal state and the federal reserve are a huge part of america's economic situation...
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On February 18 2015 04:25 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 04:13 Sub40APM wrote:
WhiteDog doesnt want you to slur Communism with the Communist experiment of USSR and its puppet regimes because WhiteDog is also a communist and the pure communism in France or Germany would have worked. Duh. No I believe "communism" to be a failed experiment, altho what happened has nothing to do with marxism since marx barely write anything about what would be, to him, a "communist society". This doesn't change the fact that what happen in europe has nothing to do with communism - Romania is different tho. [...]
He wasn't really saying that it comes down to communism or anything happened because of communism. He merely said that communism and the higher corruption in southern countries in Europe tend to bring the same results.
Was more of a rant than anything else imo
related:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YXv2imm.jpg)
https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/infographic/regional/european-union-and-western-europe
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On February 17 2015 17:22 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2015 05:01 Nyxisto wrote:On February 14 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:On February 14 2015 04:19 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't understand the point about cash flow out of Greece, if anything the creation of a common currency has lead to "excess money" going into Greece, creating the imbalance that has now lead to Greece's indebtedness? Compare to a closed circuit : if greece was closed, the excess money in greece would have created inflation right ? That was not the case, so it was not excess money : it didn't lead to a decrease in the value of money, so it mean that the money was actually used to increase production somewhere (it responded to a demand of money), just not in greece, or not at a rate high enough to pay back the interest and the debt (or both). But isn't that just another way of saying that the money borrowed by the Greek government and private actors just simply was wrongly invested or spent, because else it would have created productivity that would have enabled Greece to pay back debt and interest now? So it's at least partially a structural problem within the Greek economy and not only a problem of the Eurozone? Yes. Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 07:52 WhiteDog wrote:
Huh not really. Money does not come from work at all, I'm not sure where you learned that but it's not economic theory at all. Money is an intermediary for trade in economic theory - the idea of the veil or the dichotomy stress that enough. Money has no value in itself, and it's the quantity of money that create its value : by rarity. Thus, by choosing to extend or compress the monetary mass, it's the central bank that define the value of money in an economy (the inflation rate).
It's true that bank move the money, but adding the financial system to the little model I was discussing does not make it false : it just create the possibility of a debt crisis, because in the existance of a stable desequilibrium, the debtor and the creditor are always the same.
That germany does not spend money is not the problem in itself, the problem is that they are in the same common currency as Greece, and that without a floating exchange rate, their exchange rate in relation to Greece's exchange rate does not change even if they don't spend.
I was away on a week end, I'll try to post a clear explanation in a few days of the european monetary system and how it is entirely responsible for situation at hand, and how reforming the public sector in favor of the private sector is not a solution - like suggested in previous posts. This is basically the retroactive way of explaining away what I quoted from Nyx above. You say, "If Greece was on its own currency, they could inflate their debts away." This is, of course, true but they only were allowed to take out that debt because the creditors assumed that they could not do this (see the Argentinian bond market for an example of a country that doesn't have this kind of guarantee/isn't a well respected debtor). Now, because, in the past, Greece didn't have a floating currency there was an influx of money out of the economy because Euro-denominated goods/services were cheap for greeks and the debt taken out to purchase those goods was financed at a low rate. Now, the Greeks could have bought a bunch of things with that debt, and it is likely that none of those things would have totally prevented the current crisis they have (because the capital stocks are built over longer periods of time than the Eurozone has existed), however they spent it on some of the worst things imaginable, which is why the situation is now so dire: because there has been no real improvement in the underlying capital stocks which would have allowed it to generate the needed growth to pay off the debts incurred. Edit: Now you can say the Germans are "cheap" and need to spend, but what do the Greeks produce that Germans would want? We have the same situation in America, New York and California are very expensive places with high standards of living that produce luxury goods, and much of the South like Louisiana or Alabama has a lower SOL but they produce goods there more cheaply, or produce different kinds of goods (Cotton, Tobacco, Oil), and they aren't nearly as leveraged.
Vacations, clutZ. Greece is one of the most scenic countries in the world - they should sell vacation packages there to other Europeans who CAN afford to make big trips. This is a simple solution to a complex problem. Now, the Greeks tend to be lackadaisical & lazy but that's another problem...
User was temp banned for this post.
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On February 18 2015 05:47 A3th3r wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2015 17:22 cLutZ wrote:On February 14 2015 05:01 Nyxisto wrote:On February 14 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:On February 14 2015 04:19 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't understand the point about cash flow out of Greece, if anything the creation of a common currency has lead to "excess money" going into Greece, creating the imbalance that has now lead to Greece's indebtedness? Compare to a closed circuit : if greece was closed, the excess money in greece would have created inflation right ? That was not the case, so it was not excess money : it didn't lead to a decrease in the value of money, so it mean that the money was actually used to increase production somewhere (it responded to a demand of money), just not in greece, or not at a rate high enough to pay back the interest and the debt (or both). But isn't that just another way of saying that the money borrowed by the Greek government and private actors just simply was wrongly invested or spent, because else it would have created productivity that would have enabled Greece to pay back debt and interest now? So it's at least partially a structural problem within the Greek economy and not only a problem of the Eurozone? Yes. On February 17 2015 07:52 WhiteDog wrote:
Huh not really. Money does not come from work at all, I'm not sure where you learned that but it's not economic theory at all. Money is an intermediary for trade in economic theory - the idea of the veil or the dichotomy stress that enough. Money has no value in itself, and it's the quantity of money that create its value : by rarity. Thus, by choosing to extend or compress the monetary mass, it's the central bank that define the value of money in an economy (the inflation rate).
It's true that bank move the money, but adding the financial system to the little model I was discussing does not make it false : it just create the possibility of a debt crisis, because in the existance of a stable desequilibrium, the debtor and the creditor are always the same.
That germany does not spend money is not the problem in itself, the problem is that they are in the same common currency as Greece, and that without a floating exchange rate, their exchange rate in relation to Greece's exchange rate does not change even if they don't spend.
I was away on a week end, I'll try to post a clear explanation in a few days of the european monetary system and how it is entirely responsible for situation at hand, and how reforming the public sector in favor of the private sector is not a solution - like suggested in previous posts. This is basically the retroactive way of explaining away what I quoted from Nyx above. You say, "If Greece was on its own currency, they could inflate their debts away." This is, of course, true but they only were allowed to take out that debt because the creditors assumed that they could not do this (see the Argentinian bond market for an example of a country that doesn't have this kind of guarantee/isn't a well respected debtor). Now, because, in the past, Greece didn't have a floating currency there was an influx of money out of the economy because Euro-denominated goods/services were cheap for greeks and the debt taken out to purchase those goods was financed at a low rate. Now, the Greeks could have bought a bunch of things with that debt, and it is likely that none of those things would have totally prevented the current crisis they have (because the capital stocks are built over longer periods of time than the Eurozone has existed), however they spent it on some of the worst things imaginable, which is why the situation is now so dire: because there has been no real improvement in the underlying capital stocks which would have allowed it to generate the needed growth to pay off the debts incurred. Edit: Now you can say the Germans are "cheap" and need to spend, but what do the Greeks produce that Germans would want? We have the same situation in America, New York and California are very expensive places with high standards of living that produce luxury goods, and much of the South like Louisiana or Alabama has a lower SOL but they produce goods there more cheaply, or produce different kinds of goods (Cotton, Tobacco, Oil), and they aren't nearly as leveraged. Vacations, clutZ. Greece is one of the most scenic countries in the world - they should sell vacation packages there to other Europeans who CAN afford to make big trips. This is a simple solution to a complex problem. Now, the Greeks tend to be lackadaisical & lazy but that's another problem...
IMF should hire you, i think you would fit right away.
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Putin urges Ukraine troops to give up Debaltseve
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged the Ukrainian government to allow its troops to surrender to rebels in the strategic town of Debaltseve.
Mr Putin also said he hoped the rebels would let any captured troops return to their families.
Fierce fighting raged throughout Tuesday in the town despite a ceasefire deal signed last week, with rebels saying they now controlled most areas. The UN Security Council called for an immediate end to hostilities.
[...]
source, BBC
the US certainly won't like hearing that. Its probably also like spitting the ukrainians in the face while putin can just stand there and talk about how he's totally helping with the peace afterwards if ukrain just accepts the loses already (hence spit in the face)
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On February 18 2015 07:49 Godwrath wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 05:47 A3th3r wrote:On February 17 2015 17:22 cLutZ wrote:On February 14 2015 05:01 Nyxisto wrote:On February 14 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:On February 14 2015 04:19 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't understand the point about cash flow out of Greece, if anything the creation of a common currency has lead to "excess money" going into Greece, creating the imbalance that has now lead to Greece's indebtedness? Compare to a closed circuit : if greece was closed, the excess money in greece would have created inflation right ? That was not the case, so it was not excess money : it didn't lead to a decrease in the value of money, so it mean that the money was actually used to increase production somewhere (it responded to a demand of money), just not in greece, or not at a rate high enough to pay back the interest and the debt (or both). But isn't that just another way of saying that the money borrowed by the Greek government and private actors just simply was wrongly invested or spent, because else it would have created productivity that would have enabled Greece to pay back debt and interest now? So it's at least partially a structural problem within the Greek economy and not only a problem of the Eurozone? Yes. On February 17 2015 07:52 WhiteDog wrote:
Huh not really. Money does not come from work at all, I'm not sure where you learned that but it's not economic theory at all. Money is an intermediary for trade in economic theory - the idea of the veil or the dichotomy stress that enough. Money has no value in itself, and it's the quantity of money that create its value : by rarity. Thus, by choosing to extend or compress the monetary mass, it's the central bank that define the value of money in an economy (the inflation rate).
It's true that bank move the money, but adding the financial system to the little model I was discussing does not make it false : it just create the possibility of a debt crisis, because in the existance of a stable desequilibrium, the debtor and the creditor are always the same.
That germany does not spend money is not the problem in itself, the problem is that they are in the same common currency as Greece, and that without a floating exchange rate, their exchange rate in relation to Greece's exchange rate does not change even if they don't spend.
I was away on a week end, I'll try to post a clear explanation in a few days of the european monetary system and how it is entirely responsible for situation at hand, and how reforming the public sector in favor of the private sector is not a solution - like suggested in previous posts. This is basically the retroactive way of explaining away what I quoted from Nyx above. You say, "If Greece was on its own currency, they could inflate their debts away." This is, of course, true but they only were allowed to take out that debt because the creditors assumed that they could not do this (see the Argentinian bond market for an example of a country that doesn't have this kind of guarantee/isn't a well respected debtor). Now, because, in the past, Greece didn't have a floating currency there was an influx of money out of the economy because Euro-denominated goods/services were cheap for greeks and the debt taken out to purchase those goods was financed at a low rate. Now, the Greeks could have bought a bunch of things with that debt, and it is likely that none of those things would have totally prevented the current crisis they have (because the capital stocks are built over longer periods of time than the Eurozone has existed), however they spent it on some of the worst things imaginable, which is why the situation is now so dire: because there has been no real improvement in the underlying capital stocks which would have allowed it to generate the needed growth to pay off the debts incurred. Edit: Now you can say the Germans are "cheap" and need to spend, but what do the Greeks produce that Germans would want? We have the same situation in America, New York and California are very expensive places with high standards of living that produce luxury goods, and much of the South like Louisiana or Alabama has a lower SOL but they produce goods there more cheaply, or produce different kinds of goods (Cotton, Tobacco, Oil), and they aren't nearly as leveraged. Vacations, clutZ. Greece is one of the most scenic countries in the world - they should sell vacation packages there to other Europeans who CAN afford to make big trips. This is a simple solution to a complex problem. Now, the Greeks tend to be lackadaisical & lazy but that's another problem... IMF should hire you, i think you would fit right away.
Let's not get snippy now in a TL economics thread.. jeez, some ppl.....
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EPT![[image loading]](https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gdp-growth-in-eurozone-japan-and-us-2008q1-to-2014q31.png)
