EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 87
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On April 04 2015 00:28 Nyxisto wrote: For sure the US are more innovative than Europe, but if you buy all the innovation with inequality it doesn't really make any sense. The general population needs to get a reasonable share of the cake, too. How do Netflix and the newest IPhone help me if I can't pay my doctor or don't send my kids to college. The American middle-class has stagnated at least as much the European income wise over the last twenty or thirty years. And the really poor people are completely out of the discussion anyway, they don't even vote any more. And the US is more liberal than europe ? In my vision, public infrastructure in the US are heavily financed (the greatest university, such as harvard or the likes ?), the US does not prevent itself from favoring national compagny versus outsiders, and the US is a pretty closed up economic circuit. Just because free market is important in the american ideological discourse does not mean that their action are always liberal from an economical standpoint, quite the opposite. They are way more pragmatic than we are. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
They are smart, and we are not. We're still talking about those old 19th century ideological debate, like the state is a bad economic agent. It depend what you do with it.... And about the debt thing, it's more about the finance system rather than the people. The problem with debt in europe in many case is more the lack of credit and not the lack of desire to invest. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
im not an expert, but i think if the FED wouldnt have pumped billions over years into the system, america would be in a depression. now the EZB does the same cause they saw it worked pretty good for america, i think you can hold this system running for a while with things like that. you have to realize that all these tech innovations, dont really create enough jobs to compensate for the rationalization process that happens in old traditional branches. a new app here, a new app there, this is not the technological progress that will save us. also new medicine innovations, its great, but it doesn't create jobs .. it just adds another product to the sortiment of a pharma company and maybe replaces some other. the company makes more money, yes, but they dont give it back into the system through investments, they not even paying real taxes .. so if a innovation doesnt create jobs nor the tax income for the state is higher, what is the benefit? you think everybody will get a basic income from the state? quite the contrary happens right now, social benefits everywhere in europe get cut like mad. i dont get why we dont create a system where technological progress benefits the people. instead it puts them out of work, in a system where you have to work. this system has so many flaws, like if i see that apple has 140 billions on some fucking Island, and doenst know what to do with it, that screams to me that something is wrong here. money shouldnt be bunkered on an island. if you cant give back the money to the economy through investments - then it should be taken away. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On April 04 2015 02:07 phil.ipp wrote: i dont see what america gets from its innovation im not an expert, but i think if the FED wouldnt have pumped billions over years into the system, america would be in a depression. now the EZB does the same cause they saw it worked pretty good for america, i think you can hold this system running for a while with things like that. you have to realize that all these tech innovations, dont really create enough jobs to compensate for the rationalization process that happens in old traditional branches. a new app here, a new app there, this is not the technological progress that will save us. also new medicine innovations, its great, but it doesn't create jobs .. it just adds another product to the sortiment of a pharma company and maybe replaces some other. the company makes more money, yes, but they dont give it back into the system through investments, they not even paying real taxes .. so if a innovation doesnt create jobs nor the tax income for the state is higher, what is the benefit? you think everybody will get a basic income from the state? quite the contrary happens right now, social benefits everywhere in europe get cut like mad. i dont get why we dont create a system where technological progress benefits the people. instead it puts them out of work, in a system where you have to work. this system has so many flaws, like if i see that apple has 140 billions on some fucking Island, and doenst know what to do with it, that screams to me that something is wrong here. money shouldnt be bunkered on an island. if you cant give back the money to the economy through investments - then it should be taken away. Technological progress does benefit people; it's just lumpy. You can look back hundreds of years and every step of the way people lose jobs to progress and new jobs end up created to fill the void. The new jobs don't come instantaneously though, so at first at feels bad for those who lose out. And long term that kind of stuff is very important. Productivity gains are how standards of livings rise, and demographic changes mean that without productivity gains living standards will have to fall. As for companies sitting on money, Apple does not literally have cash sitting on an island. It's in financial markets and lots of people are tasked with finding a use for it. Yes, it's not being put to use as quickly as would be ideal, but that's a constant struggle. Put it to use too quick and you end up with waste. Too slow and the economy doesn't grow so fast. There's a lot of heterogeneity in businesses as well. Apple is free cash flow positive, but other companies are quite negative. As a whole, businesses tend to be net borrowers, rather than net savers. If you want a more tangible look at what the US gets from innovation look to the areas where it happens. Silicon Valley is full of well paid tech workers, and California gets a huge amount of tax revenue from tech IPOs. Boston / Cambridge has a strong biotech sector, and lots of well paying jobs tax revenues with it. On the other hand other areas haven't fared so well, some quite poorly in fact. But like I said at the start, progress is lumpy. | ||
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
On April 04 2015 04:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Technological progress does benefit people; it's just lumpy. You can look back hundreds of years and every step of the way people lose jobs to progress and new jobs end up created to fill the void. The new jobs don't come instantaneously though, so at first at feels bad for those who lose out. And long term that kind of stuff is very important. Productivity gains are how standards of livings rise, and demographic changes mean that without productivity gains living standards will have to fall. i cant believe that there are people who still think for every job lost is another one created. i dont say NO jobs are created, i say less jobs are created than lost. history is not really useful here. thats not even remotely a topic where you can say - oh it was like this a hundred years ago - it will be for another hundred years. especially with 2 world wars in between, or should we start a third? i bet there's 50 years of full employment afterwards. we have a system thats designed to put people out of work - but at the same time a system that punishes people that are out of work. i dont have something against a system that strife's for more productivity - i also understand that profit is a driver for productivity, its actually a great system if i have total bad productivity, and want to create as much products as possible. like after a war, or in a poor society. its a moron system, in a rich country where people cant think of anything they want anymore, so they need "innovaters" who think of things, nobody before thought they would ever need. when rich people and companys dont know anymore what would be a good investment, if they just save the money or donate it (for me totally inefficient cause it often does not try to solve the root problem). all i see are luxury products, it seems like half of europe and america is trying to program iphone apps, to make a million with the next mobile game. i call that pseudo economy - its just so people have jobs, other people spend money on apps they dont need, somewhere someone makes a million. or google with advertising makes billions, its all about who can get the sheep to spend all their money on the next bullshit product. like UBER taxi service - people try to tell us its so innovative, its just poor people driving cars without insurance or any kind of license now. why are companys like apple fucking rich, who do nothing useful for society, and companys who dedicate themself to build/create/offer a service which people actually need to live a decent life, are scraping for money and need donations? why is it more lucrative to build a iWatch who seriously nobody really needs, and even apple knows it. so they invest a billion into advertising so at the end people think, yeah i fucking need this. the system was ok for a not really designed system. it was great for after the war, it brought us to where we are know. i dont think it will get any better. so we should think really hard how to change this. the direction of the system after the war was clear - just more of every product there is, doesnt matter how, cause people were suffering. now thats silly, we dont need more of every product, we dont even need every week new products. we have to give the system a new direction, that it can solve the problems that exist. its definitly not a shortage of products anymore. its the distribution. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On April 03 2015 23:46 WhiteDog wrote: My problem is that most of your points are false. The biggest growth the european never had existed in a time where the state was MUCH MORE involved in economy than today. And it has been 20 years that the state has, in fact, took less and less initiative in the economy, with POOR result. So Europe is NOT dominated by "collectivist" : just because we have OLD structure and institutions that dates back to the thirty glorious doesn't mean that we are still collectivist. So you think government running things is what leads to economic growth? How did that work out for North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, USSR, pre-Xiaoping China. What about this: ![[image loading]](http://www.americanthinker.com/legacy_assets/articles/assets/Hoven%20-%20Slow%20Statism%201.png) Funny you mention that France is now a libertarian apocalypse, because when I checked I got this: ![[image loading]](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/france-government-spending-to-gdp.png?s=francegovspetogdp&d1=19780101&d2=20151231) My point was that Europe was more collectivistic than the US. You seem to disagree. Then explain this image to me: ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Depense-publique-sur-PIB.png) Legend: maroon > 55%, red 50–55%, orange 45–50%, yellow 40–45%, green 35–40%, blue 30–35% US is 35%. As a Marxist you take issue with me calling current Europe collectivistic, I understand. However, it is much more so than the US and that is the relation I wanted to establish to make my point. And most of the ground breaking and innovative research has been made under PUBLIC FOUNDING. Investment in France prior to the euro is a much more heavily "collectivist" economy was way higher than today. Yes, Europe produces a lot of science and technical advancements at its universities. However, it has done a terribly poor job at making them useful for society, and has very few success cases in the last decades. The failure of phil.ipp to see the point of these new companies of the digital age is symptomatic of how Europeans look at innovation. Europeans see innovation as a disturbance to the existing societal peace and local tradition.Uber creates a much better customer experience for car travel than the existing status quo. If it didn't, people wouldn't use it. It is also building the basis for a future where autonomous cars will function as taxis. | ||
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
our system produces products which cant be bought by the people who need it most, instead it brings products that not really needed to the people who have already everything. which is understandable cause like with ebola, there is no profit in researching for a cure, if only people without money have it. but get some americans in the boat who can spend some money, and it speeds up the process x100  lets say you could today establish every system you want, than this is what you would do? | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
your guaranteed wage has no meaning if you dont back it up with an economic system that has a different goal, then to take that guaranteed wage away from you with as much idiotic products as possible. if they can even with products that are not really products ( homopathic stuff, take water, drop a tiny bit of a useless substance in it, make 2000% profit ) an economic system has to work FOR people, there has to be a common goal, it should achieve something that we as humans want and need. And not be satisfied with whatever it gives us. damn this poor people living in awful conditions, if they just had money .... EDIT: and yeah i read over your statement "privatize education", thats not even worth to think about | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
thats a discussion thread, i take it as granted that everybody speaks their mind here, even without saying it in every post. our economic system is driven by profit, it will produce what brings profit. if a company wants to produce or do something, they dont think: what can we do that serves humanity a great deal. they think: what is there, that nobody sells and people (with money) want. or even better. how can we make people wanting it (advertising). you see you have no influence what companys want to produce. if they have a new advertising method, and can make you wanting the new macbook, cause it looks shiny but technologicaly its 3 years old, they will do so. they will put a fuck load of earth resources into building this macbook thats more shitty than the one before, but looks good. that mechanic is just useless. a company should get rewarded with profit, if they do something useful for our society. the profit should be where the most problems are. like caring for old people. bringing food to the poor people. and not building yachts for the bored super rich or exploiting poor people in factorys and coffee plantations. cause people like us, want cheap cloths and coffee, companys do everything they can to put other people on the other side of the globe into awful conditions. and at the end they get rewarded. thats just sick, there are people out there who think everyday, how can we pay these fucks less money for more work, how can we cut their benefits. and thats cause of the mechanism of the system. and i would want to change that, cause i dont think humans are bad people. i think if you give people a reward for helping other people out of their misery, the same people will sit there, and think how can we help them. cause thats where the reward is. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
Profit is an incentive because it gives you more money to buy more things. If you have a system that is necessarily egalitarian, then you are killing the profit motive too. How do you imagine building a system where people and companies are motivated to build products that help the whole of humanity, but then the people themselves don't get a return on their effort since the point of the society is to be egalitarian? | ||
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Taguchi
Greece1575 Posts
Fun fact: Global GDP for 2014 was 72.6 trillion dollars. Net worth of 10 richest people in the world is 513.1 bn dollars or approximately 7% of global GDP. Would innovation and all the rest not happen if these obscenely rich people had, say, 1% of their current wealth? | ||
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phil.ipp
Austria1067 Posts
i just think we as humanity with all this "innovation" can do better than that. we can create something as great as UBER, but there is no innovation whatsoever with our monetary system? no change in decades? thats it? thats the best we can do? every nation is neck deep in debts, its totally obvious that there will be never ever be enough growth to even think of reducing these debts. all the changes you propose, just hinge on the idea: if we can make enough changes (privatizing this or that, cut this benefit or that) than we can suddenly get enough growth to pay the debts and everything will fine from that point on. you cant really believe thats the solution? | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On April 04 2015 05:47 phil.ipp wrote: i cant believe that there are people who still think for every job lost is another one created. i dont say NO jobs are created, i say less jobs are created than lost. history is not really useful here. thats not even remotely a topic where you can say - oh it was like this a hundred years ago - it will be for another hundred years. especially with 2 world wars in between, or should we start a third? i bet there's 50 years of full employment afterwards. we have a system thats designed to put people out of work - but at the same time a system that punishes people that are out of work. i dont have something against a system that strife's for more productivity - i also understand that profit is a driver for productivity, its actually a great system if i have total bad productivity, and want to create as much products as possible. like after a war, or in a poor society. its a moron system, in a rich country where people cant think of anything they want anymore, so they need "innovaters" who think of things, nobody before thought they would ever need. when rich people and companys dont know anymore what would be a good investment, if they just save the money or donate it (for me totally inefficient cause it often does not try to solve the root problem). all i see are luxury products, it seems like half of europe and america is trying to program iphone apps, to make a million with the next mobile game. i call that pseudo economy - its just so people have jobs, other people spend money on apps they dont need, somewhere someone makes a million. or google with advertising makes billions, its all about who can get the sheep to spend all their money on the next bullshit product. like UBER taxi service - people try to tell us its so innovative, its just poor people driving cars without insurance or any kind of license now. why are companys like apple fucking rich, who do nothing useful for society, and companys who dedicate themself to build/create/offer a service which people actually need to live a decent life, are scraping for money and need donations? why is it more lucrative to build a iWatch who seriously nobody really needs, and even apple knows it. so they invest a billion into advertising so at the end people think, yeah i fucking need this. the system was ok for a not really designed system. it was great for after the war, it brought us to where we are know. i dont think it will get any better. so we should think really hard how to change this. the direction of the system after the war was clear - just more of every product there is, doesnt matter how, cause people were suffering. now thats silly, we dont need more of every product, we dont even need every week new products. we have to give the system a new direction, that it can solve the problems that exist. its definitly not a shortage of products anymore. its the distribution. I don't get what you're talking about. Of course jobs are created when others are lost. There is such a thing as net job creation and the US economy has been doing that since 2010. Adding jobs is the norm. This isn't a philosophical point or anything, you can go to bls.gov or FRED and see the numbers for yourself. As for why Apple is so rich - because they do a lot of useful stuff for society. You may not think so, but their customers clearly disagree with you. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On April 04 2015 08:54 phil.ipp wrote: i dont know. maybe the guys from silicon valley can help out. i just think we as humanity with all this "innovation" can do better than that. we can create something as great as UBER, but there is no innovation whatsoever with our monetary system? no change in decades? thats it? thats the best we can do? every nation is neck deep in debts, its totally obvious that there will be never ever be enough growth to even think of reducing these debts. There's bitcoin and the blockchain. There have been a number of new startups with the goal of disrupting finance. About countries being neck-deep in debt, that's pretty much self inflicted. No technological innovation is going to stop idiots from running countries into insolvency. all the changes you propose, just hinge on the idea: if we can make enough changes (privatizing this or that, cut this benefit or that) than we can suddenly get enough growth to pay the debts and everything will fine from that point on. you cant really believe thats the solution? I don't really care much about the debts, that's a whole different story. The goal of policy should be to optimize for technological innovation and provide a basic safety net for everyone. Economic growth may be an outcome from technological innovation but it may also be that it will lead to deflation through the creation of abundance which in turn leads to a decrease in prices. When I propose privatizations my concern is that often public services function without the incentive to become efficient - something that competition and market pressures do provide. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19573 Posts
On April 04 2015 08:54 phil.ipp wrote: i dont know. maybe the guys from silicon valley can help out. i just think we as humanity with all this "innovation" can do better than that. we can create something as great as UBER, but there is no innovation whatsoever with our monetary system? no change in decades? thats it? thats the best we can do? every nation is neck deep in debts, its totally obvious that there will be never ever be enough growth to even think of reducing these debts. all the changes you propose, just hinge on the idea: if we can make enough changes (privatizing this or that, cut this benefit or that) than we can suddenly get enough growth to pay the debts and everything will fine from that point on. you cant really believe thats the solution? Innovation in the monetary system? You mean the system that has legally imposed monopolies? The system that actively bans people from competing with it (and launches probes when something like bitcoin pops up)? That system? You expect innovation there because of ??? | ||
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