Oil's energy contribution has declined by about 12% since 1999. The world's economies have also declined by about 12%. (Using conventional metrics, which are time delayed determinations, this will only be seen in hind sight). The massive destruction of asset values now occurring testifies to it happening.
Peak is well behind us, world economies have peaked and will continue to decline.
Joined: Jun 20, 2007 Posts: 574 Location: USS Poland
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:35 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Quote:
Europeans do not seem to understand money. They still believe capitalism is a zero-sum game. In order for someone to gain, someone else has to suffer or lose. But this is a fundamental flaw in socialist thinking. It does not consider the fact than ones mans expense is another mans income who then in turn spends it and provides someone else with income. The speed at which money moves around an economic system is called the velocity of money and high taxes slows down this process thereby slowing down economic growth. This fact has been proven quantitatively time and time again.
Basic flaw of this thinking is that you need endless growth. Moreover the waste of resources under the production without constraints leads to social and economic disparities.
People don't need growth, however the system needs it to justify its own existence. The hipervelocity of money led to credit crunch where all participants without any regulation competed for the number of credits, indebting nations.
Europeans didn't invented subprimes.
Americans did.
However, truth to be told, the extraordinary number of exotic derivatives was created on both sides of the lake. But in the housing industry many of European nations still rely also on cheap housing programmes - and they didn't expierienced huge bubbles. They treat housing in a part as a public service.
So the ongoing financial crisis based on the cheap credit is the outcome of Anglo-American ingenuity in seeking easy profit. In the brink of TSHTF because of the overconsumption of resources (which lead to greater depletion rates and pollution of nature) you would rather rethink your approach towards the system and search for basic flaws and mythical truths which keep the unsustainable social and economic environment on track. _________________ The poor complain; they always do,
But that's just idle chatter.
Our system brings rewards to all,
At least to all who matter.
So not quite 4.5% but this ignores benefits like company cars, petrol allowances
Quote:
And even if you're right, the inflation rate in the UK is currently 4.7% per annum. That means the average person is LOSING ground, not gaining. Not even treading water. Wages, therefore, aren't even keeping up with inflation. So what exactly are you boasting about?
Inflation is currently a global problem. Until last year inflation has been averaging at around 2% or less. I am boasting that the average person in the last 10 years got an inflation adjusted 20%+ increase in their income, which directly disproves your baseless opinion. Which was:
Quote:
The only thing that ever "trickled down" in the Reagan-Thatcherite economic policies was urine on the heads of the workers.
Quote:
And leave you to die in the street if you can't afford health insurance, or you're deemed "uninsurable" due to an existing condition. No thanks.
Medicare/mediaid go some way to helping uninsured people but, if you read my post, you will see I do not think heath care should be private. It should be a government provision just as it is is the UK/Canada and Australia. People going without medical attention in the worlds richest country is frankly a disgrace and is a clear example of market failure. You do not need to have over arching government, however, to provide a good level of heath care. The National Health Service in the UK was ranked 18th in a recent UN rankings above Germany and many other European countries.
Quote:
Interesting that you brought up the HDI while dumping on Sweden. Did you happen to notice it rates higher than the US, or the UK? Interestingly, so do ALL the Nordic countries that are so typically dragged out and kicked around by the free enterprise crowd, with the sole exception of Denmark, which tops the UK but is superseded by the US by a single place on the index.
Who is dumping on Sweden? I love Sweden. But I would never want to live there and pay a high tax rate. The marginal difference in GNI does not deserve me giving away an extra 20% of my income to the government. I posted the GNI in response to the previous poster who was adamant that the 'continental' system was so much better in, not only wealth terms, but social ones too; when, in reality, even the indices he referred to disagree with him.
Quote:
But not, however, because they skimp on social services, hmm? Well, that's kind of our point. You take what you make, however much it is, and use a portion of it to improve the lot of society in general,
I don't understand your point. Germany does not have a good economy. It suffers badly from over taxation, high unemployment and low growth. Its only strength is its trade surplus. Without the German trade surplus the Euro would be far weaker and its economy would be in a far worse state at the moment.
Quote:
rather than just pump it up ever higher to the handful of people who own everything because their great grandfathers stole the right land or befriended the right earl.
That is just absolute nonsense. Have you ever looked at the Rich list? Very few are old landed money. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
Quote:
Basic flaw of this thinking is that you need endless growth
It is not thinking per se it just describing the process of how money moves around an economy in reality, i.e. If I spend £20 on a T-shirt, that goes to the seller of the T-shirt who then uses it to buy a new mobile phone so it goes to the seller of the mobile phone who then uses it to buy something else and so the chain goes on and on. Each transaction gets smaller as tax reduces it every time an exchange is made therefore the less you tax the less momentum is lost in this process.
Quote:
But in the housing industry many of European nations still rely also on cheap housing programmes - and they didn't experienced huge bubbles. They treat housing in a part as a public service.
There is a housing bubble in around 90 countries at the moment. Real estate cycles are nothing new, in fact they happen around every 20 years and have done for 400 years. Owning your own home is a goal for many people, myself included, and I would not want to wait for the government to provide me with a flat in a concrete tower block. If that is the way you want to live...fine. Rather you than me.
Joined: Jun 20, 2007 Posts: 574 Location: USS Poland
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:11 pm Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Quote:
It is not thinking per se it just describing the process of how money moves around an economy in reality, i.e. If I spend £20 on a T-shirt, that goes to the seller of the T-shirt who then uses it to buy a new mobile phone so it goes to the seller of the mobile phone who then uses it to buy something else and so the chain goes on and on. Each transaction gets smaller as tax reduces it every time an exchange is made therefore the less you tax the less momentum is lost in this process.
However if you put this model on financial markets - when capital is moving around the world without constraints do you think it's good, especially when it is leveraged 100 times?
Second thing, I'm not a great fan of high value added tax, however on the other hand as a tool for lowering consumption it's not the worst solution, especially when this cost is paid mailny by the last consumer.
Quote:
There is a housing bubble in around 90 countries at the moment. Real estate cycles are nothing new, in fact they happen around every 20 years and have done for 400 years. Owning your own home is a goal for many people, myself included, and I would not want to wait for the government to provide me with a flat in a concrete tower block. If that is the way you want to live...fine. Rather you than me.
I'm pointing out another thing - you wouldn't see this kind of credit crunch without subprimes. Housing bubbles don't always lead to financial meltdown.
Bubble in Poland didn't create such a catastrophe when banks are regulated and the credit for many is not easily available. Many western investors created the property bubble plus the flow of money from EU and from the Polish immigrants in EU.
But what we need is some social responsiblity of political power to fight the homelesness in Poland (in Warsaw we have registered thousands homeless people), and many people are renting rooms (not flats in those concrete tower blocks you mentioned).
If you see a social problem it should be solved. If you create a system of never ending supply of money to people who can't purchase even a small flat, it's the last thing which will reduce the problem.
The problem grows.
That's why I think programs made even on regional level should be done. When there are institutions which create the opportunity for those who really need their own a small flat with the help of both public and non-profit private capital, there are also other forms - like cooperatives which build cheaper blocks - but they are almost non-existant.
So for me - people need a shelter from wind, cold, sun, rain and snow, place to live, to raise children and so on. It doesn't mean they need to own it. In such cooperatives you don't own it, it's a property of cooperative where you can vote and have the right to change your housing estate.
Obviously it's better to create these opportunities which are cheaper and provide a real qualitative change within society than bailing out any bank. _________________ The poor complain; they always do,
But that's just idle chatter.
Our system brings rewards to all,
At least to all who matter.
Ah, I see. Great wages are an Anglospheric attribute, but "inflation is a... global problem". How conveniently self-serving.
mkwin wrote:
Medicare/mediaid go some way to helping uninsured people but, if you read my post, you will see I do not think heath care should be private.
Then you have no business pounding on about how low taxes (supposedly) are in the United States relative to countries that actually use the money to look after the well-being of their own populations rather than to bomb those of other countries out of existence, it seems to me.
mkwin wrote:
Who is dumping on Sweden? I love Sweden. But I would never want to live there and pay a high tax rate.
So don't live there. But also, don't purport that countries with higher taxes are doing worse on the HDI, which the Nordic lands clearly disprove, and don't fault the countries for doing so when they're obviously getting results that you would find otherwise praiseworthy.
mkwin wrote:
The marginal difference in GNI does not deserve me giving away an extra 20% of my income to the government.
You bring up the HDI, but now you want it stricken from the evidence because suddenly it doesn't support your case, huh?
Why don't you post some tax rates for those countries "on the continent" you feel aren't doing so well on the index? After all, they were the ones you felt superior to. What are they paying in taxes, and what are they doing with it? Building productive infrastructure, or radar bases for the United States Army?
mkwin wrote:
I don't understand your point. Germany does not have a good economy. It suffers badly from over taxation, high unemployment and low growth. Its only strength is its trade surplus.
Your point is the one that doesn't make sense. If Germany's too inefficient to haul up its own lederhosen in the morning, then how, pray tell, is it stacking up the profits that you purport are holding up the euro? How can you be championing the system in the US that has let its dollar sink to €0.70 as superior to that of Germany and the other countries around it whose currency is worth $1.40? _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 1:04 pm Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
I should not bother responding because all you are doing is taking what i say and cherry picking and distorting what was said. I will briefly respond to what you say but won't be continuing simply due to what a complete waste of time it appears to be.
Did you bother to read the post? Look at inflation in the UK over the last 10 years. It has been under 2%, the vast majority of the time. Inflation is now 4.7% but that is only this year.
Quote:
Ah, I see. Great wages are an Anglospheric attribute, but "inflation is a... global problem". How conveniently self-serving.
Inflation is a global problem and has been since last year. I am not sure what financial news you read or your awareness of the situation in the worlds economies but here is a brief list of the CPI rate in a selection of diverse countries:
China: 4.9%
Euro Area: 3.8%
Russia: 14.7%
Sweden: 4.3%
Hong Kong: 6.3%
Brazil: 6.2%
South Africa: 13.4%
Turn to the back page of the Economist. Look for yourself. Inflation is a global problem not just one in anglo-saxon economies.
Quote:
don't purport that countries with higher taxes are doing worse on the HDI
Where did I say this?
Quote:
You bring up the HDI, but now you want it stricken from the evidence because suddenly it doesn't support your case, huh?
GNI=HDI I was getting tired when I worte the last time.
and I did not bring up the HDI the other guy did. I repeat from my previous post, I only referred to them to disprove what the other guy said, which was the socialised system score better on HDI which justify the low growth high unemployment and high taxes experienced in those economies.
Quote:
Your point is the one that doesn't make sense. If Germany's too inefficient to haul up its own lederhosen in the morning, then how, pray tell, is it stacking up the profits that you purport are holding up the euro? How can you be championing the system in the US that has let its dollar sink to €0.70 as superior to that of Germany and the other countries around it whose currency is worth $1.40?
Germany is not too inefficient that is not or has ever been my point. Germany is the only reason the Euro is as strong as it is. It has trade surplus of nearly 300 billion dollar. I presume you know what a trade surplus is? Whereas, the Eurozone as a whole has a trade deficit (just like the US) of 10 billion. So if Germany had a normal OECD export rate the Eurozone would have a trade deficit of - $290 billion i.e. the Euro would be worth far less and its economies would be suffering with quite extreme inflationary problems now.
So Germany has a trade surplus of 280 billion, France, another socialised economy, has a trade deficit of 60 billion. So Germanys trade surplus and its success in manufacturing is nothing to do with its socialised economy. In fact, despite there evident success in manufacturing, Their economy still suffers from high unemployment and low economic growth. If Germany was a more liberalised economy they would probably be 20 or 30% richer over 15 or 20 years.
I am not posting any further due to time restrictions. You make some valid points as do most posters on this forum and that is why I come back. I would not understand economics had I not studied it at degree and masters degree level and there is a lot to be concerned about at the moment so it is understandable that you hold the beliefs you do.
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1640 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:41 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
mkwin wrote:
I should not bother responding because all you are doing is taking what i say and cherry picking and distorting what was said.
ME cherry-picking? That's a hot one. You come on here dumping all over Europe, but then focus solely on the UK, and then pare it down to inflationary stats over 10 years. JUST THAT. Okay, if you're not "cherry picking", then why don't you put up some numbers from the countries you're feeling oh-so-superior to so over the same period we can get some idea if you're standing on firm ground or a melting ice floe. Because every indicator I've seen lately has London sweating bullets about going down with the USS Manhattan that's been towing it around for decades, particularly since you snubbed the euro as too iffy.
mkwin wrote:
Look at inflation in the UK over the last 10 years. It has been under 2%, the vast majority of the time. Inflation is now 4.7% but that is only this year...
...but here is a brief list of the CPI rate in a selection of diverse countries:
China: 4.9%
Euro Area: 3.8%
Russia: 14.7%
Sweden: 4.3%
Hong Kong: 6.3%
Brazil: 6.2%
South Africa: 13.4%
And THEIR numbers for the past ten years...?
"Cherry-picking", eh? You don't say.
mkwin wrote:
If Germany was a more liberalised economy they would probably be 20 or 30% richer over 15 or 20 years.
Then why does the UK, and more "liberalized" economy, have a trade DEFICIT? Why does the United States, probably the least-regulated economy in the First World, have the biggest negative return of all? Yes, the ticking you hear is a logic bomb. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Joined: Jul 04, 2008 Posts: 242 Location: Europe: European Historian
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:27 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
The EU is going to be dead by the middle of the next decade. now they are struggling to stay alive in this fincail meltdown and each nation is doing their own thing..The EU works in the good times..but will not stand in the bad..
I expect the Euro to crash in the next few years and a few nations to pull out of the EU "Netherlands people have already voted to get out but politicians sold them out.
The EU will go the way of the horse and wagon next decade
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3904 Location: over here
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:58 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
GeneralGreen wrote:
The EU is going to be dead by the middle of the next decade. now they are struggling to stay alive in this fincail meltdown and each nation is doing their own thing..The EU works in the good times..but will not stand in the bad..
I doubt it. It's usually Americans, or at least non-Europeans that make these kind of predictions, while the Europeans themselves (among who I am) think that Europe can wether almost any economic storm as everyone knows that if their country was on it's own it would be worse off.
Quote:
"Netherlands people have already voted to get out but politicians sold them out.
That's simply not true, I live in the Netherlands, and the only thing we voted against was the treaty before the last one as it was thought that the EU was fine the way it was. Nobody seriously thinks about quitting the EU. You're disconnected with reality. _________________ "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:27 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Next month at UN there will be a summit and maybe we get a Globo currency or so out of it and the yanks lose a lot of reserve currency power if international commodities are priced in new Globo (like ECU but with USD/EUR/GBP/YEN/Rupee etc.).
Against Russians, Chinese, Americans continetal Europeans have no chance so they have to work together on financial and trade matters and eventually on military and foreign policy. Otehrwise th anglosaxons or Russians or Asians can pick them off one at a time. the Euro has broken down USD hegemony. Of course Germany is sclerotic but its exports are good. If it were earlier deregulated the whole industry would have been sold to China and everybody would have 10 credit cards and 2 jobs justz to get by and there would be a housing bubble here too. As it is Germany was "backward" so still has industry and relatively little consumer debt. So really being "consevative" in the original sense has its advantages. They did not follow the crowd and are now the last one who is not naked when the tide goes out (I don't want to speak for the banks God knows they are another story). Germany has started down that slippery orad with cheap employment policies and export of industry and hooking peopleon credit but I hope with this severe downturn and PO a reversal of globalization and neeoliberal credit card enslavement of consumers (Formerly known as citizens) will end. _________________ "The horror, the horror"
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1640 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:56 am Post subject: Re: Fellow Europeans, what's the future of the EU?
Bas wrote:
I doubt it. It's usually Americans, or at least non-Europeans that make these kind of predictions, while the Europeans themselves (among who I am) think that Europe can wether almost any economic storm as everyone knows that if their country was on it's own it would be worse off.
I don't think a lot of people outside the EU really get the idea. Everyone else is used to thinking of nation states on the Westphalia model... they can't conceive of anything else. The EU isn't that. It's simply the pooling of certain sovereignties for the greater good and efficacy, while retaining the nations that make it up. It's more formal than a simple treaty but it's not as ironclad as a nation-state. It's something new... or maybe something very old that we've forgotten about. As such, I think the structure is very flexible. Its benefits are there for all to see, and it hasn't ALL been "good times" since the 1940s. If anything, I think the worldwide call for more regulation of the financial industry will help strengthen the EU, since its central concern is, after all, economic. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
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