Posted on 11/14/2004 11:13:30 AM PST by NCjim
The German deputy finance minister, Caio Koch-Weser, sharply criticised the US administration in an interview made available yesterday for showering tax breaks on the wealthy and letting deficits get out of control while failing to improve the economy.
He said it had handsomely reduced taxes for those who earn the most money. Economically speaking, that was not good, since it hardly succeeded in reviving the economy and has accumulated huge budget deficits.
In the interview, to appear in Der Spiegel magazine on Monday, Koch-Weser said it would have been wiser if President George W Bush had spread tax cuts more equitably.
The burgeoning budget and balance of payments deficits were a cause of concern to money markets that the recent presidential election had done nothing to allay, Koch Weser said.
He added that the US badly needs to restore budget discipline as deficits soar to record levels.
The current account deficit, reflecting international trade, reached more than $166bn in the second quarter of this year, and some experts predict the total for the year could be as high as $600bn.
Europeans suspect that the US government has deliberately allowed the dollar to slide in order to finance its deficits and sustain exports.
How can the GDP per capita be so high in the District Columbia?
Yes, the Germans have set an excellent example of how to ruin an economy. Old Europe would love to see the US in the same desparate condition as Germany and France, with high unemployment, a top heavy government payroll and a socialized healthcare system that depends on denial of service to hold down costs.
I read an article in the WSJ that discussed the problem of cross border healthcare in the EU, over loading member healthcare systems because patients are getting around the long waits by seeking treatment in other countries and demanding that the countries pay for the airfare as well.
That'll end once a flat tax is introduced. The German peoples can finally sleep well tonight...
Politicians earn big bucks.
Nice stats and article from the Journal, but I'm wondering what, exactly, is the "product" that is being produced domestically in the District of Columbia.
MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES (in billions of dollars) HOLDINGS 1/ AT END OF PERIOD 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 COUNTRY Aug July June May April Mar Feb Jan Japan 721.9 695.8 689.3 668.0 652.4 646.3 614.5 583.8 Mainland China 172.3 166.9 164.9 164.1 161.0 157.3 153.8 156.6 United Kingdom 134.8 130.4 126.5 125.3 132.7 122.7 107.0 93.7 Caribbean Banking Centers 2/ 91.3 91.1 85.8 68.4 57.1 67.4 60.5 55.2 Korea 63.4 61.5 60.5 58.7 59.2 60.4 57.0 59.6 Taiwan 56.4 57.6 57.7 57.3 56.8 54.8 55.7 53.1 Hong Kong 49.4 50.4 52.4 52.7 52.1 50.7 53.1 54.0 Switzerland 48.9 48.1 49.6 49.2 51.0 48.6 48.2 45.1 Germany 48.3 49.0 47.7 49.7 50.1 45.7 46.0 47.5 OPEC 43.1 43.9 43.7 45.8 45.0 43.0 41.0 43.4 Mexico 35.6 34.1 38.6 36.5 30.6 28.9 28.5 27.5 Canada 33.1 33.3 30.6 33.1 33.3 30.7 28.3 26.1 Luxembourg 26.4 26.0 26.4 25.6 26.2 27.8 27.7 26.3 Singapore 26.0 26.1 27.0 26.4 27.2 26.7 25.7 23.0 Ireland 21.7 18.2 16.7 19.3 15.0 14.7 15.7 14.8 Turkey 16.4 15.0 15.0 15.7 16.3 14.9 14.2 14.5 Brazil 16.2 16.2 13.2 12.9 12.4 13.1 11.3 10.7 Italy 14.8 15.7 16.0 16.1 15.7 15.0 14.9 14.7 Thailand 14.8 13.8 11.4 10.9 10.8 11.9 15.3 13.5 Belgium 14.1 14.3 14.6 13.7 13.3 12.8 12.9 14.6 India 14.0 14.9 15.9 15.9 15.9 13.6 13.3 15.7 Israel 12.5 13.6 17.9 18.0 15.5 16.4 14.1 10.5 France 10.2 11.9 11.2 11.1 12.3 16.5 12.3 16.0 Sweden 10.1 9.7 10.1 11.5 9.9 10.5 10.6 9.6 Spain 9.2 10.4 10.7 10.6 11.5 9.3 9.7 10.8 Netherlands 7.3 14.6 14.7 13.6 15.5 12.4 12.6 13.2 Australia 6.6 7.5 6.9 7.3 7.5 10.0 12.6 10.8 All Other 120.8 123.3 117.9 114.1 117.9 115.6 111.3 112.2 Grand Totals 1839.6 1813.3 1792.9 1751.5 1724.2 1697.7 1627.8 1576.5 Of which official 1112.8 1086.4 1083.7 1067.3 1044.8 1029.5 988.0 963.7 Bills 237.6 230.3 231.8 232.9 224.8 231.6 224.0 214.5 Bonds and notes 875.2 856.1 852.0 834.4 820.0 797.9 764.0 749.2 Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board October 18, 2004 1/ Estimated foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury marketable and nonmarketable bills, bonds and notes are based on Treasury Foreign Portfolio Investment Survey benchmarks and on monthly data reported under the Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting system. 2/ Includes Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, and Panama.
It wouldn't be as pleasant a process selling our treasury debt if no foreigners were showing up to buy it at its current yield.
I was thinking that maybe GDP was supposed to mean "Gross Domestic Pork", but then I noticed how far down the list W. Virginia was.
Interestingly enough, they don't need tax breaks to move here - over 400,000 have and the Germans are offering them tax breaks to move back. No takers German DW-TV reports.
meanwhile, the rumbling and robust U.S. economy shattered Germany's unemployment rate of 9% with a rate of 5.4%. Also in related news US new home ownership is at an all time high absoulty shattering german ownership rates.
it is interesting that the europeans actually believe that we have a weak economy? what is the recent unemployment rate? 5.2%? lowest it has been in several years.
much of western europe has a far worse economy than ours. i think that the european leaders are blasting our "weak" economy to take political pressure off of themselves.
Yes, but the P in GDP stands for product as in productivity. And everyone else in DC is on the dole.
(Actually, I think it's all the associated lawyers and lobbyists that make all the big bucks. Politician's salaries are meager by comparison.)
He's not entirely off base. Cutting taxes and raising spending are fine if you simultaneously cut the size of government, which Bush did not do.
Lawyers, lobbyists, high-paid civil servants. All of the government support staff that doesn't live in VA or MD.
I believe that the answer to that question is "yes". Also, lawyers tend to be very compensated, and DC has a great number of them.
I think it might be more accurate if we subtracted "legal activity" from our GDP calculations rather than adding it, since I think that a large part of what these lawyers do does indeed subtract from our productive capacity.
Even more consternating is to consider that we are producing more lawyers than ever before. We are up to 512,070 lawyers (BLS) right now; looking at the total number of people involved in legal services (judges, paralegals, etc.) for the last ten years:
Series Id: CEU6054110001 |
|||||||||||||
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1994 | 963.4 | 963.6 | 963.6 | 963.9 | 962.3 | 980.1 | 980.5 | 971.5 | 957.5 | 958.9 | 961.3 | 960.6 | 965.6 |
1995 | 955.7 | 955.0 | 956.0 | 954.4 | 952.3 | 974.0 | 971.7 | 965.9 | 954.0 | 955.2 | 957.5 | 958.9 | 959.2 |
1996 | 955.2 | 957.9 | 960.9 | 959.1 | 961.4 | 982.7 | 984.8 | 978.4 | 963.2 | 968.6 | 973.9 | 974.7 | 968.4 |
1997 | 972.6 | 973.0 | 976.4 | 978.8 | 979.6 | 1000.3 | 1004.1 | 995.2 | 985.1 | 988.9 | 995.3 | 1000.5 | 987.5 |
1998 | 997.4 | 999.8 | 1004.1 | 1006.1 | 1010.4 | 1034.4 | 1040.4 | 1032.9 | 1023.0 | 1030.9 | 1034.7 | 1038.8 | 1021.1 |
1999 | 1034.5 | 1037.0 | 1040.1 | 1043.0 | 1044.4 | 1067.5 | 1068.4 | 1060.5 | 1049.7 | 1053.1 | 1058.3 | 1059.9 | 1051.4 |
2000 | 1056.6 | 1053.8 | 1054.4 | 1052.0 | 1054.3 | 1084.4 | 1084.1 | 1075.4 | 1064.8 | 1067.3 | 1069.6 | 1072.1 | 1065.7 |
2001 | 1068.9 | 1071.2 | 1074.4 | 1074.9 | 1083.4 | 1109.5 | 1110.8 | 1104.2 | 1093.0 | 1097.0 | 1102.4 | 1105.3 | 1091.3 |
2002 | 1099.6 | 1099.8 | 1100.8 | 1098.8 | 1106.7 | 1125.9 | 1127.6 | 1122.4 | 1116.3 | 1126.9 | 1129.1 | 1129.6 | 1115.3 |
2003 | 1122.8 | 1127.7 | 1130.9 | 1130.5 | 1133.4 | 1152.6 | 1148.6 | 1137.8 | 1129.5 | 1139.8 | 1145.5 | 1142.4 | 1136.8 |
2004 | 1131.0 | 1132.3 | 1131.8 | 1134.4 | 1136.9 | 1162.3 | 1163.8 | 1150.2 | 1145.9(p) | 1149.0(p) | |||
p : preliminary |
shows that this is a popular and growing field of endeavor.
German economists had their turn in the spotlight during the late 19th and early 20th centuries - they labored long and hard and delivered.........- Communism and National Socialism - the latter of which despite the defeat of its militant form during WWII - survives today throughout 'Old Europe'.
Germany with its 'Worker' councils, high unemployment, extremely low productivity and sclerotic growth rate is viewed as a creditable source of economic 'wisdom' only by economic ignoramouses like Lester Thorow at MIT, J.K. Galbraith, the osssified big-government math modelers at UCLA.
This guy is yet another theoretician trying to give us advice that will drive our economy into the same dead end as Europe.
GNP, 2nd quarter 2001 - $10.174 trillion
GNP, 2nd quarter 2004 - $11.964 trillion
Nominal, +5.6% annual rate for 3 years despite a recession and 9-11.
Real GNP in the year 4/00 to 4/01 (first year Bush in office) - +0.4%
Real GNP in the year 2/03 to 2/04 (last full year available) - +4.7%
Peak US unemployment rate, the last recession - 6.3%
The one before that, peak rate (1992) - 7.8%
Present US unemployment rate - 5.6%
Present German unemployment rate - 10.4%
The German unemployment rate has risen continuously for the last 9 months, and is currently at a 5 year high. The US unemployment rate has fallen for 16 months, and is at the same level it was when Clinton was re-elected in 1996.
We need economic advice from Germany like we need military advice from the French...
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