Posted on 10/07/2007 10:40:57 PM PDT by srotaG adirolF
In the global economy, today's winners can become tomorrow's losers in a twinkling, and vice versa. Not so long ago, American pundits and economic analysts were snidely touting U.S. economic superiority to the "sick old man" of Europe. What a difference a few months can make. Today, with the stock market jittery over Iraq, the mortgage crisis, huge budget and trade deficits, and declining growth in productivity, investors are wringing their hands about the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, analysts point to the roaring economies of China and India as the only bright spots on the global horizon. But what about Europe? You may be surprised to learn how our estranged transatlantic partner has been faring during these roller-coaster times -- and how successfully it has been knocking down the Europessimist myths about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It's just "Campaign 2008" work. The Dems need to convince everyone that the economy under the Republicans is awful.
Germany trade surplus = €169 billion
It’s the secondhand smoke.
Wait and see who Europe comes running to (again) when Fascism once again rears it's ugly head. When Iranian nuke tipped missiles start flying towards European cities in a few years, suddenly, the USA will be their best friend (again).....
Journalism 101:
When you are writing an article challenging a set of myths, don't start your article by promoting other myths.
I can certainly vouch for that.
The number of times I have seen employers take on complete deadbeats ; subsequently to find out that they went to the right Public School , spoke with the right accent , or their father - in - law was in the same golf club as Earl of Wherever.
People don’t believe me . I sometimes wonder how our economy ticks over .
Re. #10, great post!
“So very roughly the EU has same size economy and same population as the United States but we run an 850 billion dollar trade deficit (2006) and EU is in trade balance. No wonder the € is rising and the $ is sinking.”
Why do you think trade deficits are “bad”? In our history, we have had the most economic growth when we had trade deficits. The definition of a trade deficit is so artifical that it means little in the big picture, although it does seem to have a rough correlation to economic growth.
If the dollar becomes cheap compared to the euro, it only means that we buy less from europe and they buy more from us. That serves to lessen the trade deficit.
As you think trade deficits are bad things, why would you think that would be a bad thing?
The US of A!
It’s also nice to have customers that have money.
Don't expect a logical answer. We've been asking him how a trade deficit hurts America (4.7% unemployment, $13 trillion GDP, ouch! LOL!) for years. He just spouts feelings. Maybe he heard it was bad on Oprah?
Reasonable and small trade deficits are OK just like a reasonable mortgage is a decent & sustainable form of debt. For most of our nation’s history we have not run trade deficits. Many of those years were America’s best. Since 1980 we have just about always run a trade deficit
Our current trade deficit is far too high. Just look upon it a colossal debt similar to a subprime mortgage with the higher level of payments kicking in very soon in the form of a US dollar crash which has been going on anyway at a slow pace. This dollar dive has already taken the form of gold and Euro rising significantly along with oil and the Canadian dollar
I know where I mail the check to repay the mortgage, who do we have to repay the trade deficit?
you are a 2 year old
Europe will become dhimmis to an ever-growing Muslim population much more quickly than they care to acknowledge.
Economy's doing great over there, eh? How are those "disgruntled youths" coming along with the annual rioting and car-burning, France?
You can't outrun demographics.
??? I think you posted to the wrong person.
This report and Washington Post article is from a liberal think tank. But it’s insightful. Of course no word about Muslim demographics which will demolish this Euro-Disneyland. Even if Europe is everything he says and it is all true the Muslims will destroy them. Plus the Muslims can make larger families to dominate the Europeans because of the wonderful social programs the author likes
>>>Buyin’ the Kool-Aid, eh? I’m a smoker and haven’t taken a sick day in two years. It’s the non-smokers who call in. All the freakin’ time.<<<
Do I even need to bring forth the statistics? I work in the healthcare field. Without fail, the people getting sick are smokers. There are few things you can habitually do that so unfailingly destroy your health.
I’m just going to advise you to quit. A life of COPD awaits 25-30% of those of you who don’t.
The figure is based on an analysis of Swedish registry data containing the annual number of sick days amassed by 14,272 workers between 1988 and 1991.
Twenty-nine percent of the workers were current smokers, 26 percent were ex-smokers and 45 percent never smoked. The non-smokers averaged 20 sick days a year, while current smokers averaged 34 days and ex-smokers 25 days.
http://www.healthcentral.com/heart-disease/news-35990-66.html
Among the approximately 59,000 women serving in the U.S. Navy, smoking at the time of enlistment was consistently associated with poor work performance, as well as a higher risk for demotion, desertion, or a less-than-honorable discharge, reported Terry L. Conway Ph.D., and colleagues at San Diego State University Graduate School of Public Health.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/Smoking/tb/5356
The article is pretty useful.
Many aspects of the Western European socioeconomic settlement are constructive for business.
The education system and employment are far better aligned, socialized medicine (with all its flaws) is a boon to employers big and small alike, and the well-modulated forms of protectionism are generally beneficial as well.
The system of vacation, sick days, leaves, layoff protections and limits on overtime which strike Americans as ridiculous is actually quite easy to manage — you simply have to bulk out your workforce to guarantee full staffing, and use short-term contracts to overcome the most burdensome layoff protections for unproven workers. (Because the state provides health care, an employer doesn’t need to fear adding headcount the way a U.S. employer does with all of the fixed costs of each new employee).
The welfare leach contingent in Europe — those who simply don’t work — isn’t much worse than the U.S., when you count all the various forms of welfare in the U.S., including a large portion of the permanent disability caseload. The European welfare set get a slightly better subsidy, but not much. The people who are definitely a lot better off are the low end of the working class, who get their health-care and vacations guaranteed, unlike unskilled American workers, who get no paid vacations or health care, but can’t afford to finance them on their own, either.
All of this is paid for by the consumer in the form of higher taxes and higher prices for goods and services, less than fully offset by higher wages (compared to the US). Basically, business gets to free ride on the consumer.
A great injustice you say? Well, not so fast. Unlike the US or Canada, almost no “rights” of the public are imposed by judges. They can be thrown off quite quickly if and when the people take a different view of their tax and price burden. Yet political movements to do anything more than tinker with the fringes of this system are virtually non-existent. The political mass of Europe has chosen the comfort of their current system, with all of its constraints, against the greater rewards (and, yes, greater risks) of the American system.
The deep problem, of course, anticipated by few people, is that Europeans reacted to higher costs and higher taxes not by reducing their lifestyles but by reducing their families. It is the one-child family which will spell the destruction of the Europe economic settlement as it now stands, not any distress to business. And that destruction begins sooner than anyone expects. The leading wave of the American baby boom hits early retirement next year, whereas the European post-war generation is already half-retired, and the ratios of 1 retiree to 1 active worker are going to be hit ridiculously soon in some European countries.
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