Posted on 07/20/2010 6:40:18 AM PDT by Palter
To paraphrase a Wall Street adage: bulls make money, bears make money, and PIIGS get slaughtered. Of course I'm referring to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Germany won't bail them out again.
Germans work. The country's unemployment rate stands at 7.5%, against an average of 13% for Europe's so-called PIIGS. Those are heavily massaged estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). More revealing is a comparison of youth unemployment, now at 10% in Germany. By contrast, as Doug Saunders observed in the July 16 Globe and Mail, "The under-30 unemployment rate in Spain has just hit 44 per cent, twice the adult rate. Italy also has passed the 40 per cent mark, and Greece has gone even further. If you count all the If you count all the people who've given up looking, it means the number of people between 20 and 30 who have any form of employment in these countries is something like one in five."
There is another important distinction between the German ants and the southern European grasshoppers: Germans save. They had better, because three-fifths of them are likely to be over the age of 60 by the middle of the present century. Gross national saving in Germany last year stood at 26% according to the OECD, against about 16% among the PIIGS, whose demographic profile is just as bad.
Thrifty, hard-working Germans in May bailed out dissolute, corrupt, feckless, spendthrift and lazy Greeks, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese. That, at least, is how it appears to the German public. The German term welsch refers to anyone from lands to the east or south of Germany. Martin Luther quoted the proverb Deutsche Treue, welsche Tucke, or "German honesty, welsche perfidy".
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
Germans don’t exactly work that much either. They usually retire at about age 55.
The problem with Europe is in the article. The categorization that the “adult rate” or the rate of employment for those above the age of 30 is half the rate of the “non-adult” rate or the rate for those below the age of 30 is troubling. I never really considered 18-29 year olds to be something other than adult.
I guess until Europe stops thinking of their 30 year olds as still on school holiday, it will never address its work ethic issues.
Wait. Bob Brinker smugly told me that the Eurozone’s troubles were all well in hand.
Youth = under 30? That's nuts. I was well into my career at 30. Youths are folks 18 and under living at home, in my book.
Of course, these days there are lots of people in their thirties and even forties living at home sponging off their parents, so I guess that skews the categories.
Uh - the only reason germany is at 7.5% Unemployment is that they use the same type of accounting tricks the WE do to keep unemployment down!
Collect the german version of extended benefits (Hartz IV) - not unemployed!
People are so focused on the disaster on the home front that we lose sight of what a failure this administration is across the world
BTW, before FReepers fall into paroxysms of Deutscheslieb kindly consider that the Germans also have 30-60 days mandatory paid vacation, absurdly early retirement, mandatory health insurance, maternity and paternity leave, and every other social benefit the PIIG countries claim they have, but unlike the Germans, cannot afford. What keeps the German bubble inflated is manufacturing and export efficiency, marketing thoroughness, and realistic fiscal policies. Jawohl, it could all blow up, but long after the rest of the Euro-weenies do.
Also consider that after taking over the DDR, the Germans benefited from a long repressed domestic market. Just giving every ex-krautkommie credit, an extra pair of pants, shoes, a toaster, fridge, and new scooter, was an enormous economic opportunity!
Deutschland Deutschland uber alles ... for a while anyway.
I don’t get why Ireland is lumped in with Greece. They chose budget austerity, and have a better budget balance than we do, by far.
The worst thing about this article is the premise - the unemployement rate = lazy rate. Sounds like a young punk or a rich kid that’s never been unemployed before. Boy, those feelings will change in time!
Unemployed = lazy. Is there anything more bigoted?!
Like saying “pregnant” = contraception failure.
Bob Brinker on the radio? He is an idiot who spends most of the time pontificating about the Fed.
Most of these TV and radio investment gurus are snake oil salespeople. The only decent one is Dave Ramsey but just his get out of debt part. The rest of his spiel is also nonsense.
Yes. German tool and die workers are among the best in the world. The PIIGS want they same benefits the Germans have but they are not even close in being as productive. As far as America versus Europe?
They did not elect a muslim to rule over them like the idiot serfs who watch TV in America. TV will keep them serfs and eventually dhimini serfs.
Yes. German tool and die workers are among the best in the world. The PIIGS want they same benefits the Germans have but they are not even close in being as productive. As far as America versus Europe?
They did not elect a muslim to rule over them like the idiot serfs who watch TV in America. TV will keep them serfs and eventually dhimini serfs.
“the unemployment rate = lazy rate”
That is of course not always the case as I have been unemployed about 9 months in the last 30 years.
As long as a behavior is rewarded you will have more of it.
If all the unemployed got NO gubmint checks how long do you think they would stay that way?
Then you will all see how lazy they are . . . . N O T ! !
The very organized evil empire has successfully de-industrialized America using British controlled China.
There are not a million jobs or opportunities of any kind out there, get real.
Italy is net contributor to the European Union. In fact the third or fourth (depends on the year) largest net contributor. I´m sick of racist generalizations. Germans don´t think that way: mass media try to make them think that way.
“I don’t get why Ireland is lumped in with Greece.”
Ireland is the only one of the PIIGS that I can feel sorry for. They had the fastest growing economy in Europe before the worldwide financial collapse caught up with them.
Of all the PIIGs - Italy more than carries it’s weight. Germans do not think that way. Mercedes and Ferrari have been battling for 50+ years. The German stuff is very good but Italy does a lot of incredible stuff.
Germany, Italy, eastern Eruope and parts of Scandinavia may still save Europe from Islam.
Sadly America has idiots who voted for Islam and the idoots who watch TV support the muslim by watching.
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