Well if there aren't lessons to be learned from the Germans. They really are an economic power house.
I mean what a NOVEL concept, a strong manufacturing base. Hmmm.
[quote] The German economy grew at its fastest pace in the second quarter since the country was reunified two decades ago, fuelling the strongest growth in the eurozone in more than two years.
Europe's largest economy powered ahead between April and June, growing by 2.2%, thanks to a recovery in construction and strong foreign demand for German goods, the federal statistical office, Destatis, reported today. This was well above market expectations of 1.4% growth. Growth in the first quarter was revised higher to 0.5% from 0.2%
Comments
The German economy hasn't been revamped to be based on producing nothing..
The U.S. economy is becoming based on producing nothing...in favor of trading paper in financial markets and holding nations hostage to banksters...because they broke themselves bailing banksters. Quick, faster capital gains that way.
Produce nothing...increase monetary gains through finance. The new U.S. economy.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
Is Germany in such great shape? Article from LA Times date 7-31-2010 "German Poor get Poorer Jobs are scarce and benefits shrinking. At the same time. the rich see taxes drop".
It seems German industry is not much different from the US with corporate earnings improving with no substantial improvement for the workers. Sure they may still have a job and the country may be in better financial shape than most but it seems we are painting a rosier picture than what really exists. According to this article "German companies are relying heavily on subcontractors and temp workers which has held down unemployment rates but also affected living standards". Sounds to me to be quite similiar to what is going on here. It also mentions raising of the retirement age from 65 to 67 and value added taxation system that taxes items poorer or middle class people use more than items commonly used by the wealthy.
My point here is, although I am definitely in favor of unions and Germany is a strong union country, you just cannot take the statistics of the how Germany's economy is growing without digging deeper and seeing what are their corporations doing with those increased profits. Sure their earnings and GDP growth are better than other countries but they are doing it on the backs of the workers with no return to those workers. I am still trying to see how that is different from what the US corporations are doing? If they are making those kind of gains will they hire more people and increase wages? I bet not? Just like the USA!
Well German union workers earn twice as much as their American counter parts.
Germans pay MUCH higher taxes, and it shows.
Germany still has a strong manufacturing base, which they haven't outsourced to China. In fact China is one of their biggest export market.
The standard of living in Germany is just much higher than the USA.
But you are always going to find American media attempting to downplay the success stories of other nations. Its the American way.
PS. Good luck trying to find Tent Cities in Germany. Ahh, the American dream, where did it all go so wrong.
The flies in the German soup come from trickle-down neoliberal hocus pocus, the myth that private vices lead to public virtues and businessmen are the only ones who know about growth and development.
1) Longer working hours and pensions at 67 are discussed rather than reducing working hours.
2) Export-orientation turns out to be a grievous model when the US locomotive slows down.
3) Greece is being forced to buy German tanks and U-boats. Militarism is part of neoliberalism as chilidish things are part of life.
4) As in the US, there has been no regulatory correction to the 2008 financial crisis: no early warning system, no "too big to fail" and no "Glass-Steagle." Regional banks have been as nefarious as private banks and speculated with US financial products. Incest between corporations and the state seems to be a systemic problem of late capitalism just as reducing nature to a free good, external or sink. Long-term necessities are usually sacrificed to short-term constraints, to the next military contractor or developer/speculator/huckster. It's time for new business models and new models of growth, development and basic income.
5) Merkel is bailing out Opel rather than nationalizing the banks.
Sustainable development and "steady-state" economics could replace unlimited growth and endless consumerism, the race to the bottom, environmental destruction, economic reductionism and profit worship.
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/papers.html
Most of the world shares the same basic economic model. The German appication of that model is more successful than our own.
However, what is its purpose.? What's the purpose of the model in any country that applies it? In developed countries, it's production for the sake of production. Production for the sake of increasing employment. Production for the sake of increasing profits.
The economic requirements of any society are simply to produce adequate housing, adequate food, adequate clothing and the like for its members.. A simple task for industrialized societies.The point of producing more...just to export it is what? Other than producing goods in exchange for what it can't produce itself...like oil...it's pointless.
Produce what's required, distribute it. Use the time expended to build and export a millions cars to attend concerts ..or having a family picnics in the mountains. A thousand dying streams will thank you...a deteriorating atmosphere will bestow a blessing upon you.
Production for the sake of production is a dead end. The model is killing the planet's caabilities to sustain human life. What's the point of increasing exports...if you're killing off the customers and yourselves in the long run?.
Most indusutrialized nations can adequately clothe, feed and shetler ALL of their populations. They don't have problems producing what's required... The facilities exist to do that. They have problems distributing what's required. What gets in the way of that? Fix it.
Producing more and more "for the sake of economies " that at their cores are already more than able to supply the needs of their populations is the road to Armaggedon.
The problems are in the structures themselves...in the way societies have ornganized themselves politically, socially, economically. The planet is saying, "you can't do that anymore!"...Its capacity to support producing more, more, more is in meltdown mode.. Ditto its capacity to support life as we know it if that path is continued..
German success in applying a model better than we do, in the long run, hastens the destruction of the planet. The resources they utilized to create those exports didn't come from the moon.. I'm not sure their success is a good thing or a bad thing....and in the interim it alleviates human hardship brought about by failures of distribution.within the German nation.
Germany can produce more than enough to supply its population with required goods......food, clothing, shelter, medical care, leisure activities....without full employment....without huge exports It has existing caabilities to do that. So what's the problem....there or here?
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Well I guess I see the world a little differently. And whether or not I fully agree with mass consumerism, that is the reality of the world we live in.
I agree. Why does Germany have to produce so much excess that they export more than they need? But that is our global world. Personally fellows, I don't see that aspect of our world changing in my life time (and I am 40).
But within that model, I admire the Germans. They protect German jobs and industry. They haven't outsourced their manufacturing on a massive scale, as has been done in the US. In other words, as a nation they can survive, and thrive on the world stage.
At the end of the day, its a much more equal environment in which to live. And while it may be fueling a larger, global machine which many on this board see as the downfall of civilization. They are just playing their role in the way our world works at the moment.
Is that right or wrong?
PS. I might add that German regulations, and environmental laws are MUCH stricter than they are in America.
The German economy has been a basket case for decades. The only good thing they have done is to refuse to go along with Obama's insane deficit spending because they still remember the
Weimar hyperinflation.
Ah yes, no constructive thread would be complete without a shout out from the peanut gallery.
How do you explain the economic "success" of Germany in light of the fact that GDP per capita (PPP) is only 73% of the US? (based on 2010 estimates) It seems to me on a per capita basis that it is better (financially) to be an American, right?
GDP per capita is not a measure of a healthy society.
Finally, the GDP per capita does not take into account income distribution. The gap between the highest and lowest salaries are muc bigger in some countries than in others (e.g. bigger in the USA than in Japan). The GDP per capita being an average, it is important to know how far from this average most people really are, just because a small percentage of the population earns the biggest chunk. That is what the Gini coefficient tells us.
/american people are obsolete anyhow. Indian and Chinese consumers will replace Americans.
/Human_Poverty_Index might be of use, too. The numbers are in need of an update.
Douglaslee, I am not arguing about income gap, or health of a society etc. My comments were directed at the first two posts which are essentially summed up as saying Germany is an economic powerhouse because of manufacturing. My point is that while Germany may currently have strong economic growth they are by no means an economic powerhouse as compared to the US. A misconception on the left is that the US doesn't produce anything anymore. This is despite the fact that our manufacturing output is up 300% since the 80's. The decrease in GDP as related to manufacturing has gone down, but that is because so many other areas have grown faster.
How do you explain the economic "success" of Germany in light of the fact that GDP per capita (PPP) is only 73% of the US? (based on 2010 estimates) It seems to me on a per capita basis that it is better (financially) to be an American, right?
It depends on how that per capita is distributed. If one man has a billion bucks, and the other none....the average ncome is 1/2 billion.....and one still has nothing. Per capita income doesn't reflect everything, does it?
Probably, since the U.S. is 4 times larger than German in land area and natural resources ..our GDP per person should reflect that. Germany has no domestic oil..
Mel, I don't see economic models changing either...and the environment will continue melting down until they do.. They been utilized in the same basic form for 500 years. No system, just like the previous ones, last forever. Change will be forced by crises...not done out of common sense..
Solutions are contradicted by the structures....the models...by t he very way that decision making process takes place.. Antifascist posted a pretty clear dissertation in another thread. on why that is so.
. Change will probably be forced by crises....not common sense. Changes in paradigms seldom happen without a critical mass of unsolveable problems. They continue...remaining unsolveable within the current paradigm.
It will happen in your lifetime
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
PC2: It depends on how that per capita is distributed. If one man has a billion bucks, and the other none....the average ncome is 1/2 billion.....and one still has nothing. Per capita income doesn't reflect everything, does it? – I never said that it did!! I am merely refuting the claim that having a large manufacturing base necessarily equals economic prosperity as implied in posts #1 and #2. Do you guys actually process what is being written, or do you just assume because I pose a question that seems counter to what you would like to think, that this is an attack on the whole of your progressive values/agenda? I fully understand what GINI is, and no, having high GDP per capita has nothing to do with distribution, I get that. The question is, if Germany is now considered the model of success due to their manufacturing base, which by the way has been larger on a percentage basis than the US for many years, why then do they lag in GDP per capita?
PC2: Probably, since the U.S. is 4 times larger than German in land area and natural resources ..our GDP per person should reflect that. Germany has no domestic oil.. – Neither does Luxembourg, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or the Netherlands all of which are smaller and have less natural resources and yet rank ahead of both the US and Germany. Land size and resources have almost no bearing on GDP per capita.
Quit attacking me for things I never said or even assumed. If the weight of your claims in regards to Germany’s economy can’t stand up to simple scrutiny, then maybe you should examine your claims.
Note the countrires you mention earn a great deal of their living through finance...producing little.
Chad had increasing productivity....the population growth exceeded it. GDP per person dropped. It vies with Haiti as being the poorist country on the planet. . Figures never tell all the story.
If the U.S. didn't count as a part of its own GDP parts made in other nations and assembled here, our GDP would be in the pits. Not much different than counting those who run out of unemployment insurance as working. Figures don't tell the truthful story, do they?
Running the printing presses full bore are a symptom. of underlying structural economic/political problems.....not the cause of the problems..Cure the structures, and you'll cure the symptoms.
Just one example: The Treasury has to issue Treasury Bonds to finance our on-going wars. The Fed buys them up with money created out of thin air. It has to. Our trade deficits..., turned into Treasury financing by other nations is plunging. If we buy $500 billion from China, and they don't buy anything in return...the dollars are turned into Treasury Bonds. That source of financing is drying up. The American consumer is going broke.
Speed up the printing presses...or stop the foolish wars. Speed up the printing presses, or stop the re-activation of the 4th Fleet and increasing military presence in So. America in an endeavor to stop S. American governments from breaking away from the Washington consensus..The get that our economic model kept their majorities in a poverty that's no longer acceptable..
Running the printing presses full bore are a symptom. of underlying structural economic/political problems.....not the cause of the problems..Cure the structures, and you'll cure the symptoms
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
PC2: Note the countrires you mention earn a great deal of their living through finance...producing little. - I could have easily gone the other way as well which would be to list larger more resource oriented countries as having less GDP per capita, India, Brazil, Russia, China. Are you now going to claim that China doesn't produce anything?
PC2: Speed up the printing presses...or stop the foolish wars. Speed up the printing presses, or stop the re-activation of the 4th Fleet and increasing military presence in So. America in an endeavor to stop S. American governments from breaking away from the Washington consensus..The get that our economic model kept their majorities in a poverty that's no longer acceptable.. Running the printing presses full bore are a symptom. of underlying structural economic/political problems.....not the cause of the problems..Cure the structures, and you'll cure the symptoms - I agree with you about the choice, but it was the printing presses that allowed us to have the money (via inflation tax, rather than direct) to have the fleets and the military hardware in the first place. I don't disagree that there need to be changes, but if you look at the US from a historical perspective you will see that having fiat money has allowed for our burgeoning debt. If people were taxed directly for the military and the wars there would be riots in the street, so the government uses the hidden tax of inflation. I suggest reading The Creature from Jekyll Island. I don't necessarily buy all the conspiracy theory stuff, but from a historical banking perspective it is very telling. You will find that it is fiat money that allows the structure, which then demands more fiat money. It is a ponzi scheme called fractional reserve banking.
Sure it's a scheme. And as long as the U.S. maintains outsourcing, wars of choice and refuses to tax those having the means to pay for it..., it's the only way to do it. Special interests creating U.S. trade and foreign policy...don't want to pay for it. They just want the profits from it.
A few years down the line, it's going to reach back and bite us in the behind.
In the meantime, there are huge profits to be made from the scheme...by the military/industrial complex and Wall Street. Let the good times roll....the Pied Piper is still getting dressed.. He'll collect his due later.
My Social Security will be a gonner along with many of my neighbors'. Instead of my apartment complex having a 50% vacancy rate from the Great "Recession"...it will be 75% vacant.. .
QUOTE: Which is why it’s odd that Democrats seem almost embarrassed to continue to champion the legacy of FDR. The party frets about long-term deficits and the corresponding need to “save” Social Security from imminent bankruptcy and, in doing so, opens the gate to radical cuts in entitlements that will do nothing but further destroy incomes and perpetuate our current economic malaise.
It was President Obama who most recently re-opened this issue by setting up a commission on reducing long term budget deficits and dealing with the long term issue of entitlements, including Social Security
Privatization of Social Security represents the last of the low hanging fruits for Wall Street. Who better to provide this to our captains of the financial services industry than their major political benefactors in the Democratic Party?
There are questions of possible conflicts of interest. As James Galbraith has noted, the Commission has accepted support from Peter G. Peterson, a man who has been one of the leading campaigners to cut Social Security and Medicare.
The only “change” most Americans might experience is a reduction in their Social Security benefits from a President currently presiding over one of the most regressive wealth transfers in history. They’ll be receiving nothing but pocket change if a serious attack on entitlements is legitimized by this commission.
http://www.counterpunch.org/auerback08172010.html
More to the top, less to the middle, none to the bottom....and an economy left to function as a skeleton of picked over bones..
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Ahh poly, I see another one of our false dichotomy posters strikes again. ;)
I admire Germany. I do believe with in the context of the global economy, they have one of the most successful models. How many countries could so effectively absorb into their economy, the mess that was East Germany. That really wasn't that long ago.
I suspect the reason Germany does protect its manufacturing base, is because, they have (as a nation) experienced first hand what can happen when you don't protect your own workers at all cost.
The US has not learned that lesson, and I suspect America is at a rather dangerous point in its own history making. You can easily see how some right wing radical party could come to power (think the Tea Party menace), and begin to implement a radical new government.
Germany doesn't really have to worry about the rise of right wing fascism again. They did learn the lesson the hard way.
The really frightening aspect of all of this though, is the military prowess of the US. A bankrupt nation with lots of capability to destroy the rest of the world, with a crazy enough leader- well hell, I guess it doesn't really bear thinking about (although I just did).
Mel wrote: "The really frightening aspect of all of this though, is the military prowess of the US. A bankrupt nation with lots of capability to destroy the rest of the world, with a crazy enough leader- well hell, I guess it doesn't really bear thinking about (although I just did)."
poly replies: That is a scary thought, isn't it? From time memorial, leaders have whipped up patriotic fervor and war to distract their populations from the true causes of their problems....wacko leaders and wacko policies.
It was Germany's economic calamities that paved the way for Hitler. The economic calamities of Russia that paved the way for Stalin. The economic calamities of the U.S. will pave the way for who?.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is being addressed that has us in a meltdown. The true unemployment rate is 22%.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08182010.html
Unemployment is projected to increase by the end of the year..
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Meljour, if you are refering to me as the false dichotomy poster, I would be interested to know what you consider a false dichotomy. My question as to economic success and GDP seems legitimate to me, if GDP is not an accurate measure, what would you consider in its place?
PC2: In the meantime, there are huge profits to be made from the scheme...by the military/industrial complex and Wall Street. Let the good times roll....the Pied Piper is still getting dressed.. He'll collect his due later. - Agreed, get rid of the scheme and the profits are instantly gone. Exactly why fiat money is the issue. Neither the left or right will do it though because they both benefit, even the extreme left Bernie Sanders went Benedict Arnold on this issue and sold out to the money trust. I hope he got more than 30 pieces of silver to play Judas.
PC2: My Social Security will be a gonner along with many of my neighbors'. Instead of my apartment complex having a 50% vacancy rate from the Great "Recession"...it will be 75% vacant.. . Agreed as well, being in my early 30's I know the SS money won't be there, I have planned on it not being there so hopefully I won't have to eat cat food in my 70's.
I think poly already answered you.
Besides, I think you did a brilliant job of highlighting how much healthier an economy Germany has than the USA. So thanks for that. ;)
Meljour: I think poly already answered you.
Besides, I think you did a brilliant job of highlighting how much healthier an economy Germany has than the USA. So thanks for that. ;) - Poly didn't anwer my question, he changed the question and answered that. I highlighted the fact that the German economy as measured by GDP per capita is lagging the US. I would appreciate an answer to my questions in posts #9 and #20.
Probably products manufactured by firms overseas, and having the profits from them added as U.S. GDP doesn't really reflect what's going on.
The GDP will have a nice spike in it from the recent oil mess in the Gulf. Destruction, somehow is converted into beneficial economic activity.. It's .restoration...., not growth...and is measured as growth...
The methodology used to measure the GDP is about as wacky as the methodology utilized to measure unemployment. They are so inaccurate in this country, they are next to useless..
German workers retained incomes...American workers didn't. If the German people can maintain their standards of living and not have their homes foreclosed on...who gives a hoot about manipuated figures?.
My concern is, the economy is continuing to crash....and the same old trickle down nonsense that helped to bring it about is being utilized to fix it.
Unemployment claims are on the rise again this week....and a new round of layoffs are in progress.. The solution seems to be, more loans to businesses so they can expand. What businessman in his right mind is going to expand when they are losing their customer base?
The customer base in Germany didn't disappear...ours is vanishing into a black hole.
The policies it took the U.S. neo-liberals of both parties several decades to implement fully were implemented by Chile and Argentinta within weeks. Both nations had economic collapse from the nonsense.. Both had their Presidents fleeing to avoid the ire of an insurrection. The Germans probably won't experience that.
Germany, unlike Chile and Argentina, probably won't have mobs of hungry people looting super markets in such numbers the police can't stop them. Economic collapses aren't pretty. The Germans seem to be doing a better job of avoiding one than we are. They haven't adopted the policies we foisted on two failed nation-states. We're drinking from the same pitcher of koolaid we had them drink from.
Germany still makes good beer rather than toxic koolaid..
Fiat money as utilized is a problem...so fix the problem. Unless you want to go back to bartering or having a few hundred different currencies floating around in the country and keeping track of the value one vs. another day by day...fiat money seems rather essential.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
It doesn't matter what the gdp per capita is, the tallest people in the world are Nederlanders [Dutch..Netherlands]], the last time I read the stats. An equivalent question to the why is their gdp lower would be why are Americans shorter?
So then what metric would be used to support the claim of post #1 that the Germans are an economic powerhouse? If we are talking economics, it seems to me that a metric that measures economic welfare would be GDP per capita, if you disagree could you please provide an alternative and an explanation as to why you would pick that alternative?
It depends on how the nations GDP is distributed, doesn't it?
We do it this way:
Short Music Video. Language will be offensive to some:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeWgpoCwc9Y
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
PC2: It depends on how the nations GDP is distributed, doesn't it? - could you expand on this? Because I would say that no, it doesn't depend on distribution. The reason I chose GDP per capita, is because it doesn't discriminate against size of country as total GDP would. If you are saying GDP per capita is not accurate measure of economic success, then what is the metric of economic distribution that you use to show that Germany is an economic powerhouse? Also it seems to me that distribution being equitable would be nice for some, however, by and large if one population has a GDP/capita of $35k with a completely equitable distribution they are still worse off then another population that has an economic distribution of $45k per person, but 10 percent of the country has a ±5k.
I watched the video, while cute and funny, it didn't really tell me much.
PC2: It depends on how the nations GDP is distributed, doesn't it? -
Tmoney asks: could you expand on this?
Sure. Kuwait has one of the highest GDP's in the world. Big deal. It goes into a few pockets.
I don't measure a country by how much it produces, I measure it by how well its people live. Compared to U.S. living standards/quality of life...the Germans are a powerhouse.. Considering its lack of natural resources, I'm surprised it produces what it does.
Considering our natural resources (including oil and uranium) we probably ought to be producing even more.. Maybe a GDP double Germany's rather than only 25% higher. We still probably couldn't afford equivalent social programs.
Afterall, we had to oursource to China for a 50 cent wage so we could compete with the Danes paying $16 an hour minimum.
A nation consists of the people who make it up....it isn't a map in a book.
A high GDP...and every state but two plunging into insolvency this year. Whooopie! Close the schools and shut down the police departments..
At least do as Colo. Springs did. Turn off the street lights, board up the libraries, sell off police equipment, stop garbage collection and close the parks. Ah...the signs of an economic powerhouse are sometimes hard to discover. A walk through Beverly Hills might help.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
So it appears you don't have a metric that measures Germany's status as an economic powerhouse, but you prefer it's welfare state to ours. Fair enough, I am not judging your predeliction to having the state take care of you, I was just curious to know if there was any thought behind the original statement that Germany is an Economic powerhouse, and if so how that was measured. Had you merely stated what you just said in the last post it would have saved us a lot of posts.
I am not really amazed by Germany's lack of resources correlating to success..... however it is measured. Hong Kong, and Singapore have almost no resources, but they manage quite well despit that .
Singapore have almost no resources, but they manage quite well despit that . They also have public caning, fine for not flushing a public toilet, no chewing gum, and death for any drug possession .
douglaslee, and your point about Singapore with regards to economics is..........?
Singapore and Hong Kong are cities. Singapore is a city/state. An entire nation can't be based on finance. A city can as long as not many do that.
You're comparing apples to oranges. Probably the economic powerhouse of Germany will continue doing what its doing...while the U.S. continues sliding into what trends forecaster Celeste calls the 'Greater Depression".
You'd probably do well to read Jane Jacobs. Her works on the economies of cities is amazing. Nations become reflections of their cities. Ours are turning into rust belts..Guess what the nation is reflecting at an accelerating pace.
Your U.S. powerhouse is turning into a pile of rust.
A synopsis of some of her understanding/research can be found here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
I think its funny when conservatives site places like Hong Kong (China) and Singapore as economic power houses. You are correct poly, they are not individual countries.
It doesn't really matter what conservatives perceive of the US vs places such as Germany. At the end of the day, Germany has a model which will survive this economic global crisis, the US does not.
Arguing about the fact that the US has more billionaires and millionaires per capita, really only demonstrates how UNSUCCESSFUL trickle down economics really is!
polycarp2, thanks for the Jane Jacobs link.
Systems of Survival Main article: Systems of Survival
Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics moves outside of the city, studying the moral underpinnings of work. As with her other work, she used an observational approach. This book is written as a Platonic dialogue. It appears that she (as described by characters in her book) took newspaper clippings of moral judgements related to work, collected and sorted them to find that they fit two patterns of moral behaviour that were mutually exclusive. She calls these two patterns "Moral Syndrome A", or commercial moral syndrome, and "Moral Syndrome B", or guardian moral syndrome. She claims that the commercial moral syndrome is applicable to business owners, scientists, farmers, and traders. Similarly, she claims that the guardian moral syndrome is applicable to government, charities, hunter-gatherers, and religious institutions. She also claims that these Moral Syndromes are fixed, and do not fluctuate over time.
It is important to stress that Jane Jacobs is providing a theory about the morality of work, and not all moral ideas. Moral ideas that are not included in her syndrome are applicable to both syndromes.
Jane Jacobs goes on to describe what happens when these two moral syndromes are mixed, showing the work underpinnings of the Mafia and communism, and what happens when New York Subway Police are paid bonuses here — reinterpreted slightly as a part of the larger analysis.
Guardian or Commerce, shows the qualities of guardian or police state to be similar to wall street, and of course politicians. The qualities of commerce would be nice, myths always sound good, ponzi schemes are based on myth.
In new reform legislation, to be implemented at a future date yet to be established, is a kind of bounty system for whisteblowers. Those involved in fraud will have to be innovative to buy off, or bribe the ethical, promising more reward for silence, and of course revenge will always work. Whistleblowers will get offers they can't refuse.
Poly, I know what Hong Kong and Singapore are. Both have there own political systems, currencies, and economic systems. Meljour, a little research would have been good on your part, as you are misinformed as to Singapore’s status as a country. Wikipedia says, “Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula….”Hong Kong as described by Wikipedia, “Under the principle of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong runs on economic and political systems different from those of mainland China.[12]”
Poly, I am not sure why you would choose to argue this point, but if you think resources are indicative of GDP per capita you are wrong. There are few instances where they correlate; Qatar is the one that jumps to mind. Depending what source you use (IMF or CIA Factbook) the following are all better than Germany in regards to GDP per capita; Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Andorra, Iceland, Bermuda, Netherlands, Austria, and there are more. None of these countries are known for there rich resources. Conversely Russia, China, Mexico, Brazil, and much of South America in general all have tons of resources and lag behind Germany. Resources as it turns out are only good if you can do something with them. The fact that Singapore is a city/state, and Hong Kong a special administrative region really have no bearing on my argument. If you want to attack Singapore for its harsh rules as douglaslee did, you can, I don’t disagree, but since this thread is supposed to be in regards to economics I was focusing on that.
This thread has become hilarious, the progressives here are so desperate to defend the German economy as the shining example of economic progress, that you continue to throw non-economic factors into the mix, and want to disqualify Singapore because it is a city/state. Fine, take Singapore and Hong Kong out of the mix, but at the same time please defend why Germany’s reputation as an economic “powerhouse” lags behind the likes of Andorra, or even its neighbors, Switzerland and Austria in terms of GDP per capita. Or give me a metric that can be used instead of GDP per capita, so we can debate that. Otherwise accept defeat and move on, all you are doing at this point is proving your ignorance as to economics and in Singapore’s case, what constitutes a country.
Tmoney, you're twisting my wording. Against Board rules. Stop doing that if you want to continue posting here. AND I'm totally uninterested in Singapore's strict social lrules. Your agenda...not mine. I never brought it up....never addressed it until now..
I didn't say resources /GDP per capita had a correlation. I noted that countries with more resources had the capability to have a higher GDP than countries that didn't. The U.S. has major resources...Germany doesn't.
The U.S. GDP has the potential to be double Germany's...and isn't. AND the GDP doesn't reflect how a nations wealth is distributed. A high GDP with citizens plunging into poverty isn't a sign of economic health to me....and banksters/financiers love it.
GDP methodology is flawed. Bankster bonuses contribute nothing to the real economy...and are included as part of the GDP.. The city state of Singapore is based on finance....not real productivity. Money bubbles and production of real goods/services are two different things..A small state can live off of that...using financial fees from other nations to import what it needs. . A large nation can't.
Neo-liberal economics includes incomes in non-productive financial sectors as a part of the GDP. It's measuring bubbles that produce nothing except incomes.
U.S. GDP isn't an accurate measurement of the nation's economic health. Corporate profits, earned overseas, aren't a measurement of U.S. economic health...it's a measurement of other countries economic health. Payouts from those earnings are counted as U.S. GDP. They aren't.
At its core, the GDP measures monetary transactions....not real production. Not real growth.....AND real production figures from sales/purchases of production are included in the GDP. They should be all that's included to get a true measurement of economic health.
Exclude Wall Street payouts and corporate earnings based on foreign production, and what you'll find is a negative GDP....an economy sliding into a major Depression.. Twits from the Chicago School of Economics don't get that. Other schools do.
The U.S. economy is becoming based on producing nothing except fancily engraved paper. Paper that represents real goods/services that aren't being produced. It's stupid..It's flawed theory. The results of that are biting us in the behind. Production of real goods can be measured using monetary values.....and money isn't the GDP! Wall Street earnings are not a measurement of the real GDP...and are counted as such.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
I think it is Antifascist, who said on another thread that trying to "debate" a conservative about any issue is pretty pointless. You have your POV, makes no difference if it means anything. And you stick to it regardless.
Right wing talking points are all the same (they really are). Its no wonder I am convinced most conservatives world is the size of a pea.
And yes, once again the USA may have a higher GDP, but they also have the largest number of billionaires and millionaires per capita in the world, proving that trickle down economics does not work.
But wages for the average American have stagnated.; So, growth doesn't mean much, except for the cream that controls everything. All increased productivity means is that fewer people are doing more work.
Well, it was Hanna Arendt who said that an ideolgue can't learn anything new even if its something that has just come to pass. They don't get that our current meltdown is a direct result of the nonsense they defend..
Applying more of the same to fix it is like throwing gasoline on a fire to put out the fire. That's what we are doing.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
It's because economics isn't used properly, it's used as something similar to religion in that it is used to support a world view rather than as an observational science to explain human behavior. Therefore, free market/laissez faire ideologies will always be used as law even though they've been proven wrong by our behavior simply because adherents really believe in the tenets underlying those ideologies.
The problem is,.... economics is used as an attempt to explain human behavior...that is culturally induced. That has little to do with basic economic functioning. It has to do with explaining cultural institutions. and world views.
Produce what's needed...distribute it. The accumulation of wealth for accumulations sake has nothing to do with that...and our economic functioning is based in large part on that....mere monetary accumulation...
Some societies in history have done very well producing and distributing required goods....some haven't. Much of that is determined by the cultures themselves...their world views and the structures they've designed to implement them.Their paradigm.
Most economic theory has little to do with economics...and a lot to do with promoting desired outcomes for the primary beneficiaries of the theories.
Economics isn't about money...it's ultimately about the production/distribution of goods. We tend to put the foundations of "economics" on the back burner in favor of monetary accumulation..
Our current meltdown is an outcome of that.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Poly, you brought up resources in post #28, so I don’t feel like I am twisting your words. Additionally I have been talking about GDP per capita, which is different than GDP.
Meljour, I am not a conservative, I am not a neo-con, I am not a right-winger, I have never voted for a republican in a major election, and I reject the philosophy of the neo-con movement whole hardly so I would appreciate it if you refrained from labeling me as any of those.
Meljour: And yes, once again the USA may have a higher GDP, but they also have the largest number of billionaires and millionaires per capita in the world, proving that trickle down economics does not work. – I agree that GDP (or GDP per capita) bears no reflection on how the overall society fairs from top to bottom, and speaks nothing to wealth concentration, it speaks only to how well a society does on average. If there are large standard deviations from that average then you will have large concentrations of extreme rich and poor, some of this can be rectified through policy. Policy however, can have adverse affects as well. Many times the policies that make the distribution more equitable, actually reduce overall economic welfare on the whole.
Also, I don’t advocate “trickle down economics”, I don’t think anyone does. http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/1115-The-Trickle-Down-Econom...
PolyCarp2: Well, it was Hanna Arendt who said that an ideolgue can't learn anything new even if its something that has just come to pass. They don't get that our current meltdown is a direct result of the nonsense they defend.. – Well, I don’t consider myself an ideologue, I consider myself a student of economic history, and I have seen what works and what doesn’t and base my philosophy accordingly. I am not saying that Germany has it wrong, far from it, I have been there many times and I love it there. The point of the thread (for me) was economic discussion, not political. How a country tries to re-distribute its wealth is more of a political issue to me than an economic one. The claim was made that Germany was an economic powerhouse, and while I think they do well for themselves, I don’t know that I would use the word “powerhouse”. I was hoping that someone on this thread could articulate what measure of economics was used to confer “powerhouse” status. I wasn’t even necessarily arguing GDP per capita as the end all be all economic prosperity metric. I started out by asking why Germany lagged behind in this metric, and nobody seemed to have an answer to that question, or at least an answer that stood up to any scrutiny. Furthermore, I am not even defending our current economic system, I would advocate for more freedom of choice, less gov’t interference, less corporatism, and elimination of the Federal Reserve, which in my mind, is the root of our current problem. It should come as no surprise that you get rampant speculation when the market is flooded with money based on nothing. I don’t intend to re-hash all those arguments on this thread, but I will say that I am no defender of the status quo.
jeffbiss: But wages for the average American have stagnated.; So, growth doesn't mean much, except for the cream that controls everything. All increased productivity means is that fewer people are doing more work. – We discussed stagnant wages on another post and you said that economists don’t live in the real world. I am not sure what approach I can take given that belief. I even posted data showing that wages rose 2.5% annualized from 1995-2006, so I don’t know what else to say really other than I don’t buy the stagnated wages argument based on the data I have seen. The link that you provided is an article involving the economist Raghuram Rajan, but you have stated already that economists don’t live in the real world, so what does that tell me? Should I believe an article from someone who is of a group of people that you believe don’t live in the real world? It seems to me that you want to pick and choose the economists that you believe in while discrediting others.
You discussed stagnant wages, I merely stated that economists don't live in the real world and specified that is due to the fact that, overall, they dwell within their preferred ideologies rather than merely explaining and predicting human behavior. That doesn't mean that they won't be able to evaluate solid numbers. So, I can rely on them, including Rajan, to apply math to numbers that will show me how we behaved, including how wages have stagnated.
This is a far cry from an economist telling me that adding more people to an already overpopulated world is necessary to support an ever growing older population, which ignores the devastation to the real world we have caused to this point that imperils everything, including the economy that we create.
Tmoney wrote: "I wasn’t even necessarily arguing GDP per capita as the end all be all economic prosperity metric. I started out by asking why Germany lagged behind in this metric, and nobody seemed to have an answer to that question, or at least an answer that stood up to any scrutiny."
poly replies: It should be self-evident. A nation that has natural resources, increases its GDP by harvesting them, mining them, processing them. Money transfers that take place doing that (including wages) are a measurement of the GDP. That's in addition to production of a final product. Germany has few natural resoures. It's lacking the resource industries that manufacturing industries are based upon.
Mining, forestry, oil drilling, etc. is added to the country's GDP that harvests them. Given that....., our GDP should outpace Germany's by a long, long way...whether figured as Gross Domestic Product or Goss Per Capita production..It doesn't do that.
Regardless of what the flawed GDP methodoly says, the real U.S. GDP is in negative territory at present. That's irrelevant to banksters.
Banksters think a successful economy is built on fancily engraved paper that muliplies itself by doing nothing..Unfortunately, that's also the Washington consensus and the position of the Federal Reserve.
If you're an economic history buff...going back at least to Sumeria, you're aware that the miracle of compound interest contains within it a suicide pill. We're starting to choke on it.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"..
PC2: Mining, forestry, oil drilling, etc. is added to the country's GDP that harvests them. Given that....., our GDP should outpace Germany's by a long, long way...whether figured as Gross Domestic Product or Goss Per Capita production..It doesn't do that. – For the record I believe that I have been discussing GDP per capita, which eliminates the affect of population size when making comparisons. I feel a little like we are beating a dead horse here. Resources are only good if you can productively harvest them, but again, having large vast resources isn’t indicative of a high GDP per capita (or necessarily GDP), as per the examples of countries that I have listed previously. There are countries with more natural resources than Germany with a lower GDP per capita, and there are countries with fewer natural resources than Germany that have higher GDP per capita. Some countries simply buy natural resources from others and add value to them by manufacturing products that are more heavily desired. Japan buys steel and makes cars, Germany buys grain and makes beer, and China may buy timber and make paper or furniture or any myriad of objects. All of these products are more valuable than the raw materials themselves. Availability of natural resources only play a very small role in a countries productive ability.
PC2: Regardless of what the flawed GDP methodoly says, the real U.S. GDP is in negative territory at present. That's irrelevant to banksters. – Its not negative, I am not even sure if that is possible. It may be inflated or overstated but I am quite sure that it can’t be negative, I assume that you are being facetious?
PC2: Banksters think a successful economy is built on fancily engraved paper that muliplies itself by doing nothing..Unfortunately, that's also the Washington consensus and the position of the Federal Reserve. – I agree with you here, there is definitely a culture of getting something for nothing that is pervasive in the power centers of our country.
PC2: If you're an economic history buff...going back at least to Sumeria, you're aware that the miracle of compound interest contains within it a suicide pill. We're starting to choke on it. – I am much less concerned about compounding interest than I am about fractional reserve banking. I find it strangely curious that for every $1 that is deposited that $9 are created out of thin air. Now that is some serious compounding!!!! Oh, by the way do you know who is on the hook for all of those Federal Reserve Notes that represent debt…the taxpayer. The term full faith and credit of the United States…means we are footing the bill when the time comes.
Of course countries can buy another country's GDP...natural resources such as oil.
Third World countries sell their resources all the time to nations that add value to them through manufacturing. Raw materials are the primary source of income of Third World nations. They trade less expensive raw materials for more expensive manufactured goods.
China buys lots of U.S. timber and the like.The relationship is becoming that of a third world country to a first world country.
If Germany had oil, their economic production would exceed the U.S.on a per capita basis.
Counting financial transactions/wages/bonuses as a part of the economy is an illusion. Counting what is essentially non-productive...as being productive is folly. It isn't.
There is no problem with fractional reserve banking...as long as the productive elements of the economy remain in correlation to the increased money supply. Creating money to feed bubbles...housing or otherwise... upsets the apple cart. A private banking system does that.
There is a problem with compounding interest....the interest payments ultimately exceeding a nation's productive ability to pay the interest.. Previous societies handled the problem with a "Jubilee". The cancelling of all debts.
Our solution is creating more debt. Money created to buy more goods...and no money created to pay the interest. A dead end known since the time of the Sumarians..
FDR had an inkling of that. "Faced by the failures of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money."
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
PC2: If Germany had oil, their economic production would exceed the U.S.on a per capita basis. – I guess you can make that argument but there is no evidence to back it. If this is the case why does Saudi Arabia’s production lag the US? Or Mexico, or Venezuela?
PC2: Counting financial transactions/wages/bonuses as a part of the economy is an illusion. Counting what is essentially non-productive...as being productive is folly. It isn't. – I am sorry but I don’t understand the last sentence, what is “it isn’t” referring to? It isn’t folly?
PC2: There is no problem with fractional reserve banking...as long as the productive elements of the economy remain in correlation to the increased money supply. – couldn’t I easily say that there is nothing wrong with interest as long as the productive elements of the economy remain in correlation to the increased money supply? Creating money to feed bubbles...housing or otherwise... upsets the apple cart. A private banking system does that. – Actually this is half true; creating money to feed bubbles is an issue for sure. Fiat money is a huge problem, but to assume that private banking necessitates that end is not true. It may do that (and in our case does) but it is not inherent in private banking.
PC2: There is a problem with compounding interest....the interest payments ultimately exceeding a nation's productive ability to pay the interest.. Previous societies handled the problem with a "Jubilee". The cancelling of all debts. – So loaning money out a 5% is an issue, but creating money at 900% isn’t? I think you should check out the historical results of fractional reserve banking and fiat money, it is a laundry list of bygone nations.
PC2: FDR had an inkling of that. "Faced by the failures of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money." – in this case the failures of credit might well be referring to the fact that money is created out of thin air when a customer of a bank is given credit. I don’t know the full context of the quote, so I don’t know if FDR is referring to actual credit as in money that is backed by only 10% reserves, or if the credit is based on interest payments. Either way, I don’t know that I would take the opinion of FDR on financial matters too seriously anyway.
PC2: If Germany had oil, their economic production would exceed the U.S.on a per capita basis.
tmoney replies: – I guess you can make that argument but there is no evidence to back it. If this is the case why does Saudi Arabia’s production lag the US? Or Mexico, or Venezuela?
poly responds: Get real. Saudi Arabia has only one source of GDP . Oil. It isn't diverse as the U.S. is or as Germany could be if Germany had it.
Comparing an oligarchy like Mexico to Germany is rather absurd. 38 families own 50% of everything in Mexico worth owning.The Mexican elite take their money and run to foreign financial markets with it rather than developing the country. It's trickle down at its best. They've been in a Depression for 80 years.
Venezuela, like most of our neighbors south of the border, has the same legacy. .
Retired Monk - "Ideology is as disease"
polycarp2 is onto it!
Methodology is vitally important: bad methodology = bad results (sooner or later), e.g. the way GDP is counted.
I like the sign-off about ideology being akin to a disease. Ideology tends to be used to try and cover up for bad methodology, and is usually an indication that reality is not being properly dealt with - it's more convenient to build an imaginary construct (general rule of thumb: run a mile from anything ending with "ism", "ist" and/or "ian").
polycarp2 is very accurate in saying "Fiat money as utilized is a problem...so fix the problem." - and it's vitally important to take note of and understand the emphasis on "as utilized"
polycarp2 is showing the correct methodology to apply to solving a problem: find the cause of the problem (fiat money as utilized) and fix it.
Fortunately, 3,500 years of monetary history have shown us what works and what doesn't, so we know what to do now:
1) place the central bank under democratic control within our existing constitutional framework of public administration,
2) stop banks from creating 'money' (bank deposits) as their credit/debt - it's the wrong way to look at money and the world,
3) have our representative government create, issue and regulate our money supply as required, in line with the needs of the economy and in a way that is neither inflationary nor deflationary.
These are the three essential elements that will fix the monetary causes of our economic problems, and all three are contained in the proposed American Monetary Act developed by the American Monetary Institute.
We won't get justice and freedom from debt slavery without all three of these essential elements being made law. The money system is a manmade system, so it's entirely within our power to change it and make it work for us (not the other way around, as it's set up at present).
It's really very simple. Don't let anyone fool you with smokescreens. Now it's just a matter of getting it done, so please have a look at it (google American monetary Institute or go straight to www.monetary.org) and spread the word.