How well do you think the economy is going in the next few years?

[Mr Khan]

SlayerRondo said:

generic-user-1 said:

austerity is wrong if you have to cut more thanjust the fat.  germany hasnt cut any government worker, they hired MORE because they were needed to make the systemn run better.  lower taxation on the other hand doesnt work realy well, the people who would consume more dont pay taxes and the one that get a lot of money back doesnt consumer more even if they would pay 0% taxes.

if you want to cut taxes, cut consume taxes, not income taxes.

 

and QE isnt working because the banking system is broken and needs replacement.  greece needs community banks, cooperative or city owned, both works well.   a real stimulus would work, but they had to break a iron law and let the ecb finance the stimulus. bestway would be green energie, that helps generating profits IN the state and not in the middle east or russia.

the thousand of small green energie producers in germany generate a lot of taxes on a local level, where the people get the most out of every € the community produces( and they dont try to evade taxes so hard because it would be way to much work for the little taxes they could evade)

It's not all about consumption though is it? America has been consumer number one for decades and that has lead to and economy who's main export is debt and has been running trade deficits since the mid 70's. While I won't get into a discussion about how necessary the government spending itself was I will say that increased government spending for the sake of increasing consumption will then to either increased government debt of increased inflation.

Governments have a tendancy towards short term gains and avoiding short term pain at any cost as a result of the elections cycles we have. If things go wrong in the future it will be someone else's problem to deal with. An example would be how during recession's, rather than letting them run their natural course and purging the weaker elements of the economy, they will borrow/print money and bail out big business, spend it on government projects/initiatives or simple give money to people they think will spend it. The negative effect of this are the increases to inflation, increases to the level of government debt and the allowance of companies that should have failed succed.

And while the banking system is broken, calling it a free market system is absolutely absurd given the level of government intervention. Banks need to stand on their own two legs without the illusion that they cannot fail so that people don't just walk into the first bank off the street and do a little research.

And Greece has had enough stimulus to last a lifetime and there shitty situation is 100% self inflicted overconsumption. They spent like their was no tomorrow and when tomorrow can a knocking they got the rude awakening they deserved. What they should do is leave the EU entirely for their sake as well as others, introduce their own currency, spend within their means and suffer through the depression they created.

Green energy is a growing industry and can thrive on it's own merits and does not need government intervention that in the case of America was a massive waste of money.

Question 1) Is all debt created equally? "Debt" is not some monolithic bloc. Much like consumers can have good debt and bad debt, so can states.

Question 2) Where's the beef? Fears of inflation have been aired nonstop since 2008, and yet historic low levels of inflation or outright deflation plague most of the industrialized world right now. The only thing more government debt has produced is lower deflation, not more inflation. Inflationary policies are a matter of timing, switching from the angel of mercy to the angel of death.