By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics - Any possible solutions to the European Debt Crisis?

Mr Khan on 01 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:
Mr Khan said:

Exactly. Responsibility is independent of your ideological disposition or what you intend to do with your government, proving that the people complaining about socialism merely have an agenda against helping people


With the government spending in the USA at (roughly) 40% of GDP, and being equal to or higher than many of these "socialist" countries, I have to wonder why so many people resist cutting government spending to a level where it is in-line with spending in other (better run) countries for similar services offered.

Beyond that, being that since the war on poverty began in the 1960s the poor have steadily gotten worse as social spending increased, what makes you believe that social spending has anything to do with helping people?

My point was an observation of culture, why things work for some countries or peoples but not in others. The American culture of exploitation seems to exist at every level of society, impeding economic growth and aggravating the cycle of poverty, and the responsibility belongs as much to mercenary CEOs as welfare queens and most everyone in between

We seek to resolve problems like poverty by throwing money at them, while other countries have a more infrastructural approach, or at least that's how it seems



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Around the Network
HappySqurriel on 01 January 2012
Mr Khan said:

My point was an observation of culture, why things work for some countries or peoples but not in others. The American culture of exploitation seems to exist at every level of society, impeding economic growth and aggravating the cycle of poverty, and the responsibility belongs as much to mercenary CEOs as welfare queens and most everyone in between

We seek to resolve problems like poverty by throwing money at them, while other countries have a more infrastructural approach, or at least that's how it seems


I don't think it has anything to do with a "culture of exploitation", and has everything to do with a moronic level of partisanship with few people who are willing to evaluate whether the party they support actually stands for anything that they truly want. I could be wrong but I think part of the problem is the two party system within the United States ...

If there were a couple of up-start political parties threatening the Republicans and the Democrats by actually standing for what people believe these parties stand for you would see the Republicans and Democrats forced to adapt or die. In Canada we're seeing something similar as the long-standing Liberal party of Canada is facing extinction largely because they became corrupt and more interested in obtaining power than providing competent government.



Mr Khan on 01 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:
Mr Khan said:

My point was an observation of culture, why things work for some countries or peoples but not in others. The American culture of exploitation seems to exist at every level of society, impeding economic growth and aggravating the cycle of poverty, and the responsibility belongs as much to mercenary CEOs as welfare queens and most everyone in between

We seek to resolve problems like poverty by throwing money at them, while other countries have a more infrastructural approach, or at least that's how it seems


I don't think it has anything to do with a "culture of exploitation", and has everything to do with a moronic level of partisanship with few people who are willing to evaluate whether the party they support actually stands for anything that they truly want. I could be wrong but I think part of the problem is the two party system within the United States ...

If there were a couple of up-start political parties threatening the Republicans and the Democrats by actually standing for what people believe these parties stand for you would see the Republicans and Democrats forced to adapt or die. In Canada we're seeing something similar as the long-standing Liberal party of Canada is facing extinction largely because they became corrupt and more interested in obtaining power than providing competent government.

This again approaches culture, however. Our political parties will not disintigrate until there is a cultural need for a different way, but America is wired for a two-party system. It's the only law of political science that's an actual law, and Canada is actually the only exception to that law (and that is largely due to Quebec): in a single-member simple-plurality system, two political parties are all that can exist, because if you don't form as large a party as possible, you just know someone else is

New political parties are a result of a paradigm cultural shift, they would be an effect, not a cause, because any drives from the populace for new ideas will simply lead to one side or the other flexing to accommodate them (like the Republicans embracing the Tea Party or recent Democratic flirtations with Occupy, or how Ron Paul is even in the Republican party at all...)



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Kasz216 on 02 January 2012
Mr Khan said:
HappySqurriel said:
Mr Khan said:
 

Exactly. Responsibility is independent of your ideological disposition or what you intend to do with your government, proving that the people complaining about socialism merely have an agenda against helping people


With the government spending in the USA at (roughly) 40% of GDP, and being equal to or higher than many of these "socialist" countries, I have to wonder why so many people resist cutting government spending to a level where it is in-line with spending in other (better run) countries for similar services offered.

Beyond that, being that since the war on poverty began in the 1960s the poor have steadily gotten worse as social spending increased, what makes you believe that social spending has anything to do with helping people?

My point was an observation of culture, why things work for some countries or peoples but not in others. The American culture of exploitation seems to exist at every level of society, impeding economic growth and aggravating the cycle of poverty, and the responsibility belongs as much to mercenary CEOs as welfare queens and most everyone in between

We seek to resolve problems like poverty by throwing money at them, while other countries have a more infrastructural approach, or at least that's how it seems

I don't think you can really argue that US growth has been impeded... I mean, it's policy differences from Europe tended to have boosted us to much higher growth and employment then europeon countries up until the crisis.

I mean hell, the unemployment rates we're complaining about are standard fair in a lot of Europeon countries... and were even more prevelent until some countries started liberalizing their economies.

 

I mean, keep in mind, the big thing that's supposed to be the solution for Italy is to make their economy more like ours to spur growth.



Kasz216 on 02 January 2012
Vertigo-X said:
SamuelRSmith said:


I'll fill in for Kasz.

You are essentially an insurer, Kasz is paying you a dollar a month for insurance. If his loan fails, you have to pay up half of what's owed. This benefits Kasz, because even if the loan does fail, he will still get atleast half of his money back. If the loan doesn't fail, you will benefit, as you would have profited from the dollar a month.

The more likely the loan is to fail, the more Kasz would have to pay you, as you have a greater risk, and the potential dollar a month wouldn't be worth the risk to you (also, the riskier the loan, the more Kasz will worry, so he is willing to pay more for insurance, which is actually far more important in the final price of insurance - how much you think Kasz is willing to pay).

Ah, that makes sense. The snowballing effect of failed loans in Europe definitely affects the others around the world who hold the loans, then.

 

Thinking about the core of it, the concept of the loan is meant to yield a larger amount of money than what was invested. This would mean the lendee needs to gain money from actual product value (either directly or indirectly; ex. selling goods) greater than or equal to the total loan (with interest) to be at parity or profitable.

 

That doesn't seem sustainable on a large scale at all, let alone with all of the complexities involved with loan insurance and many webs of this going on around the world.

It actually is when you consider that wealth isn't "fixed" we have more "money" and value  in society today then we did in 1980 both in real and subjective terms.

It's just a matter of only making responisble loans and having good risk threat assement models.  The problem with the morgage crisis was that the risk threat assement models didn't take into account a national housing bubble.  (And actually it was more a international housing bubble, the US bubble  is just the most talked about.)

Largely this was because a national housing bubble was generally unheard of.  Housing bubbles happened all the time, however whenever there was a down market in LA, there was an up market in New York, or Miami or Buffalo.... so by offsetting risk with other morgages in other cities, it always seemed to make sure the banks at least broke even.

However we got into a push to extend bad credit to people who couldn't afford it to push the American Dream. (homeownership in the modern age.)  Which led to some bad defualts, which lead to "lower end" responsible people getting hit, going straight up the latter like a chain.



Around the Network
richardhutnik on 02 January 2012
HappySqurriel said:
Mr Khan said:
KillerMan said:
Jexy said:
Stop being so socialist and giving out everything for free. You can't pay for all of that free college education and free health care without getting the money from somewhere, and taxes are already high in Europe...

Also, interesting how college is the most expensive in the USA (although the best colleges and vast majority of them are in the USA) and yet USA has the highest % of people going to college than any country in the world, including European countries which has it for free. In many cases, the USA % doubles Eu countries with college graduates.

I think that has to do more with the culture of learning here, and the culture of college and the athletics that go with it and make it prestigious.


Well Scandinavian countries are doing rather fine and we have free education, healthcare etc. You can have socialist market economy and still have goverment doing fine financially. Not to mention USA has just as high debt ratio as many European countries and you don't have any of these benefits.

Exactly. Responsibility is independent of your ideological disposition or what you intend to do with your government, proving that the people complaining about socialism merely have an agenda against helping people


With the government spending in the USA at (roughly) 40% of GDP, and being equal to or higher than many of these "socialist" countries, I have to wonder why so many people resist cutting government spending to a level where it is in-line with spending in other (better run) countries for similar services offered.

Beyond that, being that since the war on poverty began in the 1960s the poor have steadily gotten worse as social spending increased, what makes you believe that social spending has anything to do with helping people?

Social spending has little to do with actually helping people (well, it does, despite itself).  What it has to do more about is placating societal guilt over the disadvanged and offer delusions there is actually a safety net for people, in the case things get bad.  Lastly, it is meant to get votes for politicians to get into and retain their offices.



Vertigo-X on 02 January 2012
Kasz216 said:

It actually is when you consider that wealth isn't "fixed" we have more "money" and value  in society today then we did in 1980 both in real and subjective terms.

It's just a matter of only making responisble loans and having good risk threat assement models.  The problem with the morgage crisis was that the risk threat assement models didn't take into account a national housing bubble.  (And actually it was more a international housing bubble, the US bubble  is just the most talked about.)

Largely this was because a national housing bubble was generally unheard of.  Housing bubbles happened all the time, however whenever there was a down market in LA, there was an up market in New York, or Miami or Buffalo.... so by offsetting risk with other morgages in other cities, it always seemed to make sure the banks at least broke even.

However we got into a push to extend bad credit to people who couldn't afford it to push the American Dream. (homeownership in the modern age.)  Which led to some bad defualts, which lead to "lower end" responsible people getting hit, going straight up the latter like a chain.


Thinking about it purely in terms of money, I'd agree with you. What do you think about the sustainability of produced value (food, technology, natural resources, etc) under this model? If the growth in amount of currency doesn't match with the growth of the end products, where does it take the currency's value? Production looks pretty good now, but what about in the future when production growth isn't as great as it is now?



The BuShA owns all!

HappySqurriel on 02 January 2012
richardhutnik said:

Social spending has little to do with actually helping people (well, it does, despite itself).  What it has to do more about is placating societal guilt over the disadvanged and offer delusions there is actually a safety net for people, in the case things get bad.  Lastly, it is meant to get votes for politicians to get into and retain their offices.


I wouldn't say that ...

Most social spending is well intentioned but misguided efforts to change outcomes without addressing the conditions that led to these outcomes. The reason this approach is taken is that it is politically easier.

For example, creating an economic environment where households with 1 or 2 individuals working full time can cover their basic expenses with adequate cash left over for small luxuries is much more difficult than giving out food-stamps to those individuals who can't achieve this.



Alby_da_Wolf on 02 January 2012

Social spending is good if the maximum efficiency and honesty is pursued. A good public health system, for example, is the French, where public and private structures compete to offer to citizens the best service for what the national health system reimburses. Italy, when old system that allowed public structure to let costs and wastes go out of control was abandoned, initially tried to copy the French system, but then it complicated it for political reasons nobody understands, except politicians and national health system bureaucrats.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!   


theprof00 on 02 January 2012
Kasz216 said:

The news I watch talks about it everyday.

To be fair though... I pretty much only watch CNBC.  Nothing on between 4-8 Am on the West coast really.

As for "Solve" it depends on your definition of solve.

It's all a matter of forcing irresponsible countries to cap spending at +10% of revenue or so, while actually enforcing it and having regulators check out all the "budget tricks" countries use to hide how much they're really spending.

Ironiclly, europe essentially needs a "Balanced budget ammendment" like everyone was making fun people in the tea party for suggeting in the US.   Funny part is a lot of  Europian leaders agree.

Though while this DOES stop the crisis, it will likely put Europe in at least half a decade of recession and in generally puts the world closer to a "United States of Europe."


Anyone with a pretty decent knowledge of US history could of told you this was going to happen too.

http://www.thehollandbureau.com/2011/12/10/from-eurocrisis-to-united-states-of-europe/


I'm pretty sure that out of the 1000 or so retarded tea party ideas, this was not laughed at.

I call myself an independant leaning liberal, but I've seen the balanced budget amendments, and debt-term limits for elected officials when running a deficeit, or capped earnings, etc, and those all sound perfectly rational. I don't know anyone who really disagrees with those.

It's almost everything else they have to say that is laughed at.