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Forums - Politics Discussion - VGChartz Europeans, I need your help.

Go write about Spain, right now.



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Soleron said:

The problem with austerity is that what is politically safe to cut is cut first, not 'waste' or 'nice-to-haves'. For example, in my country this year they cut interview travel reimbursement for jobseekers, and crippled the budget for legal aid, but they continue to pursue a $50 billion single rail line, and construction of two aircraft carriers for which there are no suitable planes.

True austerity has never been seen.

Oh  I don't argue with that.

Often times polticians will cut damn near essentials rather then cut worthless bullshit waste.

Even sttill... the austerity is needed.



Kasz216 said:
Soleron said:
 

The problem with austerity is that what is politically safe to cut is cut first, not 'waste' or 'nice-to-haves'. For example, in my country this year they cut interview travel reimbursement for jobseekers, and crippled the budget for legal aid, but they continue to pursue a $50 billion single rail line, and construction of two aircraft carriers for which there are no suitable planes.

True austerity has never been seen.

Oh  I don't argue with that.

Often times polticians will cut damn near essentials rather then cut worthless bullshit waste.

Even sttill... the austerity is needed.

I did used to believe that.

But if we assume that politicians are too shortsighted to actually implement it correctly, the best course of action is just to restore consumer and business confidence. This can be done with higher spending on infrastructure/regeneration, tax incentives for business development, and in general NOT cutting things.

Basically fake recovery which will be followed by a real one born from confidence.

If you cut, you reduce the outgoings by 10% say... but the economic impact lowers GDP by 20% and you're still behind. And in reality austerity doesn't even lower outgoings. Has Greece's or Spain's or the UK's budget decreased? No.

The time for balancing the budget is GOOD times. It's not the most pressing concern vs high unemployment or prices rising faster than wages.



Mummelmann said:
melbye said:
How about leftist morons presenting their ass to islamic extremists in the name of tolerance


They present their ass to everyone. You think it's bad back home? I just moved to Sweden...


Don't be pessimistic you two! It could even work. Judging from how they treat women, I strongly suspect that islamic fundamentalists could appreciate leftist morons' asses a lot more, maybe they'll become our buddies! 

And about Italy's biggest problem, it's not corruption: whoever watched Benigni's Johnny Stecchino perfectly knows it's the traffic!   



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! 
 


Soleron said:
Kasz216 said:
 

Oh  I don't argue with that.

Often times polticians will cut damn near essentials rather then cut worthless bullshit waste.

Even sttill... the austerity is needed.

I did used to believe that.

But if we assume that politicians are too shortsighted to actually implement it correctly, the best course of action is just to restore consumer and business confidence. This can be done with higher spending on infrastructure/regeneration, tax incentives for business development, and in general NOT cutting things.

Basically fake recovery which will be followed by a real one born from confidence.

If you cut, you reduce the outgoings by 10% say... but the economic impact lowers GDP by 20% and you're still behind. And in reality austerity doesn't even lower outgoings. Has Greece's or Spain's or the UK's budget decreased? No.

The time for balancing the budget is GOOD times. It's not the most pressing concern vs high unemployment or prices rising faster than wages.

The problem with that, is that line of thinking assumes people are dumb and buisnesses are dumb.

Which... they aren't.  People aren't that stupid, as seen in the USA.


We've had the fake recovery, and no real one has occured since... everything stays stubborn... because nobody wants to expand or hire until the stimulus disapears because they know it has to.

 

That Greece, Spain and the UK's budgets haven't decreased simply shows they haven't actually used austerity.

 

Additionally, GDP is a poor factor to judge the health of the economy.  It's more a political tool really.    Ideally, GDP would not include government outlays and instead only measure the private economy.

Afterall the US could print trillions of dollars, spend trillions of dollars on a machine that burns trillions of dollars, burn those trillions of dollars used to buy the machine, and GDP would suddenly be increased multiple times over.

 

Non government GDP, is all that really matters.

 

 

 

Should austerity ideally happen during good times?  Sure.  Problem is, nobody will vote for it then, and as a result, you get situations like you have currently, in Spain, Greece and the UK.  The problem isn't that they aren't putting off Austerity, the problem was, they didn't already have it.

Times up.



Around the Network
Soleron said:
Kasz216 said:
Soleron said:
 

The problem with austerity is that what is politically safe to cut is cut first, not 'waste' or 'nice-to-haves'. For example, in my country this year they cut interview travel reimbursement for jobseekers, and crippled the budget for legal aid, but they continue to pursue a $50 billion single rail line, and construction of two aircraft carriers for which there are no suitable planes.

True austerity has never been seen.

Oh  I don't argue with that.

Often times polticians will cut damn near essentials rather then cut worthless bullshit waste.

Even sttill... the austerity is needed.

I did used to believe that.

But if we assume that politicians are too shortsighted to actually implement it correctly, the best course of action is just to restore consumer and business confidence. This can be done with higher spending on infrastructure/regeneration, tax incentives for business development, and in general NOT cutting things.

Basically fake recovery which will be followed by a real one born from confidence.

If you cut, you reduce the outgoings by 10% say... but the economic impact lowers GDP by 20% and you're still behind. And in reality austerity doesn't even lower outgoings. Has Greece's or Spain's or the UK's budget decreased? No.

The time for balancing the budget is GOOD times. It's not the most pressing concern vs high unemployment or prices rising faster than wages.

The biggest problem to do that is Europe and its polititians.

It's ridiculous if you think about it, but before the crisis started the members of the UE signed a deal to reduce their deficit by 2020. And they haven't been able to postpone that!

Heck, here in Spain there's a very simple pending reform of the constitution since 2005: to allow women to be Queen (needed as the nº2 in the line of succession is a girl, born that year), and they still haven't done it.  In 2011 Europe "recommended" to modify the consitution to to include an article that limits the debt the country can have and that also says that national debt is the first thing the government must pay. And they did it in less that 1 week!

Sometimes I think the best, easiest and simplest way to get out of the actual economy would be fire all polititians and start using the common sense. Am I the only one that thinks that polititians of today are a lot more incompetent that polititians from 15-20 years ago?



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

Two key problems now:
1 Monty Python to reunite on stage - will it change we view live theatre performances?
2. ABBA in talks to reunite for concerts - will the European music industry explode?
I don't see anything else of interest..



Kasz216 said:
Soleron said:
Kasz216 said:
 

Oh  I don't argue with that.

Often times polticians will cut damn near essentials rather then cut worthless bullshit waste.

Even sttill... the austerity is needed.

I did used to believe that.

But if we assume that politicians are too shortsighted to actually implement it correctly, the best course of action is just to restore consumer and business confidence. This can be done with higher spending on infrastructure/regeneration, tax incentives for business development, and in general NOT cutting things.

Basically fake recovery which will be followed by a real one born from confidence.

If you cut, you reduce the outgoings by 10% say... but the economic impact lowers GDP by 20% and you're still behind. And in reality austerity doesn't even lower outgoings. Has Greece's or Spain's or the UK's budget decreased? No.

The time for balancing the budget is GOOD times. It's not the most pressing concern vs high unemployment or prices rising faster than wages.

The problem with that, is that line of thinking assumes people are dumb and buisnesses are dumb.

Which... they aren't.  People aren't that stupid, as seen in the USA.


We've had the fake recovery, and no real one has occured since... everything stays stubborn... because nobody wants to expand or hire until the stimulus disapears because they know it has to.

 

That Greece, Spain and the UK's budgets haven't decreased simply shows they haven't actually used austerity.

 

Additionally, GDP is a poor factor to judge the health of the economy.  It's more a political tool really.    Ideally, GDP would not include government outlays and instead only measure the private economy.

Afterall the US could print trillions of dollars, spend trillions of dollars on a machine that burns trillions of dollars, burn those trillions of dollars used to buy the machine, and GDP would suddenly be increased multiple times over.

 

Non government GDP, is all that really matters.

 

 

 

Should austerity ideally happen during good times?  Sure.  Problem is, nobody will vote for it then, and as a result, you get situations like you have currently, in Spain, Greece and the UK.  The problem isn't that they aren't putting off Austerity, the problem was, they didn't already have it.

Times up.


I would argue that austerity isn't the way to sustain growth in times of prosperity - your example of the UK actually works against you in many way because it was a lack of investment (i.e. government not spending enough and not spending it on the right things) which caused difficulties thorughout the whole of the 20th century (well, almost). It was obvious since the 1920s that British industry was innefficient and needed new funding to allow it to be competitive internationally and because the owners of those businesses had little incentive to invest the amounts necessary, this never happened all the wau until the late 1970s when Britain's economy was in a pretty poor state and there was no choice but to turn to the banking and services industries (and of course, our overspecialisation on the former then left us royally shafted in the recent recession). So ideally, carefully planned government spending in good times is I would argue the best course for sustainable growth and helping to weather tough periods when they arrive.

 

In short, businesses might not be stupid, but they are extremely self-centred, and that can cause harm to the economy over the long term



Kasz216 said:
...

The problem with that, is that line of thinking assumes people are dumb and buisnesses are dumb.

Which... they aren't.  People aren't that stupid, as seen in the USA.

We've had the fake recovery, and no real one has occured since... everything stays stubborn... because nobody wants to expand or hire until the stimulus disapears because they know it has to.

I don't really call what you had a stimulus. I call it indiscriminately printing money. If all that was spend 4 years ago on for example: road, rail, cycle paths, fibre rollout, applied science research, and programmes/incentives for businesses to give out of work people relevant experience on their CV and for them to get free community college at any age, I think we'd be seeing a difference now

If you look at what the stimulus money (and the printed money) was spent on, it was like 70% sitting in banks as unused capital, 20% wasted.

That Greece, Spain and the UK's budgets haven't decreased simply shows they haven't actually used austerity.

OK but it's like communism. Austerity is impossible to do right with the politicians we have. You're asking for something that cannot happen.

Additionally, GDP is a poor factor to judge the health of the economy.  It's more a political tool really.    Ideally, GDP would not include government outlays and instead only measure the private economy.

My point being that you have to grow out of a recession. Cutting your way out assumes the target is fixed.

Afterall the US could print trillions of dollars, spend trillions of dollars on a machine that burns trillions of dollars, burn those trillions of dollars used to buy the machine, and GDP would suddenly be increased multiple times over.

Non government GDP, is all that really matters.

As a European, I don't automatically see government economic activity as worthless. But it has to be doing something useful. Education and healthcare should count. State owned buses, rail, water, gas and electricity should count.

Should austerity ideally happen during good times?  Sure.  Problem is, nobody will vote for it then, and as a result, you get situations like you have currently, in Spain, Greece and the UK.  The problem isn't that they aren't putting off Austerity, the problem was, they didn't already have it.

Times up.





EU lobbying by big corporations, trying to install laws that kills their smaller competitors so they can make bigger profits. for ex: i can tell you if the law that prohibits old species of seed beeing trafe gets through i'm the first who votes to resign from EU.