Everyone is so down all the time now, you see people you know losing their jobs and their houses, and the situation doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon, it's very depressing.
That's true, we'll always have our tortillas de patatas.
Eurozone unemployment hits record high.
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Everyone is so down all the time now, you see people you know losing their jobs and their houses, and the situation doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon, it's very depressing.
That's true, we'll always have our tortillas de patatas.
virtuoso88
Member
Fair enough. Crime skyrocketing? San Fran level of homelessness?
CyclopsRock
Member
I like how you're all talking as if everything was going swimmingly before the "austerity" measures. The majority of the countries that are really suffering right now, there is a very, very clear line between debt (be it personal or government) growing enormously from the moment they entered the Eurozone thanks to significantly lowered central interest rates from the ECB than they had previously, and their "growth". It's why Greece's GDP rose solidly for almost a decade despite their exports falling and their global competitiveness fell over the same period of time. The growth in many of these countries - Greece, Spain, Ireland etc - was built not so much on an increase in productive capacity as a greater reliance on debt to fuel spending. It works in the short term, but doesn't when people stop lending.
Austerity may or may not be helping matters, but it's not the problem. The problem has been brewing for over a decade, and the markets are going to have to adjust to the real value of their economies before they can start to really recover.
Austerity may or may not be helping matters, but it's not the problem. The problem has been brewing for over a decade, and the markets are going to have to adjust to the real value of their economies before they can start to really recover.
Which is why the ECB should act like a real central bank and start giving loans (print money) to these countries, or these countries break from the Euro and start using their own currencies and let the market decide the worth of their goods.
Basically the only two options. The current path definitely isnt going to work
CyclopsRock
Member
I think the latter is the only option. The former will always be hampered by the fact that what best suits the strong exporters won't best support the larger importers, and vice versa.
Ether_Snake
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Bankers dictate monetary policy across the world first-world. If the states pay back their debts, banks make money. Also, in order to pay back their debts, they have to fire-sell everything, privatize everything, cut benefits, etc., which again favors those giant financial institutions.
It's a scam.
Goldman Sachs’s Blankfein says he might support higher taxes
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein said he would be willing to pay higher U.S. taxes if he thought it would help reduce the national debt.
“No one is so unpatriotic that they wouldn’t pay a little bit more to resolve it”
Now you know why!
Left-wing clashes with police, rise of right-wing fascism, lost decade (or two).
Which can be done by, you know... leaving the Euro and getting their own currency and devalue it.
How do you think China did it? Where would they be with the Euro?
And yes austerity is a problem; it won't help lower the value of the currency (even if they had their own), and it will destroy the middle-class and the economy.
The real solution is: leave the Euro, get your own cheap currency, and spend to rebuild.
Which kind of just states how idiotic a common currency is without a common fiscal union, I don't think anybody in the US cares which state is exporting/importing to which state because in the end the money gets transferred around anyways at the federal level (ie Mississippi = Greece with fiscal welfare).
The bankers won't be to happy when the new radical government that will DEFINITELY arise from these conditions start nationalizing the banker's assets. Once this happens we will see how valuable that Noble Peace Prize will end up being.
Ether_Snake
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They won't give a fuck. They think short-term; they are already profiting from anything they can profit from now. The future? Who cares, Greece could disappear in a void they wouldn't give a fuck, they'd just shrug and move to their next target. It isn't a long-term strategy, it's a "get money, bang hoes" mentality. They are rolling in money; a little more, a little less, they don't care, they'll play the game as long as they can.
But, but, arent the the masters of the universe?!?!
Question, who coined that stupid phrase anyways?
Freezie KO
Banned
Get it together, Tyrone.
FieryBalrog
Member
Oh, Europe's misery.
500 years of karma coming home to roost.
This is in fact the real solution. German power-brokers don't want this because it means giving up control and possibly a lot of bad investments.
500 years of karma coming home to roost.
This is in fact the real solution. German power-brokers don't want this because it means giving up control and possibly a lot of bad investments.
FieryBalrog
Member
Maybe they'll wait till nobody will lend them money. Oh wait, people are already charging Greece assloads of interest for loans because of the debt-binge. Can't wait till Spain and Italy have their credit ratings in the shitter- oh, that's begun happening too, and the whole thing is only barely duct-taped together by Germany's stellar credit backing the Eurozone up.
Face it, Europeans (specifically several large Latin countries, though UK's time is coming) live beyond their means. They have a lifestyle they cannot afford. They are not productive enough to continue with this lifestyle and their demographics are in a shithole. We're seeing a shifting of the economic balance to Asia, with it's masses of young workers who are willing to work incredibly hard, and this will only continue to happen. "First world living" is not something the universe has guaranteed to White Europeans for simply breathing. They have lived luxuriously on the backs of workers and laborers from other nations, and they're desperately clinging to outdated privileges, borrowing money to try and keep that first-world lifestyle going.
Best bet is to leave the Euro and try to make their economies competitive, though given the complete lack of courage and leadership by the European political class, there will be as much procrastination and can-kicking as possible to try and postpone any actually difficult decisions.
From my experience, I think you might want to edit this out.
Ether_Snake
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Bullshit.
You could say that those hard-working Asians are actually severely underpaid and severely lacking in social safety-nets when considering the amount of revenue they bring to the state.
From your point of view, slave labor would be considered to be even more productive workers because they'd be paid even less than those hard-working Asians, and that would be a good thing to you.
In reality, the income inequality is simply greater in those Asian countries, and worker rights severely limited.
We have all the money in the world to afford our social services and benefits. The problem is terrible management of public finances, corruption, and selling out public land and natural resources for peanuts, among other elite-benefiting schemes made at the detriment of the middle class.
"Living beyond our means" only applies to the super rich. No one deserves a multi-million dollar salary.
There's a lot more to do to bring balance of wealth in society, and it will be done, with the benefit of the middle classes at its core. It is inevitable.
FieryBalrog
Member
Yeah, I'm sure your heart drips with concern for them. But as a practical matter, what you (and by you I mean people of the first world labor aristocracy in general) really want is to retain the cushy benefits for yourself, and not really give a damn what their lives are like. Run up some posters, throw out a few "boycott Nike" protests (without understanding any of the positive or negative effects on their lives), and that's about how far that concern goes. You know what actually helps their lives out? The "severely underpaid" jobs they are working so very hard at. Not hot air.
Nope.
No, you don't. These nations should keep dreaming, and binging on debt trying to desperately keep their first-world lifestyle afloat. It'll all work out in the end like magic! -because the universe has, after all, guaranteed White Europeans a certain quality of life. No one bats an eyelid when Indonesians or Egyptians don't live that well and don't have first world lives- but Greeks? Spaniards?
And not everyone can consume energy/resources and live like the average European or American.
What's inevitable is the balancing of wealth BETWEEN societies, a balance that was severely disrupted by several centuries of plunder and exploitation. It's already coming, and the "first-world" nations are already kicking and screaming about "outsourcing" and "trade cheating".
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