With all due respect to jjimm, I’ll await long term developments. Ireland hasn’t been an economic ‘powerhouse’ for long after all…its more of a recent development that they even HAVE a stronger economy. And I think part of their success is a ‘peace dividend’ from the lessening of hostilities that marred their nation for years and years. Admittedly I don’t know a hell of a lot about Ireland, as I’ve only been there once and haven’t really followed them closely.
Looking at other socialist type systems in the world though, they usually have an initial flush of economic growth and prosperity (I’m thinking of post WWII Keysian Britian and Europe…but even the US post WWII through the 70’s is an example) under more ridgid government controls of their economy, only to eventually bog down (thats kind of why I said that if we went to a more European system with our own social side we’d do well initially, but IMO in the long term we’d also ‘bog down’). Perhaps Ireland will be the exception and be a viable model for the US to eventually look hard at (Canada also seems to be doing quite well under a mixed system somewhere between the US and Europe)…I will await developments closely and see how viable, long term, their system is.
It would be better to ask why the Europeans are less religious than Americans, when they have the same religious heritage, and no government west of the old Iron Curtain has ever actively discouraged religious worship and proselytizing.
Hey, wait a minute. A week before the election, liberals were screaming that a 5.4% unemployment rate was a national disaster. Now you’re upset because it isn’t twice as high?
And lost in all of this pining for laziness is the fact that the U.S. is rapidly outgrowing Europe. Twenty years ago, per-capita GDP in Western Europe was almost on par with the U.S. Now it’s 20% lower. Canada used to be almost exactly the same as the U.S. - now Canada’s per capita GDP is $6,000 lower than the U.S.'s.
Work has its rewards. Work harder, and you make more money. Make more money, and you can afford things like big militaries, space programs, health care spending, education, etc.
Canada is much closer to the U.S. work ethic than to the European work ethic. And I wouldn’t trade with Europe. Sure, it’d be great to have more holidays and to be a slacker. But I’d rather see my daughter grow up in a better, richer world, thank you.
Hard work is a virtue. I’m lazier than I wish I was, and I consider it a character flaw, not something to be emulated or celebrated.
This is actually the only point worth debating here. This is the ‘Crux of the biscuit’, as Frank Zappa might say.
There is a continuum in efficiency between total anarchic capitalism and total antlike socialism. Each country gets to determine where on that continuum they wish to be.
The question then, is this: Is the location of the United States on this continuum where we, as a society, wish to be?
Obviously, the answer is yes. We, the people of the United States, have voted in government that provides us certain services and provides certain regulations. If we wish to change in sufficient numbers we will change. Bang.
But for each individual person that spot on the scale might be different. Some might want less poverty whereas some might want greater GDP. There appears to be no ‘right’ answer…there is simply an infinity of opinions within the workable boundaries between the two extremes.
I’m not meaning to be condescending or anything, but isn’t a great deal of Ireland’s economic success due to American companies locating certain European operations there? What would that economy look like w/o those companies?
Sorry, xtisme, but this is something of an exaggeration. Many essential services and utilities are private - to greater or lesser degrees - throughout the EU.
Well, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be unemployed here, Sam, if we had the kind of welfare state, union power, and safety nets they have in Europe. But we don’t, and it is a very, very bad thing to be unemployed here.
Re-read the OP, Sam, especially the excerpt from Halstead’s article, and then think long and hard about what “rewards” we’re getting from all that hard work we do and the “wealth” we create with it.
American companies for the most part, but also German, British, French, Japanese, etc. Obviously the economic landscape would be somewhat different, but then every country exploits the economic benefits offered by others - the US included.
Thats true enough jjimm…and my thoughts on that is that the Europeans saw the wall coming and incorporated just enough of the free market back into their system to make the thing work…i.e. they privatized services and utilities enough so that it would continue to function and not collapse. They have certainly reached a happy medium (for them) and I think they have been successful at it. However, I think that part of what props up their system is the US itself, as I said earlier.
Again, I’m not coming down on the EU. I think its great that they love their system and that it works for them. Hell, I love Europe myself, and enjoy going there (I definitely want to get back to Ireland…beautiful nation IMO). I just don’t think that their system would or could work HERE very well. I actually wish we would go the other direction and privatize more of our own social type services, as I think this would be better for OUR people as a whole.
It’s also worth pointing out that, except for the poorest among us, everyone has the ability to choose to be lazier than they are. Don’t like working so hard? Fine. Sell your car, move in to a smaller place, make do with one TV, don’t go out as often, and cut your hours.
I work full time, and I get 3 weeks of vacation a year. But if I wanted, I could, within the same job, switch to part-time work. My company is very flexible about this. Some of our workers don’t work Fridays or Mondays, and take a 4/5 salary for that. Their choice. But it’s only two or three people in a workforce of 150 in our office. Everyone else would rather have the extra money.
So when people lament their hard work, I think what they are really saying is, “I wish I didn’t have to work so hard and still receive the same amount of income.” Because when you offer them the choice to cut hours and income, very few accept it.
But there are no free lunches. Europe is going to pay a heavy price for its institutionalized sloth. A 10% unemployment rate coupled with huge debt is a disaster waiting to happen. Europe’s unfunded retirement liability, for example, is something like five or ten times higher than the U.S. and Canada’s. You think the U.S. retirement system is headed for a meltdown? Wait 'till you see what happens to Europe.
I doubt the French are more productivity than Americans. The last survey I saw, the only Europeans more productive than Americans were Scandinavians.
Ireland is the unsung economic miracle of Europe. But to be fair they have received massive EU support, and used the fact that Irish corporate taxes are much below EU average, in addition they’ve been blessed with a fairly young population mix – which won’t last. Europe’s future can’t be based on supporting each other by EU regional support welfare programs or undercutting each other on corporate tax.
Again, not meaning to be disrespectful, but Ireland is a niche player here. American companies located there because the had to have a base in Europe-- either to meet European content rules, or simply to support the European market. Tax insentives and high unemployment made Ireland attractive to foreign investment. That strategy might work well for a small country like Ireland (and I’m not sure how good a long term strategy it is), but not for a large country like the US which is driven by innovation and growth.
I begged Walmart to give me part time work and they refused. Many companies profit by working a smaller number of workers to the bone, so they can boast that two-thirds of their workers are full time. What happens in your company isn’t what happens in every company.
(Really the point of this reply isn’t so much to reply but more so I could subscribe to this thread. I don’t see a way to do it without responding.)
Funny you should mention that, as the “acceptable” unemployment rate, propensity to work and wealth creation are closely linked and changes to them can be almost all explained by tax policy. The Minneapolis Fed wondered about the difference in change of work between the U.S. and Europe (not only was per-capita GDP about the same 20 years ago, but labor-force participation was about the same 30 years ago, whereas now Americans work 50% more). They found that virtually all of the difference was attributable to changes in marginal tax rates. This finding occurred across cultures.
At the end, the argument is about personal choice and whether to allow people to keep the rewards (or reap the punishment) of the personal choices they make. Essentially, the U.S. policy is tipped toward allowing individuals to seek their own level of happiness and to make their own definition of what happiness is. Europe’s policy has been to lean toward socializing those choices – to have the State decide.
As it happens, this is beginning to change. The primary reason is demographics – specifically, the aging population. People think the U.S. Social Security and Medicare and private defined-benefit systems are in trouble? They are. But the problems are nothing compared to what faces Europe. The promises western European countries made to people when they took so much money that they killed the incentive to work are just unfundable (and unfunded), particularly at the low level of growth they experience precisely because of their tax policy. This is one of the reasons you see the EU requiring countries to divest state businesses, individual countries trying to tighten unemployment eligibility, etc. But none of it will work (heh) unless they get faster growth, which will not come without lower marginal taxes and more work from the productive workforce.
No, not at all. It represents the aggregate opinions (as expressed by voters) including both informed and uninformed. We get what we vote for, after all. If those choices are uninformed then so be it.