Friday, January 22, 2016

A Neoliberal Vision for Europe



(1) huge mass immigration or




Nation | Unemployment Rate
Greece | 24.5% (October, 2015)
Spain | 21.6% (October, 2015)
Portugal | 12.4% (October, 2015)
Italy | 11.3% (November, 2015)
France | 10.8% (October, 2015)
Ireland | 8.9% (October, 2015)
Finland 8.2% | (November, 2015)
Sweden | 7.2% (October, 2015)
Netherlands | 6.9% 2015 (October
United Kingdom | 5.1% (January, 2016)
Denmark 6.0% | (October, 2015)











  1. Anyone notice the contradiction:

    (a) We need to pay everyone a state income - because in the future robots will do all the work.

    (b) We need open borders and more immigration - because in the future we won't have enough working age people to do all the work.

  2. Long time reader, first time comment. This post mentions automation and productivity and unemployment and so does this past post - -inspire a few musings:

    If all work is done by robots then who gets to have the robots? I think it will likely be that without a job or income guarantee - those who own resources will have the robots. Similarly, they won't demand the labor of those who don't own resources.

    But can the economy really be tiered like this? This "Elysium" vision? On the one hand, we clearly see such high unemployment in other countries. In theory, these unemployed could group together and make resources for each other, but in reality we don’t really see this happen. Unless there is a strong underground economy I never heard of.

    How much of the unemployment is due to tight monetary policy? Perhaps a more expansionary monetary policy in this region would make a job guarantee less needed.

    If the jobs and skills people need to be employed are changing rapidly, then I see an opportunity for government to help people go from one set of skills to another.