Kicking against austerity

France and the Netherlands once again resist the European consensus

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Readers' comments



By the way, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's also potassium that is responsible for conducting the electrical current that keeps your heart beating.

Can't help but wonder, how many Americans have needlessly had pace makers installed due to an undiagnosed life long mineral deficiency.

So, on second thought, not feeding them well, and keeping them around longer, creates business as well...laughs

sanmartinian in reply to la.výritý

Good Heavens, la.výritý!

And I thought my house in the old quarters of a fishing village of my choice was small!

The ingenuity of that NYC lady is incredible. Thanks for the link.

On serious matters: if one uses numbeo for the purposes I normally use, relative wealth to a reference, normally the USA, we have to remember numbeo's benchmark is NYC, some 16% "poorer" than the US as a whole.

If we don't allow for this correction we get over optimistic results for the rest of the world.

Mario Ferretti in reply to bampbs

Thank you again. If you accept that seignorage (however euphemistically called) is not a viable way out, then our residual disagreement is not really all that much. It's just that in my view "so far" is far too short a time to judge. Experience suggests that, in ordinary conditions, price flexibility will take around two years to work itself out. But the structural conditions of most Med economies are far from ordinary: that is why a "competent" austerity there must be one complemented by supply-side reforms. Which means that naïve proto-Keynesianism, focusing just on current aggregate demand, would be particularly harmful there. As it seems, you must take a rather longer view.

Josh_US Lux in reply to sanmartinian

@ Sanmartinian (at April 28th, 19:37):

"I think it was Josh who mentioned stats about patents showing that Greece and Portugal are very low in that score. He's very right."

- What a welcome surprise! Sanmartinian acknowledges there is a possibility not all economic data casting an unfavorable light on Portugal (and thus indicating where domestic mistakes have been made that led Portugal into crisis) are plain wrong. But let's see what comes next.

"... a table was shown here that Holland was marginally worse than Portugal in an indirect indicator."

- Ah, it's the Netherlands again - you never disappoint, Sanmartinian. I don't know what it is with you and the Netherlands, but may I direct your attention to the "direct indicator" showing that the Netherlands produces 65 times as many patents as Portugal (and 40 times as many per capita; per-capita wise, Portugal is dead-last among eurozone countries).

(Selected eurozone countries, figures rounded):

Ireland: 0.02%
Slovakia: 0.03%
Portugal: 0.04%
Greece: 0.05%
Spain: 0.72%
Netherlands: 2.7%
Italy: 3.1%
France: 5.8%
Germany: 17.3%

By comparison:

UK: 5.3%
Japan: 16.7%
US: 33.8%

Source: OECD Patents Manual 2009 (p. 80)

As this indicator suggests, there is a reason why some countries have seen their competitiveness slip, and others haven't.

Identifying a problem is not an insult, but a first step to its solution.

Plazidus in reply to la.výritý

'What is interesting in this context is that two countries, never really associated with Euro debt, are U.K. banks with an exposure of $152.4 billion to these four troubled Euro countries and U.S. banks with an exposure of $187.5 billion, thus taking place 3 and 4 in the ranking of the most exposed countries to toxic European debt.' [la.virity]

I was under the impression that UK banks' overstretch was mainly in the Irish Republic which situation, although very serious, at least has a certain consistency and logic to it: the UK and Irish economies enjoying something of a symbiotic relationship.

I note too that the Irish response to their predicament has been notably free of blame-game childishness.

sikko6 in reply to sanmartinian

The worst thing was euro. It masqueraded and even aggavated the problems! Now what you got was the result. If they didn't use the euro, the problem would suffaced long time ago when manageable, would have been fixed.

Cutters in reply to MilovanDjilas

I won't comment on the US efforts, as they have the resources. Your comment regarding the Vatican is vanity, and is easily matched and superseded by the Commonwealth of Nations:

sikko6 in reply to Junoir

Actually Canada is asking two tiered voting. First, by europeans then followed by others. That will make much harder to borrow from IMF. It will give vetoing powers both europeans and others. Very smart idea!

By the big contributors are export oriented economies who need EZ as the last resort.

sanmartinian in reply to Marie.Claude

to Marie.Claude (repetition for my post history)

Just to let you know that, to my great amazement, my previous half amusing reply to you was deleted.

It was certainly not you for you don't have the habit of reporting posts and my reply could not in any way be construed against your opinion.

So, who? Obviously some not too knowledgeable or clever poster who didn't understand it.

My post had six words in French (duly translated) saying I too read Le Point and at beginning of new political ideas there's a tendency for separate opinions to crop up within the new movements.

As you can see, very offensive material that I profusely repent now...

Unless, of course, it was reported by some monolingual poster who objected to my usual qualification of "sad" to monolinguals.

But then we all know who reported my offensive post...

Poor silly Moderators too, who embark on this silly behaviour.

Marie.Claude in reply to Pumpernickel_

No, la Merkel is going to be outed next year, that's what she is understanding, and to avoid it she plans to rely on SPD to support her, you know that she is addicted to power !

But Spain, Italy and France is a too big piece for her, Germany will comply, and or to leave !

hey, next time you'll come to France, don't forget to check the exhange rate, this time you might afford to buy french wines, unless Germany goes bankrupte, which is a possible aftermath, since your banks are Dummkopfen !

The ESM has always been a German design, directed by a German, whereas ECB, alone could have made the same deal, which was wished by Sarko

Today the Europeans countries aren't willling to pay your aging rents anymore !

Blegoo in reply to bampbs

Quote 1:
"...You still don't get it..."
Quote 2:
"...Increasing the money supply isn't always desirable; when it is, you certainly don't want to overdo it..."

Please reread your initial comment.
If you still don't get it... see quote no. 1.

Problem with the socialists (beside the fact that they run out of other people's money) is that they bastardize Keynes's ideas.



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