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Alasdair Macleod: Europe Is In Worse Shape Than Everyone Thinks
Submitted by Adam Taggart of Peak Prosperity blog,
From his perch in the United Kingdom, Alasdair Macleod provides an update on the ongoing economic crisis in Europe, which -- while largely absent from headlines in the US of late -- continues to worsen.
Due to bloated state-run programs and extreme malinvestment, EU governments find themselves in a box. Economic growth has stalled, and no amount of intervention seems able to get it going again. So in order to keep their economies moving forward, they are becoming increasingly rapacious in extorting tax revenues from wherever they can find them.
This, of course, is strangling the private sector -- on which the government is counting on to grow the EU out of its recession (or depression, depending on which country in which you live). And so a vicious cycle ensues. Growing taxation reduces economic activity, unemployment worsens, the wealthy expatriate -- all leading to a declining income base to tax, and growing civil unrest.
These are desperate times. And the EU governments are taking increasingly desperate, and reckless, measures:
The Keynesians don’t understand why the growth isn’t there. They are very, very disappointed. And of course, their response is, the economy is not flourishing. You have to stimulate the economy more. The fact of the matter is that the average government size in the economy in the Eurozone is 50%. So 50% of every transaction is government.
Now that only leaves the private sector of 50%. The private sector, when it comes to recovering (recovery?), is carrying a huge weighted burden on its back. That burden is trying to tax the private sector horse who's carrying it. The tax burden is so great, the way in which they are doing it in most of these countries is that they are trying to preserve the public sector ,and they are trying to get the private sector to pay for it. The result is that there is no way there is going to be any growth at all.
If you look at countries like Spain, for example -- which has come out of this massive property bubble that's really been the reason for its downfall -- the property bubble has not unwound at all. You've got huge great levels of malinvestment, misdirection of funds in the wrong direction, the market has changed, people don’t want it anymore, and the market has got to adapt. And taxes are not going to be forthcoming until it has happened.
Unfortunately, governments have gotten themselves stuck into this position where they are not prepared to cut their spending enough. They think they can get taxes by taxing the rich, ratcheting up the taxes on anyone who you think has got any money -- but then people avoid it. Like in France, they just go abroad. It is that bad.
We are not seeing any recovery. The burden on private sector is far too great for that recovery to occur. Not only that, but the economies in the Eurozone are angled towards the wrong production. It is a huge great burden of malinvestment that needs to be addressed. You are not going to get any meaningful economic recovery without that slump happening.
Given that the slump is going to happens, you’ve got a choice: Either you get it over and done with and get it done quickly, or you have financial repression in the hope that over a long period of time something will turn up. Really, they are going for the latter rather than the former. But I don’t think they have got that much time. One of the things which Europe really does have a problem with is pension costs and the cost of health care for the elderly and all the rest of it. You think it is expensive in America; it is twice as expensive in Europe, on average.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Alasdair Macleod (49m:35s):
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But but but, liberals keep telling me that austerity is what is making Europe crash!! Europe's problem is that they are not spending enough!!
It is not just big government but the whole concept of printing money / artificially lowering interest rates that cripple the economy.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/805311-the-consequences-of-financial-rep...
Search: Austrian economics, time preference, capital based macroeconomics
Moral Hazard Bitchez!!!
The underlying problem with all of Europe (including UK), the US and Japan is that when people and companies in the private sector took too many risks and kept sinking more and more money into unproductive asset bubbles, the State and Central Banks intervened and saved them from the consequences of that behaviour.
Naturally, the end result of that intervention was even riskier behaviour and even stronger misallocation of capital and resources, at which point the State and Central Banks intervened again. So now we're at a stage where most of Europe, the US and Japan is a wasteland of misallocated capital, ever bigger asset bubbles, record levels of indebtness with most of the people engaging in behaviours which are either too risky (derivative and real-estate gambling) or parasitic in nature (chronic welfare dependence).
Unsurprisingly, the only growth we see is in centralisation and corruption.
The only solution for all this is to increase interest rates, let banks fail, let the housing market go bust and just do a debt jubilee in the style that Steven Keen suggested. Of course, this would go against the best interestes of the people that Alasdair Macleod is working for, those being the parasitic rich that amassed ever-increasing fortunes out of state-supported gambling, state subsidies and outright cronyism and corruption.
Central planners set up the incentives and conditions for boom bust cycles. The private sector goes along with the incentives and of course some elements of the private sector do instrumentalize government and politicians to help these along. Still, central planning action sets up the conditions and amplifies thesize of next bubble/misalliocation boom during each bust, which is when they take more control, because it is a "crisis". It ends in "fascism."
I did not watch the video (only read the squib), but what is the reason why Alasdair Macleod excluded the U.S. and its political subdivisions from his observations?
Because he is talking about
Europe,
Not the US.
Read the copy before you post.
Because he was talking to an American. It's a British thing.
Europe along with the whole western society is in worse shape than the general public thinks.
http://jimrickards.blogspot.ca/
Hey V how you doing? ;-)
Imagine when austerity hits the United States? Will be interesting to see how the US populace swallows that bitter medicine.
I think it'll involve lots of FSA rallies.
Some overlap with our low information voters and graduates of public k-12 schools.
"Imagine when austerity hits the United States? Will be interesting to see how the US populace swallows that bitter medicine."
"Who is John Galt? And why's he stealing all my EBT money?"
Liberals, and I have them in my family, are in total and absolute denial.
They have been told by Obama that the economy is recovering and they 100% believe him.
It is absolutely mind bugling that educated people act like idiot savants.
So sad, but they are going to pay a big price for their idiocy!!
It is time for you to find another family, sir.
These people you call relatives do you no credit.
Lose them and pursue your interests that will further you and your kin.
Its pretty obvious that Europe is sinking rapidly as the streets are filling in many PIIGS with the "aware" but disillusioned....contrary to CNBS this is only the begining so send out your shills like Cabbrera but most of us are fully aware.
Most people in the streets in PIIGS countries are part of the FSA (free shit army).
As a Portuguese I can tell you that you have no clue what you're talking about!
Most of the money was wasted by corrupt politicians in huge. white elefant construction works (same in Spain) which were just conduits to pass money to well connected construction companies and to get kickbacks through the backdoor.
Now that austerity has come, still the priviledged elite remains untouched, with things like huge public pensions for politicians (which they could get with just 8 years of work in Parliement) or State funding for "foundations" controlled by said politicians untouched (all the while taxes increased for everybody else) and corrupt, cronyist and incompetent banks saved using taxpayers' money.
All this under fake Democracy, where votes, similarly to the US, are twisted into a farcical Parliement through the undemocratic, corrupt system know as Electoral Circles, where parties with 30% of the vote get Parliementary absolute majorities, so people feel powerless to change things, trapped between two equally corrupt choices and a corrupt, fixed votting system (which, by the way, was based on the UK and US ones)
Trust me, the one and only sin commited by those people on the streets is not having brought the guillotines out yet.
Rope is cheap and widely available. Don't hamper your recovery with a made up need for elaborate 18th century french gizmos and related street theater. Just Get R' Done.
Well, Larry the Cable Guy says, "Git 'r done" but yeah it's pretty much the same idea ;)
hell yeah, use duct tape.
They don't have much central air and heat over there, so not a lot of duct tape for sale. They do have it, but it isn't ubiquitous, say, the way overindebted college grads are here, or shadow inventories of housing.
Do you think anything big will happen on or before the 25th of April? I'm wondering if increased nationalism will lead to another bloodless coup?
One of the things which Europe really does have a problem with is pension costs and the cost of health care for the elderly and all the rest of it. You think it is expensive in America; it is twice as expensive in Europe, on average.
That is complete and utter BS. US spends more on drugs than the rest of the world combined.
US health care spending per person is at least two times that of Europe.
Medicare runs out of money in just a few years. Then we add $1 trillion a year to the deficit.
Medicare unfunded liabilties are currently $107 trillion. And they increase $6 trillion a year.
Lay off that fine whiskey, Alasdair, before you do your podcasts. Cheers.
He was talking about proportionately, when you take demographics into account. i.e. the shit hasn't hit the fan in europe yet. There are more old people, there is higher unemployment. When the bill comes due it's going to be nasty.
Whether Europe or Zimbabwe or wherever is better or worse, the fact remains that we are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000, we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year - than we will be paying in social security to 80 million private sector retirees – at an average social security benefit of $15,000 per year that will cost less, about $1.2 trillion per year. Providing a level of retirement security to government workers that only the wealthiest 1% can enjoy in the private sector is not “protecting the middle class,” it is economic enslavement by government unions over the taxpayer.
And that is wrong irrespective of anything else going on anywhere else in the world. Especially when every such pension was procured through bribery and fraud.
I'd like to see where you get your figures from. Federal pensions (and we are talking federal-federal comparisons particularly since you brought up social security) are only $70 billion per year. I'm not saying there isn't waste and some pensioners receive far more than they deserve, but federal pensions are a drop in the bucket compared to other wasteful spending. At least most of these pensioners did *something* over their lives to earn those benefits, like go fight on a couple of wars, for starters.
I'm not a government union shill, btw. I'm just someone who feels compelled to stand against the divide-and-conquer strategy the government and elites are using against us. That you have bought into the hype, shows that, unfortunately, it is working. The fact that you got any up arrows shows there are others on here that want to believe this kind of misinformation...confirmation bias anyone? You were only off by an order of 17x or so on your pension estimate, so maybe I should cut you some slack.
An August 2012 report by USA Today:
"USA TODAY analyzed the Civil Service Retirement System database, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. The Office of Personnel Management withheld some information, including names, ages and length of service.
The records cover 1.9 million federal civilian pensions. Congress members were not included, nor were military retirees.
The average federal pension pays $32,824 annually. The average state and local government pension pays $24,373, Census data show. The average military pension is $22,492."
Here's the thing that analyses like yours overlook ...
Included in those numbers are a lot of 90-year-olds who retired back in, oh, i dunno? 1960?
Note that even using your numbers, which include pensions decades old (if not half a century old), show .gov.union benefits grossly exceeding those in the private sector and Social Security.
Yes, I will grant you that government pensions are now larger than either the average private sector pension or social security check. You are also saying, or implying, that those really old government pensions are bringing down the average. But don't forget that federal pensions are COLA adjusted, so that $5,000 yearly pension in 1960, is probably $60,000/yr. today making the age of the pension irrelevant.
When the City of Vallejo went bankrupt (a decade ago!), among other factoids that emerged was that the average(!) salary of a City of Vallejo cop was $120,000.
Cops retire earlier than everyone else because their jobs are so much more dangerous (a lie) and they die sooner due to blah (also a lie) at 80%.
In 20-30 years, you and others of your ilk will be back here saying, "Oh, but USA Today says that the average pension of a cop is just $90,000 per year."
Ugh.
No argument with your point about California pensions. They, along with New York and Illinois, primarily, got totally out of control with pensions back in the good years. But that is California's problem (and hopefully not the rest of the country's problem when they come looking for a bailout).
If we are talking about federal pensions, though, the problem is not nearly as bad. Also interesting, is that military pensions are much smaller than regular civil service pensions. Until I researched it, I would have assumed military pensions would have been higher than the actual $22,000/yr. which is well below the $32,000/yr. average of federal civil service pensions.
I will agree with you that some pensions, particularly those California police officer pensions, are grossly bloated. My point was just that federal pensions are really not all that bad, and in the scheme of things hardly a drop in the bucket. If we are going to go after wasteful federal government spending, we should start with the F-35 and other obscenely expensive and unnecessary weapons programs, quit our overseas military adverturism and footing the bill for the protection of Japan and western Europe, then move on to the various domestic welfare programs.
Pensions, while somewhat wasteful, are far down the list in both size and wastefulness. Plus, the vast majority of pension money gets put right back into the economy as spending. Good debate!
It's not just cops. It's all of them. Lifeguards in Newport Beach ($200k). City managers in Bell.
There are lists of CalPers retirees making $100k a year. 40 per page. 1200 pages long (saw it some years back at the San Francisco Chronicle).
It's only gotten worse since then.
Remember, too, that CalPers is only one of three big .gov.union plans in California (and the second largest in terms of coverage).
Ordinary Chicago high school teachers making $632,000 a year. (Timothy Bouman - look it up. Probably an example of pension spiking, but ... .) Texas teachers taking a job for a single day as a whatever at another school district, so they suck an additional $15,000 a year out of (can't recall if it was Social Security or some other Texas fund).
They are all theiving, cheating, bribing, destroying, and lying, and collectively as bad as the banksters and the MIC.
Remember Frank Serpico? What was his crime?
Do you really think that there was even one LEO in Precinct ?? who didn't know what was going to happen to, was happening to, and/or what happened to Abner Louma?
Average salary of .fed.gov.union employee is now $132k? $156k? You think they retire at 20% pensions? Give me a break.
A couple things ...
First of all, I rewarded your courtesy poorly, and I apologize. You were civil and respectful, and I was not. I was wrong, and you deserved better. I'm sorry.
Second, I agree with you about the F-35, etc. I do not believe that the grotesque pensions, salaries, and perks paid to .gov.union are the only, or maybe even the worse, problem that the U.S. faces, but it is a serious, serious problem, something that is just a slap in the face to every businessman and working person in this country, and needs to be addressed dispositively.
Actually, I take it back. (Can I do that?)
You might be right about the F-35, etc., but anyone who defends the grotesque remuneration stolen by .gov.union through bribery and fraud is a dick.
The only good thing the U.S. government has ever done is to force wood stove manufacturers to comply with EPA Phase II requirements. (And even that was a mistake - they meant to do away with wood burning stoves altogether.)
"anyone who defends the grotesque remuneration stolen by .gov.union through bribery and fraud is a dick."
I would agree. However, not all federal pensions are "stolen through bribery and fraud." Many, if not not most, are earned through several decades of work (and admittedly water cooler talk, surfing the web, 2-hour lunches, etc., in many cases), and as the CBO will tell you, average $33K/yr. (or $22K for military retirees). Hardley obscenely large and in most cases earned honestly. The examples you cite are all state and local government pensions, although I'm sure if you researched you'd probably be able to find some large federal pensions as well.
So permit me to rephrase your argument and that you object to obscenely large pensions or pensions that are obtained through bribery and/or fraud. In that case we agree!
Banks give 'campaign contributions' to politicians. Poof. Glass-Steigal goes away.
Conclusion? On Planet L97, after long and careful consideration and deliberation, the greatest legislative body in the history of the universe decided that G-S had outlived it purpose; in fact, it was probably holding back economic prosperity and growth for all.
Yeah. Right.
Public unions give 'campaign contributions' to politicians. Poof. Next thing you know, public union members (and their leadership) are all enjoying taxpayer-funded largess that private sector workers and small businessmen can only dream of.
Conclusion? Well, we need to pay a competitive sslary to attract the most qualified, blah, blah, blah. Besides, do you know what a City Manager in, oh, say, Bell, California makes?
(Seen any videos lately of the best and the brightest running around shooting dogs and pickup trucks at random in L.A.?)
For the past several decades, every public union contract has been the result of bribery and fraud, with no taxpayer representation at the table.
You're saying that fed pensions aren't grotesque; they're just twice as much as the private sector and SS. Huh!?! The fact that federal workers obtained (using your figures) pensions twice as large as those in the public sector is just simply, on the face of it, grotesque. That they were obtained in exchange for giving politicians money makes it even worse. And finally, do you really believe that anyone (anyone at all) is retiring from 40 years of service with the feral government in his or her sixties (today), and receiving just $30k as their pension?
Give me a break.
CONgress and military were not included in your figures. Just CONgress could skew the figures the 17x or so you complain about.
You must be a federal pensioner. Maybe a union pensioner.
medium compensation in the us is 26,965.43 - 1/2 make more and 1/2 make less.
SS pays 15k a year - So quit defending additional federal spending on pensions like some deserve more than others.
Wasn't gonna post but it grates on me when a .Gov leach milking the system tries to defend the BS
Quit being part of the problem and prepare to lose ALL pensions when TSHTF
The reason the US housing boom hurt Europe so badly is that they invested in it in the first place, and they invested in it in the first place for lack of sufficient investments in Europe.
Finance viewed from space is about older people who have lived and worked and saved but whose ability to work and create is on the decline, earning a return by lending what they've saved to younger people with health, ideas, ambition, and a good stretch of future in which to carry them out. Europe doesn't have enough of the latter to invest in. They already don't, already didn't back ten years ago when their savings got ploughed into MBS.
Was just getting ready to post a comment to this effect and thought I would scroll down to see if anyone else had issue with this statement. lol
The EU is trying to bypass the latest election in Italy to install another Technocrat. Oh this is going to get really nasty.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9906213/Anger-builds-in-Italy-as-old-guard-plots-fresh-technocrat-take-over.html
Wow. Just wow. These fucks never stop do they??
Good article.
Learned a new word there, "resiling".
Nationalism returning, and with the youth unemployment and an awake populace the EU and the Euro are done, just a matter of time.
Big changes coming to the old world.
Yeah, me too. For those who don't want to look it up, it means to spring back. Like a Slinky when stretched.
Very resilient of you.
In just four words, you prove that there are some very smart people here at ZH.
I wouldn't necessarily equate vocabulary with intelligence, but thanks.
I've never met anyone with a good vocabulary who wasn't intelligent (and I'm not talking about familiarity with a particular word, phrase, or lexicon, but someone who can quickly answer the puzzler: Other words based on the obsolete French resilier - ever think about Jeopardy?).
Never trusted Alex...too Canadian. ;)
There is a crisis and government must act. The people are irresponsible.
Sarc
Grabbing my cheesy poofs and some beer. Watching this slow motion trainwreck is going to fun!
+1 for the F.E.A.R. reference.
One morning at about 3:00 a.m., the lights off, playing F.E.A.R., I jumped - screaming - from my chair and had to pace around the front parlor for ten minutes.
I need another hobby.
Oh, I know. I'll join ZeroHedge and make some new friends.
Where's Europe? I get all of my info from CNBS....they have a nice story about Michelle Obama right now. Bliss!
Please, no wookie jokes. This has been a great thread so far.
"Financial repression".
Yup.
Tear down the banks and hang the bankers.
It all distills down to one truism: "You can buy things, if you have money. If you don't have money......."
Didn't listen to the interview. I'm sure he confirmed that the UK is fucked, one reason being that they have virtually no gold - Sterling therefore being largely backed by Camoron's verbal flatulence - and the EUR zone has 8000 tons.
The UK's fucked-ness has more to do with demographics. The future of a place is mostly about who shows up for that future. There's not going to be much there, there.
Europe's only twice as expensive as the US for now.
Obammie doing his damndest to catch us up. When 0-care kicks in full force in less that 2 years, it should help. In the mean time the new 0-care taxes will help
In a non free market, in a political dictatorial bureaucrat managerial rent sinking " market " prices nd costs are junk, opaque, unclear, unknown.
No one knows what is spent, what is gotten, at what quality.
Got death panels?
Well, it is plain Jane to see that the babylonian govt is spending more money developing and supporting almost every other country in the world, EXCEPT America.
Check out this interactive map that shows how much the banksters send to all the other countries around the world. Imagine if all this money was put back into developing the USA instead.
http://www.foreignassistance.gov/CountryIntro.aspx
Kerry announced today $450 million to go to Egypt.
Why am I a U.S.S.A. citizen again?
Thats fucked up.............
The E " elites " killed off the solid muppets in zWWI, II, sent and financed Lenin, slaved east Europe for 40-70 years and learned nothing.
I'm betting with the house. This is a,great opertunity for The New New Lenist Central Banker Economic Order.
If the markets get destroyed, they already are, what are you left with by default? No need to "build" it. We've backed into it.
President Obama at Millennium Development Goals Conference- 2010
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/22/remarks-president-millennium-development-goals-summit-new-york-new-york
>>>> United Nations Millennium Development Goal<<<<
U.N. Millennium Development Goals: Foreign Aid v. Economic Freedom
By James M. Roberts |September 21, 2010
Follow the money …
desillusion is setting in. institutionalised, legalised corrumption is showing everywhere, and openly critisised: the government chose the side of the banks, not the people.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/dft/goeroes/alexandersassenvanelsloo/21105290/__...
meanwhile the state television is not showing protests in other european countries, but is bullshitting us. this is now also becoming more obvious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0pF05PjQ64
in Bulgaria people took to the street and threw the government out. how's that for democracy?
+1, though I have to point out that this is the Dutch state TV bullshitting you in the Dutch state way. You should also mention the current political stance of the Dutch man on the street, who as far as I know from afar is more worried about the Dutch real estate market and of course foreigners than anything else - see the last election's results
Have to agree with Alasdair on everything else except that Europe's health care costs for the elderly are double that of USA after listening to entire talk.
He says hyperinflation is inevitable and they are suppressing gold now.
He says that the gold that cost Rs 200 in 1965 in India costs Rs 100,000 now - so Indians will always buy gold.
Europe's cost of old people may not be higher in cost per person, but certainly in the sum of health and pension costs, RELATIVE to the number of workers, or the GDP if you prefer. Birth rates have been abysmal for a long time. Naturally, they already have euthanasia, officially(Holland) or in practice(French and German hospital staff helpfully overmedicating), well ahead of our death panels. That was easier to get going over there because these are state-worshipping post-christian hedonist societies. The U.S. still has a lot of judeo-christian ethic, which is why the death panels are taking so much heat, and not yet in practice.
There needs to be more open discussion on "end of life care"....
PATIENTS and loved ones should have the right to stop doctors from pushing treatments for terminal illnesses that are clearly futile and prolong suffering.
People with terminal illnesses should have the right to end their own lives on their own choosing and timing.
Yes I am speaking of euthanasia, the people of Holland have it right, their understanding of compassion and mercy is far more insightful than the US "judeo-christian ethic"!
Unfortunately their values don't include perpetuating humanity much either. Typical demographic disaster there. The judeo Christian tradition values life. The west's post Christian societies don't have the demographics to survive.
Can't those European Bank backed Governments just sell off those highly coveted "derivatives" and use that "money" to fund growth in the private sector? Didn't Goldmans say those derivatives were as good as........gold?
But..but...Didn't everything get fixed when Draghi said he "would do whatever it takes" to lower the PIIGS sovereign bond yields? And their stock markets are all up 25-30% since then...Fixed...right??
Oh - "Fixed". I get it.
How many "we're fucked" articles do we need to read before people wake up?
People need to understand, recognize the mechanism by which the US is converging toward the fate of Europe. The problem is they think of Europe as a sophisticated urbane place whose monuments and tourist-frequented places are typical. Au contraire, inner city Paris is an oasis but there are thousands of awful neighborhoods where the police don't bother much going, because it is dangerous and foreign to them.
Sounds like Oakland CA or Detroit MI ...
That's a very good question
One I ask myself daily.... just how fukin stupid are people really?
With the euro-zone as a blueprint it is beyond comprehension how we proceed in lockstep.
Just study who Obama is and how he got there. Alinsky + identity politics => decline toward a fascist statism.
"Alasdair Macleod: governments have gotten themselves stuck into this position where they are not prepared to cut their spending enough. They think they can get taxes by taxing the rich, ratcheting up the taxes on anyone who you think has got any money..."
Spot on. And the reason is simple: cutting back on state spending implies downsizing government, smaller govt, less state interference, fewer rules/regulations to control us and fewer apparatchiks to enforce them all.
But that is the last thing in the world that European socialist governments will ever agree to do. Instead, the middle classes are being financially ruined by derisory interest on deposits, rising inflation and higher taxes.
It's time to stock up on rope and piano wire.
I'll simplify further here. Europe blew right throught the "47%" number decades ago.
That's why it doesn't matter that much which parties are in control, because all of the parties are "statist" parties, including those deemed "far right." There is no limited government, libertarian leaning party to vote for anywhere in Europe, even if some parties are labelled domestically as being on the "right". All statists over there.
100% correct. The choice in Europe for very many decades has been between the twin madnesses of left of centre and far left of centre. They fight among themselves for supremacy of madness. Anybody who dissents from their left-wing religion is seen as regressive and is ignored.
Don't forget the real political spectrum, as elucidated here:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2010/10/11/the-electric-tea-party-acid-test/
*see below addendum*
Well, I don't agree with that view of what the real political spectrum is. I've seen many in my time and that one looks like a mish-mash of official propaganda from the educational establishments (almost all on the Left), the BBC & MSM (on the Left) and blended by a hippie mindset.
I basically see the spectrum as a scale of 100 down to 0 (100 being on the far Left which advocates 100% government (ie totalitarian collectivism) and 0 being on the far Right which advocates 0% government (ie zero govt, privatised law/order, individualism).
From this, one can deduce that I believe a few things:
- that 'libertarianism' is actually a far Right ideology hijacked by the Left years ago by people who want to be completely free of laws to do as they wish, with disregard for others. The 'hippie and ferral kid' mindset. Whereas true original libertarianism has always believed in small government, but also believes in free market capitalism, the Rule of Law and by extension, respect for others. The Left's bastardization fails on these important points.
- any advocate of totalitarian government is by definition on the far Left because all totalitarianism resides on that side of the spectrum advocating 100% government. The different labels that totalitarianism operates under: communism, fascism, marxism, maoism, pol-potism and a host of others, are merely different heads of the same evil snake that is socialism. And when you look under the covers of these various -isms, you find many more things that unite them than divide them. But that has never prevented them from warring with each other for supremacy of their particular flavour over all others.
Of course as I alluded to above, mainstream education and MSM peddle the idea that (eg) fascism is on the Far Right, although when you challenge their talking heads to explain how/why, they cannot do so. But it doesn't stop them from lying.
So why did the Left define fascism as on the Far Right?
Who knows, but IMHO it is simply because fascism has got possibly the worst name in politics and after WWII, the Left was desperate to distance itself from its stable-mates Hitler/Mussolini. So it came up with the brilliant idea of positioning it on the Far Right and then saying we are anti-fascist. ho-ho. Sadly for them, it doesn't fool anybody who understands what fascism really is. At its crudest, it is a mixture of corporatism and jackboots. They belong on the far Left with the likes of Hitler/Mussolini - both lifelong socialists.
<EDITED sometime later>
Having taken another look at that guy's political spectrum chart, it pretty much largely agrees with my own views. Brilliant. What distracted me earlier was that he has his Left/Right round the wrong way (Right is shown on the left and Left is shown on the right), so I misread it. Duh :-)
eh, I find this very over-symplified - this applies very much to all the european countries that are monarchies, yes. among the republicans you'll find a lot of conservative parties and views, particularly - brace for it - among Catholics
Well Christ! Who would have thought that the way out of this economic depression was to simply cut government spending? Sheer economic illiteracy. Both you and Mr. Taggart are economic idiots.
The private sector is leveraged to the gills and can literally produce no demand whatsoever and the plan of the village idiots is to cut government spending. That idea is working great in the UK, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and according to fourth quarter GDP data, in the US where government spending decreased by over 12 percent.
Make the people pay in blood, is that right? What a bunch of sadistic pricks!
.gov spending = GDP.
GDP <> economy.
Ergo ...
Bueler?
Anyone?
Here Here...!
Weath Inequity in the US is spot on... ( a link from a fellow ZH blogger)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
That's a good video which sets out the poor state of wealth inequality and shows how corporatist America has become, partly driven by its huge empire.
But it has nothing to do with what Accounting101 advocates, which is ever more state spending to solve a problem caused by excessive state spending. A bit like taking more drugs to cure drug addiction. Something doesn't fit!
Spoken like a true economic idiot! 2008 was caused by excessive government spending? The US taxpayers have bailed out PRIVATE financial interests to the tune of $23 trillion since that date and you're mumbling about state spending. Every western democracy socialized trillions upon trillions of dollars of banking debt. That's what you should be incensed with. That's what you guarding against ever happening again.
Smacker, please tell me you don't vote. Our democracy can't withstand your stupidity.
in defense of smacker: bailing out corps/banks is a form of socialism and for sure it's an increase of gov spending - it's socialism of vested interests instead of socialism for the masses, though
Accounting101: You're being very disingenuous.
I agree entirely with Ghordius on this...and also look at this chart which shows you how UK govt debt was being stacked up by Gordon 'Jonah' Brown long before the inevitable crash of 2007-8: http://flyto.zapto.org/Images/UK-net-debt-under-Labour.pdf
As you can see, after Brown's short period of controlling govt spending from 1997 (to fool The City into believing that this time round Labour had learnt how to run an economy-ho-ho), he returned to type after the 2001 election and began racking up debts through excessive spending on socialism, *despite having created an unsustainable cheap-money credit boom (in cahoots with the BoE and the FSA) and introducing 60+ new stealth taxes, both of which hugely increased tax revenues*. But that wasn't enough for Jonah.....
When Jonah's inevitable crash came, he was faced with unbearable levels of humiliation at his economic incompetence and the end of his much clap-trapped "endogenous growth theory" _or_ spending even more taxpayers' money to bail out the banks.
Naturally, he's a socialist, so he chose the latter and ignored the fundamental rules of free market capitalism. The rest is history.
The current govt are now wrestling with how to reduce the nation's huge debt without reducing the size and scope of government. Obviously they are failing, because govt spends far too much and meddles in far too much. Either spending must be forcefully reduced (smaller govt) _or_ taxes must rise and more theft from anybody who still has money, to cover the delta. We shall see which option Osborne takes later this month when he delivers his Budget. I think I know the answer.
UK ? Taxes are increasing so is Spending. national Debt is increasing 60% 2010-2015
Spoken like a true socialist.
Let's ignore that a major factor in the bursting of the credit bubble in 2008 was excessive state spending, funded by cheap money. And now you say the solution to it is even more state spending. Aye aye. "L00N alert".
If you want to see how wonderfully successful big government spending is, take a look at Argentina, Brazil, France, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, UK and very many other socialist countries who have all believed at some time that state spending on grandiose projects produces wealth and prosperity and the money to fund it can be taxed/borrowed to infinity and beyond. It doesn't work. It simply creates white elephants and accumulates ever larger debts for current /future taxpayers to fund thereby stealing growth from future years. And it encourages mal-investment on a grand scale.
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Eg: check out the HS2 line in the UK which will be yet another burden on taxpayers for decades. Check out the 'white elephant' airport built in Castello, Valencia, Spain. Completed three years ago at huge cost to local taxpayers it has yet to see a single plane take-off or land. Valencia is now bankrupt and cannot afford to fund essential public services. An enterprising guy in Valencia organises coach trips for tourists to take photos of all the gloriously expensive edifices built during the cheap money boom. Mostly now lying empty and unused.
Check out France where govt accounts for c56% of so-called GDP. Despite all this glorious state spending by countless public sector workforces, France is bankrupt and the incentive to work is being ground down by ever higher taxes to pay off the debts. It goes on. And on and on and on.
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There are a range of solutions to the current crises engulfing the EU/US - and none of them are painless - but more state spending is not one of them. Only nutters like Paul Krugman and his followers, socialist govts and of course MSM believe that. The evidence that they're wrong is there for all to see.
spoken like a true anti-socialist. +1
perhaps I should bring a factoid here to highlight that there is some hope against the great socialist wave
take the great Fabian Socialism invention of the minimum wage (that US Democrats want to raise)
Austria, Germany and Italy abolished it
Restless times cause world wars.
Wherein the troops are younger men. Europe is weak in that department, and among their young the arab and turkish leaning younger men are disproportionate to their numbers amongst the population.
Alas, there aren't enought Eurpoean virgins to enduce them to sign up ....
The sisters and daughters of arab and turkish men and boys stay virginal longer, often right up until their middle aged cousin from north africa or shittistan gets to take out her cherry. Seriously.
WTF does that have to do wiith anything? As if it is true. Jee whiz another knucklehead,
here is a plan so cunning you could pu a tial on it and call it a weasel...
the ECB and natinal central banks sell soverign CDS until to fund the deficits in pepetuity...
so i spanish cds are selling at 4% a year..and the fiscal deficit is 8%, the spanish central bank simply sells sufficient cds to raise the odd €100 billion!
the italians, irish, spanish, french, germans, british do the same.
the ecb could sell CDS protection on LTRO and target 2 bonds and run up large cash balances in euro that it could use to buy up european government bonds (with a bit of repo leverage).
the ecb then cancels the various bits of government debt it has bought, thus perpetuating the demand for buyers of CDS!
simples!!
(sarc off)
in reality, were governments to do this for their own debt, their would be no buyers and CDS protection would keep going up and up in price (spreads would keep rising).
right now we have the equavlent of this... european governments are buying each others european government debt, but with no buy/sell agreement in place, for physical bonds or for cds.
bleh...
and yet the debt problem here is essentially europeans owing to europeans, (and there it's americans owing to chinese and arabs)
meanwhile the dealers of the delicious sugar called ex-forbidden derivatives are five megabanks that tried to hook up Greece and other sovereigns to it through wonderful off-balance-sheet shenigans, remember?
It's the same everywhere in the west. All the NATO countries exploiting countries via military adventures that do nothing for the citizens but enrich the defense contractor CEO's and financiers and paid off government officials.
European countries should write off their debt. They should abandon neoliberal principles. They should stop paying IMF, World Bank and all the other central planning parasites that only bring misery to the majority.
Globalization does NOT WORK for the ordinary person. It only works for big transnational corporations that mainly turn out crappy products.
Local small businesses should be supported. Who cares if they do not have robotics. People need those jobs.
We need to stop believing in the Central planner myth. It benefits no one but the central planners.
It is called communism. It was a full blown joke in 70's amongst the Russian industrial leaders - the bear had already lost all teeth. During formal industry tours there our hosts clearly enjoyed of one task. They made sure that we all heard who was the Judas who's job was to report our discussions to the communist party next morning.
Regardless it took still almost twenty years before Reagan had courage to ask his buddy Gorbachev to tear down this wall!
Sky rocketing youth unemployment in Spain and now the threat of a military coup. (This is the country that everyone agreed already could bring down the Euro).
Spain buying it's own debt with Social Security funds.
Italians looking to ditch the Euro. Italian banks alread in death throws.
Trillions of derivative exposure in London.
UK downgrade.
France pretty much insolvent.
ECB balance sheet increasing by 1/3 since start 2012 (thanks LTRO), before the real printing has even started.
None-growth.
This is just the start...
..if it's in 'Worse shape than Everyone thinks' then 'Everyone' has clearly not been looking at the figures (which are no doubt 'massaged' so are probably much worse).
Oh yeah, the fun starts here, watch those benchmark yields fly!
Barry better get those guns....QUICK
I say mid-summer implosion
Or, could something happen on the Ides of March?
Maybe the USA will get lucky and DHS will send their billions of newly purchased bullets to European allies in the One World Fascist Government that seem to be facing mass riots first in Europe, but the Euro Government perhaps cannot afford to buy enough bullets for itself. Less risk in Europe for the Euro-Socialist-Fascists when the Euro-people have already had most of their gun rights eliminated by the elitist Socialist politicians and Socialist-Fascist Government. USA Socialist-Fascist Kenyan fraud President only too happy to help the governing Comrades in Europe. Sort of like World War Two's USA to Europe Lend-Lease plan to the UK and the USSR, only now it is World War Three - The Civil World War Version. Coming Soon to a Theatre of War near you.
eurogovernments. plural. if you don't understand this you won't understand anything about europe
We've been instructed to only care about the queen's gastrointestinal issues. In comparison every other problem in the world fades like a fart in the wind.
The queen can blow it out her arse, for all I care!
"House of Windsor anal leakage" --- almost sounds like a redundancy, doesn't it?
Keynesians? Is that what they call thieves now?
Can you name 10 wealthy people in France who have 'gone abroad'
What a fucking total load of horseshit - most people don't and can't simply get up and move abroad.
That said France's tax structure is insane
Three or four off the top of my head, point blank. The easy ones are the actors musicians tennis players athletes. But there are plenty of industrialists, entrepreneurs professionals of every stripe whose name you don't know. Google is your friend here.
All right smart ass... when you ask Mr Google for names of people who have renounce French citizenship due to taxes the only name that comes up is French actor Gerard Depardieu, says he is going to become a Russian Citizen.... (good luck with that)! lol
I call bullshit on your statement!
Bernard Arnaud
Why would they move? I don't get this! The weather in Antarctica is a little bit too cool?
So why can't French people move abroad ? Can't Californians move to Texas ?
House is sold! Ok! You can collapse the fucker......I'm liquid and ready for the big shit sandwich(compared to most)...lets do it!
RESET.
Weimar Republic Redux: EU Edition.
Maybe it is time to place blame. Who put the European countries in the box that they currently reside? How about burning them at the stake? (after a fair trial of course)
Bernake, Evans, Dudley and Yellen,
LOL, we all know you will print until you are faced with a currency crisis and all faith in the US dollar is lost.
You cannot stop printing.
It's not if but when. We are all waiting like hungry wolves.
Speaking of goverment dollars, in the United States, right now, at least 95% of all existing and new home mortgages are federal GSEs sponsored or guaranteed. Non-federal mortgages are a comparative rarity. So while all real estate is local by definition, the means to purchase are federal.
Hmmm......remember your old local savings and loan? Jamie Dimon and his ilk took care of that sort of local commerce by putting an end to it.
Are you prepared for the coming overnight dollar devaluation in the US? You can be sure the DHS is, their plan has 2 billion hollow point bullets.
Some countries in Europe (such as the Netherlands) have very favorable tax regimes for companies, especially for big companies. Taxes and premiums in these countries are paid by employees. Oh sure, there is a part that is paid by companies but basically it comes off the bruto salary of employees. The employees just have the illusion to think that companies are doing their bit. Working people this way pay more taxes and premiums than they think.
Anyway, what is the solution according to this author? That governments and companies should borrow more?
My heart-felt thanks to the posters in this comments column, especially the interchange between Law97 and MrPotato Mouse.
I lived near Vallejo for 25 years of self employment and having only my SS income of $825+/- to live on, I am very thankful to have jumped ship to Southern Chile where I can happily live in a clean and peaceful environment. It is one of the best decisions that I ever made.
My heart-felt thanks to the posters in this comments column, especially the interchange between Law97 and MrPotato Mouse.
I lived near Vallejo for 25 years of self employment and having only my SS income of $825+/- to live on, I am very thankful to have jumped ship to Southern Chile where I can happily live in a clean and peaceful environment. It is one of the best decisions that I ever made.