The European Disease

[RonOnGuitar]

A pretty good analysis of Europe's problems and ties it's economic woes with "symptoms" found in the US far left; symptoms which have caused the Democrats to lose voters (& power) over the last 8 electoral cycles.

=================================

REVIEW & OUTLOOK



The European Disease



Economic anxiety is a product of the welfare state.



Friday, June 3, 2005 12:01 a.m.



No one knows for sure to what extent economic anxiety influenced the decisive "Non!" by French and Dutch voters against the new European Union Constitution this week. But one thing is certain: The French and much of the rest of the European Union have much to be economically anxious about.

The French unemployment rate has hovered around 10% for nearly a decade, and almost half of the jobless have been out of work for at least a year. If the U.S had an unemployment rate as high as France, there would be about six million more non-working Americans--the equivalent of placing every worker in Michigan on the jobless rolls.



Our point here isn't to engage in gratuitous French-bashing. The truth is that the economic anemia afflicting France has become the standard bill of health to varying degrees in virtually all of the nations of Old Europe, particularly Germany and Italy. Once upon a time the intellectual elites in Europe and the U.S. trumpeted the economic accomplishments of European social welfare state policies. Today the conclusion is nearly inescapable that this economic model simply doesn't work to create jobs, wealth or dynamism.







As the nearby table shows, the U.S. has substantially outperformed Old Europe in wealth and job creation. The economic growth rate of the European Union nations since 2003 has limped along at about half that of the U.S. In the 1980s and '90s the U.S. created about 40 million new jobs; Western Europe created some 10 million, well over half of which were in the public sector. If this divergence in economic performance continues for 40 years, the American worker will be roughly twice as wealthy as his European counterpart.



The Europeans have created a vast constellation of domestic policy interventions that are cloaked in the seductive rhetoric of compassion, fairness and cultural sophistication. These policies include highly generous welfare benefits for the unemployed; state ownership and subsidy of key industries (such as Airbus); rules that make it difficult to hire and fire workers; prohibitions against closing down plants; heavy protections of labor unions against competitive forces; mandatory worker benefit packages that include health insurance, child care allowances, paid parental leave, four to six weeks of vacation; shortened work weeks; and, alas, high taxes on business and labor to pay for these lavish benefits.



In sum, European nations penalize work and subsidize non-work, and, no surprise, they have gotten a lot of the latter and far too little of the former. By contrast, the U.S. model--allegedly cruel and "laissez-faire"--has done much better both by economic growth and worker opportunity.



The frustrating irony is that, at the very moment in history when Europe's model is in disrepute, many U.S. politicians still want to emulate it. In Congress today there is some bill to provide virtually every social welfare benefit that Europe now offers. And the Congressional Budget Office predicts that if America's federal entitlement programs are not reined in, by 2030 government's share of the U.S. economy will close in on 50% of GDP, or even more than Europe's share today. The good news is that at least Washington has begun to debate how to reform these programs.



Which brings us back to the future of the EU. We have consistently supported European integration, especially the liberalizing and efficient force of the euro. But most of the economic maladies that face France and Germany today are incidental to whether the EU itself gains or loses power in the months and years ahead. In many ways the European Union has always been the right answer to the wrong question. The common market was originally established with economic goals in mind: to reduce trade barriers (which has been a good thing), followed years later by a single, stable currency (another good thing).



But the Brussels bureaucracy has to this day purposely ignored the Continent's central ailments: high tax rates, bloated welfare benefits and industrial policies that pick winners and losers, usually the latter. Those topics are essentially taboo in Brussels, which has pursued an economic "harmonization" strategy in part to inhibit the benign impact of tax cutting and tax competition among member countries by creating a de facto multi-state cartel. The nations that have prospered the most in recent years--Ireland in the 1990s, now the nations of Central Europe--are those that have resisted the harmonizing orders.



Europe is now paying a high price for this failed experiment with welfare state socialism. Today's populist revolt against economic integration in France and Germany suggests that these nations remain mysteriously impervious to the need for change. A bigger mystery is why some American politicians are so intent on repeating Europe's mistakes.



Wall Street Journal - Opionion Journal

Friday, June 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

[Data Thieves]

You dont half paste and copy a load of capitalist propoganda Ron

Capitalism is a lie, perpetrated by those who seek to perpetuate the status quo.

[NRKofOver]

Pure capitalism is in fact a lie. It's a system that doesn't work without constraints put upon unethical business people. In America we have a more capitalist society than probably any other nation on earth, but we have socialist constraints to insure ethical behavior.



Minimum wage, safety legislation, child labor laws, mandated work hours, etc. are all elements of intervention into capitalism to insure decent behavior by the employers.



Our socialist policies that do exist (like Medicaid) came into existence because Americans weren't very good at taking care of their own. Capitalism presupposes the ability of the individual to fix the problems that exist without the intervention of government, but unfortunately, most Americans are more comfortable with old people dying in a gutter than giving up a bit of their own money to insure that doesn't happen. That's why we have programs to insure a very basic standard of living and medical services for all people.



For the supposed pure capitalists in America, I always ask the same questions.



Should a child be punished in their lives because of the economic ineptness of their parents? If you say no, then you support equitable public schools, a socialist concept.



Should an older person without any family be subjected to a life of squalor, poverty and sickness because they don't have economic means? If you say no, then you support a socialist concept.



Should children starve because they're parents don't work? If you say no, then you support socialist ideals.



Should an employer be allowed to hire a child for .10 an hour to do your job? If you say no, you believe in parts of socialism.



We are not a capitalist country and it's unfortunate that the myth is proliferated that we are. We are a psuedo capitalist country (so is most of Europe and even China in that past few years) and the only questions with regard to economics and centralized control is the balance between capitalism and socialist constraints. Maybe the US has it nailed (we'll have to see) and our balance is there. Maybe a little less control or a little more control is the answer.



But regardless,we are definitely not a capitalist country.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[DreamTone7]

NRK - "...but unfortunately, most Americans are more comfortable with old people dying in a gutter than giving up a bit of their own money to insure that doesn't happen."



Bingo...a lack of morals. Capitalism won't work without them unless the government steps in...and since government is sometimes a pawn of big-business, that ultimately doesn't work, either. (Like the fox guarding the hen-house.) It was one of the founding fathers who said something like,"Without the presence of God-fearing morals in our society, this system of government will not work." He was dead straight.



Oh...and NRK...history has proven time and time again that morality cannot be legislated no matter how hard you try...so no system of rules is going to accomplish what you suggest it might...it can never take the place of morals.

[NRKofOver]

I didn't suggest that legislation regarding economics was an attempt to create morality. Simply that legislation is an attempt to thwart immorality, and there is a difference.



The legislation has been tangible in the sense that it prevents American children from dying in factories en masse.

Quote:

---

Without the presence of God-fearing morals in our society, this system of government will not work."

---

And our system of government is not 'capatilist'. Our system of government is democracy. You can be, like the Europeans, both socialist and democratic. Or you can be like us, mostly capitalist and democratic. Economic systems are not directly tied to the form of government you have (unless you're communist, then it must be centralized).



As far as 'god-fearing morals'. I don't even know what that means. I consider myself a moral and ethical person. All of my moral and ethical behavior has come from introspection, knowledge, and personal thinking, not from God and most definitely not from fear.



I am a 'capitalist' and an ethical one at that. I believe in having a position of power in our economic system to insure that the money that is made is distributed equitably without gov't interference. I believe in profit sharing, I believe in time off, I believe in safe working conditions, I believe in fairness to employees, I believe that family is always more important than work, I believe in good wages. And I don't believe that getting rich is ever ethical.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[DreamTone7]

NRK - "I didn't suggest that legislation regarding economics was an attempt to create morality. Simply that legislation is an attempt to thwart immorality, and there is a difference."



Let's see...absence of immorality is what....morality



Correct!!! You move to the head of the class!!!



What is moral for some is not for others. Morals must lay outside our spheres of control so they do not become something that is relative (and subject to personal whims), but instead remain something that is absolute. Enter the Bible...

Melody and Instruments for the soul...

[NRKofOver]

Preventing immorality does not create morality.



Forcing employers to make sure that employees don't die during the course of their work, does not make the employer 'moral'. If the legislation stops there, then it still means that an employer can work their employees to near death, be within the law, and still be immoral.



Move to the back of the class.



The true 'moral' approach to the health and well-being of your employees is one of pro-activity where you actively encourage and support good health and safety. This is why we still have a large number of unethical businesspeople in America, the legislation merely sets a very low bar of minimum expected behavior, which has nothing to do with morality.



As far as your last line, apparently I am incapable of morality since I do not believe any of the books/philosophies I've read have the unnerring, perfect word of God and history.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[DreamTone7]

Nobody is capable of being perfect, NRK. Join the goup. But if you follow a set of morals that cannot be altered by people with their own personal agendas, then you have something that is absolute...not relative. Now if we could just get people to agree to follow them.



With morality, there is no neutral position...either something is moral, or it isn't. So if you eliminate all immorality, you WILL have morality! Your confusion is that you're still stuck in thinking about how to legislate it...and you can't! It has to come from within.

Melody and Instruments for the soul...

[NRKofOver]

I most definitely have an absolute morality that cannot be changed by other people.



However, this does not mean that everyone shares my absolute morality. Some people have different absolute moralities.



For instance, some people believe that it is immoral for two people of the same gender to love each other. I don't.



I believe that killing is wrong always, war, death penalty, self-defense, other people do not.



I can assure you that the last thing I want is more legislation about anything in our country. I believe in freedom, even the freedom to be unethical and wrong.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[DreamTone7]

NRK - "Some people have different absolute moralities."



Bingo again. And as long as they do, there will always be immorality in this world.