Greeks Bearing Gifts....

[prole]

...a policy regime that doesn't prevent them from doing so.

 

The regime run by those with the stagnant trillions that aren't hiring anyone and thereby preventing them from working? Oh right, it's us that's supposed to come groveling to them.

[Jim]

Public debt as a % of GDP as of 2010. Everyone will notice that "welfare states" with a functioning social safety net are no more in debt than more neoliberal states despite JayB's claim to the opposite:

 

It's not only the size of the debt that folks with money to invest in bonds worry about, it's the ability to repay it.

 

If it was all about the numbers, the yield on Spain and Italy's debt wouldn't be heading north rapidly despite the ECB's best efforts to keep a lid on them.

 

We could find ourselves in the same boat, and rather quickly.

 

I would agree with this. The numbers posted re: debt quickly point to a need for a change in the US budget policy. And yes, forward looking debt obligations play a big role here. While the neoliberal financial creeps had a major role here, some of this is just shining some light on unsustainable practices. Greece did a good job of shinning up a dented penny and the other Europeans casted a blind eye to it when cobbling together the EU. Really, their debt obligations, population curve, reiterment age, and tax collection structure was already heading them for a cliff.

 

Simialarly in the US we have unsustainable promises to federal and state employees, flushing of treasure down the worldwide military adventure toilet, and a Congress with not too much on their mind but re-election. Difficult to be optimistic about where this is going.

[j_b]

No ability to repay first invokes inability to raise revenue so there is no logical reason to declare it’s first and foremost a welfare spending problem, especially since we are in the middle of a huge economic downturn (and declining revenues) due to 30 years of financial speculation and rising inequalities.

 

Perhaps, people also recall the studies showing that public employee compensations are on average less than that of private sector employees with similar education and responsibilities.

 

[JayB]

...a policy regime that doesn't prevent them from doing so.

 

The regime run by those with the stagnant trillions that aren't hiring anyone and thereby preventing them from working? Oh right, it's us that's supposed to come groveling to them.

 

-There are times when the most valuable function of cash for a business (or a person) is as a bulwark against uncertainty, rather than investment that may or may not provide a return that's sufficient to cover the total cost of buying it.

 

-Without the cash hoard to keep things humming in the face of variable and uncertain revenue, we'd probably see even more lay-offs and capacity reduction as businesses cut fixed expenses to the bone and shed the least essential workers and/or those with the lowest marginal product.

 

-Then there's the obvious point that the owners of the said assets aren't storing this trillion dollar plus hoard as pieces of eight in Scrooge McDuck's vault. They're invested in a Treasuries, money market securities, bank deposits, etc - all of which are actively being used to finance either investment or consumption.

 

Imagine two families - one with two years worth of savings, one with nothing in the bank. The breadwinner(s) in each all lose their jobs. Who's going to keep their spending/consumption patterns basically the same and who's going to immediately cut as much of their spending as possible as quickly as possible? In the face of uncertainty, companies sitting on substantial cushions of liquid assets are less likely to cut payrolls, investment, etc than companies with no such cushion - not more so.

[JayB]

No ability to repay first invokes inability to raise revenue so there is no logical reason to declare it’s first and foremost a welfare spending problem, especially since we are in the middle of a huge economic downturn (and declining revenues) due to 30 years of financial speculation and rising inequalities.

 

Perhaps, people also recall the studies showing that public employee compensations are on average less than that of private sector employees with similar education and responsibilities.

 

-We've been through the literature before - and the comparisons are bogus because they don't control for the actual degree the person has (EE and sociology count the same, ditto for a PhD in physics and Education, etc), they don't control for hours worked, and they don't count the actual cost of pension and retiree healthcare obligations - only the employer's contribution them.

 

-The only place where the comparisons suggest that people are are actually making less are the people with advanced professional degrees.

 

 

[j_b]

I wouldn't call kochoctopus propaganda 'literature'.

[JayB]

Public debt as a % of GDP as of 2010. Everyone will notice that "welfare states" with a functioning social safety net are no more in debt than more neoliberal states despite JayB's claim to the opposite:

 

It's not only the size of the debt that folks with money to invest in bonds worry about, it's the ability to repay it.

 

If it was all about the numbers, the yield on Spain and Italy's debt wouldn't be heading north rapidly despite the ECB's best efforts to keep a lid on them.

 

We could find ourselves in the same boat, and rather quickly.

 

I would agree with this. The numbers posted re: debt quickly point to a need for a change in the US budget policy. And yes, forward looking debt obligations play a big role here. While the neoliberal financial creeps had a major role here, some of this is just shining some light on unsustainable practices. Greece did a good job of shinning up a dented penny and the other Europeans casted a blind eye to it when cobbling together the EU. Really, their debt obligations, population curve, reiterment age, and tax collection structure was already heading them for a cliff.

 

Simialarly in the US we have unsustainable promises to federal and state employees, flushing of treasure down the worldwide military adventure toilet, and a Congress with not too much on their mind but re-election. Difficult to be optimistic about where this is going.

 

Whoah!

 

Vaguely reminds me of the bit in 1984 when Winston hears Symme accurately outline the political functions of Newspeak and thinks to himself "This one sees things too clearly, he won't last long."

 

Like I said before, better learn to self-censor at cocktail parties unless you happen to stray into a gathering of The Cato Institute's non-existent Seattle Chapter.

[Jim]

No ability to repay first invokes inability to raise revenue so there is no logical reason to declare it’s first and foremost a welfare spending problem, especially since we are in the middle of a huge economic downturn (and declining revenues) due to 30 years of financial speculation and rising inequalities.

 

Perhaps, people also recall the studies showing that public employee compensations are on average less than that of private sector employees with similar education and responsibilities.

 

So your argument is that the private sector in Greece was just as insoluble as the public sector??!! Don't think so.

 

There are some good studies showing how, when taking in actual hours worked, benefits, and pensions, that the long-term compensation for public employees is a notch above the private sector. And that can be good - providing a base for healthcare - maybe some day - or it can be not good - driving debt obligations. I mean really - 20 yrs of federal service and you get life-time medical care comesurate with what you had while working? For instance. Or a pension that in no way you could have saved for and gotten an interest rate that would have netted 30% of what is guaranteed - despite falling interest rates. Yea, a bargin for the taxpayer.

 

More specifically with Greece - through either gile or incompetence they left off about $40B in their debt obligations when applying for EU status. Oopsee! Thatand public reiterment at 55? Oh yea, no role here.

[JayB]

Didn't think so. I have. Extensively...in Europe. France, England, Germany, Netherlands mostly. Newsflash: They work just as hard as we do...but in general they tend to have more egalitarian values than higher ethical thresholds than the shitheels that constitute your darling political party.

 

That may be why they're pretty far ahead of us in internet connectivity and speeds, cell phone technology, coverage, and quality of service, large project engineering, health care....

 

 

No one said that the people who are working work less hard when they're at work.

 

What the data shows is that since the early 70's their trend labor-force participation rates and annual hours worked have been declining versus the US.

 

Percent of adults working * years worked * average hours per year.

 

Aggregate those differences over millions of lifetimes over a few decades and the difference in total output per capita is quite large. Factor in declining fertility and they get even larger in the future. Matters quite a bit if you want to borrow money from people now in exchange for a claim on your population's future earnings.

[Jim]

Aggregate those differences over millions of lifetimes over a few decades and the difference in total output per capita is quite large. Factor in declining fertility and they get even larger in the future. Matters quite a bit if you want to borrow money from people now in exchange for a claim on your population's future earnings.

 

Seriously, it's not an incipient plot. It's basic math.

 

And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year.....

[j_b]

So your argument is that the private sector in Greece was just as insoluble as the public sector??!! Don't think so.

 

No, the economy (tourism, shipping, ect) tanked after the financial crash of 2008, which decreased radically their ability to generate revenue.

 

There are some good studies showing how, when taking in actual hours worked, benefits, and pensions, that the long-term compensation for public employees is a notch above the private sector. And that can be good - providing a base for healthcare - maybe some day - or it can be not good - driving debt obligations. I mean really - 20 yrs of federal service and you get life-time medical care comesurate with what you had while working? For instance. Or a pension that in no way you could have saved for and gotten an interest rate that would have netted 30% of what is guaranteed - despite falling interest rates. Yea, a bargin for the taxpayer.

 

More specifically with Greece - through either gile or incompetence they left off about $40B in their debt obligations when applying for EU status. Oopsee! Thatand public reiterment at 55? Oh yea, no role here.

 

Ask Goldman Sacks that enabled them to hide the size of their deficit to investors. Retirement at an early age is one of the best way to reduce unemployment and give a chance to youth. Also retirement from a job doesn't have to mean being unproductive.

[Jim]

Oh, don't get me wrong. The financial sector also is complicit. But crash or not, this reckoning was coming. Just a bit quicker now.

[tvashtarkatena]

Didn't think so. I have. Extensively...in Europe. France, England, Germany, Netherlands mostly. Newsflash: They work just as hard as we do...but in general they tend to have more egalitarian values than higher ethical thresholds than the shitheels that constitute your darling political party.

 

That may be why they're pretty far ahead of us in internet connectivity and speeds, cell phone technology, coverage, and quality of service, large project engineering, health care....

 

 

No one said that the people who are working work less hard when they're at work.

 

What the data shows is that since the early 70's their trend labor-force participation rates and annual hours worked have been declining versus the US.

 

Percent of adults working * years worked * average hours per year.

 

Aggregate those differences over millions of lifetimes over a few decades and the difference in total output per capita is quite large. Factor in declining fertility and they get even larger in the future. Matters quite a bit if you want to borrow money from people now in exchange for a claim on your population's future earnings.

 

Factor in superior outcomes from working smarter and making better decisions and the total hours worked doesn't even begin to reflect actual human output and contribution.

 

But then, to someone where everyone is a 'unit of production', that might be tough, non-linear concept to grasp.

 

You'd be a great manager...cerca 1875 or so.

 

 

[JayB]

"I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going."

 

H.G. Wells - "The Time Machine"

 

 

[JayB]

Didn't think so. I have. Extensively...in Europe. France, England, Germany, Netherlands mostly. Newsflash: They work just as hard as we do...but in general they tend to have more egalitarian values than higher ethical thresholds than the shitheels that constitute your darling political party.

 

That may be why they're pretty far ahead of us in internet connectivity and speeds, cell phone technology, coverage, and quality of service, large project engineering, health care....

 

 

No one said that the people who are working work less hard when they're at work.

 

What the data shows is that since the early 70's their trend labor-force participation rates and annual hours worked have been declining versus the US.

 

Percent of adults working * years worked * average hours per year.

 

Aggregate those differences over millions of lifetimes over a few decades and the difference in total output per capita is quite large. Factor in declining fertility and they get even larger in the future. Matters quite a bit if you want to borrow money from people now in exchange for a claim on your population's future earnings.

 

Factor in superior outcomes from working smarter and making better decisions and the total hours worked doesn't even begin to reflect actual human output and contribution.

 

But then, to someone where everyone is a 'unit of production', that might be tough, non-linear concept to grasp.

 

You'd be a great manager...cerca 1875 or so.

 

 

Yeah - expanding existing technology and capital stock can only account for a fraction of growth. The rest comes from innovation. Think that was Sollow who pointed that out in the mid-60's.

 

It's not clear to me that Europe has been significantly outpacing the US in the innovation department for the past few decades, either - but the differential between the US and Euroland is probably smaller than most think.

 

I'm all for working smarter and all of the rest of it, and the output per hour in most European countries is equal to or greater than the US average. The question is whether it's possible for more productivity-per-hour-worked to compensate for a smaller percentage of the (shrinking) working-age population working fewer hours for fewer years in a way that allows them to finance their own consumption plus that of everyone who isn't working.

 

I'm not convinced that it is,and it's looking more and more like the gap in hours worked and labor force participation that opened up between the US and Europe in the 1970's (they used to work more hours than their American counterparts) was paid for by deferring the real costs of the gap between consumption and production into the future via deferred benefits and borrowing.

 

FWIW I think the US is heading for the same waterfall, but a few yards further away on account of the average person rowing a bit harder and longer before they hang up their oars.

 

 

[j_b]

Oh, don't get me wrong. The financial sector also is complicit. But crash or not, this reckoning was coming. Just a bit quicker now.

 

Even though you claim it's so obvious that you can do the math in your head, it still doesn't add up: the Greek economy was growing at 4.5%/yr since 2000, tax evasion and corruption were rampant, the financial crash and global economic down turn tanked the Greek economy, revenue decreased radically which was compounded by austerity measures, and you conclude they can't pay their debt because public employees have it too easy?

[prole]

"I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going."

 

H.G. Wells - "The Time Machine"

 

 

Oh, I get it. But in your version the Eloi are the elderly drawing, at most, about a thousand bucks a month in Social Security. Nice.

[prole]

Anybody want to guess what happens to the poverty rate among seniors when Social Security payments aren't factored in? Yeah.

[Jim]

Oh, don't get me wrong. The financial sector also is complicit. But crash or not, this reckoning was coming. Just a bit quicker now.

 

Even though you claim it's so obvious that you can do the math in your head, it still doesn't add up: the Greek economy was growing at 4.5%/yr since 2000, tax evasion and corruption were rampant, the financial crash and global economic down turn tanked the Greek economy, revenue decreased radically which was compounded by austerity measures, and you conclude they can't pay their debt because public employees have it too easy?

 

Yea. And what is known now is that growth was floated on a sea of false premises. Reality is a bitch. Now what?

[tvashtarkatena]

Love

Health

Beauty

Purpose

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Eat

Pray

Love

Poo

[Jim]

Falafel

[prole]

Yea. And what is known now is that growth was floated on a sea of false premises. Reality is a bitch. Now what?

 

"Fucking And Fracking"?

[ivan]

 

"Fucking And Fracking"?

sounds like 2 sides of the same coin to me

[prole]

...a policy regime that doesn't prevent them from doing so.

 

The regime run by those with the stagnant trillions that aren't hiring anyone and thereby preventing them from working? Oh right, it's us that's supposed to come groveling to them.

 

-There are times when the most valuable function of cash for a business (or a person) is as a bulwark against uncertainty, rather than investment that may or may not provide a return that's sufficient to cover the total cost of buying it.

 

-Without the cash hoard to keep things humming in the face of variable and uncertain revenue, we'd probably see even more lay-offs and capacity reduction as businesses cut fixed expenses to the bone and shed the least essential workers and/or those with the lowest marginal product.

 

-Then there's the obvious point that the owners of the said assets aren't storing this trillion dollar plus hoard as pieces of eight in Scrooge McDuck's vault. They're invested in a Treasuries, money market securities, bank deposits, etc - all of which are actively being used to finance either investment or consumption.

 

Imagine two families - one with two years worth of savings, one with nothing in the bank. The breadwinner(s) in each all lose their jobs. Who's going to keep their spending/consumption patterns basically the same and who's going to immediately cut as much of their spending as possible as quickly as possible? In the face of uncertainty, companies sitting on substantial cushions of liquid assets are less likely to cut payrolls, investment, etc than companies with no such cushion - not more so.

 

What you're capable of justifying based on broad abstractions and generalities and what is actually happening are two different things.

 

What is being done with a "cash hoard" (your words) accumulated through unproductive speculation, asset-stripping, monopolistic gouging, evasion and avoidance used to fund the consumption and investment whimsies of a small minority and/or hedged against uncertainty created by these same entities is irrelevant if it isn't being channeled to building capacities (infrastructure, education, R&D) and used to address our shared crises (unemployment, ecology, rising vulnerability). What neoliberalism continues to show us, pre and post crisis, is that 'freer markets' and the oligarchy they've engendered have been incapable of allocating capital where it is needed most, but by design, only where the returns are highest for a few. Time to give a little back to the community, if you know what I mean.