Greece, sad

Nice preview of where we (U.S.) are going..

Well, USgov is doing the same - except they are stealing the money.

"We're all Keynesians now."

Now not all of us are, but a lot still are. Price controls take many forms. After hurricane Sandy the refinery in New Jersey was without power, so the NY City region had no gas. We could have had trucks drive from across the country, but that costs more. Gas stations couldn't raise their prices because Democrats call that price gouging, because they don't understand basic supply and demand. So they effectively forced price controls on gas and the result was a shortage, as always. A lot of gas stations went out of business too.

And free trade drives the final nail in the coffin as more efficient producers drive out the marginal ones.

Interesting that many of those places closed **before** the Euro was adopted in 2001/2002.

There were plenty of similar things happening in the North East US ("rust belt") and in Canada during the same time period, and some of the old derelict factories are still there.

In a lot of places those derelict factories would be torn down, not left to moulder for years, but that takes tax money if the owners have abandoned them.

Here are some hauntingly beautiful ones from the US:

Well, they've got a bigger GDP than the US at the moment. Not like per capita or anything, but bigger is bigger.

Nicely done.

It may have not made any difference in this case. That's the realm of counterfactuals.

We dunno.

Microeconomics, elasticity curves, profit maximation, guns-and-butter, are good things to learn. But that's microeconomics, namely reality. Real economists aren't interested in that; they want to rule the world with macroeconomics, and mostly screw it up.

I loved Pogo. I have "The Best of POGO."

He didn't say it, but he should have:

"People get the government they deserve."

I loved Rocky and Bulwinkle too. I have the DVD set.

This is a beautiful and sad book:

Actually the Greek problem was pretty much the US problem - they didn't collect enough in tax to keep the government in business.

In the US it is tax avoidance via lobbyists, and in Greece it was tax evasion - presumably via bribery. Socialism doesn't come into it.

Joerg,

Indeed it's almost too late ... socialism no doubt but also capitalism, bank system ...etc.

Could you be so naive ... to think the ruined situation of Greece is only caused by Greeks responsibilties ; or the sad pictures JT has pointed could be only seen in socialists countries ?

Hab.

On Friday, May 15, 2015 at 9:23:38 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wro te:

late.

rnment is too scared to either cut spending or make them and instead just b orrows the deficit

because no one would borrow them money

Yes, but that counts as helping.

It might have spurred fixes earlier too--aerialists behave differently with out a net.

Cheers, James Arthur

In fairness, the U.S. has been acting a lot like Europe lately. It's not surprising we're reaping their results (GDP growth / unemployment / etc.).

Some of us want more of that, some want less.

Cheers, James Arthur

Presumably that was back in the days when economics still meant something; a set of inputs giving rise to somewhat predictable outputs. Not like the smoke and mirrors/slight-of-hand manipulation we've experienced over the last 7 years.

It was being uncompetetive in Euro terms that sunk them, Bill. The Drachma was a weak-as-water currency which was readily devalued to boost competitiveness. Greece's long goodbye commenced the day they dumped the Drachma and adopted the Euro. It's been downhill ever since (but we've yet to reach rock bottom).

They were uncompetitive because the government didn't collect enough in tax es, and consequently didn't have the money to spend on making the place run sensibly. The long goodbye had started a lot earlier than the adoption of the Euro - the Greek Colonels hadn't helped.

The US has always acted a lot like Europe - unsurprisingly, since it got mo st of its people and most of it's ideas from there.

Some of you want more of the nastier bits of Europe - tax evasion and corru ption on the Greek level. Others want the betters bits of Europe - the hea lth system and welfare systems that work. So far you are doing better with the stuff you'd have been better off not copying

No, it was never a very convincing reason. Lose the ability to optimise your economy, producing lots of growth, for the sake of saving a tiny amount on a small percentage of currency movement. I'm just grateful we somehow avoided that piece of stupidity.

NT

Easy to say, but at least over here there is no party whose policies I'd want to run with - and a large chunk of the electorate sees it the same way. We can't get rid of them.

NT