Even worse is the retirement situation, and the productivity of those remaining 80% of hours worked by a diminishing fraction of the population. Some people can't see the brick wall they are driving right into. That's weird.
John
s is that when it really comes unglued,
The prospect of a US army arriving in Europe and dispensing the same kind of sweetness and light that they dispensed in Irak is probably dire enough to frighten Europe's politicians into behaving sensibly - for once.
By and large they aren't as far out of touch with reality as either Saddam-mother-of-battles-Hussein or George-the-bringer-of-democracy- Bush.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
That's part of the problem. And the fact that, from the stories you've told, you have net consumed a lot more than you have contributed. And continue to do so.
Oh, everything will be allright in a century or two, after the Second Dark Ages.
The hyper-fertile
It's too late. You're out of time.
John
that when it really comes unglued,
Europe is almost disarmed, and Imperial Russia is back.
John
The retirement age is being raised across Europe. It's even going to happen in the Netherlands, though - as yet - the government hasn't managed to do anything to actually motivate firms to keep the elderly working.
But it's real enough that the French trade unions are holding one-day strikes about it.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
ics is that when it really comes unglued,
You really aren't giving Africa its due, and Saddam Hussein managed to gas 5,000 Kurds in one attack
As massacres go, this shrinks into insignificance compareed with the excess deaths in Irak following the US invasion
You do go out of your way to remind us that even the US professional classes aren't well-educated or well-informed. I look forward to your catalogue of recent European massacres. Sebrenica was good for 8,000 deaths in one spot, but it still doesn't compare with Irak.
One wonders how big a death toll is associated with the US war on drugs?
If America had enough sense to repeal its current Prohibition, it could save a lot of lives. The Great Experiment - as applied to ethanol - produced a clear result. It's unfortuate that the US politiicians lack the wit to generalise the result to other recreational chemicals.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
Are you claiming the the quote from Juncker was fabricated? Or merely that left-wing publications elected not to print it?
and lots more, if you care to look. Gosh, maybe he actually said it!
John
Sloman thinks that anybody to the right of Mao Tse-tung is a "right-wing nitwit."
Cheers! Rich
Firms hire when it's more profitable than not, and they hire individuals that are expected to contribute more than they cost.
But yes, if the incentives to hire aren't there, increasing the retirement age could increase unemployment.
More strikes aren't going to help. At this point, the workers are striking against themselves.
This sort of thing is inevitable once government controls half of an economy or so.
John
A well-educated, unemployed work force doesn't help much. I could cite a nearby example.
I never calimed to be professional. I'm a circuit designer.
But we're working and producing more than we consume, and constantly learning new stuff. You have a PhD and produce nothing.
John
He is against the mandatory wearing of armbands by certain identifiable ethnic groups? The nerve.
mike
And he thinks that any fact that appears in a to-him-unapproved source is wrong.
He sorts facts by his emotional prejudices. I'm sure glad he doesn't design electronics.
John
I'd venture to replace the word "could" with "will". Many countries comouflage the real numbers. For example, in Germany lots of older workers are sent into what is called "Altersteilzeit" which translates into "old age part time work". But AFAIU that's usually not how it really works. They count something like the first half of remaining years as worked off and then the employee "retires" for good, is thus officially out of the work force. I know people who are in that program and sit at home while collecting. Somebody has to pay for all that.
What surprises me is that people in net contributor countries whose retirement age is well above 65 and rising aren't totally p....d off, at people who strike because they think that they are entitled to retire at
62, on the nickel of those who cannot retire before 67. [...]-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
But they are.
John
[...]
Not nearly as much as tea partiers here. Not even close. Else there should be major rallyes over there.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
And I bet he has that Post Hole Digger hanging on his wall.
0... .
I imagine he did. All sorts of politicians say all kinds of things to appeal to particular audiences at particular times.
It's long step from worrying about the downside of a particular German tactical choice to predicting the downfall of the whole European Union, but the The Telegraph is prone to clutch at that kind of straw, and you are silly enough to take it seriously.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
I thought his quote was funny. I didn't read anybody's analysis of it, having my own.
My opinion: lots of european countries spent their way into trouble, and want the Germans to bail them out. The Germans aren't enthuiastic.
What's your opinion about how europe is likely to deal with all that PIIGS debt? How can multiple governments share a currency but not enforce debt restraints?
John
I
Granting the current economic situation - produced in the US by the sub-prime home loan debacle - hiring rates aren't what they might be. If you aren't selling much, hiring people to improve what you are selling doesn't promise the kind of margin that you see when customers are more numerous and have more to spend.
The Dutch retirement age isn't even going to go up until 2020 and that only if the current minority government doesn't change its mind before it introduces the promised legislation.
It would be one of the sillier strikes that the French trade unions have organised. They do have a point, in that the current pensions are effectively being - slightly - devalued by this change in the rules, but this rather neglects the fact that the pension contributions were calculated on a shorter expectation of life than can now be expected, and the whole system is going to have to be rejigged to get the numbers to add up.
This probably isn't the critical factor. France has universal health care and its citizens are tenth on the international table of life expectancy
The US doesn't, and sits a lot lower, at 38th. The French pension funds are obviously in more trouble than their American equivalents - by 2.5 years.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
It's rolled up in a drawer somewhere. My copy of my thesis is on shelf in my study - it's too big (A4) to sit on the regular bookshelves, so it is actually in a cupboard, out if sight, but I keep it handy - some of the references to the literature that I cited back in 1969 are still useful today (if not very often).
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
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