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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46629)	5/11/2001 9:29:35 PM
From: w0z	Respond to of 70976

*OT*Pick your countries and your parameters. I don't think it is a no-brainer. Try the big 4...Germany, UK, France, Italy...of course if you want to see socialism at its best (i.e. worst) take a look at any of the Scandinavian countries. Ireland has been a notable exception as have several members of the former East Block like Hungary, Czech Republic, etc. Look at growth in productivity, unemployment, etc. Big government has not worked except as a very effective disincentive. Of course it would be nice to have universal free health care, fat social security programs, 6 week annual vacations, many more holidays, etc, etc...but there is a price to be paid which is called competitiveness. That is why unemployment has been in the double digits for years in Europe...and it's also why they are attempting to decentralize, deregulate, and spin off very inefficient government subsidized industries such as telecom, transportation, etc. Of course their labor unions are not about to let that happen and high unemployment is the result.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46629)	5/12/2001 7:49:43 AM
From: w0z	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

*OT* Go to Google, type in "European unemployment" and you'll have fun reading. Here are some excepts from one which summarize conventional wisdom about causes: findarticles.com " According to official figures, around 12 percent of the working population of the European Union (EU) is unemployed. Eighteen million European citizens, 5 million of them under the age of twenty-five, are officially looking for work. (snip) However, the majority of the authors in the relevant literature, instead of blaming economic policies implemented since 1992, attribute the European disease of unemployment - and lost production as a consequense - on factors such as technology, globalization, labor market rigidities, and the so-called generous European welfare states. More specifically, an influential section of academic and political opinion places the blame on three factors: * The nature of the new technologies and more generally the new type of development described as "jobless growth." Some economists view the unemployment problem as a result of skill-biased technological change in particular (Lawrence 1994, Krugman 1995, Baldwin and Cain 1997). It is argued that there is a shift in the demand for skilled workers within industries, which can be explained by skill-biased technological change. As a result, there is a decline in the relative wages of the least-educated workers, along with increased unemployment of these workers and of the low-skilled in particular. * The inflexibility of the European labor market, the high living standard of European working people, welfare programs and firing costs (Bean 1994), and, above all, high wages, both direct and indirect (in the form of social expenditure). Many of these inflexibilities have to do with institutional regulations (Wyplosz 1997) and are understood as the outcome of political influence by incumbent employees ("insiders"). According to this view, labor market rigidities allow "insiders" to achieve monopoly power in wage setting indirectly. Thus unemployment levels are considered a direct result of the powerful political influence exerted by people who already have jobs (Saint-Paul 1996,1997). Conventional wisdom also mentions employment protection legislation and generous welfare benefits in Europe, which preserve rigidities, slow response of wages and prices to demand disturbances, and thereby increase unemployment. * The increase of international trade and intensification of international competition, in other words, the effects of the so-called globalization. It is claimed that the importing of products from developing countries with low labor costs undermines the international competitiveness of European products (Wood 1995). As a result, industries close down and unemployment rises, especially that of the least-educated workers (Baldwin and Cain 1997)." It would indeed be "nice" if we lived in a utopian world where we could set high wages for all independent of employee productivity, mandate zero inflation, etc, etc. Unfortunately the real world just doesn't work that way.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46629)	5/12/2001 9:39:21 AM
From: Lone Star	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Cary, there are planes and boats leaving every day, I for one would contribute to you or any other pinko on a one-way shot. Pick your parameters and countries? For a parameter, I'd pick emigration- people want into the U.S. desparately, not too many leaving( even the ones who said they would- Rosie, Baldwin- you know,our brain trust). Socialism, communism, hippie communes, any version you like- on the scrap heap of history. We have many warts, but we are the envy of the world. Cary- go try China for a while and report back. Dennis Miller last night( paraphrasing about China): Yeah, they work 16 hrs. for a half of a ginger snap.