Originally posted by Giancarlo
The US has been better then the EU. I never claimed anything about the unemployment rate being more important then anything else.
The US has been better then the EU. I never claimed anything about the unemployment rate being more important then anything else.
Originally posted by Giancarlo
el dumbo.
el dumbo.
Originally posted by Giancarlo
All I said it was lower in the US, whereas it is sometimes in the double digits in certain countries in the EU.
All I said it was lower in the US, whereas it is sometimes in the double digits in certain countries in the EU.
Surely that's difficult to square with your statements that the US is doing better and that the unemployment rate is no more important than the other measures?
Originally posted by Giancarlo
Average income growth has not been good in the EU, nor has productivity growth or employment growth.
Average income growth has not been good in the EU, nor has productivity growth or employment growth.
The US measures inflation (and thus growth) differently than the EU, so attempting to compare the two long-term using growth rates will give you false numbers.
It's much better to use PPPs for this as they have far less variance and are calculated in the same way for all countries.
Originally posted by Giancarlo
I'd like to see some links backing this up.
I'd like to see some links backing this up.
In it you can see that between 1990 and 2002 the EU GDP per head grew 0.4% a year faster than the US, it's productivity grew 0.9% a year faster and it's employment/population ratio 0.2% a year faster.
Originally posted by Giancarlo
No, it hasn't. In fact unemployment has gone up in nations like France and Germany.
You need to grow up and use your damn brain.
No, it hasn't. In fact unemployment has gone up in nations like France and Germany.
You need to grow up and use your damn brain.
The reason unemployment has been static over the last year or so in the EU is becuase the workforce is expanding rapidy - if many more people are entering the job market you need correspondingly faster employment growth just to keep unemployment stable.
Conversely if the workforce is growing much slower than usual it's much easier to keep unemployment down.
Since 1995 workforce growth in the EU, relative to working-age population, has been over 1% a year faster than it was in 1960-95
Whereas the workforce growth in the US (again relative to working-age population) has been 0.5% a year slower since 1990 compared with 1960-90.
Therefore the EU has to create many more jobs than the US just to keep the unemployment rate stable - but even considering that the rise in US unemployment since the recent trough has been double that which the EU has suffered (1.5 percentage points compared to 0.8 for the EU)
So, who was not using their brain again?
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