Dream on America: World Increasingly Rejecting US Model

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by mindseye
I can't believe this childish anti-French stuff is still being mouthed.

I just finished watching the BBC's excellent 60's series on The Great War. GF, maybe you should open something called a history book and read about what the "surrender monkies" endured at Verdun, to choose just one example.

It's GF's gimmick in the OT. If you remove that from him, his contributions to the OT will be almost entirely empty. Love thy neighbour, man

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
That's already something, and they were providing money, moral support and more-or-less daft advice from the '20s on.

The liberation of Manchuria by the Soviet Red Army from the IJA is actually more a boom for the KMT than for the CCP. Even though the CCP got there first, the KMT squeezed them out from the big cities with US support. Seeing that Manchuria was (still is) an important manufacturing centre, retaining control of the area gave quite a boost to the KMT war efforts.

I don't think the Soviets provided much to the revolution, especially after Mao regained power during the Long March.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by St Leo
This level of polarization is unwise. We are reacting to the US extremists, not the US Jane Sixpacks.

When the gulf between us and the US is seen as unbridgeable, Bush will have won.

, more or less.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon

LOTM - we welcome foreigners by the thousands every day. Or is this another knock on Gitmo?

Cheese eating surrender monkeys anyone?

So, the reactions of a minority of Americans justifies your and the authors' prejudices about America and Americans?

Real slick there, comrade.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Odin
The reason the EU has a lower economic "growth" rate is because the Euros arn't as obsessed with conspicuous consuption as the US is.

Actually the real reason is differences in measurement.

The EU's GDP was 109% of the US's in 1990 when converted using PPPs

With the reported growth rates since then it should have fallen to 97% by 2002.

However using the latest PPP data (which is for 2002) the EU's GDP was actually 107% of the US's in 2002

So the vast majority of the difference between the US's and EU's growth rate is due to measurement differences, and the real gap in growth between the US and EU is not 1% a year, it's more like 0.2%

You can look at the data here

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's in the shareholder's interest - the government - to have a profitable business.

True but it is also in the politician's interests to not take actions which will maximize efficiency. Lay offs are always unpopular so politicians try to prevent them in nationalized companies most of the time even when they are clearly needed. Latin America has a great history of politicians forcing state owned companies to hire workers they don't need because the politicians needs to quickly lower the unemployment rate. The end result is companies, on qaverage, are better run when politicians can't meddle.

The best way to do that is to privatize.

[Dinner]

Freako, is there data for just the continental powers? I ask because the UK's system is much more dynamic then the mainlands so the effects should be clearer once the UK and Ireland are factored out. Also we shouldn't include the eastern countries since they also don't fully use the same model as old Europe.

[Saras]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


There was a commie government before the Soviets got involved. With the exception of Eastern Europe, all Communist-led governments were the results of internal politics, not Soviet manipulation.

Pretty big exception I say!!!

[el freako]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Freako, is there data for just the continental powers? I ask because the UK's system is much more dynamic then the mainlands so the effects should be clearer once the UK and Ireland are factored out. Also we shouldn't include the eastern countries since they also don't fully use the same model as old Europe.

If you care to click on the link you will see that every single country has seperate data for it (and many more besides) - I have also attached a spreadsheet showing the breakdown of individual OECD countries to this post.

Anyways the 'undercounting' of growth in the UK and Ireland is roughly the same as in continental europe (0.7% a year for UK and Ireland and 0.8% a year for the rest of the EU15)
However the inclusion of France (which uses a 'hedonic' deflator like the US does) in the continental figures skews this a bit as it lowers the 'undercount' of the combined total of the continent.

The 'undercount' for France is only 0.4% a year, but that for Italy is 0.7%, Germany is 1.0%, Spain 1.1% and Greece a massive 1.5% a year (which when you consider that Greece has been reporting growth rates of 4% a year for the last few years is impressive)