Generic "Economy" thread

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Japher
I agree with Ned. An economy needs to be robust and over rewards equal to the amount of effort put into it. Sweden is going the way of Argentina. A stagnant economy is worse then a falling economy.

Argentina? Wow, that's a crude comparison indeed.




Lot of deductive, "self evident" resoning flying around here. Were's the bug spray?

[Solly]

Any economy thread with DuncanK in is laughable.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Japher


DuncanK, maybe you should read the question again... the entire question.

Sorry Ned

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
DuncanK,

I cant see any solution to any business problem when they are analysed in term of conflict.

You want to ignore this?

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Skilled labor is normally considered as the primary wealth of a corporation, and the more employes are skilled the more the employers should be happy, because it is the guarantee that the company will be efficient, and consequently successful. It is generally observed that high skilled employes have no difficulty in finding jobs (under normal economic conditions of course).

Of course, and they would like to have a large supply of high skilled labor so they can pay them less. Isn't that what I said?

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The problem of the low paying service jobs is totally different; they are lowly paid primarily because they are not highly valued by the end user, and also because these jobs have an efficiency which cannot be technologically improved.

In other words they are low paid because there is an over supply of them and there is not enough demand to meet that supply.

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Where you have a point, is about the fact that although the corporations should act in the interest of the shareholders, they should not act ONLY in their interest, but they should recognize ALSO that the employes have legitimate rights which are to be taken into account in the strategic decisions.

hehe, they don't and wont do that because of the conflict.

[DuncanK]

Japher,

The economy grew last quarter. There is not recession yet.

[DuncanK]

Ouch! Consumer Confidence went down to 64. That's a hard drop.

[Ned]

Originally posted by DuncanK
Ned,

The question is whether the the tax cuts will create a budget surplus, not whether they would have a stimulating effect. This is about the Laffer curve. Laffer predicted that a cut in taxes would create an increase in tax revenue, which is absolutely absurd. Taxes would have to be at extremely high levels to see that occur. Is Bush actually saying that his tax cuts will ballance the budget or create a surplus? I haven't actually heard him say that. That would be funny.

Duncan, if the economy picks up to where we were, there will be a surplus even with a reduced tax rate. This is obvious.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Ned
Duncan, if the economy picks up to where we were, there will be a surplus even with a reduced tax rate. This is obvious.

Ned, how can we have a surplus if the economy only picks up to where we were and taxes are lower?

[Ned]

Originally posted by DuncanK


Ned, how can we have a surplus if the economy only picks up to where we were and taxes are lower?

I believe the tax cuts were planned to spend only a part of the expected surplus.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Ned


I believe the tax cuts were planned to spend only a part of the expected surplus.

There's no more expected surplus. The deficit is suppose to be as high as 300 billion.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Japher
I agree with Ned. An economy needs to be robust and over rewards equal to the amount of effort put into it. Sweden is going the way of Argentina. A stagnant economy is worse then a falling economy.

Sweden going the way of Argetnina? - what planet are you on?

GDP per head as % of USA:

Sweden: 64% in 1952, 77% in 1977, 74% in 2002
Argentina: 42% in 1952, 42% in 1977, 25% in 2002

Originally posted by Ned
I don't see how an economy can be "robust" if there is no incentive to work hard.

Unemployment rates:
United States: 5.8%
Sweden: 4.9%

Employment as % of population aged 15-64:
United States: 70.1%
Sweden: 73.3%

(all data is for 2002 and from the OECD )

[Kropotkin]

el freako; While I do agree (as can be noticed earlier) in your questionmark regarding the former posters mental stability and sanity there's a important point to make about the unemployment figures.

The Swedish government have a long standing tradtion of hiding away unemployment in different programs that once up in a time had a real meaning. For example to to ease structural change and move labour between different sectors and regions. Nowadays it's just a way to make the figures look better. The 'real' figure is something like *1,5 that (4,9+1,5=7,35). I guess there might be something like that in the US figures as well but I suspect that it's nothing close to that.*


* unless, of cource, locking people up in prison is to be regared as the american way to solve unemployment figures without welfare....

[DuncanK]

good stats el freako

[Gangerolf]

Re: Re: Generic "Economy" thread

Originally posted by Ned

I don't see how an economy can be "robust" if there is no incentive to work hard.

yeah. sweden is wealthy because they're lazy?

[DuncanK]

It's unbelievable how most Americans think that incentives to work are so important for the economy, but in America there is a serious lack of such incentives. There are all kinds of subsidies in the economy which pay people for no work at all. Plus many people do little or no work at all and get paid much more compensation than those who really do perform the hard work.