How can EU defend its social state?

[pchang]

Sorry, neither your mother nor your father is Chinese. I have that on good authority.

[MarkG]

EU should close it's commercial borders. we can produce everything we need ourselves. then we'll see where the chinese will sell their defective products! huh!

[Alexander's Horse]

yeah! bring on the Great Depression!

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Lancer
"that only hurts americas poor"

You mean the people who don't have a job because they have gone to China, India, which use child labor?

"and americas importers"

Yeah, the possible impact on Wal Mart just breaks my heart.

Child labour is illegal in India , but more importantly , it does not make economic sense to use child labour any more , so it is falling and will soon be gone . The remaining instances of child labour are usually those where the child is from the family of the businessperson himself .

Another thing is that it not the low-skill jobs that are coming to India . THe low-skill jobs are mostly going to China . It is the semi-skilled and highly-skilled jobs in the service sector that are coming to India . In this sector , there is no child labour , nor any possibility of child labour ( because education is necessary , and so is a minimum age , which child labour makes impossible ) .

As for China , I have no idea ( the government won't let anyone speak about it , and anyone who speaks out against the government is killed , so . . . . . . ) .

[C0ckney]

First, the Europeans need to stop trying to outcompete each other on which country has the smallest wages, smallest taxes etc. A common market needs harmonized taxation and harmonized social systems. If such harmonization doesn't happen, Europe will progressively destroy its social systems from within (btw, the sluggish French and German growth comes from the fact that these countries' capitalists heavily invest in Eastern Europe, much more than Asia)

spiff, i can see two major problems with your common market ideas, nobody wants it, and it wouldn't work. when you say tax harmonisation, do you mean bring them down to the british, or ever eastern european levels, or raise them to french and german, or even scandinavian levels? i'm guessing you mean the latter. i'm no economist but i know that there are great differences in europe's economies, a 'one size fits all' system would be a disaster.

the problem is that the current continental system isn't working, making everyone else adopt a failing system is hardly a solution.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by aneeshm


Child labour is illegal in India , but more importantly , it does not make economic sense to use child labour any more , so it is falling and will soon be gone . The remaining instances of child labour are usually those where the child is from the family of the businessperson himself .

Another thing is that it not the low-skill jobs that are coming to India . THe low-skill jobs are mostly going to China . It is the semi-skilled and highly-skilled jobs in the service sector that are coming to India . In this sector , there is no child labour , nor any possibility of child labour ( because education is necessary , and so is a minimum age , which child labour makes impossible ) .

As for China , I have no idea ( the government won't let anyone speak about it , and anyone who speaks out against the government is killed , so . . . . . . ) .

They're not all killed. There are forced labor camps as well.

[Sandman]

The EU's economy grew by a respectable 2.4% last year. What's the problem?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
do you have any idea how many americans work in consumer goods manufacturing vs the total number of american poor? ill give you a hint, its minuscule.

Perhaps because all consumer goods production already moved to China and other low wage countries?
So if you'd get consumer good production back by protectionism against China & co, imagine how many extra jobs it would create!

Originally posted by Sandman
The EU's economy grew by a respectable 2.4% last year. What's the problem?

The rest of the world grew more.
That figure seems rather optimistic to me though. IIRC I've seen lower numbers.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by aneeshm
As for China , I have no idea ( the government won't let anyone speak about it , and anyone who speaks out against the government is killed , so . . . . . . ) .

We don't kill them. We send them to the US one by one. All those "human rights activists"

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by C0ckney
spiff, i can see two major problems with your common market ideas, nobody wants it, and it wouldn't work.

Several countries want it. Admittedly, the UK doesn't want it, since a significant part of the Rosbif growth comes from leeching off investment that could be realised in more social countries.
Read: the Rosbif growth rests in significant part on wealth displacement, and not only on wealth domestic creation: the low taxes and labour flexibility bring much growth to the UK, but not so much growth to the EU as a whole.
This means that if the EU as a whole adopts such policies, the UK will lose its edge and lose mucho growth. And the EU as a whole won't be much better off (the EU working class will be much worse off).

when you say tax harmonisation, do you mean bring them down to the british, or ever eastern european levels, or raise them to french and german, or even scandinavian levels? i'm guessing you mean the latter. i'm no economist but i know that there are great differences in europe's economies, a 'one size fits all' system would be a disaster.

Sorry I wasn't clear. Tax harmonisation is a long process of making taxes look similar, as the economies look similar. Nowadays, Eastern Europe's only comparative advantage is low labour costs. If the labour costs were the same as in Western Europe, then nobody would invest in the East at all.

However, as the economies grow similar (which is a done process in western Europe, except perhaps in Portugal and Greece), taxes and labour laws should be increasingly similar to each other. It makes economic sense (common economic policy for a common economic area), and the only reason why it hasn't been done yet is because of some jealous defenders of national sovereignty. Not because of economic reasons.

the problem is that the current continental system isn't working, making everyone else adopt a failing system is hardly a solution.

The sluggish growth, at least in France of Germany, isn't due to the fact that evil taxes prevent companies from turning a profit. Actually, French companies made record profits this year. The sluggish growth is mostly due to a massive wealth displacement toward Eastern Europe, a wealth to which the Rosbifs contribute much less than the other big ones (France, Germany, Italy), because the Rosbifs have had their social dumping before the continentals.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Lancer
My cousin in Zurich used to ***** about only getting 5 weeks off a year. He got no sympathy from me.

That's because your country is particularly regressive (by Western standards) in terms of employment law...

[Sandman]

Let's see some figures to back up your claims, Spiffor. Especially the 'massive' wealth displacement to Eastern Europe.

[Pekka]

Sandman, don't worry, you never get figures from these people. They talk the talk, they never walk the walk. That's more like a rule than an exception. They talk in theories.

What you don't want to do is stop the growth of eastern european markets now in order to make it less attractive. You want to keep it where it is now. There is more to world than Europe, adn the competetiveness goes outside Europe. There are investors outside Europe. Make it as 'attractive' as some of teh western spots and you see the money going into Asia instead or similar, that's money out of Europe.

What Europe needs to do is stay competitive, or basically lose the edge to outside Europe. That simple. When the same time you want to level the taxes, meaning rising them in most places, you will see less growth in GDP, you will see less buying power, and what you DEFINITELY see is less people using services. That puts away lots of outside businesses wanting to open up in Europe, because there's just not enough buying, except in the west maybe. Forget the eastern europe. Doing this will only hinder eastern european members and basically they will get the crap left in their hands, and to assume the wealth will spread there by some Godly intervention is day dreaming.

[CerberusIV]

Spiff did call one thing right. Retirement age really has to go up. With current life expectancies across most of the EU the idea that you spend a quarter of your life being educated at someone else's expense, work for half your life and then spend the final quarter again at someone else's expense isn't really on.

The EU really needs some internal reform. The sacred cow of the CAP should be slaughtered and a new system of supporting the economy of rural areas brought in. The trouble lies in overcoming the vested interests, like the British rebate. If everyone agrees then there can be a better system - but they won't.

The other problem I see is with the WTO and the time taken to get a decision. If it took months, rather than years, then there would be less incentive to try dumping. The manouverings over the current textiles dispute with China are a good example of how it doesn't work.

As for China and cheap goods, they aren't the first country to be blamed in this way for undermining "developed" economies and they won't be the last. The European and North American economies are still with us.

[Bereta_Eder]

Re: Re: How can EU defend its social state?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


That may be true in some cases, but not true everywhere. I have friends working as engineers or managers in Mainland factories, so I know a bit how things are.

Of course, it also depends on the region/province, product(s), company, etc.

I should have been more clear. The espose of rebulica talked about a region (dont remember which) where the western companies have all their manufacturing basis in china.