So the Dollar...

[irwincur]

European Union 0.16%

If anything, this is what Europe really needs to be concerned with. The very concept of a welfare society rests on high birth and growth rates. Without significantly more workers in the field compared to retirees and those that cannot work, the system crumbles.

They need to be extremely careful or Europe will run into budget problems that will make the impending SS disaster in America seem downright petty.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Stunt
The US does have a higher growth rate than Europe, nobody can deny this. On the long term, the growth rates are very similar, almost not worth considering, as the reason for the additional productivity is due to the US's much larger population growth.

It is not all that hard to understand if the population grows faster, the ability to generate more money from those people is easier. The unfortunate downfall of this is government spending must go up to pay for the additional services the government has been known to provide to its citizens.

Here's the population data

European Union 0.16%
United States 0.92%

Where the most economically developed countries in the EU have some of the lowest groth rates in the world.

Italy 0.07%
Spain 0.15%
United Kingdom 0.28%
Germany 0%
France 0.37%

IMO this easily accounts for the 1% of GDP some American patriots are touting around here.

So this .92% is going to account for 2+% point difference last year in gdp growth?

That is pretty amazing.

 

[Stunt]

That's tough to say irwincur, depends on how they have their infrastructure, they could have already gathered the money for retirement through the use of more liberal social security taxation. Also, i'd be interested to see what sort of benifits their companies offer as well. They could be in far better shape than say the US or Canada (i haven't heard of any crisis wrt aging population, not even on the political radar).

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: irwincur

European Union 0.16%

If anything, this is what Europe really needs to be concerned with. The very concept of a welfare society rests on high birth and growth rates. Without significantly more workers in the field compared to retirees and those that cannot work, the system crumbles.

They need to be extremely careful or Europe will run into budget problems that will make the impending SS disaster in America seem downright petty.

You have some point, this is something we need to be worried about. But the worry is to make our workforce more effecient. The problems we have these days are because the people coming on to the market these days are in much smaller numbers leaving the market. At some time this will flatten out, and the same amount of people will be leaving and entering the workforce.
Putting out the pension year can help prolong the problem, but this, i believe is the major problem of the modern european state.
This is a long term problem though, and the end is not to be seen for decades.

The biggest challenge of a modern economy should be getting the rate of birth significantly higher.

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: Stunt
That's tough to say irwincur, depends on how they have their infrastructure, they could have already gathered the money for retirement through the use of more liberal social security taxation. Also, i'd be interested to see what sort of benifits their companies offer as well. They could be in far better shape than say the US or Canada (i haven't heard of any crisis wrt aging population, not even on the political radar).

I heard some different results regarding salvation by taxes, some say we need a general tax increase by 8%, this doesn't sound sane, more reasonable numbers point to the fact that around 2% increase is needed. Even though i am a commie, taxation is not the way to get out of this, taxation is just expanding the eventual horror on this one.
Effecting the workforce, by getting people a higher education, after-education, and making everything more digital is the key here.
Slaughterhouses that still use only manual labour won't do anymore. Machines are to take over those to save money, and thereby making them cost effecient, so the prices can compete with moving factories to poland or ithuania.

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: irwincur

btw when we hit a recession the EU will follow suit just like they did the last time we had a recession in 01-02.

Hell, the EU region has not even recovered from the recession in the early 1990's. Another one over here may really set them back. There has only been a single year of greater than 3% growth in the EU region GDP over the past 15 years. Average growth is much lower than that.

Europe is functionally the largest stagnant economy in the world. Even more sad however, is that no one has a solution the the problem that will make anyone happy. The real world solution is to dissolve the welfare state - it is literally sucking Europe dry. I doubt any of the now welfare and government dependant Europeans will be overly excited with the prospects of this.

But, if they want to save Europe, prevent the bankruptcy of France and Germany, and quite likely prevent yet another major conflict, they will have to accept this.

And turning in to a place of crime, hate and poverty like america? Nah, we'll keep it. It' doable.

 

[piasabird]

The worse part is that if things go bad in Europe it will really hurt the US because foreign trade will be affected.

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: Genx87
So this .92% is going to account for 2+% point difference last year in gdp growth?

That is pretty amazing.

Coming off a recession, yes.

I can't seem to find the US GDP growth numbers, but assuming there was a very small or negative growth rate during the recession, the population was still continuing to grow, the population didn't go through a recession.

So, say in the last 7 years, gdp growth in the US was 2%, the population growth was still 1%. That is far worse than a country with 2% in the same peroid, with a much lower population growth.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Stunt

Originally posted by: Genx87
So this .92% is going to account for 2+% point difference last year in gdp growth?

That is pretty amazing.

Coming off a recession, yes.

I can't seem to find the US GDP growth numbers, but assuming there was a very small or negative growth rate during the recession, the population was still continuing to grow, the population didn't go through a recession.

So, say in the last 7 years, gdp growth in the US was 2%, the population growth was still 1%. That is far worse than a country with 2% in the same peroid, with a much lower population growth.

Maybe but we arent anywhere near that low. Over the past 7 years 1997-2004 we have seen a 27% rate of growth in our gdp.

I am willing to bet the EU is at best half that.

I just dont see how .8% percentage point difference in population growth will account for double the gdp growth.

If it was 10% higher maybe but not 100+% higher.

 

[Stunt]

Where is the 20% and 10% coming from? The GDP growth is much lower than these values.
And 1% population growth will account (for the most part) for the 1% discrepancy in GDP growth values.

//nm, you changed your post...

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Stunt
Where is the 20% and 10% coming from? The GDP growth is much lower than these values.
And 1% population growth will account (for the most part) for the 1% discrepancy in GDP growth values.

//nm, you changed your post...

btw I got the EU data for the same time period.

The EU grew at 15.9% over the same timer period compared to the United States 27%.

 

[Stunt]

US GDP: $8,110.90 billion (in 1997), $11.75 trillion (2004) - 45% more than 1997 number

European GDP: much tougher considering the EU did not exist.
France: $1.32 trillion (1997 est.)
Germany: $1.74 trillion (western: purchasing power parity?$1.60 trillion; eastern: purchasing power parity?$144 billion) (1997 est.)
Britain: $1.242 trillion (1997 est.)
Italy: $1.24 trillion (1997 est.)
Spain: $642.4 billion (1997 est.)

[2004]
France: $ 1,737,000,000,000 - 31% more than 1997 number
Germany: $ 2,362,000,000,000 - 41% more than 1997 number
Britain: $ 1,782,000,000,000 - 45% more than 1997 number
Italy: $ 1,609,000,000,000 - 30% more than 1997 number
Spain: $ 937,600,000,000 - 46% more than 1997 number

 

[Genx87]

For the EU growth

http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/economy_f...ators/euroareagdp/2005/gdp120105en.pdf


For US.

http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp#Mid

 

[B00ne]

Originally posted by: Stunt
The US does have a higher growth rate than Europe, nobody can deny this. On the long term, the growth rates are very similar, almost not worth considering, as the reason for the additional productivity is due to the US's much larger population growth.

It is not all that hard to understand if the population grows faster, the ability to generate more money from those people is easier. The unfortunate downfall of this is government spending must go up to pay for the additional services the government has been known to provide to its citizens.

Here's the population data

European Union 0.16%
United States 0.92%

Where the most economically developed countries in the EU have some of the lowest groth rates in the world.

Italy 0.07%
Spain 0.15%
United Kingdom 0.28%
Germany 0%
France 0.37%

IMO this easily accounts for the 1% of GDP some American patriots are touting around here.

Also consider the different consumer mentality. Consumption is the biggest contributer to the GDP. Now couple this with a savings rate of dunno around 2% in the US and in excess of 10% in Germany. Everyone screams we need to spend more money. However in unstable times as now ppl rather put it away than spend it. On a related note, does anyone have figures (if they exsist) that estimate the dollar contribution (the export of dollars/t-bonds for real products and services) to the US GDP (growth)?

 

[B00ne]

Originally posted by: irwincur

European Union 0.16%

If anything, this is what Europe really needs to be concerned with. The very concept of a welfare society rests on high birth and growth rates. Without significantly more workers in the field compared to retirees and those that cannot work, the system crumbles.

They need to be extremely careful or Europe will run into budget problems that will make the impending SS disaster in America seem downright petty.

And where do we put those ppl? If you had a population as we do the US would be in the range of 2.5 billion inhabitants just imagine this figure... (using germany as a base, using holland it would be much more than that, using france it would be somewhat less)

 

[B00ne]

Back to the start of the thread: I just bought the issue of Stern magazine with that article that was cited here by some links about the demise of the Euro (in earlier replys)

There are some interesting facts about the average: inflation rate; interest rates; growth rates. before and after the Euro

Examples:
Greece: 8.7%; 15.7%; 2% after Euro 3.2%; 5.2%; 4.2%
Germany: 1.9%; 6.1%; 1.4% after Euro 1.3%; 4.6%; 1.4%
Spain: 3.5%; 8.6%; 2.5% after Euro 3.1%; 4.8%; 3.1%
France: 1.6%; 6.4%; 1.8% after Euro 1.8%; 4.7%; 2.3%

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: Forsythe

Originally posted by: irwincur

btw when we hit a recession the EU will follow suit just like they did the last time we had a recession in 01-02.

Hell, the EU region has not even recovered from the recession in the early 1990's. Another one over here may really set them back. There has only been a single year of greater than 3% growth in the EU region GDP over the past 15 years. Average growth is much lower than that.

Europe is functionally the largest stagnant economy in the world. Even more sad however, is that no one has a solution the the problem that will make anyone happy. The real world solution is to dissolve the welfare state - it is literally sucking Europe dry. I doubt any of the now welfare and government dependant Europeans will be overly excited with the prospects of this.

But, if they want to save Europe, prevent the bankruptcy of France and Germany, and quite likely prevent yet another major conflict, they will have to accept this.

And turning in to a place of crime, hate and poverty like america? Nah, we'll keep it. It' doable.

Most of Europe has been like that and worse for a very long time. Why would you want to keep it?

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Yup, the Euro Central Bank has been criticized for not allowing Inflation to rise, Europes Inflation is quite low, but the Bank hasn't eased up on it. One thing the Euro does is take power out of the individual Nations, which would like to have that power right now. At one time Germany, Italy, or whomever could easily adjust the value of their Currency in order to stimulate growth, that is no longer the case. I suspect the Central Bank will be pressured to allow the Euro to fall in order to alleviate these various pressures, which should help Europe as a whole quite a bit. The flipside to that is that the US dollar will rise putting pressue on the Federal Reserve to possibly devalue as well. Hopefully some kind of bizzare Devaluation War doesn't ensue.

Smartest thing I've seen on this board in a long time.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
Most of Europe has been like that and worse for a very long time. Why would you want to keep it?

Evidence?

 

[CanOWorms]

Europe is probably all right with poverty, but I definitely disagree with hate and possibly crime, too. Statistics show the vast majority of Europeans are racist (some polls show 66%, and this was before the current wave of far-right hysteria) and people who keep up with news coming out of Europe know that the situation is tense there. As for crime, it's widely known that many European governments incorrectly report crime or manipulate their numbers (such as Switzerland manipulating crime statistics to make minorities look worse). You have to remember that the concept of supremacy is still alive in Europe. They won't make themselves look bad.

 

[Stunt]

You have links to these polls, numbers are useless without a source.
Since you follow this sort of thing CoW, what is the supremacy like in the US? I'm sure it exists...is there any way to gauge how widespread the problem is in both regions?

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: CanOWorms
As for crime, it's widely known that many European governments incorrectly report crime or manipulate their numbers (such as Switzerland manipulating crime statistics to make minorities look worse).

Linkage to Switzerland and other European countries?

You have to remember that the concept of supremacy is still alive in Europe.

Do you mean that there is one or more person that's a supremacist, or that it's a widespread problem. If it's the latter, please provide evidence.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
Most of Europe has been like that and worse for a very long time. Why would you want to keep it?

Evidence?

I think it would be the other way around - you would have to provide evidence against the facts.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
Most of Europe has been like that and worse for a very long time. Why would you want to keep it?

Evidence?

I think it would be the other way around - you would have to provide evidence against the facts.

Because I'm not making the claim. People who make assertions should back them up with evidence. To put it another way, he hasn't presented any facts.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
Most of Europe has been like that and worse for a very long time. Why would you want to keep it?

Evidence?

I think it would be the other way around - you would have to provide evidence against the facts.

Because I'm not making the claim. People who make assertions should back them up with evidence. To put it another way, he hasn't presented any facts.

Evidence?