RGacky3
28th March 2012, 14:39
Heres what I'm going for here, post a video of a libertarian economist making a point or 2 (videos around 5 minutes, I can't do 45 minute long speaches), and I respond/debunk their points.
I don't want it to be a debate, or something like that, just a resource for leftists to respond to common austrian/neo-classical points brought up by economists.
0tD9trSrp0M
He talks about government wages, Greece's average wage is well below most of europe and the minimum wage is a measly 350 euros a month. And the average wage is much below the european standard. (http://www.worldsalaries.org/greece.shtml) And what about the Public sector ... The monthly pay is already capped at 1900 euros a month (http://www.grreporter.info/en/average_salary_greek_public_sector_1900_euros/5471).
And about government workers, Greece has about 22.3% in government industry, France is 30%, Sweeden is 34%, The Netherlands is 27%, even the european free market advocate the UK has 20%. (http://www.marxist.com/myth-of-lazy-greek-workers.htm)
So the idea that somehow Greek workers are uncompetative is rediculous, they work longer hours for much less than most of europe, yet ... they lack jobs and have growing poverty.
Now it is true that their productivity is lower, that is mainly due to lack of capital ... so how do you introduce capital? Certainly not by CUTTING public investment, NO country has cut its way to capital growth. Then what happens when you cut wages, demand drops and you have those problems.
He's also missing one thing, that Greece basically stopped collecting taxes, and handed their entire public funds and pensions and the such over to Goldman Sachs and many European banks and totally deregulated the financial industry ... So what do you think would happen?
As far as going off the Euro creating massaive inflation, thats certianly not what happened when Argentina unpegged their currency to the dollar ... So I don't see why that would happen in Greece, unless you simply suddenly have a huge influx of demand and the Dracma being spent all over the place.
But he's right about one thing, Greece is'nt going to be able to pay off its debt, so it should just default.
So the facts just don't add up, Greece wages are not close to the EU standard, they are NOT too high, the state sector is'nt that big, they arn't doing things much different from the other countries, what they DID do different was giant deregulation of the financial sector, handing public funds into private hands, and stopped collecting taxes.
Oh one more thing, When the EU started Germany had a huge advantage of a large influx of cheap and skilled labor as well as access to a large amount of capital and industrialization, so when the rest of Europe was forced to compete with Germany at an equal level, without persuing the means Germany and France used to grow as economies (strong social-democracies, protectionism, industrial policy, currency manipulation and so on), what do you think would happen, well what happened is what happens to every under developed country forced into neo-liberalism.
(again, this is'nt a debate, just a place where you can get responces to points made in the media by neo-liberals and austrians).
I don't want it to be a debate, or something like that, just a resource for leftists to respond to common austrian/neo-classical points brought up by economists.
0tD9trSrp0M
He talks about government wages, Greece's average wage is well below most of europe and the minimum wage is a measly 350 euros a month. And the average wage is much below the european standard. (http://www.worldsalaries.org/greece.shtml) And what about the Public sector ... The monthly pay is already capped at 1900 euros a month (http://www.grreporter.info/en/average_salary_greek_public_sector_1900_euros/5471).
And about government workers, Greece has about 22.3% in government industry, France is 30%, Sweeden is 34%, The Netherlands is 27%, even the european free market advocate the UK has 20%. (http://www.marxist.com/myth-of-lazy-greek-workers.htm)
So the idea that somehow Greek workers are uncompetative is rediculous, they work longer hours for much less than most of europe, yet ... they lack jobs and have growing poverty.
Now it is true that their productivity is lower, that is mainly due to lack of capital ... so how do you introduce capital? Certainly not by CUTTING public investment, NO country has cut its way to capital growth. Then what happens when you cut wages, demand drops and you have those problems.
He's also missing one thing, that Greece basically stopped collecting taxes, and handed their entire public funds and pensions and the such over to Goldman Sachs and many European banks and totally deregulated the financial industry ... So what do you think would happen?
As far as going off the Euro creating massaive inflation, thats certianly not what happened when Argentina unpegged their currency to the dollar ... So I don't see why that would happen in Greece, unless you simply suddenly have a huge influx of demand and the Dracma being spent all over the place.
But he's right about one thing, Greece is'nt going to be able to pay off its debt, so it should just default.
So the facts just don't add up, Greece wages are not close to the EU standard, they are NOT too high, the state sector is'nt that big, they arn't doing things much different from the other countries, what they DID do different was giant deregulation of the financial sector, handing public funds into private hands, and stopped collecting taxes.
Oh one more thing, When the EU started Germany had a huge advantage of a large influx of cheap and skilled labor as well as access to a large amount of capital and industrialization, so when the rest of Europe was forced to compete with Germany at an equal level, without persuing the means Germany and France used to grow as economies (strong social-democracies, protectionism, industrial policy, currency manipulation and so on), what do you think would happen, well what happened is what happens to every under developed country forced into neo-liberalism.
(again, this is'nt a debate, just a place where you can get responces to points made in the media by neo-liberals and austrians).