Because it is well-known that human beings are selfish. Sometimes, you have to force them to not be selfish.




Have I ever suggested that the system is working well? I am just suggesting that Germany's economy is messed up, but so will be American economy as well (next to other things that ARE already messed up in that country).

What benefit of Germany?

Do all the people in Germany have the same set of goals? Hardly. Money is reinvested only for the benefit of the people who reinvest it. But it just so happens that it's to the beneift of those people to reinvest in Germany, as it already has a very educated workforce.


1. Companies can be headquartered in Germany, procur the parts from Malaysia, build the products in Poland and sell them in Australia. It's a global marketplace out there, yet you want to keep it artificially local.

2. Minimum 20 days per year in paid leave. Federally mandated paid sick leave for 6 weeks. "Social justification" for termination. Etc.

All these contribute to wages that are not justified by the expected profit, and hence companies that do business in Germany make less money than they would in a country with less restrictive job laws (if they make money in Germany at all). That cointributes to companies either wanting to move out of Germany or to discontinue their operations altogether.

I don't need to write books on this; they have all been written by now.

If you're curious as to what I'm talking about, check out Mises, Hayek, Friedman, etc.

And guess what, some of the leading laissez faire economists received Nobel Prizes (most recently, this year). Imagine that.

It sure is.




If it was as easy and logical as you make it seem, it would have been done.[/quote]
It HAS been done.

In the United States. In Hong Kong. In Chile. In the U.K. in the 80's.

1. Of course I'd want to keep it in Germany. If they do what you said, it doesn't benefit the state at all and is not part of the GDP. I couldn't care less if that's good for the company itself or not.

2. Agreed on the first two, disagreed on the "social justification". While the first two are pure luxury, latter is important. Any other way, I consider unreasonable. The first two are being reformed right now anyway.

I doubt it will help. Even if you take out all that you've mentioned (like the paid leave and paid sick leave) the Poles are still willing to work for less money.

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being selfish. It's what drives us. If you're not going to look out for yourself, then who will?

And who are you to say that you should force people not to be selfish? By your own admission, you're not spending your money for the benefit of the society, yet you expect others to do so. Is that not the most selfish thing?

You're using the flimisiest of evidence (the widening of the current account deficit, which means absolutely nothing when taken out of context) to drive across the point that the U.S. economy won't be doing well.

On top of that, you're using YOUR OWN definition of what is well and what isn't (complete with the notion that if not everyone can afford their expenses, then the system is not well).

If you're going to try and prove that the U.S. economy is not doing well (or is not going to in the future), then at the very least try and use the same premises as the U.S. is using.

That's why the people are forced to do what is demanded and are not allowed to pick what they want to do or what they are gifted in.






Oh yeah, all the countries with blooming economies and amazing social equality...

By what admission?




I did not start this thread as a "Let's prove that the US economy is doing badly" thread, but as an informational thread. Why does it appear to me all the time that you are almost choking while going into rhapsodies over the American economy?

1. If you want to artificially keep them in Germany, then you're going to pay twice: once with te subsidies to those companies for staying in Germany, and the other time with the higher prices because of lack of competition.

Why should Germans, who are very highly skilled, be working low-paying jobs, just for the sake of high employment?

2. There are two problems with "social justification". First and foremost, is that it presumes that everyone has the right to retain a job, which is nonsensical. It's akin to me letting you use my computer, but then when I want to ake it away because maybe I don't like you anymore, you'd say "well, it's not 'socially justified'". It may very well be, and it may be 'unreasonable', but it is MY computer; you shouldn't be dictating me the terms of how I use it.

3. As for Poles working for less, you're damn right they will. And that's a good thing. That allows Germans to concentrate on the jobs that require more skill (which is Germany's comparative advantage) and are therefore paying more.

I figure this is as good a place as any to post the following essay by Frederic Bastiat.

A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.

To the Honourable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.
Gentlemen:
You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your -- what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice -- your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us [1].

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds -- in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity.

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

We have our answer ready:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.

Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this objection. When told that the consumer has a stake in the free entry of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and textiles, ``Yes,'' you reply, ``but the producer has a stake in their exclusion.'' Very well, surely if consumers have a stake in the admission of natural light, producers have a stake in its interdiction.

``But,'' you may still say, ``the producer and the consumer are one and the same person. If the manufacturer profits by protection, he will make the farmer prosperous. Contrariwise, if agriculture is prosperous, it will open markets for manufactured goods.'' Very well, If you grant us a monopoly over the production of lighting during the day, first of all we shall buy large amounts of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal, to supply our industry; and, moreover, we and our numerous suppliers, having become rich, will consume a great deal and spread prosperity into all areas of domestic industry.

Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?

But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign goods because and in proportion as they approximate gratuitous gifts. You have only half as good a reason for complying with the demands of other monopolists as you have for granting our petition, which is in complete accord with your established policy; and to reject our demands precisely because they are better founded than anyone else's would be tantamount to accepting the equation: + x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap absurdity upon absurdity.

Labour and Nature collaborate in varying proportions, depending upon the country and the climate, in the production of a commodity. The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labour that constitutes value and is paid for.

If an orange from Lisbon sells for half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because the natural heat of the sun, which is, of course, free of charge, does for the former what the latter owes to artificial heating, which necessarily has to be paid for in the market.

Thus, when an orange reaches us from Portugal, one can say that it is given to us half free of charge, or, in other words, at half price as compared with those from Paris.

Now, it is precisely on the basis of its being semigratuitous (pardon the word) that you maintain it should be barred. You ask: ``How can French labour withstand the competition of foreign labour when the former has to do all the work, whereas the latter has to do only half, the sun taking care of the rest?'' But if the fact that a product is half free of charge leads you to exclude it from competition, how can its being totally free of charge induce you to admit it into competition? Either you are not consistent, or you should, after excluding what is half free of charge as harmful to our domestic industry, exclude what is totally gratuitous with all the more reason and with twice the zeal.

To take another example: When a product -- coal, iron, wheat, or textiles -- comes to us from abroad, and when we can acquire it for less labour than if we produced it ourselves, the difference is a gratuitous gift that is conferred up on us. The size of this gift is proportionate to the extent of this difference. It is a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product if the foreigner asks of us only three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter as high a price. It is as complete as it can be when the donor, like the sun in providing us with light, asks nothing from us. The question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production. Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you ban, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and textiles, in proportion as their price approaches zero, how inconsistent it would be to admit the light of the sun, whose price is zero all day long!

I'm quite gifted in putting my gloves on backwards.

Should I be paid for that?




If you're looking for social equality, then you should move to North Korea.

But the economies are quite blooming.

I asked you if you are spending your own money to keep the companies in Germany. You said no.




You sure did start this thread to try and prove that the U.S. economy is doing bad.

As the Best Political Debator award winner, you shouldn't make things up. I said yes.





You sure did start this thread to try and prove that the U.S. economy is doing bad.[/quote]

Yeah...and WMD is still to be found in Iraq. You are too sure of your assumptions.

This is a "I would, if blah blah blah, but I do not right now" answer, not a "yes" answer".


Excuse me? What you said sounded exactly as if you were trying to prove your point.

If you were trying to provide the information, then you shouldn't have editorialized it.

You don't get it and that is frustrating. My answer is YES, I even out it in capital letters. The fact is, though, that I won't be living in Germany. However, I'd be willing to invest for the same goal in the country I am moving to As I said, your assumptions are rushed.




Because the mods ask to not just post links and texts, but also have a comment to at least show that you are not posting just anything for the heck of it... :?

No they're not.

You are not paying out of your pocket to keep the companies and the jobs in Germany; yet you expect others to do it.

If you don't think that question is fair, here is another one.

In the country to which you move to, if you were given a choice between donating your money to a charity of your choosing or paying extra in taxes to the government, which would you choose?

So were you, or were you not trying to prove that the U.S. economy is going to turn for the worse?

The latter. I don't believe in the credibility of charities.




With this thread? No. I just stated that it will most likely get worse without finding more arguments to support my thesis or trying to do so.

Would you pay EXTRA in taxes, even if you were not required to?


In other words, you're contending that your thesis was baseless?

And why exactly did you seek out a debate with me on the topic and then complain about me being too aggressive on the issue?

Sorry, I have been reading this thread and just know if I jump in I won't hold my ground too well because this isn't quite my forte, all I knew is that even Greenspan said we're no longer going to be the hot pot of foreign investment if we keep it up. But I wanted to address this exchange. Mostly because Lecter is quite right when he says "For How Long?" We've not short term here, it doesn't matter right now who get the most investment, that a relic of ten or more years ago, since that's when those contracts we now see where firt put to the table. There is always drag. What we're doing now is going to affect us in a big way in a few years. Here:




Sorry its so long, it was actually three pages and I cute it down to about 25% of what the article length is. There's alot more stuff in their about South Asian, and Chinese university re-vamping.

What this means is that USA is no longer going to be the only option for ingenuity in new fields, and won't necessarily be considered the wealthiest (as far as knowledge and opportunity) for foreign investment. Investors still turn here because they feel they are getting the best in the field, what happens when we're not because of the recent anti-intellectualism aesthetic?

I don't know. I don't see it being an end all situation. SO big deal, we're not number one for investment anymore, every other country in the world has to deal with it, and maybe then we'll get over the idea that we're inherently desired just because we're AMerican and start realizing we need to focus our attention of recruiting interest. But seriously, I'm not going to be delusional and say everything is fine either.

dolce, my point was that foreing investment and current account deficit offset each other.

So if there is less net investment by foreigners into the U.S. the current account deficit will go down as well.

As for U.S. being less attractive to foreigners - big deal. That's the goal of the U.S. policies: not to claim the #1 spot in everything, but to make sure that the world economy is strong enough to sustain the long-term growth of the U.S. That's why the emergence of China, India and the Eastern European countries is GOOD for the U.S., just as the re-emergence of Western Europe and Japan was good 50 years ago.

as long as it's for the benefit of the country...




My thesis is based on the article AMONG other arguments which I did not provide BECAUSE I was not trying to prove anything. And I do not complain about you being too aggressive, just about you thinking too highly of the American economy. I might find flaws with it, but I find no less flaws with German economy as well. You appear to see positive things only.

I called out on you for a debate for mainly two reasons. At first because I know you for being a good debator and that those debates are usually fun. Second of all, because Social Science is my major and I have my main exam in it in April and might study something in that direction in my further life. Therefore, I need some training debating on issues with someone and learning many different sides of an issue. You proved to be an excellent individual for that purpose

That's an admission I anticipate Krem to make at some point as well

Oh and as for attracting foreign students, the USA can surely count on me
Personally for me it is a good thing that the USA can't attract all of the best of the best right now. Since they can't do that, they lower the criteria somewhat (from whcih I can only benefit).

That is very noble of you (though I have very serious suspicions that you're not employed right now). But what makes you think that you have the right to force others to depart with their money?


You're misinterpreting my argument. I have very serious misgivings about the American economy. But these misgivings stem from the fact that i do not trust the government to spend my money.

As for the current account deficit, that, like I said before, is not an indicator of whether the economy is doing poorly or not. It's just a descriptor of the economy. The American economy has been doing fine for 25 years with the trade deficit, and has suffered before that with the trade surplus.

What you also have to learn is how to base the debate on the premises that everyone can agree with.

Your original argument was based on the premise that the current account somehow tells you something about how well the economy is doing. It doesn't. All it tells you is whether we're buying more goods abroad than we're selling.

It'd be for their own (or for their children's) good in the end.



If everyone agreed with everything, there would be no need for a debate in first place, eh?

I consider the fact that the USA imports more than it exports not a good thing as simple as that. It's like having a store selling less than you invest. Not the best of an example, but still.

How do you know that?

For me (and my children), it's better to invest my money into a new business rather than spend it on taxes

Without agreeing on the premises you can't have a valuable debate. For instance, if we were to debate about the future effects of Global Warming, it'd be pointlesss, unless both of us agreed that the Global Warming phenomena existed in the first place.

No, it's more like having a store selling you something for cheaper than you can make it yourself. It only makes sense for you to buy it.

We live in a world risk society. That means that you might inherit your business to your children thinking that their future is taken care of, but all of suddent they might lose everything....and who is supposed to support them if not the state? Or if YOU lose everything....you'll have to rely on Social Security.







You know that for instance there are people who disagree with the fact that Holocaust ever took place, right? So that means you can't discuss with them about it?


No, it's more like having a store selling you something for cheaper than you can make it yourself. It only makes sense for you to buy it.[/quote]

You buy, but you don't sell anything yourself....