My thoughts exactly, the free market experience in Chile was also referred as a miracle but that doesnt mean Chile today is a completely capitalist country.
Certainly not, but at least it’s not France. A little liberalisation goes a long way
No, but it is in a better position than its populist neighbours
But in the context hes using it, hes referring to countries with Free Markets and how it relates to these success stories.
He’s not looking for an answer to his question; he just wants a fight. Fighting is fine when you actually provide some kind of logical argument to support your position, or refer to some kind of macroeconomic theory, but he wasn’t doing that. He’s just a troll wasting people’s time.
It wasn’t obvious trolling. Might have just been baiting or provocative discourse. I’d personally let stuff like that play out a while and if it was patently a futile exercise reasoning with him then you can just ignore him. Seems a bit like censorship to me…
didn’t you see him/her in the other thread(s)?
Which one?
click on his/her name in this thread and go to his profile page. You’ll see the list of posts he/she partook in. It was obvious to me he/she wasn’t here to discuss.
If an economy depends on global trade for its development, and a global bubble grows and bursts, that economy will suffer immensely.
The reason Ireland was so affected was because it had the most dynamic economy going into the bubble.
There was a comment on Spain. New Spanish housing did not only go to foreign investors. Spanish houses were built for those of all incomes. There was a massive housing boom in and around Madrid, and in Barcelona (those are the ones that I saw personally). Outside of Madrid there were entire “ghost towns” built, whereas early as mid-2007 it was obvious that they were never going to sell. There were enough high rises in the middle of nowhere to house several tens of thousands of people, and these never sold. Spain has always had a high unemployment rate in comparison to other European countries, and so I don’t think that the average Spanish wage increased much during the boom years (maybe a little, but not very high). Furthermore, after Franco’s death Spain has not been very economically free relative to other European countries (Spain, IIRC, has hovered around “7.4” out of “10”).
My grandparents have villas in Nerja and Malaga. The whole coastline between them is blanketed with 20 storey apartment buildings. View of the sea is obstructed from the motorway. I think some of these units are worthy of demolition as they are glutting the market and are very marginal. The scenery is sadly irreparably tarnished. There are troublesome neighbourhood effects from these buildings and I’m wondering how this catastrophe could have been prevented in an Austrian context?
As far as I know, the Spanish labour market operates on two tiers. Permanent jobs are inflexible and protected, making lay-offs nigh on impossible while the “shadow” labour market, employing most of the youth, gains and loses jobs en masse depending on the business cycle. This bizarre market is a great example of how regulated labour markets contribute to youth unemployment and classical unemployment in general. These disposable workers lurk on the margins to depress wages across the board. Spain being classifed as an “Anglo-Saxon” economy is erroneous as flexible labour markets are one the crucial defining features of Anglo-Saxon Capitalsim
I think Spain suffered a lot due to its inclusion in the Eurozone. A long time ago I wrote a blog post as a response to an article published by The Economist (“Out of Work: Lessons for Europe”), and I got an interesting response. Sally (the second comment down) makes a good point that the fact that the money injection was coming from the European Central Bank played a large role in Spain’s credit boom. It’s likely that the credit boom would not have been as large had it been perpertrated by a Spanish central bank (although, without a doubt, any central bank is bad). I am friends with a certain Edward Hugh, a Catalán (by “nationality”, not by surname [like me]), on Facebook and I read another interesting comment on one of his notes: Spain and Ireland had pretty much been pumped with credit (sacrificed) because it benefited large-manufacturing nations such as Germany. I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes a lot of sense.
From an Austrian perspective, obviously the credit expansion was the principle reason behind the bubble, and the best way to have avoided the bubble was to never begin credit expansion.
IIRC, there has been an increase in “temporary” labor contracts, which are signed for very small periods of time, allowing the employer to rework contracts very frequently. It gives a certain flexibility to the employer, although this flexibility has been reduced due to minimum wage laws and other types of labor welfare. There is a large “shadow” labor market, especially in agriculture. For example, I have never paid minimum wage to any laborer, and I am a pretty generous agricultural employer. I pay €5 per hour; most farmers pay €2 or 3 (agriculture has its own problems, including the heavy regulation and subsidization of the market and industry).
Were this land still owned in private estates instead of by public communes, the land lords never would have allowed eyesores to be built.
Funny that you should mention that, since Ireland has higher living standards than the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark… Do you want me to keep listing? If Ireland were in such a horrible mess as you claim, wouldn’t living standards be much lower than other EU countries?
That’s nearly the truth. The “core” Euro economies, France, Germany, and to some extent Italy, are so moribund that no amount of credit could move them. Hence when the ECB contained “inflation”, nothing showed up in the center, and it could inflate the margins to extremes.
In Paris-region residential construction has been declining for decades, and despite that there was still a bubble in real estate that killed developers.
My understanding is that Ireland has the most expensive public school teachers in europe and probably the most expensive bureaucrats. They also have huge euro debts to bank depositors. High paid government workers and Bank guarantees is an indication they are not really laissez faire. My guess is that long term UK is worse off .
Irisheconomy.ie has useful information.
Certainly
The bureaucracy is a horrendous burden and public servants seem to be overpaid. I know for a fact that, after twenty years service, a primary teacher’s salary is €70,000 which I think is about $100,000 (before the various bonuses which are offered). Does snyone know the salaries of teachers in the US system?
The UK has a dynamic economy in comparison to the Continentals but the stae has certainly encroached in recent years under a spendthrift Labour government. Political sentiment is heading to the right there which may leave them with somewhat of a rosy future