Can someone explain to me what's going on in Greece?

[Ancient History]

I'm gonna point out a few things:

1) That chart is by the Heritage Foundation, a "conservative policy research" institution. A bit of salt is probably worth taking when looking at these data.

2) Check this shit out: the "flat" period you're talking about is basically the Clinton Era. Check out 1993-2001.

3) Amount of dollars spent per household is not a tremendously useful metric, especially in the crazy post-nuclear family days of today. It's not like the government is taking in X dollars and giving them to Y households in different forms and then you average it to get that chart; it's just a division of total spending by an arbitrary (and growing) number.

4) Even if it /was/ a useful figure, just to get an understanding of how much benefit you were receiving in absolute dollars spent vs. your individual contribution, your argument that the line should be "flat" is irrational and bullshit. If there's a baby boom or immigrant infusion and the number of households double without a an exactly equivalent doubling in government spending, your chart-line would go down. "Flat" only means that you indicate the exact same amount of value per household should be spent by the government at all times forever until the end of the world, which is clearly bizarre and unrealistic.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Yeah, as we become a wealthier nation, we should be spending more on our citizens. That would seem to be the prime benefit of being a wealthier nation.

[DSMatticus]

Since 1965, our inflation-adjusted GDP has went up by something like 150%. Our GDP per capita has nearly done the same (only about a 100% increase). The fact that the government spends more now than it did in 1965 is totally in fucking line with the fact that our economy has grown since 1965.

But more importantly, there are exactly zero real-world demonstrations of the catastrophic nature of rampant spending that are relevant to this situation. The EU is being torn apart by a refusal to spend money. Not because they're overspending. But literally because financially sound nations are electing officials who promise austerity and that is causing people to abandon their markets in droves.

But you know what? We can actually look at countries and see how much they spend as a percentage of their GDP, and see what's happening to them.
Key nations:
38.9%, the U.S.
43.7%, Germany
52.8%, France
48.8%, Italy
41.1%, Spain
46.8%, Greece

So, yeah. Let's look at that list: Germany, the ones who are trying to tell everyone in the EU why they need to embrace austerity and spend less, are spending more than we do. Italy spends 10% more than we do, and they were financially stable doing so until the EU started to collapse around them and drive their rates up. As a matter of fact, we blame Greece for this entire problem with their "irresponsibly high spending" and Italy was spending more than they were. So is France, which is one of the last to get hit by this problem. Meanwhile, Sweden, Denmark, Finland are all over there being relatively stable and spending like France in the low 50's. And Switzerland is over there at some ungodly low number like 30%.

So, yeah. Our spending is not only sustainable, it is pathetically low compared to most other first world nations (including the ones shouting about austerity!), with the noticeable exceptions being Japan and Switzerland. Probably more, I haven't looked too hard. There is pretty much zero relationship between what these countries are spending relative to their economic strength and how bad they're getting hurt for it. If anything, higher spending is a good indicator of stability.

[tzor]

2) Check this shit out: the "flat" period you're talking about is basically the Clinton Era. Check out 1993-2001.

You're missing something important; it's the WHOLE CLINTON ERA. That includes the time he had his party in congress and the time he had the Republicans in Congress.

You know, I really don't need another reason to like Clinton.

[tzor]

Yeah, as we become a wealthier nation, we should be spending more on our citizens. That would seem to be the prime benefit of being a wealthier nation.

But as it was pointed out, one of our biggest "wealth bursts" was during the dot com bubble of the Clinton Administration and that's flatter than (on second though I'm going to omit insulting a state of the union).

It has nothing to do with wealth as the spending is actually paid for through debt. I could see if the numbers went up and down as the economic cycles passed, but it doesn't. That increase isn't benefits, it's government paper pushers.

[tzor]

Since 1965, our inflation-adjusted GDP has went up by something like 150%.

Is that adjusted for inflation?

YES THAT IS A JOKE

So let's see, here is a real warp your mind, Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2007

Here is an inflation adjusted shart that might actually use real inflation. Still it still goes up as normal during the "flat" Clinton administration.

So I can't see how you can claim it went up 150%. The inflation adjusted number went up by a factor of 3! That's 200%!

So, are you really saying ... Obama is trying to make up for the lost years of the Clinton administration?

[Username17]

Yeah, as we become a wealthier nation, we should be spending more on our citizens. That would seem to be the prime benefit of being a wealthier nation.

But as it was pointed out, one of our biggest "wealth bursts" was during the dot com bubble of the Clinton Administration and that's flatter than (on second though I'm going to omit insulting a state of the union).

It has nothing to do with wealth as the spending is actually paid for through debt. I could see if the numbers went up and down as the economic cycles passed, but it doesn't. That increase isn't benefits, it's government paper pushers.

No. That increase is meaningless, because it is tied to a meaningless number. Households has nothing to do with anything. The relevant number is government spending per GDP. And that looks like this:



Now, the recession caused an upswing in government spending per GDP. What caused that?



That "other" mostly comes from people getting older and using more Medicare - something that is in no way cyclic and which will happen no matter what the economy does. But the vast majority of the uptick actually is caused directly or indirectly by the shrinking economy. If we ended the depression, government spending per GDP would drop significantly.

-Username17

[Username17]

So let's see, here is a real warp your mind, Real GDP is Decreasing, 1990-2007

That is the dumbest thing I have read in some time. His argument was that inflation doesn't mean price increases, it means money increases. And that when you divide the amount of GDP by the amount of money, you get a smaller number. I have no idea whether you get a shrinking number if you do that, but that is not what fucking Real GDP is. Real GDP is the total production by purchase power parity, which means it is based on prices. Not based on the production compared to the total amount of money in the world, which is just a measure of monetary velocity.

I found my eyes glazing over at the prospect of reading all his fiddly little numbers, so I don't know or care if they add up to anything. He completely lost me at the point where he said that using prices to calculate purchase power parity was a government scam.

In the future, if you are going to link to bizarro world conspiracy theories, at least find ones that cherry pick statistics that look like they support their claims. At least Gx can do that. Linking to people who use M2 instead of prices to calculate inflation is just pants-on-head crazy.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Linking to people who use M2 instead of prices to calculate inflation is just pants-on-head crazy.

You mean the ECB? (You really do like that phrase, lately)

[Lago PARANOIA]

The New York Times (I get the dead tree edition, not the online version, so can't get you a link) had an article today about how Merkel was using the eurozone crisis to enact 'reforms' in Spain and Italy. Which helps to confirm my weaksauce conspiracy theory.

Of course rather than using it to paint her as the spawn David Xanatos, it was all glowing with praise and semi-biographical. WTF?

[Username17]

The New York Times (I get the dead tree edition, not the online version, so can't get you a link) had an article today about how Merkel was using the eurozone crisis to enact 'reforms' in Spain and Italy. Which helps to confirm my weaksauce conspiracy theory.

Of course rather than using it to paint her as the spawn David Xanatos, it was all glowing with praise and semi-biographical. WTF?

Angela Merkel also recently talked about the results of the Irish budget in the past tense... that the Irish parliament hadn't actually finished. So um... apparently Angela Merkel apparently knows what the Irish parliament will decide before they have actually debated. Like, down to percentage details and shit.

So either she is secretly from the future or she is currently dictating budgets to all GIPS nations, with "democracy" a flimsy veneer.

-Username17

[sabs]

instead of saving Greece, they're going to throw Greece under the bus, and invite everyone to take a stomp.

[name_here]

Apparently, the ECB has declared it's not going to buy up the debts of European countries.

The Dow fell two hundred points after that announcement.

[Username17]

Apparently, the ECB has declared it's not going to buy up the debts of European countries.

The Dow fell two hundred points after that announcement.

And then when Italian bonds started tailspinning, they did a minor buyup of bonds anyway.

Basically the ECB has come right out and said the following:

• They are not independent and have explicit policy goals that they are going to force down the throats of any country they can catch.
• They are perfectly willing to save countries from self perpetuating bond crises - but only if those countries cede their sovereignty to the ECB.
• They are also perfectly willing to not save countries from total economic collapse if they disagree with the policies of the elected representatives in those countries.

The ECB is the most dangerous anti-democratic force of this century.

-Username17

[Shatner]

The ECB is the most dangerous anti-democratic force of this century.

-Username17

Wow. And we're less than 1/5th into this century. Bravo ECB for really hitting the ground running.

[Username17]

The ECB is the most dangerous anti-democratic force of this century.

-Username17

Wow. And we're less than 1/5th into this century. Bravo ECB for really hitting the ground running.

Yeah, most anti-democratic movements are like the one in Hungary, where they try to destroy the democratic traditions and policy debate in a single country. Sometimes you have an anti-democracy movement like the Ba'ath Party that attempts to install fascist dictators in several countries at once, or like the actual Axis that supports Fascist dictators and then invades other countries.

The ECB is attempting to simultaneously subvert and destroy democracy in seventeen countries at once. Hitler conquered or subverted 19 countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Belarus, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Libya, Tunisia, Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia), and a bunch of them weren't democracies to begin with. Nevertheless, when you throw in the other Axis powers like Italy, Japan, Hungary, and Romania, the overall Axis movement still dwarfs the ECB in tyranny and scale.

But in the 21st century, the ECB is off to a smashing start.

-Username17

[sabs]

Europe likes to start a new Century with some number of fuckwits trying to take over Europe. It's turning into a tradition.

Queen Anne's War
Napoleonic Wars
WWI

It's like a bad habit. This might be the first time they're doing it without massive blood letting, but the century is still young.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. As much as the media keeps trying to pretend otherwise, Greece is still being fucked over by austerity.

It's not going to go away by not reporting it, boys.

[tzor]

Greece is being fucked over. No matter what they do, they are fucked. They can not get from their current state of being fucked to a state of not being fucked without getting even more fucked in the process. Not going to happen.

[cthulhu]

Greece should just default on all their bonds, congratulate their bondholders on their 80% haircut and move on with it's life. Nothing particularly bad will happen to greece and they won't get chucked out of the euro (amusing things will happen to ireland, space and italy because their bond rates will go up resulting in an default).

This is already priced into the Greek bond prices, so I have no idea why they just don't do it.

Then once you've jettisoned your massive debt, the greeks can mostly balance their budget and move along.

Edit: I agree that it's ludicious to have spain and germany on the same currency. The Euro was a bit of a bridge to far. If the currencies could appreciate or depreciate, spain would be fine.

[Wumpus]

Good infographic/article from the BBC on this topic:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16290598

[RiotGearEpsilon]

I love how 'increase spending' isn't even a fucking option

[Lago PARANOIA]

Re: The entrenched overclass three years from now.

You know, you could've prevented the riots and being beaten and all of the horrible things if you weren't such greedy fucks.

Italian, Greek, Spanish, and French unemployment is at Great Depression levels. How long did you expect people to put up with this? Cutting social services and kicking people out on the streets is morally indistinguishable from killing their kids and grandchildren for an extra euro.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I know that I've been hard on Europe for this whole debacle but trust me it's not just U.S.-based jingoism finger-waggling. I am disappoint because... because as a American socialist, we need you guys.

Did you know that during the 2011 Republic Debates, we got Rick Santorum of all people to admit that Sweden has more income mobility than the U.S.? Rick Santorum of all fucking people. You guys don't know how powerful, sweet, and awesome it is for us to point at Norway or Denmark or even the U.K. and go 'shut your fucking mouths you retarded right-wingers' whenever they start spewing their oligarch-fellating squawking points. I mean, it doesn't do much good because we have a contingent of putrid American retards who would rather wank to their bigoted persecution complexes and live in butthurt denial then feed their own fucking children. But dude. Rick Santorum admitted that Sweden has more income mobility.

Don't do this to me. I... I love you guys...

[tzor]

Yes Lago, please don't. I mean you look at a nation like Sweeden and you say "Look at Sweeden now, it's socialist and it's got high income mobility; socialiam rocks." But then, this is Sweeden, who has always rocked even before the welfare state.

Early on, Sweden was a country where poor children had a good chance of ending up financially stronger than their parents. This is one conclusion reached in a doctoral thesis in Economic History from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. Researcher Birgitta Jansson shows that the relative poverty in Sweden decreased from 1925 to 1983, with 1983 being the year with the lowest level of income inequality. However, then the pendulum started to swing back towards growing income differences.


Using data from Gothenburg, Jansson studied Swedish household incomes from 1925 to 2003. She looked at income mobility, poverty and income distribution in society, and found that Sweden had a high level of income mobility already before the rise of the welfare state, meaning prior to 1958. Children with poor parents had a good chance of ending up financially stronger than their parents.

‘The fact that Sweden had a high level of income mobility was probably mainly a result of the transition from farming to industry and that we have been a rather homogenous country for a long time,’ says Jansson.