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French Science and Higher Education Programs Avoid Austerity
ananyo writes "Bucking a trend of cutting science seen elsewhere, the French government has committed to increasing spending on research and development in its draft austerity budget for 2013. France's education and research ministry gets a 2.2% boost under the proposed budget, giving it a budget of just under €23 billion (US$29 billion). Most other ministries get a cut. The upshot of the cash increase is that 1,000 new university posts will be created, no publicly funded research jobs will be cut and funding for research grants will rise (albeit less than inflation) by 1.2% to €7.86 billion. The move to spend on science during a recession is notable and means that French politicians understand that a sustainable commitment to public spending on science is vital for long-term economic growth. The situation is in stark contrast to that in the U.S. and in the UK, where a recent policy to boost hi-tech industries, unveiled with much fanfare, failed to do much for science. Meanwhile, in Australia, there's alarm over proposals to freeze research grants— a step that could jeopardize 1700 jobs."
Social programs cost a lot of money, much of which seems to go to those administering the programs, and not to the intended recipients.
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap. It is a relatively small portion of the budget and yet returns value over decades and centuries.
Some unsung R&D programs like the military, NASA and our espionage programs are also worth spending on.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Congratulations to the French on ducking this foolish trend and instead supplementing education and research.
Every new media technology back to the time of Edison was hyped to revolutionize costly labor-intensive education. (Edison initially promoted phonograph and motion pictures for education rather than entertainment.) Have MOcs turned the corner? Will national austerity budgets force colleges to do more of this?
Since Piaget et al times, France always gave priority to education and science. One example is the AEFE network of French Schools abroad (For instance, check here for an insight), with their trademark of academic excellence. No other country have such kind of networked schools abroad. Illegal immigration from Africa, unskilled immigrants mainly, supposed them a lot of problems, but investing in education and science, is the best possible bet to face problems with long term vision. It's amazing how other first world goverments lack such basic common sense.
http://www.familiesonline.co.uk/Subjects/Articles/French-Schools-in-London
Everyone votes for their net present value of government.
Until that NPV is zero, at which point reform becomes possible.
The US is spending $1T+ per year that it borrows or creates by selling bonds to the Fed (61% of bonds last year were bought by the Fed). That is unsustainable. Things that are unsustainable eventually stop.
Social programs cost a lot of money, much of which seems to go to those administering the programs, and not to the intended recipients.
I'm pretty sure where the money ends up is all public information. You could get off your ass and show us some numbers instead of issuing vague assertions with absolutely no citations.
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap.
Oh yeah, particle accelerators come in six-packs at CostCo for $43. And you can pick up DNA reading chips at Walgreens for $5. Oh and a cloud of computers or a super computer is basically free for anyone who wants one. Who writes this kinda shit?
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Right, you can tell the Greeks that they should have just kept spending spending spending.
Congratulations to the French on ducking this foolish trend and instead supplementing education and research.
Congratulations for commenting on a complex issue without speaking French or understanding what sort of crisis Europe may be on the verge of.
In America, we call that a spending cut.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
It shows that "austerity" is no excuse; let this serve as an example for other countries which are in (or at least brag about being) much better economical situation, yet won't invest anything in education and research (Brazil, I'm looking at you)
They're there in their room. You're on your own.
"I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds."
Well, yes. Yes, it is "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today", because unfortunately for a few decades the idea has been "spend tomorrow's money today" or "borrow money from the future", and we've run out of credit. AKA "deficits don't matter".
Since 2008 we've been finding out what happens when you borrow too much money from the future. "Austerity" has become popular because there's no more that can be borrowed from future earnings. It's tapped out. It's at or near the limit, and beyond that is financial disaster. And you're right that failing to invest in the future (e.g., infrastructure, education and research) won't work out well either, but we should have clued into that before choosing to be backed into a corner by debt costs.
It's like half the world has been partying and running up a huge bar tab, and now the bill has come due. The financial hangover is bad, and it will have long-term consequences for an entire generation. Hopefully people learn the lesson that persistently running countries on debt for long periods of time has long-term consequences that should be avoided by not implementing tax cuts and more spending in good times until debt is paid off (or at least reduced to manageable levels), so that you're ready for the next economic swing.
France spends the same as UK on military, behind only US, China, and Russia.
US spends vastly disproportionately, but that does not mean France free rides on US defense. What it means is that USA has taken it upon itself to be the global police man / bully, and other countries are behaving as completely rational actors.
Also, the problem with USA is the terrible corporate corruption everywhere. Take healthcare expenditure for example. USA spends double per capita what any other developed country spends, for worse outcomes in most objective metrics. This is largely due to "inefficiency" (read: corruption) at all levels, much of it with the blessing (or even legislated) by the government. Health spending dwarfs even the bloated military budget, which gives you an idea of how much "budget freedom" USA would have if they could ever get their shit together.
By the way, there is no reason to believe any other area of spending is more efficient. I can't believe military expenditure in USA produces results as efficiently as spending the same dollar in China or Russia. For hundreds of billions of dollars per year every year for more than 10 years, you would have hoped they'd have come up with the technology to beat a bunch of disorganized and poorly equipped tribes of religious fanatics in Afghanistan.
And France may not be so strong in medical research at the moment, but this is all the more reason to increase investment in science and higher education programs. You're basically saying "oh, they're saving money by not investing in science and research, which gives them budget freedom to invest in science and research." Does not compute.
I am confused by your statement "I don't understand austerity". From my viewpoint, it is simple: pay for the programs you implement, don't leave it to your grandkids to pay for. In my country, we have Social Security. I like Social Security, it is a good idea. yet we ahve this notion that seniors have paid for their benefits. The reality is that the current generation of recipients paid between 50-70 cents on the dollar for the benefit they are receiving. My generation will likely be in the 70-75 percent range. At some point, someone has to pay for the shortfall, and it will likely be my kids and grandkids. That is a horrible sign of selfishness and immaturity.
I am a huge proponent of R&D. However, I will not agree with spending more than we bring in over an extended period of time. The 'resession" we went through was mild, and some deficit spending may have been a good idea. But 12 years and nearly 10 Trillion in deficit spending will hobble us for a long time to come.
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Not completely castrating the sector that has a good chance of helping them out of this mess just shows that there still have to be a few brain cells left in the French government.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Austerity in tough times is ass-backwards: it feeds the economic vicious cycle. The only sensible way to run a country is to set spending at a long-term sustainable level, borrow to maintain that level when times are tough, and pay the debt down when times are good.
Unfortunately, most countries are run by politicians, so when times are good they cut taxes and go on a spending spree instead of paying down the public debt. Then when times are tough the find themselves in a real jam. (Cf. USA, 2001-present.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is a very important point in these tough times.
Too many countries want to 'cut waste' and preserve social spending.
The problem is simply that the big social spending takes up so much of the budgets. The other cuts are pretty much meaningless, but can have drastic impacts on the areas affected.
University R&D - cheap but essential for new discoveries.
K-12... expensive and not much payback once u get past basic education. We keep spending more money and our kids aren't getting any smarter. Taboo to cut back on.
Mental Health - cheap to provide and deals with small numbers of people that desperately need it.
Regular healthcare... ridiculously expensive taboo to cut back on.
This goes for arts spending, highly specific industries (nuclear...)...
If they're going to cut anything, they should be cutting healthcare, education, and policing. These are the massive cost drivers in any modern society. A mere 2% wage cut to these areas would do a lot more for any budget than going after all the little programs.
Yeah, because we've seen a big return on the amounts of money we're dropping on education. We were in the top 2 or 3 of education spenders in the world and our test scores are at the lowest point ever. Doesn't that mean anything to anyone? We're throwing cash at a problem that can't be solved by money alone. This isn't to say that we can't neglect all spending in this area but we're throwing good money after bad today. Maybe the French are in a different situation, I don't know.
But how can we continue to talk about spending on the future as we have citizens who are unwilling to take up the call due to age discrimination and the importation of weaker talent but at a cheaper price point? If these trends don't reverse it won't matter how good the quality of your education is. Find me jobs where they're willing to hire those over 40 who have gone the traditional route of education where they're not being undercut by a H1B.
We've had the Open University in the UK since 1969. One of it's more successful initiatives was putting lectures and demonstrations on TV at stupid-o'clock in the morning (only 3-4 channels back then) for it's student to videotape and watch later, with other course material being transmitted in the post. I don't know how much of an issue plagarism has been since the Internet grew in popularity, and it's perfectly possible that such distance learning has now had it's heyday.
I really hope it hasn't - at £5000/year full time, it's tuition fees are considerably lower than the £9000/yr everyone else seems to be charging for an undergraduate degree. When you take into account the student loans that everyone here takes out to pay them, lower tuition fees seem like a good way to reduce our reliance on credit.
yeh, the French know that sacking the public sector in times of crisis does not help the economy; quite the reverse in fact. M. Hollande is old school ENA (Ecole Nationale d'Administration) which turns out highly-educated senior French bureaucrats and politicians, who, whatever else they may be, are not daft.
You can never eat too much, only cycle too little.
You're a moron.
Small particle accelerators that you would use at a university for example are not very expensive.
Large national and trans-national particle accelerators that are required to make certain kinds of advancements are expensive if you compare them to grocery items that you personally buy, but that's a stupid thing to compare with. Few of them are required. LHC, which is one of the largest and most expensive devices ever built cost about $9 billion. This is around 1% the cost of wars for USA in the past decade. Instead of going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, you could have built 100 of those things. One costs a little over 1% of the US military budget for one year.
NASA budget is about 2%. They have recently landed an autonomous robot on Mars.
Now forget comparison with military, health care expenditure in USA 4x larger than military expenditure.
Yes, basic research does not cost very much compared with social programs.
So basically they are keeping up with inflation?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
From a guy who only saw France from some TV shows...
Please check in which language French scientists publish their findings. And then ponder about the conclusion you drew from your prejudice.
Simply because the US spends more money on war industries does not mean that France is not getting a free ride. The reason for the tremendous spending doesn't negate the fact that the US and France are tied together in NATO and that France does benefit from the US excessive spending.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The French are *considerably better* at using foreign languages than the British (or worse still, the United States).
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I agree with you 100%. In the US, if we didn't have George Bush running up Trillions in debt we wouldn't be in the situation we are now. Obama has also spent far above what is needed to the tune of $6T debt in 4 years.
The question I have is how do we change our US system to restrict this kind of spending. Clearly leaving the power in the hands of President/Congress hasn't worked. Balanced budget proposals have failed. How do we change the system to control ourselves better? I can't beleive we are doomed to an endess boom/bust cycle like we've seen around the world for centuries.
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"I don't understand austerity"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_interest
I'd say that the problem is that politicians are working on day to day politics instead of thinking long term. Being elected, maintaining their positions, etc is always a higher priority (And short term) than anything long term and that benefits everyone more generally. The rewards for his short term political goals are immediate and satisfactory. Long term rewards are diffuse and uncertain and might mean risking the achievement of short term goals.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
I challenge you to find out how much of that $6 Trillion in spending was stuff that was passed during the Obama administration. You will find that quite a bit of that stuff was already on the books. I'm not saying Obama is innocent of increased spending, but it's considerably less than $6 Trillion.
I worked some years in a french university, wow it was so disgusting seeing false thesis, professors stealing computers, false research laboratories, bounties stolen etc...
So, France is going to cut (or at least pretend to cut) deficits from 4.5% of GDP to 3% of GDP, while hiking taxes.
That is not real austerity. You know what real austerity is? Cutting spending until it matches the amount of revenue actually coming in. This is the hard discipline that the vast majority of private enterprises have to adhere to, but which no government with a European welfare state seems capable of.
No Eurozone country (with the possible exception of Estonia) has actually practiced real austerity. You know that "Greek Austerity" measure, the one that had Greeks rioting in the streets? That reduced deficit spending from 9.0% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP. And even that amount was probably a lie.
Politicians need deficit spending the way a junkie needs heroin because the cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable, and no one is willing to face up to that fact. And the price of that delusion will be the destruction of our economy.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Nobody (except it's corrupt military industry) is forcing US to spend that much money on defense.
If its allies are behaving as rational actors, and choosing to adjust their spending according to perceived cost/benefit, then USA has nothing to cry about except the free market.
But it is not a free ride at all. France pays. If you removed USA from the picture, France spends a pretty normal looking amount given the size of the country, its wealth, and stability.
The Canadian Government did as stupidly as their British and American cousins. Science? Science! We need to cut that! Do we even need science anymore? Here's my budget, and there it is, right there. Science. Written in red with a "-" in front of the number and a number that looks like $15 billion. Tomorrow or something we can put it back. If we suddenly find ourselves in need of a science breakthrough or something, then we will give them a few thousand for a few weeks. For a thing that by its very existence might deny the existence of God, good enough.
He passes a budget each and every year, so discounting his first year in office, he is as much responsible for the debt as anyone. He can also heavily influence tax policy, so I'm not sure what your point is except to excuse Obama from his responsiblity.
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Well, not in my personal observations. about a quarter of the people from the US I know speak Spanish (to certain degree), about 50% of the people I met from Britain only speak English and about 95% of the French I met only speak French. Again, I do not judge that, it is a mere observation and then only a personal one.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
There are only three options:
1) Cut spending to match tax income.
2) Increase taxes to match spending
3) Borrow and hope that your economy grows enough to pay for it (or just create inflation).
You have to understand how deeply in the hole some of these countries are. France is trying all three; they've increased taxes, cut spending, and they're still borrowing.
Each strategy has advantages and drawbacks. Each strategy can fail horribly. The 'best' strategy obviously depends on the exact details of the situation.
In the US, we're deep in a hole, too. Romney is hoping to go for the hail-mary pass of #3 and growing the economy. It's not clear what Obama wants, other than canceling the Bush tax cuts for the rich, but unfortunately that won't raise enough revenue. If anyone knows what his plan is, please let me know, because this is an important point to deciding who to vote for in the next election.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The problem is that some of that spending spree goes into persistent costs like salaries and hiring extra people. Then when times get tough, these people still expect to be paid, and you're going to have problems firing them in the public sector. So instead non-unionised expenses get cut since tax revenue has dropped considerably, and taxes are increased to pay for non essential costs while more important services suffer. Some departments even go so far as to deliberately cut important services in order to offload the pain on the public and cause an outcry, its a machine that has long since ceased to function correctly.
The proper way to run a country is to decide what services you want, what level of those services you want, and then work out the best way to keep costs to a minimum while providing those services. Tax according to those costs, and justify every increase by pointing to a corresponding expense. If people don't want the better services, they can simply refuse to pay the higher taxes and live with the services they have.
That would be in an ideal world anyway, where people getting paid from the tax coffers aren't looking out for themselves rather than the people who pay them, herded by politicians with one eye on the next election. I guess Germany on the national level would come closest, although on the local level its just as indebted as any peripheral nation.
And for pity's sake don't increase spending on persistent costs just because the same tax revenues start booming. Play it smart like Norway and put the money into a massive investment fund, or into infrastructure if its cheaper than loans.
"Long term sustainable" is too vague a goal to have much use, especially in modern rapidly changing economies.
They only way to change the current corrupt system would be a revolt from the people. That's been the only solution throughout human history.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Spending more would not a problem at the moment, for example, as borrowing costs for the US are so ridiculously low.
Most of the money that the government borrows and spends makes its way through the system and ends up buying... bonds. And in this way, all this debt is someone elses assets A state without debt is simply not as desirable a thing as it may seem. Nor is debt as deadly for a state as for a person.
One of the biggest problems with the political discussion arround issues of debt is that a vanishingly small number of people understand that money at the level of a nation state follows a completely different dynamics that money at the family household level.
With respect to booms and busts - the problem is that we are relearning the lessons from the great depression. For a long time after that, the cycles were rather mild.
A revolt doesn't define the end state, simply dissatisfaction with the current state. Try again, please.
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Spending more would not a problem at the moment, for example, as borrowing costs for the US are so ridiculously low.
This makes a couple of prseumptions. 1) That the money being spent earns a higher (or at least equal) return. I don't think this is true. 2) Interest rates will remain low. I fail to see how this is possible long-term 3) We are able to repay the debt. We can do so any time by increasing money supply, but then inflation goes through the roof.
Zero debt is not desirable, but neither is debt that is larger than one's GDP. We will be there soon. And if you argue that debt isn't relevant then you will have to explain the Asian debt crisis and the Latin American debt crisis.
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Right now, academic performance has no bearing in you getting an award for college, only economic need. This is insane. I would certainly expect that there be some type of demonstration of capability and desire before one gets aid. Other countries do it, and I wish the US did as well.
Have you seen the amount of aid the students get (not loans, just aid)? It's not enough to fund a 4-year university education. No where near enough. Right now the maximum amount of federal Pell is $5,500. After that you have access to state-grants that range from a maximum of $3000 to $5000 per academic year If you qualify, if the money is released, and if you get your application in by X date each year. It's enough to put you through a trade-school or community college, absolutely. But, it's not going to make anyone wealthy, or provide anyone with immediate and debt-free access to university - don't act like it will.
ALSO - Academic performance has a HUGE bearing on scholarships, fellowships, assistantships and the like. These are how to successfully get your college/university career paid for with no strings attached. Don't confuse aid with loans; they're two separate things. If you are saying that there should be an academic proficiency exam to have access to credit, we just crossed into new and exciting territory.
And I'm going to try to interpret what AC so eloquently stated: It's not that the government can't restrict access to aid and loans. It's the question of WHO gets to decide who has access? Who gets to be the person in charge of Millions and Millions of destinies?
My number one fear isn't a future without privacy - it's a future where we are tracked into careers based on standardized tests. I was told that I shouldn't go to college and I shouldn't really worry about trying to get a job outside of basic hourly retail and food-service. I was tracked through grade-school and high-school into technical programs instead of college prep. ALL because I screwed around on a handful of tests.
Sometimes people need access to money they might not have access to otherwise - it's not about giving the poor an advantage, it's about trying to level the playing field between rich and poor.
Side note - All of that technical crap didn't stick - I have two advanced degrees now and teach at the college and university level. - Sometimes tracking is incorrect!
Austerity is a loaded word. Its true meaning is "don't spend more than you make." Sound advice. It is a masterpiece of media manipulation how it's been made into an evil act that should be avoided at all costs.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The president doesn't pass a budget. Congress passes a budget. The president can merely propose a budget, and then veto it.
Did you really not pay attention in Civics class? Do you really need to be lectured by foreigners about how your own government works? Please tell me you're not actually American.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It seems to me that people in power have decided that the prevailing wisdom that "austerity" caused a deepening of the Great Depression and the stagflation of the '70s is bullshit, or that it's true but for other reasons they'd prefer to say it's not.
I guess we get to learn that lesson again. Yay.
Sometimes, as in these times, the end state is simply non-existent until the dissatisfaction reaches the tipping point.
Oh dear God....
You are correct that techically Congress passes the budget. However, the President doesn't simply "suggest" a budget and then that is the end. His budget has a huge amount of authority behind it and you'll find that his proposed budgets are far beyond our revenues. Do I give congress a pass? Of course not.
Ultimately, barring a congressional override, the President does have authority over appropriations bills in terms of veto powers. So if you issue is over my using a term incorrectly, you got me. If your point is that the President is powerless in the spending realm, you are incorrect. Please take your snarky better-than-you attitude elsewhere.
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Austerity in times of high unemployment and low interest rates is pointless and self defeating - unemployment means you have unused human capital, which could be used to make capital improvement and inprove the nations assets, not to use it is to throw that away and that is not even considering the human cost - second when interst rates are rock bottom, it means it is a good time to borrow, the US treasury can now borrow at 1% so if the US borrowed $1Trillion you would only pay $10Billion in interest/year, it is called buy low sell high - Finally in a macoeconomic sense, which is the level at which the US government operates since it can print money and consumes a good fraction of the nations GDP, you _cannot_ "borrow frrom the future" this is the stupidist statement have ever heard, who the fuck has a time machine? One person's borrowing is another person's savings - that is an identity, when the US government goes into debt, the private sector balance sheet improves (it is called deleveraging), if the private sector whiches to reduce its debt the money has to go somewhere, where it goes is US treasuries, which is US gov't debt - finally most of the US debt is not owned by foriegn counties, it is owned by US citizens.
Simply because the US spends more money on war industries does not mean that France is not getting a free ride. The reason for the tremendous spending doesn't negate the fact that the US and France are tied together in NATO and that France does benefit from the US excessive spending.
De Gaulle kicked you fucking americans out of France in the 1960s precisely because we didn't want to free ride on american nuclear deterrance. We spent hundreds of billions on creating a national nuclear deterrance program which no other country in Europe has done. Not even the UK, which has to ask US permission to use the nuclear missiles it carries aboard its strategic submarines.
So no free ride, we just spend better and of course we have higher taxes because of it (something that is anathema to americans). And we value education and welfare. No one is making you americans outspend everybody else in defense programs. No one at all. Yours is a choice, the choice to put weapons before the well being of your citizens.
The time of the marshall plan is long over. Get over it.
Except a large portion of the US deficit is military spending and spending as a result of war (nation building). Wars don't stimulate economies, they waste and destroy resources. The way for capitalism to get out of economic crisis is for the government to stop bleeding it dry and continually futzing with it. That would also prevent the economic crisis in the first place. You need to stop hanging out with Mary Jane so much.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Austerity in tough times is ass-backwards: it feeds the economic vicious cycle. The only sensible way to run a country is to set spending at a long-term sustainable level, borrow to maintain that level when times are tough, and pay the debt down when times are good.
Unfortunately, most countries are run by politicians, so when times are good they cut taxes and go on a spending spree instead of paying down the public debt. Then when times are tough the find themselves in a real jam. (Cf. USA, 2001-present.)
There is some irony in the fact that the Great Recession was brought on by an orgy of private borrowing against flawed intangible promises (e.g. mortgaged-backed securities), but people find it a horrible idea to borrow in order to invest in skills and knowledge.
Realistically, of the these 3 bases of running up a debt: faith in other people's promises, faith in the government, and faith in education, the most risky of the 3 is the one we worship the most. Yes, I know, the government is evil, and it weasels out of its obligations by printing phoney money, but at the end of the day, phoney money still spends better than evaporated contracts, even if you do end up having to spend more of it.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Nope, the idea is "Don't sacrifice tomorrow to spend more today." Spending has to be paid for one way or another. Either now or in the future, directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation. There is no free lunch.
Many countries have been going on spending sprees and now they have to pay for it. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it is painful. Proceeding as usual (or increasing spending) will just make the pain worse, albeit in the future. Right now the US pays about $500 billion in interest per year. Our deficit is about $1.3 trillion. Our spending is about $3.8 trillion. That means roughly 13% of our budget and 38% of our deficit each year is spent paying interest on past spending sprees. Those percentages will only get worse as we continue our spending sprees. That is money that we could be using to pay for education, research, medical care, etc. Instead, we have to pay for over spending in the past. The goal of austerity is to no longer continue down that path and even to reverse it.
The only way to spend your way out of debt is if it actually stimulates the economy enough to pay for the debt. There is no evidence that has ever worked or is currently working (what do you think we've been doing for the last 5 years?). And no, LBJ didn't prove this worked, most of the worlds industrialized production was destroyed in World War II except in the US. The US then became a manufacturing leader and the economy made an astounding recovery.
My observation of the French and their attitudes towards speaking other languages is that they expect you to speak their language while in their country. Really if you are in a foreign country try to speak the language especially if you are American as you demand it of visitors to your country. Most of them know English but don't want to speak it as they are embarrassed by how poor they think they are at it (most speak it as well as the average US high school graduate). If you put forth the effort to communicate in French to a French person often they will respond back to you in English (yes you have an accent they recognize) and they don't get rude as you are putting forth the effort. This was based on my experience while I lived and worked in Paris for 3 months, my French coworkers were much more forgiving and even helped me to learn the language. When I arrived I knew very little (as much as I could absorb part time in 3 weeks in the US) and by the time I left I could hold a conversation that wasn't too complex.
Time to offend someone
The point he made was that, dollar for dollar, the US itself doesn't even benefit from it's overspending. If success were proportional to spending, then as he pointed out:
"you would have hoped they'd have come up with the technology to beat a bunch of disorganized and poorly equipped tribes of religious fanatics in Afghanistan."
Perhaps the US could achieve the same results in Iraq and Afghanistan without spending so much. (Keep in mind that in a decade or so both countries will probably be where they were on 9-11). So yea, France is freeriding on the US military expenditure failure: all the failure without any of the spending. Woot!
"And for pity's sake don't increase spending on persistent costs just because the same tax revenues start booming. Play it smart like Norway and put the money into a massive investment fund, or into infrastructure if its cheaper than loans."
Likewise, if you start running a surplus, don't give it *all* back and a bit more so that you're running deficits again. Commit to using *some* of it to pay down debt accumulated from the last economic cycle and give *some* of it back to taxpayers. This pays off in the long run because next year your interest costs will be lower, helping the positive balance to carry over the next year.
The stupidest thing that Bush and the congress of the day ever did was cut taxes while not correspondingly cutting government costs to make it revenue neutral. The theory was that if you starve government of funds, it would magically get smaller, or at least not grow as much. How's that theory working out for ya?
As anyone managing household finances will tell you, it's pretty hard to live within your means if you're prone to using a credit card with no limit.
You don't think all the airbases and troops in Germany are a valuable protection to France?
Fuck off, troll.
Protection from whom exactly ? Fuck off troll.
austerity |É'ËstÉrÉti, É"Ë-| noun
1 sternness or severity of manner or attitude:
2 difficult economic conditions created by government measures to reduce public expenditure: ( austerities )
"His budget has a huge amount of authority behind it..." No. Just... no. The *only* authority that the President has in terms of the budget stems from his leadership position with his party, and even *that* is only when his party controls the senate (which is where federal budgets originate). Weak president? Opposition president? Anything they might propose as a budget is at best a suggestion, at worst, just something for senators to snicker at before they get around to doing what *they* want.
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap. It is a relatively small portion of the budget and yet returns value over decades and centuries.
I'm not so sure about that. PhD Comics broke down the FY 2009 budget. It's worth taking a look. $68B out of $3,518B, or about 19%. Now, having said this, there are impacts from government research funds that reach far beyond a large corporation research budget. Research can produce massive savings that last decades, grow whole new industries, or create entirely new "really large corporations" (Google came from an NSF grant). A typical corporate lab is not focused on problems that lead to societal-level savings or whole new fields. They lack the large-scale funds and are often constrained to the company's best interest. Government funded research generally covers a sector of the research map that companies avoid due to risk, long-term payback, or scale.
This money will never be repaid. The key word is 'refinanced'. The people buying the new debt are the same that held the old.
Bonds get auctioned, and the the rates are fixed for the lifetime of the bond.
You will have to explain to me why Japan can borrow basically for free with a lot more debt than GDP, and a bad rating by the agencies.
This probably depends a lot on what field you work in. In my experience, a majority of the non-English, modern papers I come across now are in French. If I am looking at papers from a couple decades ago, the largest non-English category ends up being Russian, and a little further back, German.
Although this isn't so much because of their ability to write in English or not (having bad English hasn't stopped some non-English speakers from writing papers in some cases I've seen...). It is more of a fad or artifact of history, e.g. what country founded the particular field, how closely knit the field was in various countries, which journals rose to high prominence in a field, etc. So when you get to the current day, it is a matter of if what language the surviving and popular journals are in, which will continue to change.
1) That the money being spent earns a higher (or at least equal) return. I don't think this is true.
This money will never be repaid. The key word is 'refinanced'. The people buying the new debt are the same that held the old.
2) Interest rates will remain low.
Bonds get auctioned, and the the rates are fixed for the lifetime of the bond.
The refinancing occurs continually, and there is no guarantee rates will remain this low.
You will have to explain to me why Japan can borrow basically for free with a lot more debt than GDP, and a bad rating by the agencies.
Right now the world is aflush with investible money due to the emergence of China and other developing countries. People in these countries are suddenly becoming more wealthy and looking for a way to reinvest their cash. When you have a ton of money looking for a place to get invested, it is a good time for borrowers. Wait until China matures into a more stable country and the same holds true for India. Rates will go back up. And in the case of Japan, they have negative inflation, so this means your nominal interest rateis higher... a minor point though as we are really witnessing the results of China and India, 1/3 of the world's population, entering the modern world
While you clearly have a handle on economic concepts, essentially your argument is that we can borrow without consequences. Dick Cheney got laughed at when he suggested this, and I laugh when I hear it today... or at least I would if it weren't my kids that will pay for it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"...there's no more that can be borrowed from future earnings."
Inflation-adjusted yields (as of Oct. 2) on US treasury debt:
5 year: -1.51%
7 year: -1.22%
10 year: -0.83%
20 year: -0.07%
30 year: 0.37%
Investors are lining up in droves to buy American debt for 20 years and are willing to pay for the privilege.
The US, the UK and Europe have made an appallingly BAD job of managing Science, Research and Education since the end of WW2, and the reason can be lain at the door of POLITICIANS and LOBBY groups who are focused on grandstanding and money with no concern for results. This closely parallels the Clinton mortgage bubble and the fraudulent reselling of shares in un-qualified loans.
In Education and (scientific) Research, the proximate cause is to believe in quantity not quality, in the UK for instance trying to send 50% of the cohort to Universities is destroying academic excellence and may price a University Education beyond the means of many; this expansion has had a huge negative impact on grades (grade inflation) and the Quality of University Education ... Good Teachers and Researchers are not an inexhaustible resource either.
Most Scientific Research outside Math, Physics, Chemistry and Boichemistry is garbage, in the Life Sciences, Medicine, Economics ... 85% plus is unverifiable irreducible garbage and Climate Science has made Pal, not Peer Review a joke. The waste and corruption is unbelieveable especially in the US (NSF) and UK Research Councils) where Professor Princes and Quangocrats is unbelieveible and the success rate derisory. Researcg is NOT a Jobs program, it is essential to all our futures. If Curie, Rutherford, Bohr or Einstein had worked in this politicised mess we would be waiting for all modern technology!
MFG, omb
Incredibly foolish and stupid advice, unless you are always content to give money to your landlord rather than purchase your own property, or are content with existing equipment when competitors paid for more efficient equipment and are now undercutting your costs.
Where was Obama's veto on any of the proposed budgets? He PASSED the budget, they were ALL signed by him and NOT vetoed. For Congress to be truly 100% responsible for the budget's passing Obama should have vetoed it and sent it back to Congress for a super majority vote. What the original poster stated is correct. I would point out the wikipedia entry to explain this process but since you are clearly European that would pose too much of a intellectual challenge to you. So try watching this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-eYBZFEzf8.
Now I can clearly see why the EU is on the brink of financial ruin.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about when France left NATO.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I am confused by your statement "I don't understand austerity". From my viewpoint, it is simple: pay for the programs you implement, don't leave it to your grandkids to pay for. In my country, we have Social Security. I like Social Security, it is a good idea. yet we ahve this notion that seniors have paid for their benefits. The reality is that the current generation of recipients paid between 50-70 cents on the dollar for the benefit they are receiving. My generation will likely be in the 70-75 percent range. At some point, someone has to pay for the shortfall, and it will likely be my kids and grandkids. That is a horrible sign of selfishness and immaturity.
I assume you live in the USA. One way to permanently fund Social Security [1] would be to remove the limits on the tax (which is currently limited to an arbitrary $106k) so millionaires (who do receive SS benefits when they retire) have to pay the same overall % of income as middle-class and the poor.
This is but one of the more well known ways to fix shortfalls in government without having "our kids and grandkids pay". Perhaps we should remove corporate loopholes that allow companies to essentially pay no tax? The fact is, many corporations [2] and wealthy people [3] have lower tax rates than folks who are scraping to get by. I pay a significantly higher rate than Romney.
[1] http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_20050217/
[2] http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/
[3] http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxes/romney-tax-return/index.html
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Germany has airbases only in Germany. France has lots of airbases in France as well as around the world. France has the only aircraft carrier of Europe with the Rafale ( one of the best multi purpose fighter of the world, and yes, made 100% by France all alone ) on it. French also has lot of types of Nukes. Germany has none.
Why would you think that France needs Germany, or even the USA, to defend itself ?
France has enough nukes to wipe out a good chunk of the population of the world. That's already a good enough deterrent.
I think the secret plan is to let the Bush Tax Cuts expire for everybody (not just the rich) after the economy starts to recover and inflation becomes a concern. And the reason he's not talking about it is because of the election next month.
Or maybe I am just wishful-thinking out loud here. But if the recession ends (increasing the tax base and decreasing the demand on social safety net) and if we could get back to moderately higher taxes (Reagan-era, or at least Clinton) and avoid any major new military escapades, things will be OK.
With a sovereign floating fiat currency there is no need to pay the money back. The value of the currency will automatically adjust over time to the demands of the currency owner on the economy.
In fact, there is really no need to borrow at all. The currency owner can simply print money to take the stuff it needs, and then it taxes the economy to keep up demand for the currency it prints, as well as to keep down inflation.
As long as the taking is aimed mainly at unused resources in the economy (Read: Hiring unemployed labor), the effects on the private sector are small, and the positive side effects are great. This generally works well as long as the currency owner doesn't take on foreign debt or collapses the production of a country.
Note that the currency owner always have to spend before taxing as it is the entity that creates the money that it then taxes back. This is how currencies have always worked since the beginning of history. Occasionally some fool ruler tries to bind the currency to something of perceived value (such as gold), but that generally only lasts for a shorter period of time before the economy becomes unstable and the currency owner decides to just go back to some fiat based coin system.
you _cannot_ "borrow frrom the future" this is the stupidist statement have ever heard, who the fuck has a time machine? One person's borrowing is another person's savings - that is an identity, when the US government goes into debt, the private sector balance sheet improves (it is called deleveraging), if the private sector whiches to reduce its debt the money has to go somewhere, where it goes is US treasuries, which is US gov't debt - finally most of the US debt is not owned by foriegn counties, it is owned by US citizens.
Thanks for the great post. most people have a horribly twisted view of macro economy, because they think being a currency owner works similarly to being a currency user. In reality it is often very much the opposite.
A currency user earn money so that he later can spend it. A currency owner spends money so that he later can tax it back.
The spending of a currency user is limited by the amount of money he has. The spending of a currency owner is limited by the unused productive resources of the economy.
It is perfectly possible for any country with a sovereign floating currency to have full employment at a decent wage. The real question is why most countries don't. And the answer to that question is that bankers and corporations (and their bought politicians) don't want full employment at decent wages, because when people easily can get jobs at a decent wage, they can't be coerced and exploited as easily.
So... instead of responding to his criticism of false dichotomy and absolute ideology by discussing something practical, you double down on absolute, abstract ideology by assuming his criticism must be an attack on all of communism. You really just proved his point, which is about you, not about socialism or communism.
Simply because the US spends more money on war industries does not mean that France is not getting a free ride. The reason for the tremendous spending doesn't negate the fact that the US and France are tied together in NATO and that France does benefit from the US excessive spending.
Can you give some examples of specific threats that NATO defends its member countries from, that they wouldn't be unable to defend against themselves given their current level of military expenditures?
The majority of them are being bought by the Federal Reserve. They will have to dump them on the market when inflation rears its head. Interest rates will skyrocket. Pray that we are not running a large budget deficit when that happens.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Nope, the idea is "Don't sacrifice tomorrow to spend more today." Spending has to be paid for one way or another. Either now or in the future, directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation. There is no free lunch.
I'll break that down one more for you:
Democrats: Spend today to improve tomorrow.
Republicans: Spend today to improve today if we are in power, pay debt today and damn the immediate consequences if the other guys are in power.
Spending can be tax cuts, pointless wars, domestic or foreign pork, etc.
They both want to spend your money. Dem's prefer to spend on social nets, Repub's prefer to spend to blow stuff up (or build stuff TO facilitate blowing stuff up). They both support DHS, TSA and other crap we all hate, even if we disagree on minor things like a 10% military or healthcare spending shift in either direction. Repubs generally think corporations should be people and the government should decide what happens to pregnant women. Dems generally say you should pay more in taxes if you benefited from government programs more (read rich pay more income tax).
Vote accordingly.
The new tax can pay for everything (if people stay there and pay it). I still do not under stand the idea of a pure 75% tax. I could under stand a tax on money after the 1st mil at 75%, but won't the new tax make some Rich have less money after tax then people making a lot less money?
One point: "so millionaires (who do receive SS benefits when they retire) ". Those millionaires don't receive a benefit past the point they stop paying taxes. Really it comes down to a philosophical debate. Who is responsible for paying for my retirement? But you are 100% correct that this would fix the problem immediately.
Frankly, at this point, I'm not sure I care about the philosophical debate. I just want the hole plugged.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Deficits don't matter. Either you can produce enough to cover consumption, or you can't; money is just an abstraction over resources. But since resources can't be borrowed from future (assuming you don't have a time machine), if you're running a deficit but there aren't bread lines the problem is in your bookkeeping, not in your actual production/consumption ratio.
No, since 2008 we've been finding out what happens when you let a bunch of powerful sociopaths to act free of regulation.
Austerity has become popular because it happens to be fashionable. It's all about pretending that you're an ascetic: you get the smug feeling of self-righteousness while others - the poor and the weak - pay the price. In that sense it's every bit as mindlessly self-indulging as the worst excesses of materialism. It's also just as insane, and will result in just as much damage, if not more - because a materialist wants everything no matter the cost, while an austerist wants to deny everything to everyone else no matter the cost, and the former position is merely selfish while the latter starts crossing over into scorpion territory.
And to whom is the bill due? Who has been supplying the beer of credit? Why, it's the very same half of the world that "owes" the debt to itself. Which is precisely why this is all so stupid: we are producing enough to cover our consumption, so the only thing this entire "crisis" consists of is a bunch of numbers going to one column or another. This is not an economical crisis, this is a financial crisis - and that's another way to say imaginary crisis.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
They only way to change the current corrupt system would be a revolt from the people.
Revolts don't very reliably result in good government. The USA got lucky it's revolution.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Research is -- on the scale that government or really large corporations operate -- cheap. It is a relatively small portion of the budget and yet returns value over decades and centuries.
When it returns value greater than the cost, sure. I see you mentioned NASA later on. One should remember NASA's International Space Station as a counterexample which sucks up a lot of money, but delivers very little of scientific value.
Frankly, I think there's a long term trend towards ineffective but massive, publicly funded research and an overall decline in the quality of scientific research. Similar problems occur with education, though that appears to be mostly a US thing right now.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"?
No, it's sacrifice some today in order to have a better tomorrow. And I bet it will work, assuming one tries it.
The problem as I see it, is that Keynesian strategy, that is, spending money to generate economic activity is addictive in the sense of physical addiction. The economies of the world have somehow grown inured to it (and/or it is being spent less effectively) and it takes a higher baseline spending just to generate the normal economic activity that we take for granted. Emergency stimulus spending for recessions has to be in addition to that.
Austerity is an attempt to reset the Keynesian strategy so that one doesn't need massive amounts of Keynesian spending just to maintain the status quo. And a lot of government programs worldwide, particularly health care and pension funds, are out of control when it comes to future obligations. Some austerity now, particular cutbacks on the amount of future obligations due to such things, can help a country's economy considerably.
The terrists who hate the French for their Freedom Fries.
f we could get back to moderately higher taxes (Reagan-era, or at least Clinton) and avoid any major new military escapades, things will be OK.
No they won't, this chart explains why. If a corporation managed its books the way the national government does, the CEO and board would be in jail. The unfunded liabilities are crushing, even without war.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How are you calculating this? Because the work done by each generation benefits the next beyond just the taxes paid. How much did productivity increase during working life of the current generation of Social Security recipients?
You cannot seriously use productivity gains to justify under funding social security. There is no rationale basis for doing so.
What does that mean - that your grandkids will be hopelessly indepted to themselves?
Another "deficits don't matter" proponent. I stopped voting Republican after Bush pulled this crap and sure can't vote for Obama after his four years. This line of reasoning is so anti-common sense that I cannot understand how anyone believes it. Why the hell don't we run up a 100 Trillion dollar deficit if that is the case.
There is a shortfall that will require hiking taxes an enormous amount to make up. No matter how you jiggle the numbers, you either have to raise taxes and/or devalue the currency. You cannot continue to have deficit spending like we have the last 12 years.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
yeh, the French know that sacking the public sector in times of crisis does not help the economy; quite the reverse in fact. M. Hollande is old school ENA (Ecole Nationale d'Administration) which turns out highly-educated senior French bureaucrats and politicians, who, whatever else they may be, are not daft.
Not Daft? They why is he pursuing austerity, a policy which has always led to economic depression and increased debt? It is nice he restrained to blow education, but then why blowing everything else?
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about when France left NATO.
You probably forgot about it because it never happened.
France left the NATO military command, it never left NATO.
(And, for those of you not keeping up with events, it rejoined the military command some time ago).
I love the sould of Paulite heads exploding in the morning.
http://xkcd.com/947/
You have to understand how deeply in the hole some of these countries are
Public debt as a percentage of GDP:
Japan: 208.2% (2011 est CIA)
USA 104.1% (2011 est CIA)
France: 86.5% (2011, est Eurostat).
(Similar figures from IMF).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
So, some of these countries are in a pretty deep hole. Maybe not the ones you were thinking of.
I really hope it hasn't - at £5000/year full time, it's tuition fees are considerably lower than the £9000/yr everyone else seems to be charging for an undergraduate degree. When you take into account the student loans that everyone here takes out to pay them, lower tuition fees seem like a good way to reduce our reliance on credit.
And please never forget that the people who voted for those fees didn't pay them themselves, instead they were paid to go to university.
(AFAIR I used to get about GBP 1000 a year, not a lot even then, but I left university with a a debt of only GBP 200. <yorkshireman>Try telling that to the kids of today</yorkshireman>).
Well, Dick was right, and your kids have a lot less to fear than you think. The people that were laughing were the idiots.
...the people who voted for those fees didn't pay them themselves...
The tyranny of the majority rears it's ugly head once again.
Here we go again, just another ignorant American that believes everything advanced is only done in the US... You're what's wrong with the US. FoxNews doesn't cover innovation from abroad.
Nevermind the fact that actual science and innovation happens everywhere. Medical research is far more advanced in some areas, in for example Germany, than the US. Gene therapy and cancer treatments that would likely be illegal due to American right-wing nutjobs/politicians.
It's the UK that has to piggyback on the French navy's aircraft carrier due to incompetence! Mr. Redneck, France is part of Europe, the largest single economy in the world(!) Germany beats the US hands down in exports, so get your fat ass(es) moving, mouthbreather!
Austerity has become popular because it happens to be fashionable. It's all about pretending that you're an ascetic: you get the smug feeling of self-righteousness while others - the poor and the weak - pay the price. In that sense it's every bit as mindlessly self-indulging as the worst excesses of materialism. It's also just as insane, and will result in just as much damage, if not more - because a materialist wants everything no matter the cost, while an austerist wants to deny everything to everyone else no matter the cost, and the former position is merely selfish while the latter starts crossing over into scorpion territory.
Just to avoid any confusion: I'm agreeing with you. But let me add that austerity is even more devious that you say. While deficits may not matter, debt does. Only we often call it "credit." Banks created trillions of dollars in derivatives that amount to bets that are just a fancy way of getting around limits on capital reserves. They were allowed to once again merge investment banks with commercial banks; so not only did they over-leverage, they did it with your savings account and your pension fund. And, shockingly, it created bubbles everywhere, the largest of which being the real estate bubbles that are still waiting to pop all over the world. At some point all of this debt/credit has to be destroyed because the global economy simply cannot grow fast enough to compensate. You can either take it out of the banks---give them a "haircut," claw back some of the ill-gotten profits, inflate your currency (sorry, ECB), etc.---or you can spread the pain around by screwing poor and middle class people (the non-investor class). It is the choice of each government which path to take and the US and UK are poster children for letting the banks and the investors that got rich robbing us blind call the shots.
Banks ruined the economy? Better bail them out. Things still suck? Better give them easy credit. They won't lend? Start buying up their bad assets, too. Oh, now people are starving and out of work? Well, to quote the former Vice President of the United States; "Go f*ck your self!" We need austerity to avoid disaster! Well, worse disaster, anyway...
So we get "austerity" under the threat from bankers that they will jack up sovereign bond yields if we don't. (Because apparently we all believe that banks are more powerful than sovereign nations now.) Kudos to France for figuring out that governments have to spend during recessions because no one else can or will and that austerity just further weakens a country, mortgages its future, ruins entire generations of its citizens, and makes it even easier for banks to suck more blood out before its citizens rebel. And kudos to France for asking wealthy people to kick in a bit more to help get things going again.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
Eurozone does not mean European country or member of the EU, it's strictly the countries that actually use the Euro currency (17/50).
There are European welfare states with no deficit... how come people like you always ignore both the Scandinavians and Germans? Especially the Germans.
How would you describe the overweight, heavily debt-ridden United States? Not a welfare state? Don't you have Medicare/Medicaid, public schools, unemployment benefits? Why is your country not a "welfare state"?
Tell ya what, you and your kids can pay the interest payments and leave me and mine out of it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
You don't consider 86.5% to be deeply in the hole?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You don't consider 86.5% to be deeply in the hole?
Compared to 208%?
Compared to 104%?
No, I don't.
Oh, by the way, what's the figure for Germany?
82%
Statistically speaking, probably the Germans.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
hehe, ok, you're dumb. 86.5% is deeply in the hole.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not really. Universities were pretty selective, back in the day. Even if you lumped in the poly's and FE/HE sector it would have been considerably less than half.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
hehe, ok, you're dumb. 86.5% is deeply in the hole.
So, what is 82%
What is 102%
What is 208%
Personally i've had a house loan of 220,000 EUR when I was making 44,000 EUR a year, i.e. my debt to "gdp" was around 500%. Was I "in a deep hole"?
So, what is 82%
Dangerous.
What is 102%
Lucky you're not dead.
What is 208%
Never going to be paid back.
Personally i've had a house loan of 220,000 EUR when I was making 44,000 EUR a year, i.e. my debt to "gdp" was around 500%. Was I "in a deep hole"?
I don't know your personal finances, but I'd guess you could devote 50% +-20% of your income to paying off the house. Most countries could do that too, but they would not be able to support their social services, etc. Also, my guess is, as you made housing payments, your total debt went down. In the case of these countries, total debt keeps going up. Which is depressing.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My arse it is. China is not Greece and Spain.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."