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Factor_VIII posted:Ireland had a GDP of 275 billion USD in 2008 and 334 billion USD in 2017 so what metric are you using to state that its economy has declined? Greece had started to recover in 2014 until the populist government that took over in 2015 tanked its economy. Greece has started to recover once again over the past couple of years. Why do you say that Portugal didn't follow its economic adjustment program? From what I've read Portugal did follow its instructions such as reducing state spending or privatizing state-owned corporations. Lol no we didn't, in 2014/2015 we were looking at a recession spiral that was only avoided by the 2015 left wing government reverting the cuts to pensions and salaries. We fire saled our national airline and largest private bank in 2013-14 and that worked out so well the airline now looses 3x more money per year and the private bank still needs liquidity injections from the Portuguese resolution fund. Meanwhile, due to the poo poo we had to cut, like infrastructure and public investment,mother and child birth deaths actually reverted the downward trend that was in the last 40 years and started going up around that time. Everyone in the troika/imf should be in chains at the Hague. Edit:woops forgot about the nearly half a million highly educated young people that hosed off to work abroad at that time, causing a brain drain that's gonna gently caress us up for the next decade. Antifa Poltergeist fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 20:35
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Antifa Poltergeist posted:Lol no we didn't, in 2014/2015 we were looking at a recession spiral that was only avoided by the 2015 left wing government reverting the cuts to pensions and salaries. Yeah Troikas austerity mandates were pretty terrible for everyone affected and somewhat stupid. At the same time the original unsustainable debt did exist. While you could say it was enabled by the low euro interest rates it's a bit like banks offering unsustainable loans - horrible but maybe the national government should have been a bit more responsible about it (by raising taxes if necessary, I don't mean via austerity). And there would have been a lot of pain without the bailouts as well, one way or another.
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Dec 14, 2019 20:46
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lol the neolibs come out every time someone dares impugn the glorious EU
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Dec 14, 2019 20:47
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I don't think saying that Portugal should have had higher taxes to match it's expenditures is a very neolib position, hth. That would be if I were saying that they should have done austerity to get the expenditures down.
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Dec 14, 2019 20:49
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Antifa Poltergeist posted:Everyone in the troika/imf should be in chains at the Hague. I think you are confusing the cause of the crisis with the attempt to deal with it. The crisis was triggered by the US housing bubble and affected Portugal because it had a high public debt in addition to a low GDP and low growth. Yes, the measures were difficult but if they hadn't been taken then Portugal would have had disorderly default. In that situation Portugal would have crashed out of the Eurozone, forcing it to switch to a currency with very high inflation, it would have been unable to import food and medicine and it would have taken decades to recover. It would have been better if the bailout had been more generous, but the northern European governments were constrained by voters who were hostile to bailouts. In the end of the day, one should compare the outcome if there was no bailout and if there was one rather than if there had been no crisis to it having happened. Besides, Portugal wasn't forced to accept the bailout; its politicians judged that this program was better than the alternative. By the way I had a look at some IMF articles on Portugal and they state that Portugal "took ownership" of the program and that "implementation continued seamlessly" even when governments changed. Maybe not everything was done exactly as planned, but it does look like Portugal mostly followed its economic adjustment program.
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Dec 14, 2019 21:08
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Doctor Jeep posted:lol the neolibs come out every time someone dares impugn the glorious EU Hadn't read a defence of Troika policies in a while.
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Dec 14, 2019 21:27
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The European Union suffers the reverse problem as a confederation does. In a confederation there is no unified monetary policy, in the European Union no unified fiscal policy. Which means while states can borrow themselves drunk on germanys credit score, they cannot be reined in by high taxes or other financial controls. The European Union thus must evolve or fall because the alternative is a nationalism on a level we haven't seen in a very long time. The reality is the EU needs to rethink how it works. because EU Parliment is "powerless" vs National parliments. And therefore Old Assholes In Brussels are not trusted to do the right thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_tyEl84IQ This video gives a good explanation of the Debt Crisis, EU (Ouch my belt burns)  Vs Britain (EU, Deintegrated Currency)  Vs United Sates (Grid Lock is a God send for Anti-Austerity) 
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Dec 15, 2019 01:47
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Austerity is rocket fuel for fascism and the EU is addicted to it. It's not gonna end well.
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Dec 15, 2019 06:01
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Factor_VIII posted:I think you are confusing the cause of the crisis with the attempt to deal with it. The crisis was triggered by the US housing bubble and affected Portugal because it had a high public debt in addition to a low GDP and low growth. Yes, the measures were difficult but if they hadn't been taken then Portugal would have had disorderly default. In that situation Portugal would have crashed out of the Eurozone, forcing it to switch to a currency with very high inflation, it would have been unable to import food and medicine and it would have taken decades to recover. It would have been better if the bailout had been more generous, but the northern European governments were constrained by voters who were hostile to bailouts. In the end of the day, one should compare the outcome if there was no bailout and if there was one rather than if there had been no crisis to it having happened. Besides, Portugal wasn't forced to accept the bailout; its politicians judged that this program was better than the alternative. oh really? The IMF said that? woah
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Dec 15, 2019 06:04
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Austerity is rocket fuel for fascism and the EU is addicted to it. It's not gonna end well. This guy get it!
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Dec 15, 2019 06:39
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:The European Union suffers the reverse problem as a confederation does. In a confederation there is no unified monetary policy, in the European Union no unified fiscal policy. Which means while states can borrow themselves drunk on germanys credit score, they cannot be reined in by high taxes or other financial controls. The European Union thus must evolve or fall because the alternative is a nationalism on a level we haven't seen in a very long time. The reality is the EU needs to rethink how it works. because EU Parliment is "powerless" vs National parliments. And therefore Old Assholes In Brussels are not trusted to do the right thing. I agree that the EU should move towards a unified fiscal policy. The fact that member state budgets need to be approved by the European Commission is a good first step, but more should be done. It is very unfortunate that the current political climate in Europe is against that. Senior Dog posted:oh really? The IMF said that? woah From what I've seen, they are willing to criticize themselves and admit when they've been wrong or things didn't go the way they expected. For example in this speech the mistakes they made in respect to the Greek program are explained. If you have information showing that their claim is a lie then I'd be interested in reading it.
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Dec 15, 2019 06:56
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Let's not forget that lwtter the ECB sent to the Spanish prime minister. "Reduce salaries and rescue the banks with public money or else." That was done because the DB had caught its fingers in the Spanish real state bubble. In short: the EU's economic, fiscal, monetary policies are fuel for fascism.
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Dec 15, 2019 07:00
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Dawncloack posted:Let's not forget that lwtter the ECB sent to the Spanish prime minister. "Reduce salaries and rescue the banks with public money or else."
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Dec 15, 2019 07:32
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Curious that austerity (which is horrible, of course) is the EU's fault, instead of the fault of all those member state governments which overwhelmingly agreed to force it on Greece and co.
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Dec 15, 2019 07:38
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The EU is the institutional framework. If itballows bad actors to gently caress it uo that badly then it was never one for this world.
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Dec 15, 2019 07:44
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essential viewing for anyone ITT who wants to discuss how pointless and dangerous austerity is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM
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Dec 15, 2019 10:25
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Portugal was not saved because of austerity or troika, but because of one Canadian ratings agency that didn't rate it super trash so Portugal could qualify for the ECB money program.Factor_VIII posted:From what I've seen, they are willing to criticize themselves and admit when they've been wrong or things didn't go the way they expected. For example in this speech the mistakes they made in respect to the Greek program are explained. If you have information showing that their claim is a lie then I'd be interested in reading it. The IMF economists will often say, openly, that their policies are trash and do nothing, yet, end up implementing anyway. It's what the political side of the IMF does that matters, not what the useless economists they employ say in college lectures.
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Dec 15, 2019 10:39
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Factor_VIII posted:I think you are confusing the cause of the crisis with the attempt to deal with it. The crisis was triggered by the US housing bubble and affected Portugal because it had a high public debt in addition to a low GDP and low growth. Yes, the measures were difficult but if they hadn't been taken then Portugal would have had disorderly default. In that situation Portugal would have crashed out of the Eurozone, forcing it to switch to a currency with very high inflation, it would have been unable to import food and medicine and it would have taken decades to recover. It would have been better if the bailout had been more generous, but the northern European governments were constrained by voters who were hostile to bailouts. In the end of the day, one should compare the outcome if there was no bailout and if there was one rather than if there had been no crisis to it having happened. Besides, Portugal wasn't forced to accept the bailout; its politicians judged that this program was better than the alternative. Portugal started going tits up in 2010. At that time our debt-to-gdp ratio was 96%, this is a catastrophe. In 2019 our debt-to-gdp ratio is 125% and we are a "success story" Meanwhile in 2007 our debt was 66% , wonder what the gently caress happened? Balanced budget are very important, and we certainly have those now, except the 24 billion we pumped into the financial sector don't count for that because ~reasons~. This poo poo was published in 2012 and yet we are in goddamn 2019 and still we hear the "public debt was the problem" from people who really should know better. But you are right, allow me to make a correction: everyone in the FIRE sector, our various neoliberal governments, the troika and the IMF should be in chains at the Hague.loving us up for a generation really took a team effort.
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Dec 15, 2019 11:32
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The EU may not be great at anything, but I stand by my statement that it keeps us from having horrible wars. Europe is an absolute clusterfuck up to this day. Germany has essentially claims, and is claimed upon, all its neighbors. Poland, France, Denmark etc. These claims are only "resolved" through grand European ideal of peace and reconciliation. Without that, there'd be a lot of discussion and animosity. For example, my family got chased out of Silesia (young boys getting killed, young girls and women getting raped in the process), a part that had been German for hundreds of years prior. And the reason was not to re-constitute a vital part of Poland, which it only had been many centuries before in some form (and it wasn't the Germans who took it then), but rather as payment for Russia to take over eastern parts of Poland. Many people here still seetheir "home towns" as Breslau, Stettin etc. There is real pain there, to this day. Think of it as justified or not, but the pain exists. Now in the spirit of Europe, even despite Poland being poo poo when it comes to solidarity, it is fair to consider this grab as fair and just payment for the crimes of the German people and move on. But without the EU, there is a rich sediment of nationalistic feelings for the right party to exploit. Today we think that Europe can have no wars, but it's far from sure. Edit: I should probably clarify that I personally strongly feel that said territory is nothing but entirely Poland and there are no valid claims in any other direction. Just to be clear. Haramstufe Rot fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Dec 15, 2019 |
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Dec 15, 2019 11:38
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Electronico6 posted:Portugal was not saved because of austerity or troika, but because of one Canadian ratings agency that didn't rate it super trash so Portugal could qualify for the ECB money program. Countries on an economic adjustment program qualified for ECB funding regardless of what the rating of their bonds. E.g. Greece's bonds were rated as junk by everyone and it still got money from the ECB. As discussed in that lecture, if the IMF notices that something isn't working they can change the program on the fly. Do you think it would be better if they didn't intervene at all out of fear of making a mistake and allowed states to uncontrollably default? That would inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the people of that country. Antifa Poltergeist posted:Portugal started going tits up in 2010. Portugal's debt in absolute numbers peaked in 2012; the reason the ratio kept increasing is its GDP was still decreasing. The public debt is seen as less of an issue now because much of it is being held by EU institutions rather than the private sector, which gives Portugal much greater flexibility when it comes to repaying it. Hopefully Portugal's GDP will keep increasing from now on and the debt to GDP ratio will fall without Portugal having to repay its debts.
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Dec 15, 2019 15:44
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Factor_VIII posted:As discussed in that lecture, if the IMF notices that something isn't working they can change the program on the fly. Do you think it would be better if they didn't intervene at all out of fear of making a mistake and allowed states to uncontrollably default? That would inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the people of that country. You can find several IMF or former IMF economists talking at length that their bailouts are all filled with "mistakes", don't produce any real results, or flat out don't work to any state benefit. Yet they keep serving these bailouts all the time, knowing full well that their maths don't add up. The economical side of the IMF is completely at odds with it's political side. Also yes, default is better than any IMF intervention. Because the troika bailout already inflicted the maximum amount of suffering in Portugal.
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Dec 15, 2019 16:14
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Coincidentally, World Bank does much the same wrt funding development projects in developing countries, in that it has a standard policy of imposing conditionality in the form of the Washington Consensus poo poo, and has repeatedly commissioned studies which found out that sort of one-size-fits-all solution is more often than not unhelpful. Still, conditionality continues to be a part of WB packages. The damage is the point.
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Dec 15, 2019 16:31
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caps on caps on caps posted:The EU may not be great at anything, but I stand by my statement that it keeps us from having horrible wars. Europe is an absolute clusterfuck up to this day. This, basically. The EU is a dumpster fire but if you just delete the EU and leave the member states to do their own thing, the result will be glowing craters.
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Dec 15, 2019 16:56
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Factor_VIII posted:Countries on an economic adjustment program qualified for ECB funding regardless of what the rating of their bonds. E.g. Greece's bonds were rated as junk by everyone and it still got money from the ECB. What debt in absolute numbers?public?private? What are you talking about here? Because public debt was at 217 billion in 2012 and is now at 251 billion. https://www.pordata.pt/en/Portugal/General+Government+gross+debt+(2016)-2783 The fact that private sector debt went down should , in fact, clue you in to the "it was never a public debt problem in the first place" statement. The fact that the crisis was only abated when policies to stimulate gdp growth were implemented and the central bank opened the money spigot that is QE should tell you the absolutely loving disaster that was the early rescue programs and austerity in general. Again, it wasn't a debt problem , certainly not public debt(otherwise all those wonderfull bailouts were we turned private debt into public debt wouldnt have been made) it was a loving liquidity problem because every loving idiot institution in the fire sector was overleveraged, all their chickens came home to roost at the same time, and they would be loving damned if they were the ones left holding the bag.what happened was outright theft of public funds, and every single political actor involved in the decision and macroeconomic decisions was either woodwinked or outright complicit. They went :"yeah man , we have a liquidity problem, let's cut government spending. Countercyclical spending and velocity of money is not real ,YOLO." In a world where meritocracy was actually real and worked, they wouldn't be put in charge of a lemonade stand.and yet they run large banks,whole governments and the IMF. Antifa Poltergeist fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Dec 15, 2019 |
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Dec 15, 2019 17:09
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suck my woke dick posted:This, basically. The problem is, as mentioned, the EU's addiction to austerity is visibly fuelling fascism, and fascism leads to...
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Dec 15, 2019 17:43
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Then again, Fascism is also growing in plenty of places that are not in the EU.
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Dec 15, 2019 19:43
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Honj Steak posted:Then again, Fascism is also growing in plenty of places that are not in the EU. For the same reasons. The EU is not special in its pursuit of a bourgeois political agenda, and therein lies the problem.
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Dec 15, 2019 19:47
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The EU must be smashed.
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Dec 15, 2019 20:05
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Venomous posted:essential viewing for anyone ITT who wants to discuss how pointless and dangerous austerity is
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Dec 15, 2019 21:29
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Antifa Poltergeist posted:Portugal started going tits up in 2010. I did like how they kept telling us they needed to save the banks so we would still have Portuguese banks not owned by foreign capital, with all the saving in 2019 the only Portuguese bank is the state owned one that was state owned before that.
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Dec 17, 2019 18:13
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All the stuff that was sold to the lowest bidder, the health and education cuts and so much more, it is a miracle that we didn't elect a fascist salazar 2.0, but other european countries however are having quite the fascist rise.
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Dec 17, 2019 18:16
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Just to remind people that the research arm of the IMF is composed of a gaggle of economist and analists from different schools, from the Austrians to Marxists to classical Keynesians to neo-keynesians, and all those "drat we hosed up" articles are generally from them.the decision making arm is pure strain neoliberal/Washington concensus idiots, which is why poo poo never changes. Btw, it's the same at the ECB or at world Bank or at BIS. The political and executive decision makers are plucked from the status quo elites and they will only enact policies to benefit the status quo elites. Every major central bank is now focused on fiscal stimulus.but even that won't be enough. A shitload more people should read Richard Wolff and Michael roberts
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Dec 17, 2019 20:39
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Antifa Poltergeist posted:Every major central bank is now focused on fiscal stimulus.but even that won't be enough. Every central bank: Government please do fiscal stimulus, low rates and liquidity aren't working. Government: No. Every central bank: Oh I guess we'll fold then and keep on pumping liquidity into assets bubbles, our hands are tied. Independent central banks are such a joke.
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Dec 17, 2019 21:07
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MiddleOne posted:Independent central banks are such a joke. The independence of the central banks is there just to serve as a pretext for governments to do more austerity.
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Dec 17, 2019 22:37
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Really what we need is a massive rampup of govt funding with capital sweeteners given to companies that move into poland and eastern europe.
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Dec 17, 2019 23:34
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You also need some way of offsetting the rural->urban political shift. I wonder if any initiatives for that, like towns giving people incentives to move and set up businesses, has any impact whatsoever.. probably not?
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Dec 18, 2019 13:17
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Businesses, as a rule of thumb, need customers and they need them to have money to spend. They need neighbouring businesses with which to contract and supply whatever external services are needed. Larger businesses need infrastructure. Job opportunities, other businesses, and people, are massively moving or are done moving to cities. Infrastructure in rural areas is often neglected and in decay. So no, short of massive localized investment I expect 0 effect from those sorts of measures.
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Dec 18, 2019 13:23
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Really what we need is a massive rampup of govt funding with capital sweeteners given to companies that move into poland and eastern europe. There are massive amounts of public and private investment going from western Europe to the east. Poland and the rest of the eastern EU have seen fantastic growth and increase in life quality over the last decade as a result. (And countries like Portugal, Greece or Italy are not particularly happy with the situation because the EU expansion has turned them from poor EU countries into mid or high income countries and decreased their transfer payment or even made them into net payers.) Sulla Faex posted:You also need some way of offsetting the rural->urban political shift. I wonder if any initiatives for that, like towns giving people incentives to move and set up businesses, has any impact whatsoever.. probably not? In most developed regions, there are already massive transfer payments from urban to rural areas. Rural areas are a huge drain on finances and resources for the cities. Germany has tried a lot of poo poo to make them more attractive. From moving huge state facilities to loving nowhere, offering financial incentives for young families, infrastructure investment cooperations, etc. But people under 50 just can't get out fast enough. There is just nothing to do, no good jobs opportunities, no education opportunities, no cultural or night life and a lot of people just can't deal with the oppressive conservative mentality.
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Dec 18, 2019 14:13
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GABA ghoul posted:In most developed regions, there are already massive transfer payments from urban to rural areas. Rural areas are a huge drain on finances and resources for the cities. Build a big wall between the rural and the urban areas and we'll quickly find out which one depends the most on the resource flow from the other.
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Dec 18, 2019 14:55
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I'm down with that. As long as the cities get to keep their capital intensive agriculture companies that feed them and the land that belongs to these companies, I give the rural areas a couple of months before they turns into a Mad Max reenactment. Plus side, cities will finally be able to pass socially and fiscally progressive legislation and maybe even start to address the issue of climate change. And rural areas can do their mad Max poo poo and hunt immigrants for food or whatever the gently caress hey are secretly dreaming about.
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Dec 18, 2019 18:13
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