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Most Europeans are in complete denial about the problems that face the continent.
Europe has a huge debt problem, everyone knows that. In the U.S. the debt has been politicized and all of a sudden a $45.000 per capita debt is a huge problem. $45.000 per capita would be a dream scenario for most European countries.
No, everyone does not know that. Most of Europe does not have a debt problem. Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland etc are doing quite well. Gross debt is meaningless anyway.
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Originally Posted by sim123
Well, our problem here in Europe really is that we have no way of defending ourselves. If the U.S. pulls out of NATO we're pretty much screwed.
Because if the USA vanished tomorrow, the remaining NATO/Europe would only have, what, 35 % of the entire worlds military budget? Just the UK, Germany and France together has a bigger military budget than Russia and China total. Little Norway, of 5 million, has a bigger military budget than Pakistan and Bangladesh combined with 350 million people.
The whole notion that Europes defense rests on America is just a salespitch for military industry to pitysell more hardware.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sim123
How are we going to finance huge welfare states if, all of a sudden, we have to spend our money building a military that would actually be able to do anything? I don't think so buddy...
A good start would be cutting hugely overfunded military budgets, and Europe saves twice the US military expeses in GDP terms each year on more effective healteh care systems.
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Originally Posted by *******
Norway: Has had oil for decades, but supply in dwindling fast. Production is too expensive, so significant export is out of the question.
Norway has been squirreling away all the income from its oil prodution for decades, and having been the worlds second or third largest oil exporter for much of that time, the fund now owns over 1 % of all publically listed stocks in the world! Probably well set for the future, even without the Barents oil fields.
Last edited by Grim Reader; 06-21-2011 at 03:44 PM..
My mom always used to say: The fact that "the others" jumped off the bridge is no apology for you to do the same.
Also, maybe you can elaborate which countries you are referring to by "most European countries"? I know that it is not the best source, but on this wikipedia list (sorted by IMF) the US is pretty high up there. List of sovereign states by public debt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Well, you can't really go by public debt. It show internal debt to the public. External debt shows you obligations to foreign countries.
Many news organizations like to use "Gross debt" when discussing debt. But that includes intragovernmental debt, debt states owe themselves.
The only viable measure so far is external debt.
The U.S. has 45.000 dollar per capita external debt.
Now that people are starting to put their unreliable numbers out here, I will post an equally unreliable source. But then again, since so many in here knows more about this stuff than most economic scholars I probably don't have to tell you anything.
Here in Brazil the economy is doing OK, even if we're not growing as fast as China, but our GDP per capita is much higher than that of China. And our GDP per capita keeps growing steadily year after year, at a good pace.
I am afraid that is not a very good measure either. Because it only measures debts, not assets. In other words, it measures what a country owes other countries, but not what other countries owes it back.
For example, look at Norway on your list. It is listed as having an external debt of 202 % of GDP. Yet Norway has no net external debt. When the amount other countries owe to Norway is added to the balance, Norway is in the black. Although Norway is an extreme example, a lot of the nations of Northern Europe are financially quite steady. (Excepting, Ireland, Iceland and Belgium). As witness their credit ratings which do consider such things.
It is like a Mr. Smith owing the bank 1 000 000 $ on his mortgage, but the bank at the same time owing him $ 2 000 000.
You'd need a measure of net external debt.
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