Socialist Decadence

[padcrasher]

Originally Posted by plwhit

For how much longer is what you say about europeans going to be true?

~ Greece is close to bankruptcy
~ Italy is close to bankruptcy
~ Ireland is close to bankruptcy
~ Spain is close to bankruptcy
~ Portugal is close to bankruptcy

England has had to cut it's spending back by over 30% because it can't afford the lavish nanny state anymore. France is cutting back it's spending, can't afford the nanny state.

Please quote reliable non-partisan research on the comparison of corrupt governments worldwide....

BTW - Europe is a continent not a country, how can it be any less corrupt or more decadent than any other continent?

I never said Europe wasn't going through a economic downturn like the USA. Of course they are. Economies grow, economies shrink....government cut back on benefits,...governments add benefits.

The EU is in no danger of coming anywhere close to the dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, rat race that goes on here.

Exaggerating a few budget crisis here and there in one point in time means nothing.

And BTW only a someone clueless in financial matters would believe the term "bankruptcy" even applies to governments.

[Grim Reader]

Originally Posted by plwhit

For how much longer is what you say about europeans going to be true?

~ Greece is close to bankruptcy
~ Italy is close to bankruptcy
~ Ireland is close to bankruptcy
~ Spain is close to bankruptcy
~ Portugal is close to bankruptcy

England has had to cut it's spending back by over 30% because it can't afford the lavish nanny state anymore. France is cutting back it's spending, can't afford the nanny state.

And...

• Denmark is doing good
• Germany is doing good
• Belgium is doing good
• Norway is doing good
• Austria is doing good
• Netherland is doing good
• Finland is doing good
• Switzerland is doing good
• Sweden is doing good

The interesting fact here is that the countries doing well, without exception have far more "lavish nanny states" than the ones listed as close to bankrupcy.

The point, of course, is that Greece, Italy, USA, Ireland, Spain, UK and Portugal all wanted something they did not want to pay for. Early pensions, welfare states like far more econmically solid countries afforded themselves, or a decade long debt-fueled counsumer binge, wars...it doesn't actually matter what they wanted. The point is what they didn't want, which was paying for it.

Countries doing well were willing to pay the cost of the stuff they wanted. On their tax forms. Countries doing badly financed their stuff through debts and deficits. It is that simple.

Originally Posted by plwhit

Please quote reliable non-partisan research on the comparison of corrupt governments worldwide....

Transparency International is normally the go-to for that. It seems to show a rough pattern in that Northern Europe is less corrupt than the US, while southern Europe more corrupt.

Originally Posted by plwhit

BTW - Europe is a continent not a country, how can it be any less corrupt or more decadent than any other continent?

Continents vary too. I think most people would agree that on the average, Africa is more corrupt than North America for example. Not that Europe overall seems more or less corrupt than the USA.

And I thought this relevant:

Originally Posted by GIA
Though Western Europe is often lazily portrayed as a monolithic bastion of welfare-state sclerosis, it is in fact robustly heterogeneous. France has a brittle pension system and rigid labor markets, but the Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss pension systems are considered to be among the soundest in the world, and Danish labor flexibility rivals that of the United States. The aggregate tax burden is punishingly heavy in France, Germany, Italy, and the Nordic countries, but it is relatively light in Ireland and Switzerland. As for health care, the government-run systems in Britain and Scandinavia are much different from the consumer-driven Swiss model and the market-friendly Dutch approach, not to mention the French and German schemes.

Doesn’t Western Europe exhibit lackluster innovation prowess? And isn’t the region losing its global competitiveness? Some countries — such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain — are innovation laggards, but others are innovation leaders. Indeed, a 2009 Economist Intelligence Unit report classified Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden as three of the five most innovative countries on earth, with Germany placing sixth. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum reckons that Switzerland and Sweden have the planet’s two most competitive economies.

According to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom (compiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation), three Western European countries — Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden — offer greater business freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and property-rights protection than does the United States. In terms of overall economic freedom, Denmark (ninth) is virtually tied with America (eighth), which trails Switzerland (sixth) and Ireland (fifth). All of these countries — plus the United Kingdom (eleventh), the Netherlands (15th), Finland (17th), Sweden (21st), and Germany (23rd) — score well ahead of Portugal (62nd), France (64th), Greece (73rd), and Italy (74th).

Just as there is no uniform socioeconomic model in Western Europe, there is no uniform political culture. Transparency International’s 2010 CorruptionPerceptions Index ranks Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway among the world’s ten least corrupt societies, with the Danes sharing the top spot. By comparison, France (25th) ranks behind Uruguay; Spain (tied for 30th) and Portugal (32nd) rank behind the United Arab Emirates; Italy (67th) ranks behind Rwanda; and Greece (tied for 78th) ranks behind El Salvador.

Not surprisingly, there is tremendous variation in the efficiency of individual Western European governments. Despite the massive size of their bureaucracies and the lavish generosity of their welfare benefits, the Nordic countries stand out for having some of the best-performing institutions.In its 2010 global competitiveness survey, the Swiss business school IMD calculates that the public sector operates more efficiently in Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Ireland than it does in America. But IMD also reckons that the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Greek governments function less efficiently than those in Jordan and Russia.