Comments on: The hidden cost of Europe’s “free stuff”

By: The First Joe

The First Joe — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 08:28:54 +0000

There are two elephants in the room you have ignored.
1) Money. 97% of the money supply is created as interest charging debt by a cartel of unnacountable commericial banks owned by a tiny class of super wealthy (there was an article in New Scientist tracked back all ownership of major corporates and banks to just half a dozen or so). The interest element is never created, which creates a mathematical inevitability funnelling wealth from the many to the few. It doesn't have to be this way, in 1844 commercial banks were prohibited from printing paper money for the exact same reason (spiralling debt), the same can be done for electronic money.
2) Land. Certainly in both the UK and in Spain vast swathes – as in the majority of – the land is STILL owned by a deeply entrenched rent-seeking aristocracy and later nouveau-rich speculators (they get EU subsidy for doing nothing with it, too). It is the absurdly high price of land that makes housing so unaffordable in the UK.

Until these two basic economic essentials are reformed, the masses are screwed.

By: Didact

Didact — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 11:25:35 +0000

In reply to A.B. Prosper.

It's worth remembering that the reason Russia's population is set to shrink by half by 2050 is due to the tremendous damage that Communism did to women's fertility. Abortions and sterlisations of women- whether voluntary or otherwise- were far higher in the old USSR than in any Western country at the time, and this destroyed Russian fertility for decades to come. They may never really recover from it- neither will most of the former Eastern bloc.

As for the religious right in the US- they are definitely outbreeding the secular types.

While autarky is far from an ideal solution, the only approach that seems to make any kind of sense, that balances the requirements of economic freedom with the realities of human nature and the facts of religious fertility, is to shut off all immigration, dramatically reduce the size of government, institute a universal tariff on foreign trade, and remove all barriers to Christian and Jewish proselytisation. (It goes without saying that Islam should be banned from the West.)

By: A.B. Prosper

A.B. Prosper — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 05:36:15 +0000

Oh free is expensive but 4 in 10 young people of peak (well near, the survey starts at 15 ends at 29) young people in Europe are underemployed and far more don't earn enough to afford a basic life for themselves and any kids.

gallup.com/poll/165935/nearly-half-younger-southern-europeans-underemployed.aspx

This is not a product of lack of free markets or of excess tax but of automation and trade policy. The trade policy can be dealt with if we understand that production surplus is a zero sum game . As for automation. and computers, this is trickier, work sharing and early retirement and all that are already there and its pretty clear aren't working.

Now yes conceded in early Industrial era tax cuts could increase employment and demand for labor could grow. Now ? so many jobs can be outsourced and where that is not allowed,, simply automation is the killer app

Material limits suggest that up to a point, less wages and cheaper labor while they might create more jobs, won't increase prosperity and having tons of jobs at say 1 euro a day is pointless since global material demand alone means 1 euro cannot be much wealth and it won't generate enough surplus to sustain society

This really leaves one option, wealth redistribution. well alright we could simply accept social carrying has been reached and allow populations to decline peacefully. To do that you'd expel foreigners, lock down the borders and let the population age out.

Don't know how long we want to keep that up though, 1.5 forever is no solution.

And note with the above figures, counting on a religious revival to create moar babeees isn't going to work. What little success Russia has had in this area combined religion with a lot of wealth redistribution. Its still below replacement though And the US far more religious than Europe has roughly its population rates except among low IQ/low impulse control sorts.

So what's the solution?