conservation of Euros

[John Larkin]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

John

 

[lektric.dan@gmail.com]

On May 11, 8:47 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

John

I hate to get political in a non-politics newsgroup, but a trillion
(that's million with a "T" - a million-million) vanished into thin air
in 24 hours. Brewster's Millions was suppose to be a comedy.
Greece's Trillions turned out to be a tragedy. I hope people over
here wake up and see that you actually have to *work* for
achievements. On a similar rant while I'm fired up - the Army is
going to give medals for **avoiding conflicts**. We're turning into
France (and no, that's not good...).

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

John

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=teibp050&pl

http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:36:14 -0700 (PDT), x x
<noname.namenot@gmail.com> wrote:

Larkin, why don't you mind your own fucking business?

xx, why don't you get a name?

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle


A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

John

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

How's California doing at the moment?

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[x x]

Larkin, why don't you mind your own fucking business?

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Well, the europeans will try the same scam you stupid amerikkkan
nationalist.

 

[Bit Farmer]

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle


A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.


Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?


Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

John

Lots of lamenting about the problem John. What are you offering in terms of solution? Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

 

[Joerg]

Bit Farmer wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people
choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle


A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.


Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?


Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

John

Lots of lamenting about the problem John. What are you offering in
terms of solution? Anybody can bitch.

Pension reform. Now.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:45:20 -0500, Bit Farmer <bit.farmer@yahoo.com>
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle


A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.


Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?


Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

John

Lots of lamenting about the problem John. What are you offering in terms of solution? Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

Am I bitching? I wasn't aware. The dynamics of modern society is just
interesting to me. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to play by the
existing rules. I do feel for people who don't have high-tech jobs
like a lot of us do, people in manufacturing and construction and
services, workers like that who aren't doing well in the global
economy.

Solutions?

More people need to be productive, for more years of their lives.

Government has to stop hating and bleeding the entities that create
genuinely productive jobs, and has to stop creating useless jobs.

Government has to quit lying and quit borrowing and quit spending.

Unions have to be restrained.

The financial system, and the stock market, are mostly casinos where
the house wins, and the systems are getting more and more unstable. We
need policies and laws that encourage longterm productive investment
and discourage short-term speculation.

Traditional values, like having families, working, saving, being
responsible and honest and tolerant, might be considered, too.

More sales tax, less income tax, no business taxes.


None of that will happen of course. So we'll muddle along, between
crises.

John

 

[Robert Baer]

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

John


Well, in that case, maybe i should guarantee all loans by all

countries to all other countries with a cap of 2^30 dollars, said money
to personally be delivered via helicopter by Ben B.

 

[Robert Baer]

Bill Sloman wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

How's California doing at the moment?

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

California needs more ObamaDollars printed in Sinaloa (personally

delivered a dollar at a time by a resident that will stay in CA after
delivery).

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 12, 12:40 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle

A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

That was after you'd sold everything worth selling, and started
cooking the books to make the worthless rubbish look better than it
was. Your crooks managed to rip off a few suckers from the rest of the
world - the sub-prime mortagage packages wee the most recent example -
but today's suckers are now a bit more suspicious of your accounting
practices.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

In the US, tax evasion involves bribing your congressman to write your
personal tax dodge into legislation. Even the Greeks haven't
institutionialised it that extent.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness.

Sustaining a successful manufacturing business is the kind of economic
activity that you claim to understand; it isn't usually seen as as any
kind of self-sacrifice.

I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

If you'd paid enough attention to the subject to read the details of
the agreement that got the Greeks their line of credit, you would have
known that the IMF imposed the usual austerity measures on the Greeks.
They won't be reduced to their traditional dirt-poor lifestyle, but
there will be the usual stringent economies.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

Not so very different from the Greeks then.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 19:57:23 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 12, 2:25 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:45:20 -0500, Bit Farmer <bit.far...@yahoo.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle

A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

Lots of lamenting about the problem John.  What are you offering in terms of solution?  Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

Am I bitching? I wasn't aware. The dynamics of modern society is just
interesting to me. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to play by the
existing rules. I do feel for people who don't have high-tech jobs
like a lot of us do, people in manufacturing and construction and
services, workers like that who aren't doing well in the global
economy.

Solutions?

More people need to be productive, for more years of their lives.

Government has to stop hating and bleeding the entities that create
genuinely productive jobs, and has to stop creating useless jobs.

Government has to quit lying and quit borrowing and quit spending.

Unions have to be restrained.

The financial system, and the stock market, are mostly casinos where
the house wins, and the systems are getting more and more unstable. We
need policies and laws that encourage longterm productive investment
and discourage short-term speculation.

Allan Greenspan's autobiography blamed the decline of the US trade
balance on on the export of less skilled jobs from the US to low-
income countries - China in particular.

The Germans invested in getting their workers better trained and
better equipped, so there weren't many unskilled jobs left to export.

Traditional values, like having families, working, saving, being
responsible and honest and tolerant, might be considered, too.

If the manufacturer that provides the job choses to fire his workers
and send the work overseas, the people he has dumped won't see much
advantage in cultivating traditional values.

More sales tax, less income tax, no business taxes.

The French approach. Half the French state revenuse comes from value-
added-tax (which is effectively a sales tax, albeit a rather
sophisticated form of sales tax).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

None of that will happen of course. So we'll muddle along, between
crises.

Actually, you will progressively decline because your society - as a
whole - doesn't invest enough in the people who are hired to do the
work,

These curves seem to be going up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_attainment.jpg

which isn't bad, considering the immigration situation.


as a consequence of giving too much of the political power to

the people pay them to do the work. The people who dole out the
salaries find it easier to divert cash into influencing elections - as
by paying for television ads.

Like unions?

Europe will decline at a steeper slope than the US because europeans
aren't breeding. Better learn Arabic... you'll need it.

I suppose we are natural enemies. I work and you don't. Sort of like
the Germans and the Greeks.

John

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 12, 2:25 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:45:20 -0500, Bit Farmer <bit.far...@yahoo.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle

A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

Lots of lamenting about the problem John.  What are you offering in terms of solution?  Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

Am I bitching? I wasn't aware. The dynamics of modern society is just
interesting to me. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to play by the
existing rules. I do feel for people who don't have high-tech jobs
like a lot of us do, people in manufacturing and construction and
services, workers like that who aren't doing well in the global
economy.

Solutions?

More people need to be productive, for more years of their lives.

Government has to stop hating and bleeding the entities that create
genuinely productive jobs, and has to stop creating useless jobs.

Government has to quit lying and quit borrowing and quit spending.

Unions have to be restrained.

The financial system, and the stock market, are mostly casinos where
the house wins, and the systems are getting more and more unstable. We
need policies and laws that encourage longterm productive investment
and discourage short-term speculation.

Allan Greenspan's autobiography blamed the decline of the US trade
balance on on the export of less skilled jobs from the US to low-
income countries - China in particular.

The Germans invested in getting their workers better trained and
better equipped, so there weren't many unskilled jobs left to export.

Traditional values, like having families, working, saving, being
responsible and honest and tolerant, might be considered, too.

If the manufacturer that provides the job choses to fire his workers
and send the work overseas, the people he has dumped won't see much
advantage in cultivating traditional values.

More sales tax, less income tax, no business taxes.

The French approach. Half the French state revenuse comes from value-
added-tax (which is effectively a sales tax, albeit a rather
sophisticated form of sales tax).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

None of that will happen of course. So we'll muddle along, between
crises.

Actually, you will progressively decline because your society - as a
whole - doesn't invest enough in the people who are hired to do the
work, as a consequence of giving too much of the political power to
the people pay them to do the work. The people who dole out the
salaries find it easier to divert cash into influencing elections - as
by paying for television ads.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Bowden]

On May 11, 2:01 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.

The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.

Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

How's California doing at the moment?

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

California is broke and they run ads on the radio selling California
junk bonds for who knows what interest rate. Los Angeles is worse, and
the next move is to charge homeowners for fixing the sidewalks while
the city still owns the land. Streets, trees, lamp posts, etc. will be
next. The unions rule the place.

-Bill

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 12, 6:38 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 19:57:23 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 2:25 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:45:20 -0500, Bit Farmer <bit.far...@yahoo.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle

A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

Lots of lamenting about the problem John.  What are you offering in terms of solution?  Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

Am I bitching? I wasn't aware. The dynamics of modern society is just
interesting to me. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to play by the
existing rules. I do feel for people who don't have high-tech jobs
like a lot of us do, people in manufacturing and construction and
services, workers like that who aren't doing well in the global
economy.

Solutions?

More people need to be productive, for more years of their lives.

Government has to stop hating and bleeding the entities that create
genuinely productive jobs, and has to stop creating useless jobs.

Government has to quit lying and quit borrowing and quit spending.

Unions have to be restrained.

The financial system, and the stock market, are mostly casinos where
the house wins, and the systems are getting more and more unstable. We
need policies and laws that encourage longterm productive investment
and discourage short-term speculation.

Allan Greenspan's autobiography blamed the decline of the US trade
balance on on the export of less skilled jobs from the US to low-
income countries - China in particular.

The Germans invested in getting their workers better trained and
better equipped, so there weren't many unskilled jobs left to export.

Traditional values, like having families, working, saving, being
responsible and honest and tolerant, might be considered, too.

If the manufacturer that provides the job choses to fire his workers
and send the work overseas, the people he has dumped won't see much
advantage in cultivating traditional values.

More sales tax, less income tax, no business taxes.

The French approach. Half the French state revenuse comes from value-
added-tax (which is effectively a sales tax, albeit a rather
sophisticated form of sales tax).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

None of that will happen of course. So we'll muddle along, between
crises.

Actually, you will progressively decline because your society - as a
whole - doesn't invest enough in the people who are hired to do the
work,

These curves seem to be going up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_attainment.jpg

which isn't bad, considering the immigration situation.

 as a consequence of giving too much of the political power to
the people pay them to do the work. The people who dole out the
salaries find it easier to divert cash into influencing elections - as
by paying for television ads.

Like unions?

Unions are the recommended counter-weight to the economic advantage
that individual capitalists have over the workers they employ. Because
they do represent their members, they can't act as quickly or
decisively as individual capitalists, but where they have been allowed
to flourish they do a decent job.

US employers have always been terrified of effective unions, and those
few unions that managed to survive the consequent legislative assaults
were subverted by employers who corrupted the union officials, then
complained that the unions were corrupt.

In Germany the unions are represented on company's supervisory boards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination

Europe will decline at a steeper slope than the US because europeans
aren't breeding. Better learn Arabic... you'll need it.

I might - if the present trend continued for several hundred years,
and I lived that long. In fact the high fertility of the immigrant
populations is going to decline in subsequent generations as they
assimilate - fertility declines rapidly as families (notably better-
educated mothers) recognise that almost all their kids are going to
out-live their parents, and that the parents aren't dependent on their
kids for care in old age.

The low fertility of the non-immigrant population of Europe is
probably also transient. Modern European society is evolving very
rapidly, and we've no real idea of what it is going to look like in
another generation, and how the next generation of working women will
manage their child-rearing.

I suppose we are natural enemies. I work and you don't. Sort of like
the Germans and the Greeks.

You work from nine to five on electronics. I don't have that pleasure
any more, so I do have more time to work on my knowledge of the world
- an area that you neglect, in favour of devoting your spare time to
propagating ill-informed speculation, much of which you uncritically
harvest from the right-wing political propaganda disseminated by your
mass media.

We aren't "natural enemies". You publish nonsense, and I point out
that it is nonsense. If I was your enemy, I'd let you continue to
delude yourself, in the reliable expectation that what you thought
that you knew that wasn't so was eventually going to destroy your
business.

The Germans have - with the suport of ther est of Europe and the IMF -
performed a similar service for the Greeks, who should - in
consequence - end up with a rather more honest, effective and
sustainable administration than they have had up to now.

Not that the recent administration - bad though it was - wasn't better
than military junta that ran the country from 1967 to 1974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%931974

The US does have a preference for right wing military regimes (like
Pinochet's in Chile from 1973 to 1990), but doesn't actually seem to
inspired the 1967 coup.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 12 May 2010 02:39:32 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 12, 6:38 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 19:57:23 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 2:25 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 18:45:20 -0500, Bit Farmer <bit.far...@yahoo.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:49 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 11, 8:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 11:01:09 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 11, 3:47 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY
You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.
This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.
Since the US has been running a huge balance of payments deficit since
Regan was president, it does seem that you can fool Mother Nature for
quite a while.
The Euro zone is running a balance of payments deficit, but it is an
order of magnitude smaller than the US so you might be wise to
concentrate on the beam in your own eye.
No big deal. We'll never pay it back.
Obviously. You had sold off everything that was worth selling back in
the 1990's.

Nope. I kept it all. Got more, actually. Look: my icicles!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle

A lot of Japanese bought US golf courses for numbers like $1e9 and
sold them back a few years later for $1e8. Thanks.

Apparently the europeans had an emergency weekend fest and listened to
that Nobel-prize-winning economist Barack Obama, and decided to spend
a trillion dollars (or euros? they're getting to be about the same
thing) to allow Greeks to keep being Greeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/business/global/11reconstruct.html

It's hilarious, a bunch of countries making loan guarantees to make up
for the fact that they've run out of money.
Greece has run out of money - due to US levels of tax evasion, in an
economy which wasn't all that productive to start with.

Well, we can agree on that. Except the Greeks are much better at tax
evasion. As in much, much better.

Spain and Portugal are a bit short at the moment - due to the recent
economic downturn, tourism has been down - but the rest of the
Eurozone is doing fine. Germany may have to ramp its exports up a bit
higher to get the balance of trade for the Euro zone as a whole back
in the black, but the euro is backed by a rather stronger economy than
the US dollar, if the trade balance is anything to go by.

Kind of the Germans to sacrifice themselves; they are noted for
kindness. I'm sure they will gladly work even harder in the future so
that their southern neighbors can continue their picturesque,
traditional lifestyles.

How's California doing at the moment?

Mixed bag. The government is broke, but that's the ordinary fate of
all leftist governments. Some regions are hit pretty hard. San
Francisco and Silicon Valley are doing pretty good. The semiconductor
industry, things like Google, biotech, all booming. Property values
are up. Agriculture is very big in California, and people always have
to eat.

Lots of lamenting about the problem John.  What are you offering in terms of solution?  Anybody can bitch.

b. Farmer

Am I bitching? I wasn't aware. The dynamics of modern society is just
interesting to me. Personally, I'm perfectly willing to play by the
existing rules. I do feel for people who don't have high-tech jobs
like a lot of us do, people in manufacturing and construction and
services, workers like that who aren't doing well in the global
economy.

Solutions?

More people need to be productive, for more years of their lives.

Government has to stop hating and bleeding the entities that create
genuinely productive jobs, and has to stop creating useless jobs.

Government has to quit lying and quit borrowing and quit spending.

Unions have to be restrained.

The financial system, and the stock market, are mostly casinos where
the house wins, and the systems are getting more and more unstable. We
need policies and laws that encourage longterm productive investment
and discourage short-term speculation.

Allan Greenspan's autobiography blamed the decline of the US trade
balance on on the export of less skilled jobs from the US to low-
income countries - China in particular.

The Germans invested in getting their workers better trained and
better equipped, so there weren't many unskilled jobs left to export.

Traditional values, like having families, working, saving, being
responsible and honest and tolerant, might be considered, too.

If the manufacturer that provides the job choses to fire his workers
and send the work overseas, the people he has dumped won't see much
advantage in cultivating traditional values.

More sales tax, less income tax, no business taxes.

The French approach. Half the French state revenuse comes from value-
added-tax (which is effectively a sales tax, albeit a rather
sophisticated form of sales tax).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

None of that will happen of course. So we'll muddle along, between
crises.

Actually, you will progressively decline because your society - as a
whole - doesn't invest enough in the people who are hired to do the
work,

These curves seem to be going up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_attainment.jpg

which isn't bad, considering the immigration situation.

 as a consequence of giving too much of the political power to
the people pay them to do the work. The people who dole out the
salaries find it easier to divert cash into influencing elections - as
by paying for television ads.

Like unions?

Unions are the recommended counter-weight to the economic advantage
that individual capitalists have over the workers they employ. Because
they do represent their members, they can't act as quickly or
decisively as individual capitalists, but where they have been allowed
to flourish they do a decent job.

US employers have always been terrified of effective unions, and those
few unions that managed to survive the consequent legislative assaults
were subverted by employers who corrupted the union officials, then
complained that the unions were corrupt.

Union members should be terrified of effective unions. They destroy
their jobs.

In Germany the unions are represented on company's supervisory boards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination

Europe will decline at a steeper slope than the US because europeans
aren't breeding. Better learn Arabic... you'll need it.

I might - if the present trend continued for several hundred years,
and I lived that long. In fact the high fertility of the immigrant
populations is going to decline in subsequent generations as they
assimilate - fertility declines rapidly as families (notably better-
educated mothers) recognise that almost all their kids are going to
out-live their parents, and that the parents aren't dependent on their
kids for care in old age.

The low fertility of the non-immigrant population of Europe is
probably also transient. Modern European society is evolving very
rapidly, and we've no real idea of what it is going to look like in
another generation, and how the next generation of working women will
manage their child-rearing.

I suppose we are natural enemies. I work and you don't. Sort of like
the Germans and the Greeks.

You work from nine to five on electronics.

Last night it was until 11:30 PM. I decided to write the PADS netlist
comparison program, and finally got it working pretty well by then.
The PADS schematic and PCB programs have bizarre and entirely
different netlist formats, which require a lot of ugly parsing and
sorting and redundancy stripping. But it works, and all 4006 netsin
pairs are identical between our schematic and our PCB.

I don't have that pleasure

any more, so I do have more time to work on my knowledge of the world
- an area that you neglect,

Now that's hilarious, "knowledge of the world"... truly funny.

I'm just glad that I'm not funding your fatheaded indolence. Much.


in favour of devoting your spare time to

propagating ill-informed speculation, much of which you uncritically
harvest from the right-wing political propaganda disseminated by your
mass media.

I don't harvest; I think.

We aren't "natural enemies". You publish nonsense, and I point out
that it is nonsense. If I was your enemy, I'd let you continue to
delude yourself, in the reliable expectation that what you thought
that you knew that wasn't so was eventually going to destroy your
business.

The Germans have - with the suport of ther est of Europe and the IMF -
performed a similar service for the Greeks, who should - in
consequence - end up with a rather more honest, effective and
sustainable administration than they have had up to now.

Not that the recent administration - bad though it was - wasn't better
than military junta that ran the country from 1967 to 1974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%931974

The US does have a preference for right wing military regimes (like
Pinochet's in Chile from 1973 to 1990), but doesn't actually seem to
inspired the 1967 coup.

Right, the Germans have a much more admirable history as regards
preferring peaceful democracy.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 12 May 2010 02:39:32 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

Unions are the recommended counter-weight to the economic advantage
that individual capitalists have over the workers they employ. Because
they do represent their members, they can't act as quickly or
decisively as individual capitalists, but where they have been allowed
to flourish they do a decent job.

Recommended by whom?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE64B18U20100512?type=marketsNews

Seems to me that, increasingly, unions workers aren't employed by
"capitalists" - they have destroyed those jobs - but by governments.
The upside of that is when they go out on strike, we're actually
better off.

John