Eurocrisis #64 - Waar Draghi het herstel van de Eurozone voorspelt

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 14:06 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:
http://www.elsevier.nl/we(...)p-corruptielijst.htm

Maar de rest van de PIGS doet het ook niet goed

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 08:55 schreef Igen het volgende:

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http://epp.eurostat.ec.eu(...)de=teina050&plugin=1

http://ec.europa.eu/econo(...)012_autumn/es_en.pdf

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 14:11 schreef Igen het volgende:

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Dat is niet waar, Spanje en Ierland scoren ronduit goed en Portugal doet het ook niet slecht. Slechts de score van Italië valt ook tegen.

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 14:21 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:

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Italië niet corrupt???
met Berlusconi als aanvoerder ????

En de wegenaanleg en bruggen constructies onder beheer bij de mafffia

De tunnel die tussen Sicilië en Italië zou komen?/ Met subsidie van de EU ??

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 15:44 schreef Igen het volgende:

Voor de korte termijn zegt het dat jouw idee het domste is wat je maar kan doen, aangezien het negatieve effect van een tijdelijke bezuinigen op overheidsuitgaven veel groter is dan het positieve effect van een tijdelijke belastingverlaging van dezelfde grootte.

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 16:05 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:

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Ik bedoel: bezuinigen op staatsuitgaven middels lagere belastingheffing, zodat de consument meer kan uitgeven

_{Bij de overheid is tijdelijk (!) verhogen altijd permanent,}

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 17:56 schreef Igen het volgende:

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Dat is dus maar de vraag. Heb je enig bewijs voor die stelling?

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 23:24 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:
Goed programma

Over de Portugees die niets meer kan kopen, logisch dat ze een handelsoverschot krijgen
Het Noorden van Europa kan nog wel iets kopen

Diepen armoede
http://www.tvgids.nl/arti(...)rij_heeft_het_zwaar/

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 00:02 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:

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Was toch een goed informatief programma ??

Mag je nu ook al niet meer de waarheid verkondigen??
Zijn we zo diep gezonken ??

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Hellenic Statistical Authority announces the unemployment rate for September 2012

Unemployment rate in September 2012 was 26.0% compared to 18.9% in September
2011 and 25.3% in August 2012. The number of employed amounted to 3,695,053
persons. Τhe number of unemployed amounted to 1,295,203 while the number of
inactive to 3,373,692.

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 12:01 schreef Perrin het volgende:

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De beroepsbevolking van Griekenland is in totaal 8,4 miljoen mensen groot.. Waarvan inmiddels slechts 44% betaald werk heeft.

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Depression Deepens Greek Middle Class Despair With Crime

Greece’s effective poverty rate has risen to 36 percent from about 20 percent in 2009, Matsaganis said. About 8.5 percent of Greeks now live in extreme poverty and can’t afford a basic basket of goods and services, he said.

The crisis is shredding the middle class, which is feeling the brunt of public-sector salary reductions and private job losses while paying higher taxes, said Elias Papaioannou, an associate professor of economics at London Business School.

Papaioannou, an Athens native who considered a career in Greece and now has no plans to return, compares the situation with the German occupation of Greece during World War II, when hyperinflation wiped out the middle class.

“People are suffering massively,” he said. “To me, it’s the collapse of the state.”

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 12:23 schreef sitting_elfling het volgende:

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Hoelang zou je denken tot een land echt volledig aan de bedelstaf raakt? In de zin van dat de armoede dusdanig groot is, dat men letterlijk dorpen krijgt waar niemand meer te eten heeft en dat je opstanden krijgt?

Want 44% geen betaald werk, de spaarpotjes zijn niet heel erg groot, hoelang zou zoiets duren?

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 12:25 schreef Perrin het volgende:

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Het lijkt me onvermijdelijk dat er ergens iets barst. Kwestie van 1 of 2 jaar? Zou ook de vorm van iets Golden Dawn fascisme-achtigs kunnen aannemen ipv ongecoordineerde opstanden.

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 12:34 schreef sitting_elfling het volgende:

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Gezien het huidige tempo, schat ik dat zelf wel in binnen 12 maanden. Ben erg benieuwd hoe zich dat gaat ontwikkelen. Zit er over na te denken om eens over een aantal maand richting griekenland te gaan om zelfs een te kijken hoe het daar staat

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 12:34 schreef sitting_elfling het volgende:
Zit er over na te denken om eens over een aantal maand richting griekenland te gaan om zelfs een te kijken hoe het daar staat

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Euro Countries (and the IMF) Can Learn from Latvia’s Economic Success

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just published a public information note about its preliminary findings from the annual review of the Latvian economy. It is rare for the IMF to write anything as positive as it did in its first summary paragraph:

Latvia’s economy continues to recover strongly. Following real GDP growth of 5.5 percent in 2011, growth is expected to exceed 5 percent again this year despite recession in the euro area. Labor market conditions are improving. The unemployment rate fell from 16.3 percent at the beginning of the year to 13.5 percent at the end of the third quarter, despite an increase in participation rates. Real wage growth remains restrained. Consumer price inflation has declined sharply, easing to 1.6 percent at end-October after peaking at 4¾ percent in mid-2011. Robust export growth is expected to keep the current account deficit at about 2 percent despite recovering import demand.

In the midst of the euro crisis, the going does not get much better than this. Latvia will have the highest growth rate and one of the smallest budget deficits in Europe this year, probably 5.3 percent, along with low inflation and wonderful export expansion. The only shortcoming is the still high unemployment rate, but unemployment is a lagging indicator and it is falling sharply.

Remember that in 2008–09, Latvia lost 24 percent of its GDP. It was heading toward a budget deficit of 19 percent of GDP in 2009 without a program of radical austerity. But the Latvian government did undertake austerity, and the last two years’ success shows the merits of that policy.

The troubled countries in the euro area have much to learn from Latvia. While Latvia returned to growth after two years of severe crisis, Greece has suffered five years of recession and two more are expected.

A new Latvian government came to power in March 2009, when GDP was in free fall. It told people how bad the situation was, and the various social partners responded by signing up to a truly radical austerity program. One-third of the civil servants were laid off; half the state agencies were closed, which prompted deregulation; the average public wage was cut by 26 percent in one year. But this was a socially considerate program. Top officials were hit more, with 35 percent in wage cuts, while in the end pensions were not cut. In particular, public servants were no longer allowed to sit on state corporate boards and earn more than from their salaries, a malpractice that is still common in many European countries. The government exposed high-level corruption. Yet, many schools and most of the hospitals were closed.

This was a truly front-loaded program. Of a total fiscal adjustment of 17 percent of GDP, 9.5 percent of GDP was carried out in 2009. Two-thirds of the adjustment was expenditure cuts that are more easily executed in a crisis, and only one-third revenue increases, mainly through consumption taxes. The low corporate profit tax of 15 percent was maintained to stimulate business. Latvia needed international financial support, and fortunately the IMF, the European Union, and neighboring countries did both commit and deliver on time.

From the outset, it was clear that this program could resolve the crisis within three years if carried out properly, and confidence was restored by June 2009, as reflected in swiftly falling market interest rates and rising international currency reserves. For Greece, no viable stabilization program has been presented as yet, so no confidence has been restored, and growth—which normally reappears after a couple of years—is not in sight.

Despite all these huge sacrifices, the center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who took his country through this arduous crisis, was reelected twice in parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2011. The big losers were the oligarchic parties that had ruled Latvia on the way into the crisis and ignored massive overheating. The Latvians understood that the crisis was severe and that there was hardly any better way out than the one Dombrovskis presented.

At the outset of the crisis, the IMF favored devaluation, but the Latvians resisted firmly with strong popular support. As it turned out, no devaluation was needed, and none of the EU countries with pegged exchange rate have devalued. (The others are Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria.) In 2011, Estonia adopted the euro. Latvia intends to do so in 2014, and it appears to be fully ready.

Throughout the crisis, the Latvian government has insisted on maintaining its flat personal income tax, as most other East European countries have. The IMF, which no longer can dictate Latvia’s economic policy, nonetheless advocates the introduction of a progressive income tax: “The planned cumulative PIT cuts of 5 percentage points over 2013–15 should be reconsidered, at least for 2014 and beyond: Better options could include a two-tier system or an increase in the minimum non-taxable allowance.” The issue of whether to adopt a flat or a progressive income tax is an ideological matter that should remain beyond the mandate of the IMF. There is no macroeconomic justification for such a demand. It is a political statement. Latvia, with a reasonably even income distribution, can and does ignore it.

Many countries from Switzerland on down attract wealthy people through tax incentives. Latvia cannot afford to lose out in the intense tax competition that prevails in Eastern Europe, where most countries have flat personal income taxes. The flat personal income tax in Latvia is actually rather high at 21 percent, compared with 15 percent in neighboring Lithuania or 10 percent in Bulgaria. Latvia cannot afford to impose higher taxes than its competition, which the IMF should realize.

The IMF should stick to macroeconomic and prudential financial policies. On the other hand, it ought to push for lower public expenditures as a share of GDP. Usually it claims innocence when it comes to spending versus taxes, only showing concern about the budget deficit. But enough research has been done to show that high public expenditures impede economic growth, rendering this a macroeconomic issue. In crisis-ridden Greece public expenditures stayed constantly high at 50 percent of GDP in 2010 and 2011. By contrast, Latvia has slashed that level from 44 percent of GDP in 2009 to probably 36 percent of GDP in 2012.

The IMF is right in praising Latvia’s achievement, but it should push for a lower level of public expenditures, instead of arguing for progressive income taxes.

http://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime/?p=3212

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 16:37 schreef Perrin het volgende:
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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 17:10 schreef SeLang het volgende:

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Het kan geen kwaad om eens te kijken naar de resultaten in landen die direct de pijn nemen en een interne devaluatie hebben uitgevoerd. Opvallend is dat de politici die deze extreme austerity hebben doorgevoerd gewoon zijn herkozen. Het volk is misschien toch minder achterlijk dan vaak wordt gedacht.

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Op donderdag 6 december 2012 17:10 schreef SeLang het volgende:

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Het kan geen kwaad om eens te kijken naar de resultaten in landen die direct de pijn nemen en een interne devaluatie hebben uitgevoerd. Opvallend is dat de politici die deze extreme austerity hebben doorgevoerd gewoon zijn herkozen. Het volk is misschien toch minder achterlijk dan vaak wordt gedacht.