Off Topic Political Debate

25 Germany

 

These are the rankings from that wonderful body the World Health Organisation that reacted so "swiftly and promptly" to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. I'm afraid I do not trust their criteria or ranking one little bit. One wonders how many of these so-called superior health services would react if you had no money or insurance to pay for their services.

At least the first question that the NHS asks is not "can you afford the diagnosis and the treatment"?

 

In the run up to an election I always end up thinking no-one seems to know the difference between efficiency and necessary cost and everyone thinks I'm going to agree with what they say when their sources are - other politicians, anecdotes, stereotypes, the media or statistic gathered from imprecise questions or small samples. Mrs H put it down to "stroppy old gitdom".

 

Our service pays a lot for drugs because we cannot buy in big quantities.

After your election we will be welcoming asylum seekers, only if you do not try and give us the system you are escaping, no EU,

 

Hollande, the Greeks and our very own Ed Balls have much in common, financial incompetence. Surely the right in France can come up with a better candidate than Sarko who's excesses and bendy backbone ruined his reputation last time.

 

I think you need to be more specific here - namely in exactly what parallels you see between the Greek government and the fiscal policies of eg. the Labour Party. One of the biggest problems which Greece has had, has been that of tax evasion - coupled with the fact that the most successfull area of the Greek economy ie. Shipping and the port of Piraeus, has been exempted from taxation for so long. There are many rich Greeks, many millionaires who have never been brought to account here. Maybe Greece needs more Socialism rather than less.

 

i think most of us would have a guess . the words financial incompetence is a bit of a give away .Socialism is great as long as it can be paid for .Look at Russia

 

The parallels in my examples are all entities that did not or do not possess the financial nous to be trusted with other peoples money. There is no alternative to austerity which you would do well to listen to your leader, Mrs Merkel.

Whether it is Gordon Brown selling our gold at the lowest price, Ed Balls running up huge debts, Hollande in financial cuckoo land or the Greeks fiddling.
The current bunch of lefty university clowns running Greece with hasten their country's downfall, they cannot remain in the Euro zone. Their only weapon now is to use the threat of creeping up to Putin who will no doubt extract a high price from them. Aggressive socialism on the march again.

 

The Euro is a good idea but will never work. The economies of north and south europe are too different in the method of function. Unhappily for the euro system they did not do a proper study before they let all the nations in and now one of the worst performers is in trouble. If the people who manage the system were so clever how was Greece allowed to go so far? The government there is also playing with fire in being friendly with the Russ who will only give when it means they gain in the end or just take. Does Greece have a population of Russ that needs defending.

If the Russ can take a piece of ÚkraÍna I worry they will extinguish Estland, Lettland and Litháen then look to Finnland. Finnland was part of Russland from 1809 when the land was taken from Sweden to 1917 whe it escped because of the revolution. Similar to Kína claims on Tibet, it was once so it will be now. Even if before and after both have been independent regions.

 

Firstly Mrs Merkel is not my leader - I live in Germany but am as British as you are. Secondly, the Germans would do well to consider what would have happened to them in the past had the Americans used an austerity model after World War 2. Instead they had the vision to bring in a marshall plan, paying all of Germany's War debts in the process - which is what Greece needs now. The Americans had the vision then to know that without infrastructure you can have no recovery - pure Keynesian economics (which you presumably call socialist). Unfortunately you are making the cardinal sin of using the word 'socialist`to describe everything which you do not particularly like. It was not the present `Socialist' government which got Greece into this mess but rather the one which the Greeks have subsequently turned to.

 

Strange how socialism appears to have become a dirty word for many people. A reflection of our times perhaps. I was brought up in a community where greed and privilege were the dirty words. On the whole I think it's individuals rather than ideologies that are responsible for most of our modern ills.

 

I agree it is impossible for the Greeks to pay back their debts, the northern european countries blindly gave them access to cheap loans to forward the ill thought out 'euro project'.

Your chancellor is desperate to keep the Greeks within the euro family but the reality is that the present loony left greek government is incapable of persuading any potential lenders to forward funds. Their only saviour will be Putin, a cost they and the rest of Europe will live to regret. They need to revert back to their own currency, drop their unit labour costs and stop the fiddling.

My experience with socialist governments goes back to the disappointments of the Wilson / Brown days. Unfortunately they all start with much hope but ultimately end in failure and debt, they are excellent at spending borrowed money.

In my teens my father called me a raving communist, fortunately I grew out of it with life's experiences.

 

I don't know what is happening to my posts here - they keep disappearing. What you are forgetting Superhorn is that the present Greek government is not responsible for the country's present problems. But rather its predecessor which was anything but Socialist. Also the root cause of this country's problems lay in the financial crisis which was in turn caused by the naive belief in deregulation of all financial markets - you cannot lay their problems at the door of socialism. You are also forgetting that Europe's unprecedented growth of the 50s and 60s was a product of a firm belief in Keynesian economics (which you would presumably call Socialist) ie. based on spending, strengthening of infrastructure and spending power from below, the idea of an affluent population (base of the pyramid) being the motor of growth. All now regrettably outdated concepts. All parties of the 50s and 60s were left of those of today yet presided over a period of unparalleled growth - how can you explain that ?

 

im lead to believe that if you are out of the uk for more than 183 days in the last 12 month then you have to pay for your treatment

 

I agree the present Greek government is not responsible for the country's financial problems but the answer is not to abuse it's lenders and offer minimal restructuring. The root cause of it's problems was reckless borrowing (and lending by the Germans!), corruption, and paying themselves too much. The average Greek's unit cost was higher than the average German's which was, and remains unsustainable. There is no prospect of any new money whatsoever unless they propose real reform by reducing their costs and selling assets.

The general financial crisis was due to sub prime mortgages and toxic bank products that very few understood. I agree it was a low point in the history of capitalism but no other system works.

The Wilson government was a disaster, the Blair/ Brown government ended in a financial mess, they seem to be incapable of fiscal responsibility.

 

Superhorns - you seem to be able to summon up the word 'Socialism' to describe anything which you do not like - or anything which smacks of 'interventionalism`. It would be as ludicrous if I were to bandy words like Nazi towards everything which I do not like. If you define 'Socialism`it refers to a society in which all means of production and exchange are collectively owned - either by the state (in the name of the people) or directly, as would be the case if we only had workers cooperatives. It can describe Marxist Proletarian dictatorship, or the Anarchic Communism once found in Catalonia (Inspired by the ideas of Kropotkin). It can also describe either the Kibbutz system, or even the Jesuit republic of Paraguay (early 19th Century) - it can even describe the Christian Communism of the Diggers. What it cannot describe is the Labour Party of Harold Wilson ! There has only been one wave of nationalization in Britain - just after the war, and fully in line with parallel developments elsewhere eg. Germany, where post war construction was largely coordinated by the state (and worked). Britain has never had a Socialist government.

Unfortunately the post war consensus - which was that a mixed economy worked best, and that growth could only be on the back of an affluent, spending, society, has gone. The State has sold off its assets (almost everywhere) and corporations are now wealthier than the state. Greece has no more assets to sell. The wealthiest part of the Greek economy ie. shipping, has always been exempt from taxation - Greece needs help in recovering money from tax evasion over the last 30 years or so. The south of Europe also needs a different 'Germany`- because make no mistake here, Germany is Europe's biggest problem ! The reason is that Germany has neglected its spending power for too long. The country could be acting as the biggest market in Europe, but, instead, exports 30% more than it imports - and therefore profits immensely from a weak Euro. This so called 'successfull' nation has 25% of its workforce working for less than the French minimum wage - Germany's spending power has stagnated to the point that it can no longer offer a market for Southern European products.

 

Your nearest example of socialism was East Germany whose inhabitants risked their lives to escape it's corrupt regime. Look how joining the capitalist world has broadened their options. They now have freedom of speech and opportunities galore.

Do you not wonder why France has record unemployment at 10% whilst Germany's is less than half this? You can demand a high minimum wage but if that makes your labour uncompetitive it will obviously result in less employment.

I cannot think of any socialist state that operates successfully, most become one party states to keep any aspirational thoughts under strict control.

Every country is seeking to export more than it imports, it pays the bills and avoids spending vast sums on interest charges as in the UK.

 

East Germany is now full of unemployed right wing skinheads - which it wasn't before. I actually visited the former G.D.R. just after the reunion - I did not see any soup kitchens there, no evidence of people living in cardboard boxes, no drug addiction - all of which you see in plenty in New York. So why do people only ever talk about socialist mismanagement ?