Unemployment and Bush.

[Franz Schubert]

Clinton handed Bush an economy that was already slowing

Slowing, yes. Spiralling downward into a flaming wreck of an economy and reaching record levels of federal deficit? We've got Bush to thank for that masterpiece.

[Doyle]

And the terrorist attacks. It's unreasonable to expect Bush policy to completely reverse the course of the economy in less than a year, but all he had was a matter of months until things went from bad to a whole lot worse. Thankfully, the recession already ended, and economic indicators are looking good from what I hear.

[Doyle]

keeping his campaign contributors (big businesses) happy with his ridiculous fiscal policies so that he can get himself reelected in 2004.

Uh huh. Didn't you see that study reported on Yahoo! not too long ago? The Republican party gets more $200 and under donations than Democrats and Democrats get more $1,000,000 and up donations than Republicans. The idea that Republicans cater only to the wealthy elite is a notion perpetuated by partisan politicians. The party of choice for wealthy elitists in this country is Democrat. Why else would so many rich Hollywood types be so outspokenly liberal?

[Jeff]

Around 8.9%, to my knowledge. http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Publ ... e=download

ah, I see, thanks for the link, I see the unemployment has gone down a lot in some countries in a few years.

Hey, wow, first post at DaC, freaky

well, welcome aboard, then

[Brother None]

^Only 4.1 percent? I thought the unemployment rate was absurdly high and the economy was going to hell? Or so the politicians said to justify the amazing budget cuts.

Only "4.1%" is not how I would put it, seeing as how we always kept it at a stady 3% during the past years. I mean, it was 2.7% in May.

If Americans think they got it bad with the way Bush handles national affairs, they should meet our proud minister-president Balkenende. What a moron that guy is, glad I didn't vote for him/his party.

[Rayt]

^Only 4.1 percent? I thought the unemployment rate was absurdly high and the economy was going to hell? Or so the politicians said to justify the amazing budget cuts.

Only "4.1%" is not how I would put it, seeing as how we always kept it at a stady 3% during the past years. I mean, it was 2.7% in May.

If Americans think they got it bad with the way Bush handles national affairs, they should meet our proud minister-president Balkenende. What a moron that guy is, glad I didn't vote for him/his party.

Eh, are you sure? I thought the unemployment rate was around 2.5 percent during the high times of 'Paars', when there were basicly more jobs than people. 2.7 percent seems a bit low considering the state of the economy of the last 2 years.

Balkenende only got into power because of his populistic rightwing promises. What a dick. No wait, I blame the morons who voted for him.

[Walks with the Snails]

Slowing, yes. Spiralling downward into a flaming wreck of an economy and reaching record levels of federal deficit? We've got Bush to thank for that masterpiece.

Well, more like we've got to get over 90's businesses overspending in capital investments, leading to businesses currently running somewhere around 74% or so of capacity, eliminating the incentive to buy yet more capital equipment / keep employees / etc. Or the fact that terrorism makes businesses nervous about doing anything remotely ambitious and just makes them want to squeeze as much out of existing employees as possible while they're too afraid to quit for fear they won't find another job, since everyone's doing it.

And though the economic benefits of the tax cuts are a bit questionable, it's not really the fact that anyone else is really that serious about fiscal responsiblity. Really I think it's mainly just a show for the rubes out there that actually think the President runs the economy. So when things naturally turn around by election day like they would have anyway people will pat him on the back. For the most part, more money just means more wasteful spending, anyway. To be honest, I'd rather starve the beast, because they really went on a pork spending spree in the surplus days, and that's a habit that needs to be broken. They didn't pay down the debt, or cut taxes, they just built statues of Senators and increased cotton subsidies.

[Brother None]

Eh, are you sure? I thought the unemployment rate was around 2.5 percent during the high times of 'Paars', when there were basicly more jobs than people. 2.7 percent seems a bit low considering the state of the economy of the last 2 years.

Balkenende only got into power because of his populistic rightwing promises. What a dick. No wait, I blame the morons who voted for him.

May 2002 was at 2.7% (not May 2003, that'd be crazy)

PS: Groningen isn't swingin, is it?

[Evil Natured Robot]

Whose fault the current state of the economy is shouldn't be an issue. It's really neither Clinton or Bush's fault, because while the President usually receives partial credit for a good or bad economy, it has a lot more to do with individual and corporate spending. The White House never tells the Federal Reserve what to do; they let the economists handle it.

Bush's fiscal policy has been terrible and it will end up disastrous. The Democrats are stupidly ignoring this fact when it comes to criticizing the President, probably because they've got no better ideas themselves. While national debt itself doesn't define an economy one way or another, it does effect the government's ability to provide for the people, and therefore consumer confidence and other such important market intangibles.

they just built statues of Senators and increased cotton subsidies.

Show me inefficiency, and I'll show you farm subsidies (Bush has increased these since he came to office, btw). It's cheaper to grow a huge amount of crops - cotton, soybeans, wheat - in other countries who could use both the food and the income. Farming in the US has seen better days, and it's due for a big scale-back soon. Subsidizing agriculture in the US, Canada, and Europe just wastes money and chokes out markets in the developing world, where land is cheaper and better-suited to those products. Not to mention most of it goes to big agribusiness barons, which aren't the kindly old hayseeds in overalls that politicians want you to think of.

[Kashluk]

As far as I know, US is one of the best places to grow food (especially wheat). Tells pretty much, that in Finland the average farm is about 30 hectares large and in US it's nearly 10 000 hectares. If the wage levels don't rise too high, I see no problem to farm in the prairie in the future as well. Alas, the major reason for high unemployment in EU is the too high standard of living. People demand more pay and Euro keeps getting stronger - employers can't keep up with it and end up kicking people out.

There are millions of people suffering from (lesser & severe) starvation at the very moment, if all food production was given to the developing world the inefficient working habits, low "know-how" and badly fertilized soil would end up in a disaster. See all those hippies smoking pot and praising how good biological farming is? Well they don't know shit - they think the earth just *magically* pops out new nutrients every season. I've seen such fields, those of "biologically farmed". They grow nothing else than useless weeds. That's how mass farming in developing world would end up.

There's a price to pay for every single loaf of bread we eat, in modern western civilization it means subsidizing. But it is true, that without a reasonable surveillance system to watch over the usage of funds, it can turn into a black hole that just swallows more and more money each year. Then again too much bureaucracy (like in EU... God I hate that stuff) can cause even MORE expenses than a system without overseeing.

[Evil Natured Robot]

Alright, even though we've been wastelanded (for what reason?), I'll still have a go at this. I think you've missed some points and gotten other ones wrong. Oh, and what you think about "hippies smoking pot" has nothing to do with it.

The price of a loaf of bread should be what you pay for it in the store, with few exceptions. When an industry that's considered valuable is struggling, then sure, a government may have due cause in protecting it. The point is that because land and just about everything else is cheaper in the developing world, it costs less to farm there. Subsidies in the West have demonstrably hurt farming industries in third-world countries, and you can look it up if you'd like.

Sure, you can farm better in the US than you can in Finland, but I think anyone could have told you that. Tundra does not make for good soil. In Africa, for example, where there's lots of open land and the soil's got a lot more nutrients, farms are suffering not because they grow "useless weeds" but because they're squeezed out of the international markets by farms in the US that are supported by huge subsidies.

If you want to help the developing world, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.
If you don't give a shit about the developing world and just want cheaper produce, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.

[Doyle]

Uhh... the GD forum is missing. Maybe that's part of it?

[Franz Schubert]

If you want to help the developing world, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.
If you don't give a shit about the developing world and just want cheaper produce, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.

I say we lay down some price floors and then there would not be any need for subsidies... the farmers would still produce as much as possible because any surpluses could be bought by the government and sold to developing nations... that way they could use whatever potential farmland they have for housing or whatnot, and still get some wheat without growing it themselves.

[Kashluk]

The price of a loaf of bread should be what you pay for it in the store, with few exceptions. When an industry that's considered valuable is struggling, then sure, a government may have due cause in protecting it. The point is that because land and just about everything else is cheaper in the developing world, it costs less to farm there. Subsidies in the West have demonstrably hurt farming industries in third-world countries, and you can look it up if you'd like.

Ever wondered why people in Africa or Asia are starving? Yup, the soil isn't that full of nutrients. Before efficient food production can be established, the infrastructure must be built. Like I wrote earlier, you can't just drop the subsidies now and let the people in the third world countries worry about our bellies getting filled. To make farming efficient in dry and harsh lands like Africa, for example, we must bring education, machinery and tons of fertilizers and seeds there. That's a project that won't be over in two, ten or twenty years - we must rid those countries from the word "developing". And how about if everyone in the world does get the same standard of living as the West? I couldn't imagine that, this planet couldn't possibly take such a preasure.

Sure, you can farm better in the US than you can in Finland, but I think anyone could have told you that. Tundra does not make for good soil. In Africa, for example, where there's lots of open land and the soil's got a lot more nutrients, farms are suffering not because they grow "useless weeds" but because they're squeezed out of the international markets by farms in the US that are supported by huge subsidies.

For the useless weeds-part... I took the biological farming as an example: it's a fine piece of inefficient working. The soil gets poorer and the crops are small (like in China, when Mao came to power and they didn't fertilize the land but still mass produced - it became a chaos, hundreads of thousands of people died). That's how it would work in the developing world, if we don't bring those countries near to our level (in economical way).

How do you think that American subsidies keep a Nigerian farmer from growing food for his own village? He isn't concerned of the world market, he'd be happy to eat for a change.

And subsidies don't work the way you think... I have to ask - are you a bare-footed city boy? There are limitations for the production in Western countries. If you produce more than you're allowed, you can't get the good price (you know... with the subsidies) for your product, you have to sell it for less than average international market price.

And again, Africa isn't full of nutrients. It's the cradle of mankind, don't you think it's pretty much well-ridden of any strength by now? It has been poorly taken care of and even most of the forests have been cut down - hey, Sahara still keeps growing on.

If you want to help the developing world, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.
If you don't give a shit about the developing world and just want cheaper produce, the answer is to get rid of subsidies.

Now that was totally unnecessary, and not to mention untrue.

[Megatron]

the answer is to leave them to starve, humans weren't built to live there. Move them to the sea FFS!

[Sol Invictus]

It's all about the survival of the fittest. If they're too stupid to go to war over petty things like religion and tribalism instead of working together to build a better society, preferrably one with a lot of food - they deserve to starve to death.

Pity about the kids, though - they'll just grow up to become morons to perpetuate the cycle of idiocy until all of them go extinct and/or evolve into mutants.

[Rayt]

May 2002 was at 2.7% (not May 2003, that'd be crazy)

Ah right, I misread.

PS: Groningen isn't swingin, is it?

Yes, it is. Ever been here at night?

[Kashluk]

But the current situation in Africa is a result from many things in the past... It was ravaged by Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and various slave-keeping kingdoms in the ancient times and shattered to pieces & drained from it's resources during the Imperialistic time. Now when it's pretty much a rotten desert, they've been able to gain independence and things they're culture hasn't understood till the 60's. They've been given 40 years time to adapt the same stuff that took us well bit over 1000 years.

Yes, yes, it's a coarse figure, but that's basically it.

[Megatron]

What about the current situation in your home-town? Shouldn't stuff like unemployment, the homeless, education etc. be sorted out first before pleasing some voters who think the situation is really bad in africa If you don't like it, just get out? It's not like most of europe is covered with towns, perhaps if they all migrated to france they'd stand a better chance.

[Kashluk]

Uh, what are you talking about? Maybe you should read The Evil Robot's posts as well...