And...after some days of absense...
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
I never really viewed it that way before. The reason is because the study of economics implies people will make the rational choice when faced with a scarcity issue to maximize their own utility, so I wasn't aware that I need to understand how people work.
Since when do people make rational decissions? Especially when talking about economics. If that was the case, advertizing would be utterly useless and people actually wouldn't try to get their money out of banks suffering under the financial crisis, dealing the death blow to that banks themselves. Obviously, people are anything but - usually - not "rational".
Also, how does understanding philosophy make me understand how people work? I can read the news or go outside and understand how people operate. Not to mention, there are very few people who study philosophy, who know much of anything else. You seem to be the exception to the rule.
Easy answer. The way people think is coined by their enviroment, which is in turn, mainly coined by certain moral values. And those moral values are coined by a certain set of rules, based on either philosophy, religion or ideology. In any case, philosophy - if studied correctly - helps you to understand the foundation of thoughts that people can (and will) develop. And American people can differ in that quite a lot from Europeans or Asians (or Christians from Muslims...and so on).
That aside: During my last three years in school, I "enjoyed" 3 hours of business administration, 2 hours of economics, 2 hours of management accounting and 2 hours of commercial law per week. So, urm...not that much of a surprise that I'm not totally clueless when it comes down to economic issues.
This is debatable Nai. People buy Chinese products because they are cheap. With world consumer spending going lower and lower daily, it's going to affect Germany more than China because Germany pays its employees a lot more and will therefore lose out on the economic contraption that's currently occurring.
And why do people by cheap products? Right. Because they can't afford expensive products. What happens in the crisis now? The people that could afford expensive products before the crisis, will most likely still be able to do so - why the people that were "forced" to buy the cheap stuff might not have enough money any longer to afford that stuff any longer. And because of that, I think that China will be suffering far worse than Germany.
That aside: Yes. Employees in Germany are paid much more than in China. Result? Our domestic demand actually remained the same when the crisis started. As far as I know, there was nearly no change in the domestic demand until now, while exports were just three percent lower than before the start of the crisis.
In fact, most of the problems we're facing now are either based on management mistakes outside Germany (see GM handling Opel) or mistakes that were made long time before the crisis, that lead to the demise of certain companies now (Escarda, Arcandor)
You're not talking about alternative energy are you? And how does this help their economy exactly when they're producing but consumers aren't buying and the unemployment rate isn't dropping?
Here, you have to look at actual politics. Obama wants to reduce CO2 emissions in the USA, and the same was enacted by all the member states of the EU. What do you need to archive this call? Either technology to use alternative energies, or technology to reduce the emissions while using fossil energy sources. And...who produces that stuff? Right...Germany. So the investments in that field will be made - and they will be huge.
Wel, Germany is going to be hit from a different angle. The fact that there aren't lax credit requirements in Germany or that consumers rarely spend what they don't have, is great in terms of building up a surplus or reducing a deficit. The problem is, and with China also, is that the economies of the world are in a depression and therefore are contracting. Germany is going to really hurt itself because now they're producing TOO much. They'll have thousands of warehouses with products, just like China.
Nope. We're working with a far higher efficiency over here. We're known for that. The few companies who did produce to much did set their workers on a time-work shedule. So the workers get less money. The nice thing is that the state compensates a lot of the money that those people earn less now - for at least 18 months. Thus the people can keep their jobs, while the companies aren't "forced" to produce too much.
And as I said: The domestic demand over here almost staid the same, while the exports just dropped by three percent. I'm rather sure that's not enough to fill too many warehouses with stuff that is now produced and not sold any more.
This sounds surprisingly efficient. At the same time, you don't have huge deficits which would make this plan unsustainable, like in America.
Well. As I already said. Over here, the systems is actually generating profits. In fact, we had a discussion over here, who should pay for possible vaccinations against the swine flu. The health care insurance companies figured out, that it would be no problem paying half a billion Euro for that, without raising the contributions. Thus it strikes me as some kind of profitable business. 😛
Originally posted by Lord Lucienalizee jacotey.
Is that Ellen Page's face photoshopped to Shakira's hips?
face and voice of an angel, perfect ass, perky boobs.... god shes amazing. singing and dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfSYeXPQaQI