American Dog Eat Dog Society Not Wanted In Europe

American Capitalism is not wanted in Europe. Europeans want quality of life. They want to enjoy their family life. They like their six week vacations a year. They don't want a society based on 2-4 partime jobs with no benefits. They want their Christmas bonus, their national Health Care. Europeans must have their social safety net. They don't want an American hire and fire economy. Europeans have set in law benefits extinct in the USA since the days of big steel and eight mile a gallon gas guzzling American cars. Things like termination pay. Unions that represent their workers, and work with contracts, and termination notices. In Europe if a worker loses his job the company must pay off his contract, and before that he must be notified. Europeans since the end of WW2 enjoyed secure jobs and benefits. At least they did. The Labor Department reported that 22% of all unemployed workers have been out of work for more than six months, the highest ratio of long-term unemployed workers since 1992. The Wall Street Journal reported on this and cited an example of one woman, Darlette McAlpin, 47 years old, who lost a $70,000- a- year job with a Chicago-area microphone manufacturer last January. She was finally forced to take an $8.50 an hour job with Best Buy during their holiday sales period, which ended Jan. 4. What Is Really Happening The European nations have relied on contractionary fiscal and monetary policy to bring down their inflation rates from the peaks reached in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the negligible rates of the last several years. These contractionary policies have both a direct effect on national output and employment and an indirect effect—through several channels—on foreign countries' output and employment. The first, and most direct, channel is through international product markets. The high degree of integration of Western European economies means that contractionary policies in one nation directly reduce demand for exports elsewhere in Europe. This effect will be especially important when the economies that pursue contractionary policies are the larger economies, such as France and Germany, which absorb a large share of European exports. In the integrated economies of western Europe, if one nation manages to sustain a rate of growth that is significantly higher than that of the rest of the continent, the fast-growing economy will inevitably run large trade deficit, as the growth of national imports exceeds the growth of national exports. Since no country can sustain a growing trade deficit indefinitely, the fast-growing country will either be forced to devalue its currency or to adopt more contractionary economic policies. The political and economic drive for a single currency, which has required relative stability in exchange rates across Europe, has generally ruled out devaluation as an option, with the result that contraction has been the route generally chosen. (In the United States, hourly compensation costs for production workers in manufacturing increased 4.1 percent in 2003, to $21.97. Average costs in the United States were higher than those in all the economies covered outside Europe, but 10 of the European countries had higher hourly compensation costs than did the United States, in a few cases more than 40 percent higher. Trade-weighted average costs increased 3.6 percent in the combined 30 foreign economies in 2003, when measured in national currency terms. This was less than the increase in the United States, but the value of foreign currencies rose 8.1 percent against the U.S. dollar, resulting in a rise in hourly compensation costs in the foreign economies of 11.9 percent on a U.S. dollar basis.) US DEPARTMENT OF LABOR:04-2343 For Release:10:00 A.M.EST Thursday, November 18, 2004 Stumble It!

American Dog Eat Dog Society Not Wanted In Europe

American Capitalism is not wanted in Europe. Europeans want quality of life. They want to enjoy their family life. They like their six week vacations a year. They don't want a society based on 2-4 partime jobs with no benefits. They want their Christmas bonus, their national Health Care. Europeans must have their social safety net. They don't want an American hire and fire economy. Europeans have set in law benefits extinct in the USA since the days of big steel and eight mile a gallon gas guzzling American cars. Things like termination pay. Unions that represent their workers, and work with contracts, and termination notices. In Europe if a worker loses his job the company must pay off his contract, and before that he must be notified. Europeans since the end of WW2 enjoyed secure jobs and benefits. At least they did. The Labor Department reported that 22% of all unemployed workers have been out of work for more than six months, the highest ratio of long-term unemployed workers since 1992. The Wall Street Journal reported on this and cited an example of one woman, Darlette McAlpin, 47 years old, who lost a $70,000- a- year job with a Chicago-area microphone manufacturer last January. She was finally forced to take an $8.50 an hour job with Best Buy during their holiday sales period, which ended Jan. 4. What Is Really Happening The European nations have relied on contractionary fiscal and monetary policy to bring down their inflation rates from the peaks reached in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the negligible rates of the last several years. These contractionary policies have both a direct effect on national output and employment and an indirect effect—through several channels—on foreign countries' output and employment. The first, and most direct, channel is through international product markets. The high degree of integration of Western European economies means that contractionary policies in one nation directly reduce demand for exports elsewhere in Europe. This effect will be especially important when the economies that pursue contractionary policies are the larger economies, such as France and Germany, which absorb a large share of European exports. In the integrated economies of western Europe, if one nation manages to sustain a rate of growth that is significantly higher than that of the rest of the continent, the fast-growing economy will inevitably run large trade deficit, as the growth of national imports exceeds the growth of national exports. Since no country can sustain a growing trade deficit indefinitely, the fast-growing country will either be forced to devalue its currency or to adopt more contractionary economic policies. The political and economic drive for a single currency, which has required relative stability in exchange rates across Europe, has generally ruled out devaluation as an option, with the result that contraction has been the route generally chosen. (In the United States, hourly compensation costs for production workers in manufacturing increased 4.1 percent in 2003, to $21.97. Average costs in the United States were higher than those in all the economies covered outside Europe, but 10 of the European countries had higher hourly compensation costs than did the United States, in a few cases more than 40 percent higher. Trade-weighted average costs increased 3.6 percent in the combined 30 foreign economies in 2003, when measured in national currency terms. This was less than the increase in the United States, but the value of foreign currencies rose 8.1 percent against the U.S. dollar, resulting in a rise in hourly compensation costs in the foreign economies of 11.9 percent on a U.S. dollar basis.) US DEPARTMENT OF LABOR:04-2343 For Release:10:00 A.M.EST Thursday, November 18, 2004