Are you buying this?
Submitted by Connecticut Man1 on June 3, 2009 - 19:34Like many other nations, we looking at a ballooning national debt and, like many of those other countries, we have many of the same issues with balancing international competitiveness against our generally higher wages. at a time where many of our largest government expenses, while exessive and sometimes wasteful, are justifiable for the longterm security of the nation. Via Bloomberg News:
As Spain sinks deeper into recession and the jobless rate heads for 20 percent, the highest in Europe, employers are telling workers to accept wage cuts if they want to stay competitive. That’s making it harder for households to tackle a debt load built up during the country’s economic boom and equivalent to 18,000 euros ($25,700) per person.
“There’s a Catch-22 problem for Spain,” said Dominic Bryant, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in London, referring to the 1961 novel by Joseph Heller that highlights a no-win situation faced by a World War II pilot trying to avoid duty. “The solution for the competitiveness problem makes their debt problem worse. By squeezing wages you weaken the domestic economy further.”
Annual growth of almost 4 percent over a decade turned Spain into an engine of Europe’s economy, boosting pay and prices as a building boom encouraged households to rack up 800 billion euros in debt. More than a year into a housing slump that helped spark the worst recession in six decades, the challenge is to trim labor costs and pay back loans without hobbling the country’s route to recovery.
Some people seem to want the economy to sink further. Instead of innovating our way out economic disaster - the green economy and increased scientific ventures to who knows where? - they want to drag America down further clawing back hard earned wages of the workers in order to satisfy the needs and luxurious lifestyles of the uber rich end of investing class, the very people that are the cause of this economic disaster.
