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Deep welfare losses, along with effects on labor supply, health care spending, and asset accumulation indicate that this large population segment has not enjoye

Deep welfare losses, along with effects on labor supply, health care spending, and asset accumulation indicate that this large population segment has not enjoyed the fruits of broad economic health. It feels we need to do a better job quantifying this problem before we come up with a solution. For example (1) how much money would it take to fix health care? (2) how much money would it take to fix welfare? (3) what is the impact of low savings rate on people's economic condition. For example appearance of credit cards coincides with the timeline in this article (4) How has immigration impacted unskilled workers? (5) Does UBI work? (6) How is Europe doing it? (7) Is Europe really as successful at dealing with these issues as everyone seems to claim?

leetcrew 8y ago
regarding (7), I am very interested in reading a nonpartisan take on the relationship between US defense spending and welfare spending in western europe. if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? if so, would it still spend the same on social services? do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west?
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  > if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? Europe is a lot of countries, the US-Europe alliance is old enough that there have been at least three or four distinct time periods where the answer to this question fluctuates (cold war, post cold war, post-9/11, post Syria) Furthermore, defense is not some sort of measurable good; especially for countries in the EU who are surrounded by non-enemies, how much they choose to spend on defense is in large part a political question. It's really hard to say e.g., whether Germans would have chosen to spend more on defense if the US decreased its defense spending in Europe. And the answer would probably be different in the different time periods I mentioned above. E.g., given the German attitude toward US military presence in Europe over the past 20 years [1], I suspect the answer for that period is "no". But ultimately the answer to this question will be different from country to country and from decade to decade, and a truly nonpartisan answer would be "there's really no way to give a definitive answer for all of Europe across that time period.". > do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west? Americans underestimate (or often simply don't even know about) their contribution to many of Europe's most pressing security and welfare expenditures. The 15 year war in the middle east is now taking an enormous economic and political toll on Europe. It's not too far-fetched to say that Europe might have been both safer and richer today had the US spent substantially less money on its military over the past 15 years (read: not waged wars in the middle east). [1] https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want-us-army-to-leave-the-country https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want...
- orwin 8y ago
  I think until France 4+ subs with atomics missils onboard are found and destroyed, EU is pretty safe from conquering even without the US.
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    Nukes only protect from catastrophe (if others think that your government is sane) because they're essentially a "fuck you, we all lose" button. If you reply to something with nukes, you get nuked too. What this means in practice is that something like "Russia assassinated the leaders of France + Germany and conquered Poland in the ensuing chaos" isn't enough of a justification for France to use nukes. That's because the payoff matrix looks something like this: peace * conventional war * nuclear war France 10 * 5 * -10,000,000 Russia 5 * 10 * -10,000,000 Sane governments don't choose to move their payoff from 5 to -10,000,000. Now, there are exceptions here! One is insane government leaders. It takes a special kind of person to light the world on fire because someone took their toy, but... no one takes that guy's toy. And so since they can credibly rule out column #2 above, they never leave column #1. The other exception then is when a sane government credibly precommits to the use of nuclear weapons in some situation. But it's rather hard for a liberal democracy to do this, and if France said that they'd kill Russia with nukes (and thus indirectly themselves, Poland, and everyone else) in response to Poland being invaded - well, I don't think I'd believe in their ability to follow through.

leetcrew 8y ago

regarding (7), I am very interested in reading a nonpartisan take on the relationship between US defense spending and welfare spending in western europe. if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? if so, would it still spend the same on social services? do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west?

throwawayjava 8y ago
> if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? Europe is a lot of countries, the US-Europe alliance is old enough that there have been at least three or four distinct time periods where the answer to this question fluctuates (cold war, post cold war, post-9/11, post Syria) Furthermore, defense is not some sort of measurable good; especially for countries in the EU who are surrounded by non-enemies, how much they choose to spend on defense is in large part a political question. It's really hard to say e.g., whether Germans would have chosen to spend more on defense if the US decreased its defense spending in Europe. And the answer would probably be different in the different time periods I mentioned above. E.g., given the German attitude toward US military presence in Europe over the past 20 years [1], I suspect the answer for that period is "no". But ultimately the answer to this question will be different from country to country and from decade to decade, and a truly nonpartisan answer would be "there's really no way to give a definitive answer for all of Europe across that time period.". > do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west? Americans underestimate (or often simply don't even know about) their contribution to many of Europe's most pressing security and welfare expenditures. The 15 year war in the middle east is now taking an enormous economic and political toll on Europe. It's not too far-fetched to say that Europe might have been both safer and richer today had the US spent substantially less money on its military over the past 15 years (read: not waged wars in the middle east). [1] https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want-us-army-to-leave-the-country https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want...
orwin 8y ago
I think until France 4+ subs with atomics missils onboard are found and destroyed, EU is pretty safe from conquering even without the US.
- DuskStar 8y ago
  Nukes only protect from catastrophe (if others think that your government is sane) because they're essentially a "fuck you, we all lose" button. If you reply to something with nukes, you get nuked too. What this means in practice is that something like "Russia assassinated the leaders of France + Germany and conquered Poland in the ensuing chaos" isn't enough of a justification for France to use nukes. That's because the payoff matrix looks something like this: peace * conventional war * nuclear war France 10 * 5 * -10,000,000 Russia 5 * 10 * -10,000,000 Sane governments don't choose to move their payoff from 5 to -10,000,000. Now, there are exceptions here! One is insane government leaders. It takes a special kind of person to light the world on fire because someone took their toy, but... no one takes that guy's toy. And so since they can credibly rule out column #2 above, they never leave column #1. The other exception then is when a sane government credibly precommits to the use of nuclear weapons in some situation. But it's rather hard for a liberal democracy to do this, and if France said that they'd kill Russia with nukes (and thus indirectly themselves, Poland, and everyone else) in response to Poland being invaded - well, I don't think I'd believe in their ability to follow through.