Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crisis was largely artificially engineered because Germans believed that Southern Europeans were "lazy" and needed to be made an example of. The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided.
surely buying bonds will save you when you are running 8% yearly deficits to buy votes with welfare payments
Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
11–20 of 70 posts
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#12in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...
Doesn’t feel objective.
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#13> Where redistribution runs vertically and broadly, the welfare state absorbs global finance shocks... If this was true, then the Eurozone crisis would not have been as severe as it was in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and France - all countries with broad and large social assistance programs. --- Also, the HN title is editorialized, the correct title is "Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial…
The crisis was largely artificially engineered because Germans believed that Southern Europeans were "lazy" and needed to be made an example of. The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided.
Is that sustainable? Argentina's predicament is basically caused by a variant of this. The Peronists gave handouts to buy votes, funded by money printing (ie. "The ECB could have brought government bond yields down"), but that has consequences and turned Argentina into an economic basket case. Of course, you might argue the EU doesn't have this problem because it's stronger economically and other states can prop them up, but that begs the question, why should member countries like Germany fund Southern Europeans's fiscal profligacy?
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#14Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#15Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#16in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...
Given that you cannot force someone to hire anyone at a given wage what is the solution? At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum, but often this results in no job at all.
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#17in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...
Is that why wages in the US are double those in europe or more
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crisis was largely artificially engineered because Germans believed that Southern Europeans were "lazy" and needed to be made an example of. The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided.
>The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided. Is that sustainable? Argentina's predicament is basically caused by a variant of this. The Peronists gave handouts to buy votes, funded by money printing (ie. "The ECB could have brought government bond yields down"), but that has consequences and turned Argentina into an economic basket case.…
Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#19Re: Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness
#20in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...
Given that you cannot force someone to hire anyone at a given wage what is the solution? At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum, but often this results in no job at all.
That's pretty reasonable. Nobody should be working 40 hours a week at a job and not make enough to support themselves. Any company who can't afford to pay their employees at least that much is a failure who deserves to be out of business.