Why and Can Americans Work Less, Like the Germans

Dean Baker of the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reports that the United States could solve its unemployment problem if the government encouraged businesses to spread out their work to include more people. Some people would take a cut in hours so that others could step in and take up the slack. Baker points out that people in Germany and the Netherlands work 20 percent less than we Americans. However, there are some serious flaws in his logic.

One is that the US middle class is working more and earning less, which is the reverse of what is going on in Germany. Also, the German economy didn’t experience a housing or a tech bubble, so people aren’t underwater on their houses in Germany to the same degree as in the USA. Millions of people in the US need to keep working more and more just to stay afloat. They can’t afford to take a cut in hours.

There are a ton of other differences between the two nations, all in favor of the Germans. How about this?

Half of the seats of every board of directors in every German corporation are filled by labor union members. These people most likely aren’t all that interested in shipping their jobs to China and Vietnam and redistributing the difference between the higher paying jobs in Germany and the new lower wages in some third world country from the 99 percent of Germans to the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices and soaring dividends. That’s a primary reason why the Germans have higher wages and rising standards of living, which is the opposite of their American counterparts.

That’s why Dean’s logic to cut worker hours is utterly ridiculous. The German economy is managed so that the vast majority of Germans share in their rising prosperity, while US economic policy for 30 years has been to redistribute the income and wealth of the 99 percent to the 1 percent. Both governments have been extremely successful in their policy objectives.

Click on the link below, if you like, and read Baker’s article.

Why Americans Should Work Less the Way the Germans Do

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Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman: Obama ‘screwed up’ the ‘private sector is fine’ line

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticized President Barack Obama Monday morning for his much discussed “Private sector is doing fine” quote.

“That was an unfortunate line,” Krugman said. “The president bungled the line. The truth is, the private sector is doing better than the public sector, which is not well enough.”

The Nobel prized-winning economist explained how the president was technically correct in comparing the private sector numbers to its anemic public sector counterpart, but further added how Obama was clumsy with his words.

Click the link below for Krugman’s analysis of the coming election, as well as possible Eurozone collapse.

click here for the story and video of Krugman

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Obama: US has created jobs in private sector 21 months running – video

US president Barack Obama says his most pressing priority is to get the US economy growing faster, after the US Department of Labor announced unemployment in America had fallen to 8.6% in November, its lowest level since March 2009. He also urged Congress to extend its payroll tax cut past the 31 December deadline

Click here to see the video

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