Britain v Germany

[mcquiggd]

Milan is in FHM ?

Ewww... hope they airbrushed the pics.

[Joe Black]

"...quite right Joe, it isn't."

Blaster, I really think you should edit that before Milan sees it...

[Chico]

England 5 Germany 1

Nuff said

[mcquiggd]

They should start another war - they might lose, but at least theres full employment.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Take labour productivity. In the long run it is one of the key determinants of prosperity, yet output per hour worked in Britain is 20% or so below France's and Germany's.

So if its not increaded output or productivity what then has fuelled the Uks apparent economic success ?

In a nutshell, credit.

Credit expansion, more debt and a former boom in teh housing market.

Meanhwile workers have to work longer hours, even altough worker productivity is falling, due to a culture of presentism and job chronic insecurity, how can I pay my credit card bills amd mortagage if I lose my job ?

And when the credit crunch comes then what?

Hardly a role model economy in my book.

[Francko]

British offices are politics temples. Nothing gets done, only discussed.

Now, now, let's have a meeting to discuss this problem.

[WageSlave]

Milan is in FHM ?

Is he one of the High Street Honeys? Hopefully posing in the kitchen wearing just a.... I've said too much

[BobTheCrate]

As soon as Germany shrugs off much of its EU manacles then its business, better managers and workforce, will race ahead of Britain.

Britain's economy is mostly bubblegum which its Government does nothing but chew on.

B A A a n g ! ...
Says Brown, "what the **** was that ?"

Says UK business, "Dunno ... We couldn't hear anything from over here ... but it might have been your economy".

[DodgyAgent]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4375864.stm

To summarise:

Britain says Britain is booming and other EU countries need to be more like Britain, we are all wealthy, employed and productive.

Germany says Britain is unproductive, has a huge trade deficit and is basically a tulip hole.

Who's right?

They are both right.

[IR35 Avoider]

Not an economist, but...

As I understand it they are more productive because of greater investment in capital equipment and training. We (I presume) get things done by just throwing more people at the job (hence our lack of unemployment.) The reason for their greater investment is the distortions created by social legislation. So the reason for our lack of investment is that we are closer to doing the ideal thing that market forces would dictate....

So our lower productivity is a good sign, it shows we are running our economy more sensibly, i.e. closer to the way market forces would dictate if government minded its own business.

Presumably the money we didn't spend on equipment and training (and social security benefits for people thrown out of work by productivity improvements) was spent on some else we value more?