Europe

[Colonel Sun]

[Endovelico]

[I am ST]

[Alexis]

[I am ST]

[Caskhades]

[Endovelico]

[Colonel Sun]

[Alexis]

[Alexis]

[Colonel Sun]

Perceptive.

Iceland, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal would well serve their citizens by informing their respective creditors that they either agree to a haircut or get nothing.

There would probably be more short term pain, but they would avoid the long term yoke.

[Endovelico]

In Baden-Württenberg the SPD and the Greens have, for the first time, won the state elections and will form the next government.

In Rheinland-Pfalz, victory went also to the SPD and the Greens, and the FDP will not even be represented.

If Angela Merkel thought she could avoid a string of defeats by being unreasonably tough towards her European partners, she was just fooling herself. Sooner or later the Liberals (FDP) will withdraw from the federal coalition and force new elections which will bring back a left government, more sympathetic to Europe.

[I am ST]

Alexis,

For crying out loud, Capt'n Smurphy is the only one suggesting a univariate explanation for anything. I was just shocked at the unspeakably low educational attainment numbers for Portugal, and tried to provide more information on it for all interested. Then you asked me if there is a correlation between the numbers I posted and GDP. There was one. I made no claim about what that correlation implied causally. Obviously there is more to GDP than just education. There's path dependency, there's workforce participation, there's health, there's availability of capital, ease of doing business, rule of law, whether the country is positioned to capture economic niches, geostrategic position (Singapore would not be so profitable if it were located in Svalbard), mineral and energy resources, etc. Come on. But I'd be surprised if education didn't play a major role. After all, it would have a lot to do with bureaucratic efficiency, size and type of employment of labor force, and even remittance flows. Human Capital is important.

You can find GDP data everywhere. UN, World Bank or even Wikipedia. You have fingers.
The is at their website. There's also a , and an OECD one I can't be bothered to look up.

[Pantagruel]

[Endovelico]

It would be silly to say that more education doesn't matter, but not all education matters. After a certain age, if it's not taken voluntarily, it will lead nowhere, no matter how good it will look on statistics. Sports, typing or home economics may lead to a high-school diploma, but not to any relevant productive skills. On the other hand, pushing youngsters to levels of achievement which are beyond their capacity and will, may lead to anxiety and suicide, as is seen in some societies such as Japan.

Having said this, the low level of schooling in Portugal is totally unacceptable, because it can only mean that far too many youngsters do not get the opportunity to get further educated, and that far too many of those youngsters come from families where education is not seen as important. It's a mixture of government incompetence and general underdevelopment. The fact that this is the result of decades (centuries?) of neglect, can be an acceptable excuse but may not lead to complacency. It may not be at the source of our present economic problems, but it certainly hasn't helped to avoid them.

[Captain Murphy]

[Endovelico]

[Alph]

[Alph]

[Tinker]

[CgDs]

[Pantagruel]

[YMix]

[Alph]

[Caskhades]

How wonderful.

Teenagers and adults will self-educate, only taking them useful classes, like a 3 week course in Quantum Mechanics.

Americans will also go to the gym and manage their diet, as it is in their self-interest to do so.

Then Jesus will come to Earth.


I keep trying to empahsize here that the shortage is not in online material and evening classes, but rather in willpower. A vast majority of the people can't get themselves to the gym 3 times a week for a month, nevermind initiate and complete self-directed intensive study sessions.