Thursday, June 21, 2012

The New Greek Government is Hardly an Improvement over the Old One

The new government in Greece, which is a coalition of the New Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left parties seems to be just as boneheaded as previous governments,  What they should be doing is continuing to shrink the parisitic public sector while encouraging the private sector.  Of course, they have decided to do the complete opposite.  They say they want a change in terms in the bailout agreement in which there will be fewer public sector cuts than previously promised and also they want to scrap a reduction in the minimum wage.  Fewer public sector job cuts mean you are maintaining a higher level of government spending and therefore taxation (they could be funded by debt temporarily but even the Germans can't mathematically keep bailing out the other nations of Europe for much longer).  That higher taxation hurts the ability of the private sector to rebound, which prolongs the depression.  A cut in the minimum wage are also necessary.  Greece has 22.6% unemployment, wouldn't it be nice if Greek employers could afford to hire more workers?  Also, this cut isn't forcing anyone to work for less money, it just allows consenting adults to come to a contractual agreement at a wage level less than what is legally allowed to today.  Why shouldn't people be allowed to work at cut rates?  Isn't it better than having no job at all?  Also, note that Germany has no statutory minimum wage and they seem to be doing fine.

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