I really have no time to do this, but I saw this article this morning and it pissed me off to no end.

Anyone game to draft a LTE?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

One EU official commented that the closing press conference of the monthly Ecofin council of finance ministers sounded "like a trade union meeting"

Quelle horreur! (Emphasis mine)

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Even if I have time to start a letter I can't believe how astonishingly stupid the whole premise of the article is.

Dear Ministers of Idiocy: companies will not, not, not share with anyone unless they are compelled to by some form of power. If you want them to share with their workers then their workers need the power to fuck with them until they pay up. The balance of power between employer and employee is currently in favour of the employer. Until you address that you are spewing hot air and nothing else. And you know that perfectly well, so go to hell.

As the gyrations in the world stock markets over the past few days show the concept of "wealth" is in many ways illusory.

What has happened over the past two decades is that one type of commodity (common stock shares) has become sought after for a variety of reasons. These include the rise of middlemen like mutual funds and hedge funds, the rise of share-based retirement portfolios, and a swing back into the stock market by small investors. The rise in capitalism in developing countries has also led to the rise of stock markets in these places as well.

The problem is stocks don't really represent wealth. They represent a form of Ponzi scheme which says that there will be a bigger sucker in the future willing to take over the game when you wish to cash out. Many of the most profitable companies don't make anything anymore. Firms like Goldman Sachs only shuffle money within the financial sector. If people get burned by the game (see 1929) then these financial firms will suffer the most.

So when we talk of populist themes of making wealth more equitable what is it we really mean? Do we want to give the underclasses stock shares? Do we want to make them real estate owners? Do we want to improve their wages?

And suppose we really do want to distribute the wealth downward. How is this to be done? If we force the Walton family to sell of part of it's $80 billion Walmart stock holdings (presumably to pay some sort of tax) who are they going to sell it to and what effect would dumping so many shares have on the market?

It seems to me we really need to decide what an equitable society should look like first. As anyone who reads my rants often knows, I think this rethinking will have to be a view that moves away from consumerism as a measure of success.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

Mr Steinbrück spoke of the "tension" between the advantages of low wage settlements... and the stifling of domestic demand.

"There have been falls in real wages, real incomes that have been bad for domestic demand..."

No kidding! They've discovered that when people earn less, they spend less!

And here is the irony:

Senior EU officials said the trigger for the debate was a speech on rising income inequality by Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve chairman, this month.

They shouldn't listen to foreign communist agitators!

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Is there any experimentation in European companies, perhaps encouraged by individual country legislation, that would try giving part of employee compensation in the form of ownership in the company?  There are a variety of models that have already been tried in the US, and they have pluses and minuses.  But plans like the US 401k plans encourage savings and investment by providing a tax break for money invested (up to a limit, so it's actually a progressive plan).  The money can be invested broadly, or in some cases invested in the company the employee works for (hasn't generally been a great idea because it's the opposite of diversification--but some secretaries have made fortunes over the years.  Or give part of the pay in stock options--some companies give all employees stock options.

the European model tends to rely more heavily on state supported pensions, as I understand it.  So is there a reluctance to experiment in areas such as this?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/28/143930/305

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes