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    Der Wohlfahrtsstaat ist in Gefahr, wenn Europa den Wachstumsrückgang nicht stoppt, sagt Lagarde


    Der Wohlfahrtsstaat ist in Gefahr, wenn Europa den Wachstumsrückgang nicht stoppt, sagt Lagarde

    https://www.ft.com/content/a16868a8-44cc-4fe8-a51c-c079fb20ccda

    Von Potential-Focus3211

    View 34 Comments

    34 Comments

    1. Membership-Exact on

      They will sacrifice the welfare state before they make the rich pay their fair share.

    2. Mannalug on

      Uhmmm? Maybe we cut social benefits? That might solve our overbloated budgets and reduce debt, solve illegal imigration, help use on our way to lower taxes…. just saying that ideas are on the table.

    4. IWillDevourYourToes on

      Degrowth is the new popular thing these days, right? Maybe EU just tries to go with times, finally listening to the young folk

    5. christophr88 on

      I agree. Europe is becoming dominated with old boomers holding onto all the wealth. It’s behind the US in science and technology and all the major big tech companies are in the US.

    6. Pristine-Simple689 on

      Europe needs innovation while remaining true to it’s values…

      What if we tax the decline in growth while raising every other tax at the same time?

    7. BedroomAcrobatic4349 on

      Welfare state in a form it exists now should have been abolished decades ago. Welfare system is only sustainable when you have growing or at least stagnating population.

      Better to switch to at least NIT, or in (probably) better case to UBI, which will be just a redistribution of the money left after necessary (!) governmental spending equally to everyone. (Not just giving everyone enough money to afford basic living conditions, since that will only cause inflation without solving any problems)

    8. Xeroque_Holmes on

      How come people think increasing tax even more in Europe is somehow a solution? lol

    9. teo_vas on

      first of all we can save billions by digitizing our public sectors. about taxation the problem is the ultra rich who avoid paying taxes altogether or pay a fraction of what they earn.

      if you remember, in the US, Musk was taxed one year, according to the designated rate and it payed something like 12 billion dollars in taxes. with that kind of money here in Greece we can cover all the pensions for about 6 months.

    10. AdminEating_Dragon on

      For Europe to achieve higher and more consistent growth, it needs further unification of the single market (abolishing different national regulations), further common borrowing for large scale infrastructure and investment projects, end of intra-EU competition which raises prices and more changes in this spirit (most of them in the Draghi Report) which are financially sound but politically toxic for Germany, Netherlands and the Nordics who believe the status quo is quite fine and they don’t need to risk a change by throwing themselves together with countries with “inferior” economies, and not caring about the fact that they need the sheer size of the EU to keep up in the growth race with USA and China…

    12. zarafff69 on

      Yeah please focus on more growth. Stimulate innovation! Stimulate cross EU country border trade.

    13. LupineChemist on

      The way the European welfare state is set up is extraordinarily regressive.

      By and large, it takes from those who have the least in the form of young people and immigrants and gives it to those who have the most in the form of old people via pensions and healthcare who will largely own their own homes or have a lifetime of wealth built up.

      This manifests itself all over the place in all kinds of stupid ways. For example, here in Madrid, old people basically get free public transport, meanwhile the working poor who have to use it to get to work don’t get anything of the sort.

      The system can actually work if you let stuff get built and have a dynamic economy with real growth (Mdme Lagarde’s point here) but the European economy is so heavily regulated that the whole thing is sclerotic.

      I think there’s definitely something to be said for the US pension system where it’s basically a “don’t die” level of support and beyond that is up to private savings. Meanwhile in Spain pensions can get as high as 3100€ a month which is like 2x median salary for everyone. And those are paid out to people who generally own their home outright without a mortgage.

    14. Fun_Performer_5170 on

      What she say’s and what she does are two of a kind I think. Pushing interest rates in front of an inflation that is due to systemical changes and not on consumer spending is such an epical failure i‘m struggling to understand. There is so huge amount‘s of abbandonate projects for alternative energy around, due to higher interesst rates…. Investments not only in energy sector that have to be made, to keep europe competitive and independent from eastern or western regimes. Pls. weak up!

    15. DaVirus on

      Or: we stop having an economy based on perpetual growth… How about we do that? Technology is deflationary.

    16. Molli2Go on

      It’s the most obvious thing in the world to every sane person. Mass Importing low skilled labor from the Third World wasn’t the best idea in the end.

    17. yellowbai on

      Education is the only way. Along with trying to entice foreign investment. Less regulation of businesses along with capital market integration. Rules around letting pension funds having more risk profiles like Canada or Australia. Europe needs to play to its advantages in the Green energy sector especially around the North Sea.

      Cheap energy is the key to any real industrial manufacturing policy. Education is the key to the service sector.

    18. mightymagnus on

      Maybe to solve it with migration? Take in a lot of migrants from northern and east Africa as well as western Asia. Then have them live on welfare and not paying anything in tax until they retire, then receive state pension, move back, and spend it over there. At the same time their kids pursue a criminal career sending the bill to the actual tax payers. Everyone requires same state services or even more, increasing pressure on police and social services. Brilliant! Or could we do something else?

    19. Collapse_is_underway on

      “Let’s make no plan to the very obvious future of “finite ressources””.

      So, let’s go to war ! Except that we’re now so complex that, if we fuck up the supply chain, we won’t be able to maintain our infrastructures.

      And we have a topic full of people saying “YES, YES, WE NEED GROWTH” but cannot possibly fathom the obvious finitude of it.

      So, as said, let’s not prepare for that, but instead, prepare for war, so we can go on slightly longer in a totally unsustainable way.

    21. Hendrik1011 on

      Economic growth is meaningless if it is not distributed (through taxes and high wages) but simply funneled to the 1%.

    25. Financial_Loan1337 on

      For me it’s incredibile to consider someone rich if they have a salary of <100k and a house. These people should be middle class, certainely not rich. The ones who are rich are usually top 1% or less that also make use of nepotism and have enough money to hide it in different places and have political influence. Von der Leyen is a prime example.

    26. AwardImmediate720 on

      It’s also at risk if it keeps trying to do growth via mass importation of people who aren’t net contributors to the system. The welfare state cannot work unless there are more net contributors than net takers. This is basic math.

    28. Tsudaar on

      I’m struggling to understand the cognitive dissonance between on one hand there is a quickly declining population causing it to be weighted too old, and on the other hand most of Europe is seeing anti immigrant protests and its influencing a surge to the right.

      The two problems seem to be the answer to the other.

    30. AntonGermany on

      If you include Pension then Germanys Budget of the Federal state Is roughly 50% welfare expenses.

    31. dat_9600gt_user on

      See, I think of myself as a moderately liberal person, but I won’t exactly cry if rich folk get taxed.

    32. Droid202020202020 on

      I think she is mixed up on what is the cause and what is the effect.

    34. TheIndyCity on

      Dear EU, raise the salaries of tech workers to be competitive and create an immigration path/cultural onboarding program and you’ll reel in a ton of talent in short order.

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