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Comment by naveen99 | Hacker News Reader

Have they considered balancing their budgets ? Somehow california and many other us states have a surplus.

Balanced budgets require negative interest rates as the private sector is accumulating savings that actually must be spent off.

A net increase in savings in the private sector is incompatible with a balanced budget of the public sector. Remember, balanced budget means you spend everything you earn for both the government and the private sector.

>Balanced budgets require negative interest rates

No they don't.

You should really go over there and explain this to them. You could save all of them.

The problem for EU countries is that for too long they've neglected military spending in favor of social programs, but now the chickens are coming home to roost. US superpower status is waning, meaning EU states will need to ramp up military spending, and Russia is more aggressive than it's ever been. In the face of this EU countries will have to somehow cut social spending or raise taxes even higher. Neither is politically tenable.

There is a third option. Increase military spending in the short term, but also be intentional about supporting immigration of younger, skilled workers from China and Russia (both whose fertility rates are below replacement rate and continuing to fall rapidly). Short term, military spending contains these countries with the threat of physical force, long term, you’re “stealing” (for lack of a better term) their productive future workers for someplace with (arguably) more stable, better governments and living situations (it’s not a secret those with means have been fleeing these regimes). This further handicaps the countries I mentioned on a go forward basis, allowing for (potentially) a decline in military spending over time.

Huh? We've been essentially doing this for the past 30 years. Chinese often go back to China with their US/European education and put it to good use there. It doesn't work as a brain drain when China has such a strong domestic market and there's so much money to be made there. There are also cultural and ideological ties that don't seem to be easily broken.

EU countries have much better militaries that Russia does if thet can act in unison. In fact recent events show just how linited Russian powess are.

Also we are not doing enough to support ukraine, after 100 days of hand wrangling we decided to supply missile systems

Southern Europe is a beautiful set of places. Probably more desirable to live in then even california. A 1% annual property tax with a homestead exemption below 0.5 million euros might be sufficient.

> Probably more desirable to live in then even california.

Southern europe isn't california. The mediterranean isn't the pacific ocean.

Ofc and I left France the day I realized it was impossible. Not because of the high roller bankers but because the people literally cannot accept a balanced budget to live within our means.

Now Im in Hong Kong, where as you know the people have little say and slogans like "5 demands not one less" is not met with fear like in France, but with police aggression. But, we have a balanced budget. We had a record tax revenue this year if you can believe it. All problems are simpler when you have a surplus, even at the individual level.

So I'm happy but people here envy France where the street can clawback what's hers even at credit...

Hong Kong? Where they have a balanced budget?

ECB is more like this than Hong Kong’s budget https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_exchange_rate_system_...

"Ofc and I left France the day I realized it was impossible. Not because of the high roller bankers but because the people literally cannot accept a balanced budget to live within our means."

https://tradingeconomics.com/hong-kong/households-debt-to-gd....

vs.

https://tradingeconomics.com/france/households-debt-to-gdp#:....

> not met with fear like in France, but with police aggression

Willingly chose tyrany?

Uncle Rukus, is thar you?

It is impossible. Austerity results in a reduction of the interest rate, even if the interest rate is already at or below zero. If you want to increase the capacity of your economy to absorb austerity, you also need to increase the capacity of reducing interest rates below zero.

> austerity results in a reduction of interest rates

Citation or example ? You can have a balanced budget and positive interest rates.

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