Britain's economy is no better!

[Seabedsurfer]

There has been a lot of talk lately in the media about how rapidly ailing France and Germany should stop pampering their workforce and labouring companies with paperwork and taxes and do it like the supposedly superior Anglo-Saxons; the proof behind that being the global dominance of the United States' economy and the amazingly low unemployment in the UK. However I read an article in the financial times that argued totally to the contrary. It stated that a lot of the new jobs appearing in the UK are because of massive increases in borrowing and spending by Chancellor Gordon Brown. Thus new schools and hospitals are being built which causes employment no to mention the thousands of staff that wil eventually have to run these public establishments. What y'all think?

[paidinfull]

A bit of Keynesian economics didn�t do anybody any harm - unless, of course, your name is Milton Friedman.

More to the point, the French and the Germans have a much better quality of life, something which cannot be captured by conventional economic statistics.  In this country, too much emphasis is placed on growth and jobs, while the pursuit of improving human welfare is rejected as some kind of unrealistic, romantic dream which, if pursued, will have us all living in mud huts.

We seem to have locked onto the idea that making money is always and everywhere a good thing even if, say, people are working so hard they do not get a chance to see their families or age prematurely and die from stress-related illnesses as the result of adhering to the asinine, macho work ethic we have here.

This love of needlessly hard work also partly explains our shallow consumer culture and the concomitant alarming levels of consumer debt; people are desperate to compensate for all those excessive hours wasted in the office by buying consumer goods. People work hard for the money to buy things they don't need.

While unemployment and taxes are typically higher in France than they are in the UK, this has never held them back. The French experience shows that it is perfectly possible to have a high standard of living, not to mention an outstanding health service and efficient public transport system, without having to work ridiculous hours. Indeed, their levels of productivity are higher than ours; a happy, well-rested worker, it would seem, is a productive worker. In this country, however, we attempt to import the low-tax US model, a model which can only ever work in the US, and reap none of its advantages.

It seems, to me at least, that what we all really need is more leisure. Call me a crazy communist, but I think we could all honestly do a little bit less without jeopardizing civilization.

[OBonio]

I'm all for the 4 day weekend.

[shaneystar]

The trouble here is that you are worked into ground and taxed to high heaven whilst doing so.Paidinfull is right.This government would like nothing more than than impose the American work ethic on us.Germany's problem was unification.Not enough jobs to round.Not that I'm saying unification wasn't a good thing but bad for the ecomony in the west.Having said that, workers on the continent get much more respect from their employers.Your work is valued and people are treated like human beings.Plus the French and the Germans don't seem to have the "consumer society" that we have here.Credit cards are an anathema to the majority of German people.Whereas here people spend money like water with them.And...the banks encourage people to do it !! Sooner or later it's all going to go pear shaped.

[Hippy]

The Four Day Weekend was a bright idea implemented by the late Ted Heath to save scarce resources following the Israeli Egypt war and the restriction of oil worldwide oil supplies. I don't recall it coming as a great hardship.

I note that Mr Justice Fulford has upheld the right of lawful picket in the Gate Gourmet High Court case. This right, first enacted by Tory Benjamin Disraeli in his 1874-80 premiership provides for peaceful picketing and also freed Trades Unions form fear of prosecution for Conspiracy if they entered on a strike.

This is a blow for the "Cash at All Costs" culture of business trying to dismiss the workers' rights to a decent quality of life and, indeed, a livelihood.

Perhaps the media's trumpeting the decline of our Benelux partners is an attempt to justify the still lively cult of Thatcherism. By what standards are our Gallic and Teutonic friends judged? Let us not slip into the arrogant error of believing that our way is the only way and is the only right way.

[jno]

labour costs are part of the price in producing any given widget. These are comparatively high in France and Germany - the French have a 35-hour week, the Germans have generous unemployment provisions, among other things. So they have a better quality of life - but their widgets are expensive compared to those from, say, the UK; if therefore they don't sell as well, the countries don't have the money to finance their generous social economy. Conversely, British widgets may be cheaper and sell better but people may work so hard they don't get the chance to enjoy the fruits of their labours. Countries try to find the best balance they can. Is it a bad thing that Gordon Brown wants to build schools and hospitals, and that they will need to be staffed? You decide, you're the voters.