[lbo-talk] dollar/euro redux

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> Wojtek, I'm surprised to hear this coming from you, of all 
> people.  Not the 
> vituperation, of course, but that you would swallow the myth 
> of America.  
> We're working the longest hours in the industrialized world.  
> Who's lazy?  We 
> have less money and time than most Europeans.  We have the 
> most draconian 
> anti-labor laws, who's stupid?  We're also still fairly 
> productive, although 
> not to German or Japanese levels.  And who's enjoying the 
> highest standard of 
> living on earth?  Certainly not us, no healthcare or public 
> transportation to 
> speak of, terrible job conditions and hours, constant 
> churning of workers, 
> dysfunctional cities under the control of avaricious 
> landlords and corrupt 
> politicians, and not one functional payphone in the whole 
> damn country.
> 
> Jenny Brown

True.  But try to tell it to an average person in this country.  They
think they live in the greatest country on Earth and everyone envies
them their guns, SUVs and suburban shacks.  

The point I tried to make is that, given the levele of inefficiency and
waste that is abundant in the corporate world, and the fact that US
produces more services than tangible goods, the standards of living
should me much lower simply because US per se does not produce enough to
sustain it.  If these standards are not low (even if they are visibly
lower than those in Western Europe, as any travelled person will attest)
- it means that the goodies making up these standards must be coming
from somewhere else.  That is a simple law of physicis, economic
mumbo-jumbo notwithstanding.
Wojtek