alephnerdan hour ago
> Where redistribution runs vertically and broadly, the welfare state absorbs global finance shocks...
If this was true, then the Eurozone crisis would not have been as severe as it was in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and France - all countries with broad and large social assistance programs.
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Also, the HN title is editorialized, the correct title is "Who the welfare state protects shapes a country’s financial openness"
mono44220 minutes ago
The crisis was largely artificially engineered because Germans believed that Southern Europeans were "lazy" and needed to be made an example of.
The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided.
gruez7 minutes ago
>The ECB could have brought government bond yields down from the beginning and most of the problems could have been avoided.
Is that sustainable? Argentina's predicament is basically caused by a variant of this. The Peronists gave handouts to buy votes, funded by money printing (ie. "The ECB could have brought government bond yields down"), but that has consequences and turned Argentina into an economic basket case. Of course, you might argue the EU doesn't have this problem because it's stronger economically and other states can prop them up, but that begs the question, why should member countries like Germany fund Southern Europeans's fiscal profligacy?
kingleopold3 minutes ago
sorry but whatever Ger/FRA doing right now is %100 not sustainable. Future growth potential is so bleak and so low chance, along with population crisis, aging natives too. They literally need miracle, like one that exist in stories
374894949412 minutes ago
surely buying bonds will save you when you are running 8% yearly deficits to buy votes with welfare payments
mono4427 minutes ago
There's no natural law saying that budgets have to be balanced. Most countries run constant deficits.
alistairSH15 minutes ago
That is the HN title?
nickff8 minutes ago
I believe that it was changed after the comment you have replied to was posted.
ck219 minutes ago
in the US it protects the corporations so they don't have to pay a living wage
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/22/amazon-gi...
irishcoffee7 minutes ago
It seems a little bit cherry-picked that you selected an article about people on food stamps and federal aid during a global pandemic, which saw absolutely massive amounts of people lose their jobs.
Doesn’t feel objective.
amazingamazing14 minutes ago
Given that you cannot force someone to hire anyone at a given wage what is the solution?
At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum, but often this results in no job at all.
autoexeca minute ago
> At best all you can say is that if you decide to hire, it cannot be lower than some minimum
That's pretty reasonable. Nobody should be working 40 hours a week at a job and not make enough to support themselves. Any company who can't afford to pay their employees at least that much is a failure who deserves to be out of business.
ben_w5 minutes ago
While true when minimum is set too high, the level it is set to generally takes this into account so that "too high" is not reached over the entire jobs market.
374894949414 minutes ago
Is that why wages in the US are double those in europe or more
autoexec4 minutes ago
It's because the most massive costs an American has like healthcare, child care, and higher education are free or vastly less expensive in Europe. Americans spend all their time at work for a very impressive number on their paystub while they're still one accident or illness away from homelessness or bankruptcy. Europeans get higher quality of life/happiness scores and spend far less time slaving away for their boss. Just because the number on your paycheck is bigger, it doesn't mean you're winning.
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ambicapter3 minutes ago
What does that matter when cost of living is commensurately expensive?
baggy_trough44 minutes ago
Where is the supposed austerity?