Yes, they can. The absolute level of public debt is not what matters. The debt/GDP ratio is what matters. If raising the public debt 1% raises GDP 5%, then it is in the countries best interest to raise the public debt 1%, and roll over that debt indefinitely.

As long as GDP is rising faster, yes one can.

Governments are not households. Macroeconomics is not microeconomics. It is more important for governments to minimize unemployment (with productive jobs, not breaking windows and then fixing them) than it is for them to pay down public debt.

He's not saying they should. He's saying they're screwed either way, because without Government stimulus the GDP will continue to tank until there is no more private debt. The EU governments signed away their economic sovereignty just to simplify inter-country trade. Only the largest entities with controlling majority votes will benefit.

Repeating what I said above:

If 25% of the population is unemployed, the worst thing you can do is balance the Government's budget. You need to get people working and investing.

Sovereign governments are not households. Macroeconomics is not microeconomics. Having a growing GDP matters more than the level of public debt. If you sacrifice the former to reign in the latter (austerity), you're doing it wrong. Our entire capitalist economy is financed by debt. Without growing debt, currency deflates (unless the central bank creates more), which discourages investment, which reduces GDP. Empirically, Debt/GDP rises when austerity is implemented, simply because GDP falls faster than Debt.

If you think it's bad now, wait for the next shock. Private leverage is so high right now that any significant downturn will trigger a crash.

How does the absolute value of the currency matter? I don't understand this assertion. I completely agree that Greece would be far better off with the ability to control their own currency (all EU countries would be). But I've never understood why exchange rates matter from a macroeconomic perspective.

You seem to have wandered off somewhere that has nothing to do with this conversation. I am not interested in your opinions about the best country to live in. In support freedom to choose where you live and reduction of all barriers, to the extent possible, in the way of you choosing where you live. The safety net provided by Germany has nothing to do with this. I claimed that the min wage reduced output and increases unemployment. You said the opposite. I asked how you would explain per capita GDP, a measure of output, being higher when min wage is lower. I asked how you would explain unemployment rate being lower when min wage is lower. These are two results directly in conflict with your assertion. You ignored both points in your response and instead essentially said these things are okay because of a better safety net. That is a non sequitur and I am not really interested.

Peer-to-peer communication... Like prices? This is just getting funny. You keep insisting you have some novel perspective and all you do is make an argument for why free and competitive markets are the utopia you seek. You are an example of what I see so frequently, which is someone who understands markets very well as far as what needs to exist to function well, yet has no idea that markets actually provide all those requirements already, if left alone.

You didn't talk at all about record low interest rates for 7+ years, which I found interesting.

That is not very correct. Investors know what the company is doing on the accounting side, in all but very rare fraud cases. Companies like you're talking about are pretty clear on what drives their Non-GAAP measures and they make an effort to explain why the non-GAAP measures are the "right" ones. It's a joke in the investor community how divergent GAAP and non-GAAP rev and earnings become over time. They know. They just invest anyway because they "know" others will too.

Um, no, you are exactly wrong. Uber is valued at $41b because of public stock market traders. The private investors are willing to pay $x, where $x is less than the valuation after IPO minus the time cost of money. This is all driven by idiots investing in the public stock market. They are the engine car that pulls the train.

Debts almost always spiral out of control, just like gambling or alcoholism... You start off small, but you become addicted and the problem just grows... Whoever replaces Obama will likely have much larger debts still.

> There are European countries with minimum and average wages much higher than ours, and they don't have those problems.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure how you would know that. You would need to compare their output currently to their output in an alternative history / parallel universe where the min wage were lower. Barring that, it's interesting that you say this but don't address why almost every EU country has a lower GDP per capita that the U.S. Granted, GDP is a flawed measurement, but feel free to look at other similar measures. The EU also has a higher unemployment rate. About double in fact.

So if I am saying that a higher min wage reduces output and causes unemployment, and you're telling me I am wrong based on what actually happens in the real world, I would have expected some addressing of these numbers. While I am not using them as proof of anything, it does seem to run counter to your claim that the "theoretical arguments" don't have predictive power in the real world.

I love when people who have no understanding of econ101 tell me I don't understand Econ101 and then spend the rest of their comment proving that they don't understand econ101.

Companies don't care about making revenue. They care about making profit. A company absolutely will choose to earn less revenue when it means more profit. Because every hour of Sally's work is a net $1 loss in profit, earning $13 in revenue through Sally's work means $14 loss in costs. The company will always be better off not having Sally work.

I think you have the wrong idea of what it means to work hard. It doesn't mean be inefficient at a task. It means be persistent as you identify growth opportunities and worthy calculated risks. Many people do not do that and look for a "safe" 9-5 job where thry operate in a well defined box and don't have surprises or expectations of upward mobility (except s cost of living raise).