The Netherlands-Economy: The Netherlands to end pandemic business relief

The government announced Monday that with the economy back on track, lockdown measures largely over and unemployment low, “Continuing the support would stand in the way of the economic recovery.”

The government has spent some 80 billion euros ($94 billion) since March last year propping up business ranging from individual entrepreneurs to national flag carrier KLM. It says the support helped limit bankruptcies and unemployment.

The Dutch economy is forecast to grow 3.8% this year and 3.2% in 2022. A number of targeted support measures aimed at education programs and night clubs will remain in the final quarter of the year.

Read more at: https://draft.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/7267356/3674647997756275155

Netherlands: Hundreds of UK firms turn to Netherlands with Brexit transition wrapping up

 Hundreds of British companies are working on opening a branch in the
Netherlands by the end of this year, when the Brexit transition period
ends. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) is receiving
daily requests for information from British companies, AD reports.



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Hundreds of UK firms turn to Netherlands with Brexit transition wrapping up | NL Times

The Netherlands - healthcare: profits skyrocket at 85 Dutch Healthcare firms

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https://nltimes.nl/2019/09/25/profits-skyrocket-85-dutch-healthcare-firms-report

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The Netherlands - Brexit: 98 companies moving to the Netherlands already and more expected

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https://nltimes.nl/2019/08/26/brexit-prompts-98-companies-move-netherlands

The Netherlands - Free Market Forces in Health-Care and Education not benefitting Netherlands consumers - by RM

After returning back home from America to the Netherlands, it struck me how incredibly passive the Dutch population reacts to many decisions of their Government, which unfortunately, usually negatively affects the "pocketbooks" of the average Dutch citizen.

Particularly, because when these decisions are announced, the  Dutch Government gives little or often no clear explanation, about the nature or reasons for these decisions. Their catch words usually are, either to improve the economy or to cut costs.

One example is the Dutch Health-Care system, which was changed a few years ago from a government controlled Universal Health-Care program, to a "Market controlled version, now mainly controlled by Insurance companies.

According to a recently held opinion poll, however, a majority (more than 60%) of the Dutch population wants to return to the old system of Universal Health-Care, since the new system, now run by Insurance companies has steadily increased their costs for affordable Health-Care .

In the field of education, Dutch students, who used to be able to apply for a free scholarship, which they did not have to pay off, after they successfully had completed their educational program, now have to pay back their scholarship through a loan program, including interest.

Unfortunately, many Dutch politicians, and large companies have abused the concept of "market forces" to create the suggestion of freedom and honesty.

A truly free market offers advantages, but with economic "spins and gibberish", as it does now, it certainly does not.

Bottom - line, the Dutch citizen is now at the mercy of a few large suppliers - and the so-called benefits of the market forces do not end up being tangible economic benefits to them .

The Netherlands economy, unfortunately,  is starting to look more and more like that of the US, and that certainly is a scary idea. 

Isn't it time to man the barricades?

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EU-Digest

Global Economy: Back to the Global Vertical -a politically dangerous development - by Andres Ortega

There are horizontal periods – indeed some people, Thomas Friedman among them, believed some years ago that the world was definitively flat. And then there are periods in which verticality imposes itself again.

In many ways, we are once again moving from the horizontal to the vertical dimension of global affairs.

This “verticality” is making itself especially felt in social terms. Social classes are back on the agenda, although not in the traditional Marxist sense of class struggle.

Rather, we are now coping with the decline of the middle classes and the emergence of a broader “precariat.”

The social escalator is not working as in previous eras, despite renewed growth in many economies following the crisis. Benefits that were taken for granted, such as full-time jobs with social security protections, are disappearing in significant numbers.

Perhaps we are witnessing what Dennis J. Snower calls the “great decoupling,” which he labels “dangerous,” unlike its predecessor, which was “convenient.”

When economic progress is not mirrored or is not linked to social progress, discontent is generated in those left behind. This decoupling ends up manifesting itself in politics.

This is what may be going on in many countries amid the prospect of recovery, an uneven emergence from the crisis and, before that, globalization, which is now generally acknowledged to have produced winners and losers.

The decoupling phenomenon is arising when the advanced economies, both industrial and post-industrial, are recovering from the crisis.

As Marc Fleurbaey of Princeton University argues, we must “prepare people for life and support them in life.”

Central to that is the commitment to education, particularly amid the challenge of technology and its controversial impact on employment and the concept of work.

A smart policy approach in that regard, as Ylva Johansson, the Swedish Employment Minister, points out, is not protecting specific jobs (which may be dying) as protecting workers (which need to be actively equipped and/or a guided toward a new one).

Somehow or other, although no one knows how, remedying the great decoupling will induce the vertical to become more horizontal again. Or so one hopes.

Failing to achieve this will only accentuate more verticality. And vertical moments, as we know, tend to be the more dangerous ones.

Editors note EU-Digest: but the situation is not hopeless. Change is possible. People can and will make the difference. All that is required is for responsible, well educated, socially conscious people, with new ideologies to start speaking out. The outdated, corrupt, political systems in many places of the world must be replaced before it leads to a catasthrophy

If it was possible in France, for a new party to be created within a one year time span prior to their Presidential and parliamentary elections, and for that party to win decisively, in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, it can also be done elsewhere. 

The old and established parties have failed the people. The political establishment on both the left and the right have become corrupted by corporate influence and greed. It is high time for change, because the status quo is not acceptable anymore.

Read more: Back to the Global Vertical