And you want MORE spending?

This is an appropriate question for many themes in current economic life, however this sheds light on only one of them. Among the Lefties' ranks, among Keynesians and among British Public, calling for increased NHS spending, pensions and minimum wages, there's a purring claim for increased living standards and great State Involvement in essentially anything.

To all kinds of such claims I have three simple responses. 1 quote and 2 charts.

Chart #1:

This shows the labour cost of producing an average economic unit in some major OECD countries. That is, the labour cost of producing an amount of shoes in Germany in 2012 was only about 5% higher than at the start of the new millenium. Likewise, labour costs of producing the same amount of shoes in Britain had soared to around +35%. Point = reduced relative competitiveness

Chart #2:

A trade deficit means that a country is importing more stuff than it exports. Essentially, people in those countries are buying more things/services from abroad than what the rest of the world wants to buy from you. Point = productivity issue; you're running down assets to pay for your consumption, because you're not producing enough good stuff that they'd want to buy. 

Quote: 

Angela Merkel on relationships between Europe and the rest of the world

"Europe has 7% of the world's population, 25% of its GDP and 50% of its social spending."

Reasonable, ye. And you guys still want more to spend on the "poor", infrastructure or <insert whatever>?