http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/
Norway is above the States, but where is the UK – oh yes a little further down the list.
Re productivity and in relation to aviation, I have a friend in the propeller design and manufacturing business, a business he started from nothing 20 years ago. He’s at work 6 days a week around 10-12 hours a day. You know why? Because he likes it. Meanwhile he has become quite wealthy, mainly by investing the proceeds in real estate, which is how you do that….
The Rant and Rave members only section on other aviation forums eventually die a death.
The bigger issue is that in the meantime that stuff alienates many people.
It alienates all the reasonable and intelligent posters first.
It alienates beginner pilots who would otherwise be making very reasonable posts, asking questions which should be asked.
It alienates women – because such sections become containers for all sorts of jokes in that area.
So you end up with about 10 posters who have all day to play and bang on their keyboards.
And then some people complain that some old posters have left. In most cases it was their aggressive / rude posts which resulted in that.
What some people just don’t “get” is that none of this is new. I have been on forums since about 1993 and have seen all this stuff many times. I have seen forums grow and collapse. I have seen them hit by the “free speech” activists. EuroGA was given a year before a collapse under the usual assault. That was in 2012…
One great irony is that certain of the biggest anti-mod people on here were evicted from their national forum by the resident lynch mob there, and told me so 
a business he started from nothing 20 years ago. He’s at work 6 days a week around 10-12 hours a day. You know why?
Because he likes to make Karl Marx revolve in his grave at 2575 rpm 
but there is no life without politics and there is no flying without politics
So, like I said above: keep politics to where it impacts aviation. By all means dig around mandatory handling cartels, etc… aviation is packed with politics and it’s all good stuff to discuss.
EuroGA is an aviation forum.
Peter wrote:
…Karl Marx…
He wasn’t the most stupid of all humans. But probably the most misunderstood and misused. His famous quote " From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs " (published posthumously from uncertain sources) would be the foundation of the society I would want to live in. Everyone contributes what he can and gets what he requires. I hope my son lives long enough to see this come true. And mind you, this is not Communism at all.
I fully agree with what_next. And Peter, politics influence GA in a most fundamental way. You and others on thus forum have repeatedly discussed why GA is declining. In my opinion it has a lot to do with affordability. And that in turn has a lot to do with a relative decline in incomes and living standards in the western world, especially in the last 15 years and especially in the more “hardcore” capitalist countries of the Anglo sphere. The crash of 2008/9 should have been a wake up call but wasn’t. Capitalism is no longer working well for the vast majority of the western population. Because the social democratic rules we had between 1950s and 1970s are no longer there. Victory in the cold war led to false assumptions that capitalism could now be fully unleashed. This does indeed lead to short term gains, but inevitably it leads to cyclic economic meltdowns as well. And as we gave seen in the last crash, risks are socialised while profits are privatised.
This is very relevant to GA because the pool of people who could afford to take up flying as a hobby gets smaller and smaller with rising inequality. The UK will be especially hard hit due to Brexit removing the social standards provided by the EU.
Not wanting to discuss this is fine, this is an aviation forum after all. But people leaving because of such discussions? And you call them reasonable and mature? The opposite is true: These people are closing their eyes and putting fingers in their ears singing la la la because the truth doesn’t fit in well with their own political preferences and they’d actually prefer GA being a small and elitist endeavour without admitting it!
MedEwok wrote:
Capitalism is no longer working well for the vast majority of the western population. Because the social democratic rules we had between 1950s and 1970s are no longer there. And as we gave seen in the last crash, risks are socialised while profits are privatised.
This is very relevant to GA because the pool of people who could afford to take up flying as a hobby gets smaller and smaller with rising inequality. The UK will be especially hard hit due to Brexit removing the social standards provided by the EU.
I am sorry MedEwok, but this is a load of rubbish. What would you suggest instead? Communism?
The private sector provides the bulk of economic profits even allowing for the crisis. I was in favour of the UK remaining within Europe but the EU’s social standards make no difference whatsoever.
@MedEwok, if you can break away from your job you really should come and visit my base, or others like it in the US. We have 700 mostly privately owned aircraft at the airport, mostly owned by middle class people with some distribution up and down from here. We have an active and social scene without any organization whatsoever needed, my wife and I had a spontaneous barbecue last night, and there is no sense whatsoever that people are being excluded more today than in the past. It’s just fun, lots of people having fun with their own planes, no pretense and lots of community spirit. The only ‘issue’ we face is that young people (who do have enough money in this area) have been conditioned by what I call the ‘21st century safety culture’ to avoid risk, and flying looks risky to some of them. That is a bad omen for society in my view, but still the glamour of homebuilts and warbirds etc pulls some of them across the fence and into the scene. The fence itself is also an issue, but not one that can be rectified today.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around somebody’s concept of equal “opportunity” and “social mobility” being inversely correlated to the possibility of earning more money than the next fellow, given application of brainpower to work. That’s not going to happen of course, because that is my definition of opportunity and social mobility!
But people leaving because of such discussions? And you call them reasonable and mature?
Try running a pilot forum and you would be amazed
Of course, I could post a long list of examples, but they would not appreciate it.
My objective is to bring good contributors on board and have them stay.
@JasonC
At no point was I suggesting communism is the answer. No, I think like Churchill said about democracy, “the worst Form of government, except all others”, the same holds true for capitalism and economic systems. Capitalism has shown to best be able to provide incentives for business, trade, innovation. In the post-war era (meaning post WWII) living standards have increased tremendously in all capitalist and democratic countries. Communism has failed at the same time and all communist countries suffered from large scale corruption and totalitarianism.
However, beginning after the oil crisis of the 1970s and increasing in the 1980s and 90s, growth has slowed and wealth is increasingly unequally distributed. Productivity gains have been minimal. Why is that? Because capitalism works best if the capital flows all the time, like blood in circulation. But increasingly it is simply hoarded by a select few. Last year only 8 people owned as much as half of the world’s population: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world
This happens because successful companies tend to no longer re-invest their profits. Rather, they pay them out to their shareholders and especially owners. Global companies avoid paying tax whenever possible. Think of the untaxed millions Google, Facebook and co still hoard outside the US. Tax havens are booming. The hard working middle classes do no longer benefiting from economic growth. Their wages have stagnated or often even fallen in real terms. Austerity has eroded social safety nets (think of the sorry state of the NHS for example ) and left public infrastructure like roads, railways and of course airports underfunded.
All this is because shareholders are seen as more important than stakeholders. What needs to be done, at global level if possible but EU level at minimum is
This is but a glimpse of a huge discussion that is taking place across the west since after the last crash. Yes it only peripherally has to do with aviation, but the fact remains that the squeeze on wages means that ever fewer people can afford this hobby while at the same time austerity is threatening airports and aviation infrastructure.
And it is comically to see some small business owners here valiantly fighting for the current system just because they are afraid of communism, which isn’t realistically on the cards anywhere nor wanted by anyone here (I think). Btw. I consider myself anything but a left-wing person, rather a centrist or liberal (the latter word often gets conflated with socialist in the US for some reason, despite the terms being almost polar opposites).
Peter wrote:
My objective is to bring good contributors on board and have them stay.
That is a valiant goal and I support you at that. I don’t want to drive sensible people away. Still I think when we’re discussing why GA is in decline (and what can be done about it) we cannot ignore the big elephant in the room and that is politics imho. When the middle class is in constant fear of personal economic decline, not many of them are going to take up flying.
@Silvaire
The risk-avoidance in our society has indeed reached unhealthy levels, I fully agree with you on that. I’d also love to visit you and your environment in which GA still seems very healthy.
I’m aware of the fact that we come from culturally very different backgrounds. Germany always had a very “statist” culture, meaning if any kind of problems arise people will attribute it on the state not doing enough. In the US it is the polar opposite, any kind of societal or economic problem will be blamed on too much state interference and people will call for a smaller state. Both are exaggerations and simplifications but with a big grain of truth. And both are problematic because it is rarely that simple.
