What French and Greek Election Results Mean for European Economic Unity
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-05-08/what-french-and-greek-election-results-mean-european-economic-unity
Greece’s ability to stay in the European Monetary Union is once again doubt. Greek voters weighed in against the political leaders charged with implementing stringent budget reforms. In France the first Socialist president in nearly 20 years, Francois Hollande, will be sworn in next week. Discontent over German-imposed austerity measures were, in part, behind his recent victory. Nearly half of the 17 euro zone countries are in recession, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pressing to stay the course. Political fall-out over economic austerity in the euro zone and implications for the U.S.
Guests
Markus Ziener
US correspondent, Handelsblatt.
Justin Vaisse
senior fellow, The Brookings Institution.
Mark Weisbrot
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Stella Dawson
U.S specialist, economics editor, Reuters.
Comments
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I say, good for the French. Austerity doesn't work. If you don't believe it look at Ireland. Those poor sorry bastards have been sold a bill of goods, just suck it up and the markets will reward you.....the markets are a myth and capitalism is a religion. It doesn't work. Time to change things.
I thought I tuned in to Parallel Universe Diane Rehm show. They're talking about a problem and, 20 minutes in, the Republicans have not yet been accused of being the source of the problem. Oh wait, we'll learn what the impact will be here in US coming up after break. Now we'll surely hear how it will be the Republicans who only make things worse.
Why are austerity programs succeeding in Germany, but failing elsewhere? Can Germans, for whatever reason, somehow look beyond themselves and make sacrifices to save the country as a whole?
Weisbrot is correct. People should listen to these arguments in terms of the rich wanting to maintain their overblown wealth; they could care less what happens to those of us on the other end of the spectrum. The reason there is any controversy at all is that when it comes to economics, the press and even the academy are full of distortions - the fruit of the real class war.
What about the inflation? Everyweek at the grocery store I see the rising food prices! Incredible how much things cost now.
Also ultimately the anti-natalist government policies have brought about the economic malaise in Europe as well as here. Obama promotes and pays with our taxes for abortion and contraception which have and are killing our economic growth.
jmaule wrote:
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I could not agree more.
the update is good as well!
When you are stuck in a hole the FIRST thing to do is QUIT DIGGING!
Isn't what is happening in Europe basically a strategy that pretty much follows the Republican financial plan to the USA federal economy? In other words an experiment showing what we should not do and therefore reinforces the Democratic federal financial plan for the USA.
Paul Krugman was on the board of Enron in 1999 right before it went bust in 2001. From Wikipedia, "In 2001, after a series of revelations involving irregular accounting procedures bordering on fraud perpetrated throughout the 1990s involving Enron and its accounting firm Arthur Andersen, along with the September 11 attacks, Enron suffered the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in history (since surpassed by those of Worldcom in 2002 and Lehman Brothers in 2008)." And from Wikipedia, "In early 1999, Krugman served on an advisory panel (including Larry Lindsey and Robert Zoellick) that offered Enron executives briefings on economic and political issues."
In a way were lucky to be able to see how western socialism fails somewhere else, on the other hand heroin addicts do watch their friends die and they keep using heroin anyway.
After the second world war two of the fastest growing economies were Germany and Japan, the thing they had in common was that they were severely limited on how much the could spend on the military, how much are european nations spending on the military these days?
Clearly, austerity is an unpopular political stance, primarily due to politically induced and exacerbated class differences. The perception by those affected by "austerity" (after all, the Greeks suffered under the crushing weight of austerity for more than three solid weeks!) is that some are unaffected by the measures that cut their food subsidy, their day care subsidy, their housing subsidy, etc. In the end, the perceived surplus of the affluent ("theirs") is contextualized as "ours", but ultimately "mine".
In the end, everyone has a complaint and everyone wants theirs. If you have it and I want it, then it should be ours, a.k.a. mine. Take note of the elections in Greece: the extreme left did well, but so did the extreme right. Neo-nazis holding torchlight parades through Athens - not in 1941, but today.
Everybody has a complaint. Left, right, center. Solutions - genuine solutions - to the mountain of sovereign debt, healthcare costs, pension costs, crumbling infrastructure, education are all ignored, as their solutions require common purpose and attention to detail that extends beyond sloganeering. If you honestly believe that you can spend your way out of a sovereign debt crisis, you are deluded. If you believe that you can tax your way to prosperity, you do not understand simple arithmetic.
If every dollar made by every American over $100,000 was taxed at a rate of 100%, we could not satisfy our annual deficit!
Mr. Davis, my read on Washington Republicans since the election of President Obama is that they are wholly bent on two -and only two- courses of action on any given issue: getting their way, or else doing everything they can to block every other course of action until they can get their way. This may look fine to someone who agrees with them, but to those of us that sometimes disagree with them, their choices can easily be seen as 'causing problems'. Just saying.
There are 2 opposing views,and 2 opposing goals.
I think most citizens want economic normalcy and stability returned as soon as possible.The 2 opposing policies do NOT achieve the same normalcy.
The goal of AUSTERITY is to completely modify every aspect of the lives of citizens.NOWHERE in the Austerity Plan will the old normalcy be allowed to survive.
Less is more? Lower wages. Less education. Less health care.Less retirement benefits.Less control of your government.What will they be buying? Higher taxes.Higher unemployment. Higher co-pays.SORRY ! Less is not more.
LESS IS LESS !!!
For the one-percenters, less is more. Less money in the 99 percenters pockets, and more money in the one percenters pockets.
Such is one of the many lessons of history.
"Teece Bowman wrote:
I say, good for the French. Austerity doesn't work. If you don't believe it look at Ireland. Those poor sorry bastards have been sold a bill of goods, just suck it up and the markets will reward you.....the markets are a myth and capitalism is a religion. It doesn't work. Time to change things.
May 8, 2012 - 10:17 am"
I was taken quite aback recently by something said by an Economist.
"Free Market fanatics are Utopianists too!!!"
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
It's time we look at America's 2012 Federal budget (discretionary spending) and connect the dots between a bloated military spending (largest in the world) and not enough money for We The People.
The military consumes 59% of that budget for Department of Defense, Vet Affairs, and Homeland Security. We keep feeding the war machine but hear proposals of austerity for the people. Something is very wrong with that picture.
U.S. Defense Spending Subsidizes European Free-Riding Welfare States
Throughout NATO's existence, U.S. leaders have complained about the tendency of the alliance's European members to skimp on defense spending and take advantage of America's security shield to free ride. Â The free-rider problem, bad even during the Cold War, became worse when that struggle ended.
In the past few years, especially since the onset of the global economic crisis, the problem has become much worse as European nations struggle to deal with increasingly burdensome social welfare states. Military spending in Europe has moved from the realm of inadequate to the realm of pathetic.
The whole of Europe is on welfare, governments and all are on the dole, sucking on the teet of the American taxpayer
Where is the hour with Caro?