But, given behaviour of the German political and Financial elites over the past few years (and, in fact, since the early 1990's), where we have all been paying, first for West German integration of the DDR, then for German commercial and financial interests to the deteriment of those of the rest of Europe save the DM zone (NL, OS and arguably FI), one cannot help but to call a spade a spade and denounce that behaviour. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
We? Who has financed what? Germany has never been a net receiver since the treaties of Rome. So stop this nationalistic nonsense.
That th SPD and the greens demand a new Marschall plan for Grece etc.. I will just mention for completeness sake.
Do they have the balls to do so? No. And anyhow, even the badly uninformed German public would never stand for it. But, it is the logical extension of the demands that are being made of Greece...because no Greek citizen in their right mind, under present circumstances, would wilfully agree to what Germany and Europe are asking of Greece, as applied by the Greek government to date, in terms of austerity: gutting public services (no medicine at the hospitals, pensions cut, et c.,), destroying the economy, and raising taxes on all but the wealthiest Greeks in order to fork over drachma to German and French bankers.
We in the rest of Europe financed integration of the DDR by having to raise our interest rates in tandem with the Bundesbank in the early 1990's, and we paid for it directly via higher commercial and consumer credit interest rates, and more importantly, indirectly via a Bundesbank-driven recession and weak recovery which caused mass unemployment (here in France, in excess of 12%) and lower purchasing power , essentially a lost decade of economic vitality. And Berlin was re-unified. Yes, beautiful city, now, the reunified Berlin of course the Eastern part is still the coolest, and we would all most likely be better off if in the 1990s we had been paying for East German integration of the BRD instead of the other way round, but that is a topic for another day I am afraid.
And now, we are also paying, via the same clownshow at the Bundesbank, who have spread their Austrian-school disease to the BCE, which is causing another recession in Europe to prove the same point, that they are economically illiterate fools or that they look out for German financial interests first or some combination of the two (I opt for response C).
As an aside, SPD demands a new Marshall plan for Europe because Die Linke has been denouncing the Berlin clown show for a number of years running and finally the SPD, who got the BOP imbalances started in the first place under Schroeder and his German wage suppression policies (Deutsch "neuer Arbeits" und alle that) figured out they had no choice but to steal ideas for the reviled left. Maybe they'd be a bit more credible if they hadn't played so much a part in creating the problem in the first place, and anyhow, I'll not hold my breath waiting for them to come to power, the Ossi dissident (they are always the worst for their countries and the rest of us, those ex-dissidents whove taken power in the east and central European countries since the unfortunate fall of the wall) seems to have captured the German weltenshauung quite well and with it, its votes...
Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
If by pointing out you mean invented out of whole cloth. Since the private debtors are pressured to give up a part of the debt right now, your original assumption is wrong anyway.
>Do they have the balls to do so?> Are you mad? Do you think a attack on another NATO and EU-member would be a good thing? Balls?
>No. And anyhow, even the badly uninformed German public would never stand for it.> Yes, the gemran public is notorious war-hungry.
>But, it is the logical extension of the demands that are being made of Greece...because no Greek citizen in their right mind, under present circumstances, would wilfully agree to what Germany and Europe are asking of Greece, as applied by the Greek government to date, in terms of austerity: gutting public services (no medicine at the hospitals, pensions cut, et c.,), destroying the economy, and raising taxes on all but the wealthiest Greeks in order to fork over drachma to German and French bankers.>
Theres is no drachma anymore, if you don't even get this, you should not comment. The greek citizens, apparently in their right minds, have accepted similar behavior from their elites for years. And now the elites in Greek do what the want to do anyway and blame shadowy foreigners.
Patriotism, the first refuge of a scoundrel. And still they find useful idiots like you to repeat thier excuses. Are you happy to get the greek elites away scot-free?
>We in the rest of Europe financed integration of the DDR by having to raise our interest rates in tandem with the Bundesbank in the early 1990's,>
I will tell you what happened: the french elites got emamoured with neo-liberalism and the french for wahtever reasons did elect them into office again and again. And for the more gullible, like you, they invented patriotic sounding nonsense about he Bundesbank or whomever forcing them. They wanted to be forced; that is all.
>and we paid for it directly via higher commercial and consumer credit interest rates, and more importantly, indirectly via a Bundesbank-driven recession and weak recovery which caused mass unemployment (here in France, in excess of 12%) and lower purchasing power , essentially a lost decade of economic vitality. [A snip of babbling about Berlin]>
Still in France and th rest of europe a lot more vital then in Germany.
>And now, we are also paying, via the same clownshow at the Bundesbank, who have spread their Austrian-school disease to the BCE,>
There is no bundesbank anymore and Trichet cam from France. If you don't like the policies of the german ECB board members: outvote them. But of course the neolibs you send to Frankfurt would never do this, right?
which is causing another recession in Europe to prove the same point, that they are economically illiterate fools or that they look out for German financial interests first or some combination of the two (I opt for response C).
"They": foreign devils, in this cause east of the border. How convenient.
> As an aside, SPD demands a new Marshall plan for Europe because Die Linke has been denouncing the Berlin clown show for a number of years running and finally the SPD, who got the BOP imbalances started in the first place under Schroeder and his German wage suppression policies (Deutsch "neuer Arbeits" und alle that) figured out they had no choice but to steal ideas for the reviled left. Maybe they'd be a bit more credible if they hadn't played so much a part in creating the problem in the first place, and anyhow, I'll not hold my breath waiting for them to come to power,>
You are clueless about german policies. The bunch of ressentiment peddling (Ostalgie etc) jokers you admire so have lost six out of seven elections last year and don't have much of an economic policy to speak of anyway. Especially regarding europe. They are hardly in position to influence any debate.
>the Ossi dissident (they are always the worst for their countries and the rest of us, those ex-dissidents whove taken power in the east and central European countries since the unfortunate fall of the wall) seems to have captured the German weltenshauung quite well and with it, its votes...>
Weltanschauung? Perhaps from time you should leave the card-board Germany you constructed.
I could care less is Die Linke has lost so many elections...small wonder, West Germans have as much phobia about the ex-communists from the east as they have about inflation, misreading in both cases their history. What I do know is that they SPD's best friends here were in the Chirac government, good old centre-right French who are of course somewhat similar to the good old centre-right SPD, neither of which are neo-liberal, just old fashioned continental conservatives. Sarkozy is of course another matter altogether, which is why we call him Sarko l'américain, and why he is so pathetically unpopular here.
Fact is, of course, the Greeks are malgoverned, and they have a history of US-backed military dictatorship which occasioned compromises which, among other things, led their political elite of both strips to turn a blind eye to the corruption of their political system and the wealthy who have never paid their fair share. Of course the country needs to be reformed, but it won't be at the behest of German or French bankers that those reforms happen, and it probably won't happen without expropriations and jail terms which probably would have best happened in the 1970's instead of forty years later. But another fact is that German actions viz. Greece these past few years (and Spain, and Ireland) have been singularly wrong-headed and counterproductive. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
You can say all you like that there is no longer a Bundesbank (which, of course, isn't true, there still is a Bundesbank) and that somehow this means Germany is not responsible for blocking solutions to the crisis its own mercantilist policies have created, via BO imbalances, in the Eurozone, but just saying so doesn't make it true.
And, as far as declaring another person's contribution here is ill-informed and essentially being simply that of an apologist for the corruption of the Greek elite and its willing voters, I would say you simply don't know what you are talking about with respect to the realities of Greek political history, a good survey to be found here:
http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2924 Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Even? Germany still has the most war averse population of all major European countries. I doubt their government not joining the Libyan clusterfuck can be explained by principles. Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
Only objecting to right-wingers if they speak with a german accent is a somewhat fruitless approach in my.
And since Germany probably had the lowest gdp growth rate in the EU between 1990 and now, you history is wrong too.
Hmmm, that's an electoral winner! Hollande I am sure was quite amused.
And of course, in a very short period of time, we will no longer have to look at the other half of Merkozy in an official capacity on television any more. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I have no problem at all to demand the import of certain scandinavian policies to Germany.
In particular:
IM:
redstar had good arguments. Still posting?
But maybe that is just me. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Well, the Icelandic response, much praised by some economists like Krugman, seems to have had its positive aspects, but I still haven't seen anyone go to jail in Reykjavik for stealing other people's money, the collective neo-liberal psychosis which so patently overtook the public Icelandic imagination having been papered over, all is forgiven, criminal Icelandic bankers feel shame, but not shackles.
A pity, that. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I'll wait to applaud until when some of these thiefs go to jail. And I'll hold my applause for the measures Iceland took until at least one fo Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
