It has taken two years of futile efforts for governments to finally start talking about growth and employment as European aims again. This change in attitude is prompted by shock. The credit-rating downgrades for France, eight other eurozone countries and the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund at the start of the year all show that the capital markets are predicting a downward spiral. It was particularly insightful to see how Standard & Poor's justified the downgrades: "We believe that a reform process based on a pillar of fiscal austerity alone risks becoming self-defeating, as domestic demand falls in line with consumers' rising concerns about job security and disposable incomes, eroding national tax revenues." We need to set a new course now and implement a far more consistent and precise strategy. First and most importantly: the current situation requires us to create the right conditions to ensure private capital flows into the real economies of crisis countries. For this to happen, there needs to be a guarantee that these crisis countries and their banks can pay their debts - from a robust European Stability Mechanism, which can provide itself with liquidity from the European Central Bank, and a common debt-reduction pact as suggested by the German Council of Economic Experts. Growth needs private investment, and these investments need security! Secondly, we need to remove any obstacles to investing in Europe and give hope for an upturn in the economy in order to bring back hesitant private investors who have lost confidence. Our most important task is therefore to create a comprehensive European investment programme, which will increase the competitiveness of crisis countries, expand Europe's industrial infrastructure - particularly its energy networks - and promote research and development. In order to ensure that the momentum of change is not lost in excessive red tape, the European Investment Bank must play a central role. A crucial aspect of the project is that it will not be financed by new debts, but by a European financial transaction tax, which could bring in up to €50bn if Europe - or at least the eurozone - is united on the issue. For European solidarity has two meanings and it is time to show we are committed to both.
We need to set a new course now and implement a far more consistent and precise strategy. First and most importantly: the current situation requires us to create the right conditions to ensure private capital flows into the real economies of crisis countries. For this to happen, there needs to be a guarantee that these crisis countries and their banks can pay their debts - from a robust European Stability Mechanism, which can provide itself with liquidity from the European Central Bank, and a common debt-reduction pact as suggested by the German Council of Economic Experts. Growth needs private investment, and these investments need security!
Secondly, we need to remove any obstacles to investing in Europe and give hope for an upturn in the economy in order to bring back hesitant private investors who have lost confidence. Our most important task is therefore to create a comprehensive European investment programme, which will increase the competitiveness of crisis countries, expand Europe's industrial infrastructure - particularly its energy networks - and promote research and development. In order to ensure that the momentum of change is not lost in excessive red tape, the European Investment Bank must play a central role. A crucial aspect of the project is that it will not be financed by new debts, but by a European financial transaction tax, which could bring in up to €50bn if Europe - or at least the eurozone - is united on the issue. For European solidarity has two meanings and it is time to show we are committed to both.
You know, the evil versus stupid dilemma is increasingly irrelavent. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
And, in Germany they of course also have a reasonable alternative, Die Linke, unfortunately the Germans have a particular theological aversion to the left, suspect that is why Marx was writing about their ideological foibles over 150 years ago... Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I don't know, I may be wrong but they appear to be able to count on the support of the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland... tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
The Swedish Left party had the same problem until recently, with lots of old semi-fossilized DDR-, Cuba-, Soviet-, and North Korea-lovers in leading positions. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
However, in the eastern countries, and this really holds for Die Linke, you have to remember that there is a core constituency, in the eastern lander, who genuinely have some level of positive connection to the more recent past. Communism was not Stalinism, not in the 1970's, not in the 1980's, and it is a mistake to say that the system, albeit with some need for more reforms, was the same as it was in the 1950's or the 1930's any moreso than it is a mistake to say that the liberal democracies are the same as they were in the 1950's and 1930's, back in the days of routinely censored press, overt collusion between the monied classes and the government and security apparatuses (violent strike-breaking, massacres of peaceful protestors and example of which we commemorated here in Paris the day before yesterday). The fact is, that communist past is not looked upon with the same amount of shame by core eastern constituents of Die Linke as might be desired by segments of the Western population who nonetheless have no real alternative to Die Linke if they wish to have their interests defended in the public sphere. But I think having Oskar Lafontaine take such a positive initial role went a long ways to bridging that gap, and recall Gregor Gysi being warmly welcomed, while campaigning, in the western parts of the country.
All of this hand-wringing about sympathies for Castro seem to me to be a red herring, and of course we know which press are publicly accentuating that aspect of the party, which is as unfortunate as it is predictable.
As usual, it will take generational change, perhaps many. The ideals of the first French republic were drowned out by counter-revolutionary forces and reaction to its initial excesses for the better part of a half-century, and did not really take hold for another one. The same will be true of the Soviet experiment. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Prominent Social Democrats arguing that the solution to recession is private-sector investment... </facepalm>
well when government expenditure is a. reduced by austerity, b.largely dedicated to stupid megalomanic monuments to folly (including subsidising archaic energy forms), millennium wheels et al, then where else is the investment money going to come from?
he's being disingenuous, as he may be a Prominent Social Democrat, but he's a Captured Prominent Social Democrat, thus In Name Only.
IOW, i broke your game, (oops, the one i was supposed to be rooting for and helping to build), now we have to do it for profit without pesky public services offering free competition, tut tut, isn't that a shame, now we'll have to do it the other way, TINA, and my buddies will be considerably enriched by selling you the very air you breathe.
and if i, a socialist, tell you it's true you can believe me because of my impeccable cred as such.
hollande, blair, milliband, zapatero, prodi, clinton, obama, see any pattern yet?
excellent market-soothing reforms! flexicurity! third way! new labour!
and when the public's ire strays above simmer with one set of betrayers, reach for the trusty alternative lawn-order party till the repulsion builds to breaking point, and the pas de deux flounders, and all the money's siphoned off somewhere safe, just move in the Goldman Sux technocrats! ...who, untroubled by demagogic need to please any voters, (we're w-a-y beyond that now), will patiently, tactfully, calmly, benignly explain to us ignorant lambs why the shearer is going to visit twice as often, and shave us harder, but not to worry, because the sacrifice will be equally shared, and we must be humbly contrite and respectful of the market's omniscient wisdom and how lucky we are to live in such a great system, Hint, look at africa or china before you start whinging too loud, suck it up and go watch a football game.
best idea yet, call it democracy! it doesn't get better than that! privatise=fail, so nationalise=fail, so round and round and round we go.
it's all built to fail, happy people don't consume as much, they don't care about politics like they don't care how their car engine works, they just want it to work FFS, and and then their grim, grimily polluted landscapes slathered with pharaonic grandiosity to boot, easter island all over again. little men and women with big words and noble rhapsodies spun gossamer BS, fast food statesmanship.
i am amazed (and grateful) when anyone under 30 is remotely interested in politics. it's so crushingly depressing and unennobling, spirit-sucking. at least try to have some kind of free life before the weight of teh stupid social yoke is fully felt. the smarter ones do care early...
how can it become exciting again for the young to show they're better than just exchanging likes on FB? maybe only when we see their parents and family enthused by intelligent government by our peers?
well, i guess events have a way of taking their historical course, no one ever promised us a rose garden, or an enlightened species to share life's travails with...
there must be some way out of here. or through... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
