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Die alte EU gibt es nicht mehr. Die, von der sie uns in der Schule und in den Leitartikeln erzählt haben. Die, die Cappuccino für alle versprach und freie Sicht aufs Mittelmeer für deutsche Rentner. Die, die Deutschland einbinden sollte oder bändigen oder was weiß ich, deswegen jedenfalls hielten Helmut Kohl und François Mitterrand ab und zu Händchen und alle anderen schauten zu. ... Sogar die "Financial Times" warnt schon vor einem Europa der Technokraten, die "Post-Demokratie" ist keine Erfindung von Jürgen Habermas. "Je dramatischer die Schuldenkrise Europas wird, desto mehr klammern sich die europäischen Politiker an Lösungen, die die Demokratie durch eine technokratische Regierung ersetzen", schreibt Tony Barber etwa. Da gibt es also einen "Haushalts-Zar", in diesem Fall Olli Rehn, da gibt es die demokratisch nicht legitimierten "Experten": Loukas Papademos ist so einer, der Griechenland retten sollte, Mario Monti ist so einer, er soll Italien retten. Er werde "in Stellung gebracht", schreibt die "Financial Times" - das ist es wohl, auf was es hinausläuft, wenn Angela Merkel von der "marktkonformen Demokratie" spricht. Ein "verzweifeltes Würfelspiel", nennt Barber das. Angela Merkel also allein zu Hause, und eine deutsche EU, von der man nur weiß, dass Italiener nicht mehr Italiener sein sollen. Was das aber genau heißt, das ist nicht so ganz klar - am allerwenigsten den Deutschen selbst, die immer noch keinen Begriff davon haben, wer sie sind oder was ihre Seele ist oder ob sie eine haben oder haben wollen - und deshalb gibt es jetzt, als Sinnstiftung in der Krise, ein dickes Buch, auf dem in Goldschrift genau das steht: "Die deutsche Seele", damit wir hier innen mal verstehen, was zwischen Abendbrot, Abgrund und Arbeitswut einerseits und Winnetou, Wurst und Zerrissenheit andererseits so deutsch an uns ist.
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Sogar die "Financial Times" warnt schon vor einem Europa der Technokraten, die "Post-Demokratie" ist keine Erfindung von Jürgen Habermas. "Je dramatischer die Schuldenkrise Europas wird, desto mehr klammern sich die europäischen Politiker an Lösungen, die die Demokratie durch eine technokratische Regierung ersetzen", schreibt Tony Barber etwa. Da gibt es also einen "Haushalts-Zar", in diesem Fall Olli Rehn, da gibt es die demokratisch nicht legitimierten "Experten": Loukas Papademos ist so einer, der Griechenland retten sollte, Mario Monti ist so einer, er soll Italien retten. Er werde "in Stellung gebracht", schreibt die "Financial Times" - das ist es wohl, auf was es hinausläuft, wenn Angela Merkel von der "marktkonformen Demokratie" spricht. Ein "verzweifeltes Würfelspiel", nennt Barber das.
Angela Merkel also allein zu Hause, und eine deutsche EU, von der man nur weiß, dass Italiener nicht mehr Italiener sein sollen. Was das aber genau heißt, das ist nicht so ganz klar - am allerwenigsten den Deutschen selbst, die immer noch keinen Begriff davon haben, wer sie sind oder was ihre Seele ist oder ob sie eine haben oder haben wollen - und deshalb gibt es jetzt, als Sinnstiftung in der Krise, ein dickes Buch, auf dem in Goldschrift genau das steht: "Die deutsche Seele", damit wir hier innen mal verstehen, was zwischen Abendbrot, Abgrund und Arbeitswut einerseits und Winnetou, Wurst und Zerrissenheit andererseits so deutsch an uns ist.
Where is there the great German triumph? .... The present "significance" (as I said, we are in deep crisis and not in a golden age) should be only something like the Indian summer in Germany. Nothing more.
....
The present "significance" (as I said, we are in deep crisis and not in a golden age) should be only something like the Indian summer in Germany. Nothing more.
Sadly, most comments seem more triumphant than reflective. Worse, we see the splitting into sheep and goats with critics, especially "leftists" being cast out and the citizens of peripheral nations unfavorably compared to Germans. Germans live to work while southerners merely work in order to live.
From that perspective why should southerners get anything but punishment by the righteous? This seems like a crude update of medieval analogies of society to a human body, with the head being Germany and the rebellious limbs and back being southerners. I would feel better were there more comments that revealed any sense of understanding amongst that portion of Germans who respond to Speigel that there are flaws in the existing arrangement and that what so many Germans seem to expect from the rest of Europe is not only of questionable morality but also economically impossible.
In sum, and given the obvious limits of Google Translate, I find this comment stream on this Spiegel Forum extremely disquieting. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Come on, do I try to find about what e. g. americans think by reading politico comment threads?
In the USA we see comparably crazy views expressed regularly. Here I don't consider them only to represent a few nut jobs but at least 40% of the population nationwide and majorities in places such as Arkansas, where I live. Here I personally consider the number of people who have such views to be a looming threat. Do you have no such qualms for Germany? "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
We can't compete with Arkansas, I think.
And the same dynamic you discussed for Germany has been happening for forty years in the USA. Some of the most reactionary elements, sadly also very wealthy, have spent large sums of money on think tanks and media to make what was, 40 years ago, a moderately progressive left into the next best thing to Stalinism and to make what was nutter right wing crazy the new center right. We should be so lucky as to be able to elect an Eisenhower today. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
There are all manner of idiots, smart people of all persuasions, BILD propaganda, and retro leaders.
But nothing here is as bad as in amurka. 'Schland doesn't have a menagerie of fools running for president and taken seriously. (they may be fools in a different sense, but they are not dumb, except perhaps der Guido.) Germany has an electorate capable of digesting issues if they are properly placed before them, though they are often not.
The level of discussion here is something amurka would love to replicate, because it's simply at a higher level. I'm not sure you get that, nor are open to that.
the people here have either chosen, or been led, or accepted, important moves that amurka isn't even ready to discuss.
Germany's political psychopaths are no where near as dangerous as the amurkan version, nor as effective. Nor is the population so sheeple-like. (I'm not saying it's good here, but it ain't near as bad.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
'Schland doesn't have a menagerie of fools running for president and taken seriously. (they may be fools in a different sense, but they are not dumb, except perhaps der Guido.) Germany has an electorate capable of digesting issues if they are properly placed before them, though they are often not
Oettinger notwithstanding, i stand by my point. It's not as bad here, and shows enough promise to get it right. That said, i also don't underestimate amurka's ability to make a tectonic shift.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
But nothing here is as bad as in amurka. 'Schland doesn't have a menagerie of fools running for president and taken seriously.
That's true, you have them in office already. I remind you that the wingers' economic arguments in the primary here all amount to "Look what the Germans have done for Europe! We can do that here!" Not only are your leaders in with the our crazies ideologically, they're lighting the way for our crazies.
Also, too, and such as...the current US president and the former UK PM warned you that this would happen two. fucking. years ago, CH, and The Great Totally-Less-Fucked-Up-We-SwearsTM Germany sandbagged both of them and pimped austerity (not to mention the Chinese president launching an enormous stimulus program).
It takes a genuine talent for incompetence and crazy to make Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Hu Jintao look good. (Cue the VW tagline. "That's the Power of German Engineering!")
And then your leaders stamped their feet like children and threatened to take us to court for trying to make sure our stimulus programs went to our benefit instead of allowing them to mooch off our efforts.
The only real differences between our psychopaths and yours at this point are that (1) ours think hip-hop makes Baby Jesus cry, (2) you're not allowed to have a serious military, and (3) our central bank -- yes, the central bank of Horrifyingly Anti-ScienceTM "Amurka" -- doesn't believe 2-1=5. Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
I'm too depressed to see clearly. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
but i'm still too busy bei einkaufs Samstag to put it all in perspective. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
However, instead of wrongly assassinating tens or hundreds (I don't know how many) of alleged terrorists and taking out innocent civilians in the process, Merkel will instead bring hope and change to millions of southern Europeans by throwing them into the streets and gutting their (already-less-generous) welfare states.
Then there's Libya, where the morally righteous Germans were perfectly happy to stand around looking at the ceiling as Gaddafi prepared to level Benghazi.
And then, in a classic show of Merkelist attitudes, they made demands of the rebels. The national motto ought to be "We're There When We Need You" as long as that clown is Chancellor Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
But you're holding up NATO deposing that dictator as some standard of international aid? (I didn't support germany's position either.)
And it's not about a few hundred targeted assassinations, it's the entire complex of amurka thumbing it's nose at international law. I'm not sure saviour status regarding Libya can be compared to ignoring international treaties.
i don't defend her policies to the EZ/EU in the slightest, but you seem to forget that she's not acting alone, and some of the key players are amurkan. Does the IMF bear some responsibility as well, for throwing millions of s. europeans into the street? Do amurkan banks?
And since we're discussing throwing millions into the streets, would you wish to debate amurka's role in stopping progress on climate issues, which its own military calls the greatest threat to world peace? That is not as immediate as Greece, but has far, far greater global repercussions, the solution of which is past immediate. and one can't even have an adult debate on the subject in amurka, much less a policy that looks somewhat intelligent.
Merkozy is a piece of shit for destroying Yurp, no question, but my points weren't originally intended to argue as if the Eurozone crisis is happening in a vacuum.
(Also, would you explain to me what you mean that if Bush is my standard, i'm not worthy of lecturing anybody? He and Cheney did occupy that office for 8 years, with consequences the entire world is stull suffering under.... but i don't understand what you're getting at.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
The IMF is providing political cover for the ECB. The extraordinary thing is that the IMF is playing good cop to the EU/ECB bad cop. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Because it's possible to ring-fence Germany and see the damage as happening to "others". Extend "us" "here" to include the whole of the EU and the destruction is going to be quite bad, and quite widespread.
And the Bundesbank and the German Finance Ministry all the way back to Theo Weigel are responsible for much of this damage, especially ideologically and legally. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
This is the sort of right-wingery you'll see often on DailyKos these days.
none of that is right-wing, it's reality, at least out here in CA, where my tuition has gone up 400% in less than a decade at the same time at the same time as executive pay has skyrocketed and faculty/staff get less pay for more work with crappier working conditions and no dignity.
and that's before they pepper-sprayed my classmates in the face.
wanting public universities to serve the public good is not a right wing meme. opposing privatization and the executive class enriching themselves off of public institutions is not a right wing meme.
Studies show that costs are not rising fast.
Administrative pay accounts for less than 1% of the budget in the Cal. system for instance. Faculty are making less than ever before since there are now only 34% in full-time positions as opposed to 75% a generation ago.
This meme is pernicious and it's part of the right-wing attack since lefties have come together to blast schools for raising tuition, going so far as to argue pell grants and student loans allows schools to inflate prices and refrain from controlling costs. The reality is totally different.
Lack of state funding explains the tuition rise, not increased costs.
On U. Cal's page:
In 1990, the State contributed $16,000 per student. In 2007, it was $9,500.
By 2010, another $1.15 billion had been cut from the state budget. Current state budget is now $2.6 billion.
Average salaries for faculty have gone up from $51,000 in 1985 to $79,000 in 2001.
Cal-Berkeley's total budget went from 1.224 billion in 1997 to its current 1.59 billion in 2010.
When you look at the increased costs of new technology, much higher health care costs for employee insurance, coupled with deep slashes for state funding, you realize that this accounts for the fast rise in tuition and fees.
So where's the savings?
In 1990, 76% of faculty across the nation were full-time. In 2010, 34% of faculty across the nation were full-time.
Then look at # of classes offered and class sizes. That's where the so-called" fat is being cut, though of course no one mentions that it's not 4 years of schooling anymore, it's 5 years if you're lucky.
Germany should be focused on today, not the morals and ethics of the past.
...why Germans would cast this saga in moral and/or historical terms...
Only nut cases like those of us who infest sites such as ET have any stomach for the darker side of the national histories of our countries. Sadly this is true for most nations. People only become critical of the actions of their own governments when they personally are repeatedly smashed by the visible consequences of those actions, and by then the victims are already marginalized. The mechanisms of cultural stasis are not particularly appealing viewing. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
"The Germans" totally understand that huge imbalances within the Eurozone are not sustainable. It's quite clear for everyone to see. But how, if not by way of increasing the periphery's competitiveness, are the imbalances supposed to be resolved? Germany CANNOT become less productive and competitive, because it needs to compete on world markets with players like the US, the UK (sic!), China, and others, not just with Greece and Portugal (unfortunately). In fact, the ressources that Germany will need to sort out the Euro mess need to earned somewhere. Germany needs to run a trade surplus with countries outside the Eurozone/the EU or else, it will not be possible to finance the consumption - lack of tax enforcement, pensions, blown up administration, useless prestige projects, etc. - in the periphery (another question is whether it wants to). It is clear that Germany will need to continue to subsidise the South for many years to come (much as it did with Eastern Germany), but it cannot do so unless there is a credible effort by the periphery to reform. A credible commitment to long term remedies is the precondition for short term remedies. Why is this so difficult to understand, Mr. Wolf? Otherwise, Germany could as well close shop and hand its assets over to the rest of Europe as a Christmas present. (I know this is what the periphery thinks we owe them, because we cruelly forced the Euro on them, made them buy BMWs and Mercedes, prohibited them from investing the cheap credit in their competitiveness, rather than beach front homes, and then we also invaded Poland only 72 years ago - essentially, it's all our fault. Wait for the Protocols of the Elders of Germany to pop up soon. Parts of the Greek press are already very close to that intellectual level...)
A credible commitment to long term remedies is the precondition for short term remedies. Why is this so difficult to understand, Mr. Wolf?
Otherwise, Germany could as well close shop and hand its assets over to the rest of Europe as a Christmas present. (I know this is what the periphery thinks we owe them, because we cruelly forced the Euro on them, made them buy BMWs and Mercedes, prohibited them from investing the cheap credit in their competitiveness, rather than beach front homes, and then we also invaded Poland only 72 years ago - essentially, it's all our fault. Wait for the Protocols of the Elders of Germany to pop up soon. Parts of the Greek press are already very close to that intellectual level...)
Why is that the only option? Why not investment?
The idiocy is in assuming that this will make Germany less competitive relative to China, the US and (snicker, giggle) the UK. Dealing with that is the reason God gave us floating currencies.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
C: Which is code for reduce living standards to third world levels.
Dear friends, you know that I respect both of you highly, but those are just disingenuous comments. It might be that those things mean something entirely different to you than they mean in contemporary Swedish debate, like how we some months back found out that "competitiveness" meant completely different things to us. To me it meant a company that can successfully sell its products on the international markets, while to you it meant social retrenchments and neoliberal politics.
To me, cutting costs is nothing but the constant process of all businesses to lower the cost of their product through any means available, be it innovation, smarter organization, capital structure or whatever. Call it lean/kaizen or something else. It happens all the time in all companies to maintain their competitiveness. It's not about dismantling industry or introducing third world living standards. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
To me, cutting costs is nothing but the constant process of all businesses to lower the cost of their product through any means available, be it innovation, smarter organization, capital structure or whatever. Call it lean/kaizen or something else. It happens all the time in all companies to maintain their competitiveness. It's not about dismantling industry or introducing third world living standards.
That is because you have a protected domestic market in which the most productive Swedish industries can cannibalise the less productive Swedish industries.
Absent the protected domestic market, there is no guarantee that the dismantled industries are replaced by more productive domestic industries - they may instead be replaced by imports.
Ironically, I once closed a debate with Starvid with just such an example.
Tough competition in the refrigeration and freezing appliances market is forcing Danfoss to move its production of refrigerator and freezer thermostats from Nordborg to Danfoss' factory in Slovakia. The relocation, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, will affect around 77 employees. ...This event cannot be accommodated within Ricardo's theory. Under Ricardo's theory, Danfoss would use its capital and labour in Denmark to produce something else which can be exported to Slovakia, and some Slovak company would export thermostats to Denmark. Instead, what is happening is that Danfoss moves its capital to Slovakia, and its employees have to look for other jobs in Denmark without the benefit of Danfoss' capital also staying in Denmark chasing after labour. I suppose Danfoss' 77 employees could move to Slovakia to work for Danfoss there. I wonder how many of them would relocate to slovakia with a Slovak salary and benefits, if offered the chance. And this is within the European Union. There is no free movement of persons from Europe to China.
Tough competition in the refrigeration and freezing appliances market is forcing Danfoss to move its production of refrigerator and freezer thermostats from Nordborg to Danfoss' factory in Slovakia. The relocation, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, will affect around 77 employees. ...
Sweden is one of the most forceful supporters of free trade (which is only natural when trade is 50% of your GDP), so claiming we have a protected domestic market is quite rich.
Floating currencies is a way to generate a protected domestic market.
Or, to be a bit more technical, by allowing the exchange rate to be the buffer variable that ensures balance of the foreign accounts, you obtain the Keynesian advantages of a closed economy and the Ricardian advantages of an open economy. At the same time.
(This is not a free lunch - it fucks over internationally active banks by subjecting them to exchange rate risk. But Hayek is the only one who cries for internationally active banks.)
The Chinese case is an extreme one, because they target a surplus rather than balanced foreign accounts. But the basic mechanics are not so different at all.
(And the Euro has nothing to do with it - before that there was the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the bands, and before that fixed exchange rates and before that Bretton Woods - the Euro crisis is just like the string of devaluation crises we had prior to the mid-90s) tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Cutting costs? Investing in capital improvement? Or dismantling it? tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Accession countries don't have the luxury of subsidiarity. That's a privilege they earn upon accession. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Which is why these news were so astounding.
Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Right, which is why dismantling the comparatively less generous welfare states in peripheral Europe is part of the medicine the doctor prescribed (after a frontal assault on the welfare states in core Europe, of course). tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
It looks almost scripted :P tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Jokes aside, these are the best kinds of threads at the ET. A lot like a debate in the seminar room, except they leave room for less rhetoric and require more clarity as everything is written down. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Fair cop, I guess, but then they need to stop pretending that they care about the future of the Euro and start stress testing their banks for getting paid back in Drachma.
I disagree. Germany wants the currency union it signed up to 10 years ago. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The point is the Euro could not work as designed and is blowing up after encoutering its first (perhaps externally triggered) crisis. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
They saw the build-up of "imbalances" and did nothing because "free movement of capital" prevented them from doing so. In other words, Market fundamentalism, the belief that "the market knows best" and that intervention should be reactive and not proactive. Also possibly they believed (against all evidence from economic history and dynamical systems theory) that the "imbalances" would resolve themselves smoothly and not catastrophically. Or they just didn't care. Saying this"There is nothing we can do to stop foreign exchange borrowing, and we don't even try. As members of the European Union, we have to respect the free flow of capital," he [Hamezc Istvan, director of Hungary's Central Bank] said.in unconscionable in any case.
In other words, Market fundamentalism, the belief that "the market knows best" and that intervention should be reactive and not proactive. Also possibly they believed (against all evidence from economic history and dynamical systems theory) that the "imbalances" would resolve themselves smoothly and not catastrophically.
Or they just didn't care.
Saying this
"There is nothing we can do to stop foreign exchange borrowing, and we don't even try. As members of the European Union, we have to respect the free flow of capital," he [Hamezc Istvan, director of Hungary's Central Bank] said.
The absurd thing is that it all might have worked if there had been some internal capital controls to reduce massive flows of funds from the core to the periphery.
That is what floating currencies do for you.
Replacing a market system that works with a ForEx rationing board that may or may not work is... perhaps to show an excessive enthusiasm for government solutions.
But how, if not by way of increasing the periphery's competitiveness, are the imbalances supposed to be resolved? Germany CANNOT become less productive and competitive, because it needs to compete on world markets with players like the US, the UK (sic!), China, and others,
The -Mark floats w.r.t. the US$, GB£ and Yuan. There is nothing wrong with six per cent yearly inflation in Germany that a four per cent yearly depreciation of the -Mark won't solve.
Don't like that? Tough cookie. Then you don't like the common currency.
(Yes, a common currency convergence must always be towards the highest structural inflation rates in the currency zone, because pushing your economy below its structural inflation rate creates financial imbalances of the sort we are seeing at the moment.)
Had Germany pursued a policy of avoiding loans and forgoing sales to Eurozone deficit countries they would not have the problems. But the ability to squeeze EZ trade partners once they had no ability to depreciate their currency was a prime factor in Germany's willingness to join the EZ. Competitiveness is not a matter of physical or social infrastructure or business capital assets, you see, it is having the right morality - living to work instead of working to live and being a docile and even eager cog in a machine run for the benefit of a few, while, of course, suppressing any thought of their activity benefiting disproportionately a very few. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Let's be clear, what has been going on over the life of the Euro has been German export subsidies in the (EU-allowed) form of private sector vendor finance as opposed to the (EU-disallowed) government export subsidies.
The government subsidy comes at the end, when loans are guaranteed, lenders made whole, and political pressure brough to bear internationally to ensure the debt is collected. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
You just need to look at the way Greece has been forced to take billions of new loans over the past two years and the conditions attached to them (billed as designed to return Greece to debt sustainability whereas any realistic assessment was already predicting from the beginning what has already happened: not only is Greece's ability to pay deteriorating, but it is descending deeper and deeper into debt). tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
Elsewhere you say
In any case, you continue to not address the issue of why the periphery should accept depression conditions rather than the core accepting some inflation. I'm not arguing for any of those solutions, as I see both as unacceptable. I want to see widespread sovereign defaults, bank recapitalizations and the emergency funds of the ESFS spent on infrastructure spending in the periphery as a way of offsetting austerity.
I'm not arguing for any of those solutions, as I see both as unacceptable. I want to see widespread sovereign defaults, bank recapitalizations and the emergency funds of the ESFS spent on infrastructure spending in the periphery as a way of offsetting austerity.
Which could have been met with lower interest rates, or that failing, financial stimulus.
So, how do you propose infrastructure spending in the periphery would have happened after 1999 in the absence of "credit card spending"?
The issuance of sovereign debt seems reasonable, as does private equity (not "private equity" as in LBO variety, but equity as in the opposite of debt) investment if the latter were not forthcoming at a great enough scale. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Low interest rates for all is what we got and it fed private debt bubbles in the periphery. As to financial stimulus... what continent have you spent the past 2 years in? tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
And everyman believes that the Germans are good at Econ 101.
Which is why we're in deep doo-doo. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
As someone said: would you like to be in a monetary union where Greeks run the fiscal policy and Germans run the monetary policy? Currently, only 8 % of Swedes do. And I'm not one of them. The only person I know who still wants to join the euro does so because he thinks it's a step closer to the United States of Europe, and damn the consequences. Which is after all also what the architects of the euro felt.
Or in the words of Romano Prodi back in 2001: "I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created" Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Beats the current arrangement where the Germans run both. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
If only. Apparently Germany doesn't agree that the rest of us are part of them.
Or maybe they do. They don't seem to have much "solidarity" for the Ossies either. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
So, how do you propose infrastructure spending in the periphery would have happened after 1999 in the absence of "credit card spending"? The issuance of sovereign debt seems reasonable, as does private equity (not "private equity" as in LBO variety, but equity as in the opposite of debt) investment if the latter were not forthcoming at a great enough scale.
The issuance of sovereign debt seems reasonable, as does private equity (not "private equity" as in LBO variety, but equity as in the opposite of debt) investment if the latter were not forthcoming at a great enough scale.
Also, I said the private sector should have supplied the equity, not direct-state investment in productive assets, even if such do make sense in certain industries. Power and infrastructure comes to mind. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
That is to say, if you want state-level (and below) consolidated government debt to be less than 60 % of GDP, you will have to let federal consolidated government debt (in the Eurozone that means central bank reserves and cash, but not ensured deposits in excess of the bank's reserves and cash position) to be in excess of 40 % of GDP (the consolidated government liabilities to GDP ratio is on the order of 100 % for most advanced industrial societies).
Or, to put it in another way: Government bonds are a part of the money supply.
With a properly run central bank, cash and government bonds held by own residents contribute precisely equally to society's gearing: Not at all. (Foreign government bonds are different.)
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