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TechnoratiAs Crisis Spreads, Europe Points Finger at America
LONDON - Financial firms are reeling in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Iceland is on the brink of national bankruptcy. A continent that has enjoyed steady growth for years is watching it all melt away.
![[Financial firms are reeling in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Iceland is on the brink of national bankruptcy. A continent that has enjoyed steady growth for years is watching it all melt away. And everyone is pointing the finger of blame across the Atlantic Ocean.(Kim Haughton/WPN for The Boston Globe) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/CrisisSpreads1011.jpg "CrisisSpreads1011.jpg")
And everyone is pointing the finger of blame across the Atlantic Ocean.
In the financial district of London, the pubs of Dublin, and on the campuses of Holland, people are citing reckless lending in the US mortgage market, unbridled American consumption, and a lack of government oversight for the financial meltdown that has engulfed Europe. Many dismiss the US bailout as an unwise and hypocritical move that rewards the greedy bankers who caused the crisis and breaches the ideals of the country that pioneered market-driven capitalism.
"It seems to me that the US government supports the people that least deserve it," said Sanne Castro, 28, a student at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. "But it does prove that even the most hard-core free-market capitalists would rather turn in their fundamental beliefs than their money."
Europeans are watching the value of their investments plummet, their banks collapse, their ability to borrow or get a mort gage diminish, their currency slide, and their job security become more fragile than ever. In short, they look just as shell-shocked as Americans.
The financial free fall in Europe is, in part, due to a shift in economic philosophy by the major European nations, said William Keylor, director of the International History Institute at Boston University. European nations, seeking to emulate the formula for growth and financial innovation that has propelled the American economy, gave up tight control over financial markets and privatized formerly state-run major industries, such as gas and transportation. When stock markets were advancing and economies were growing, Europeans embraced the changes, Keylor said. But the current crisis has caused many to have second thoughts. Now, some are insisting that the Europeans had it right all along, and government ownership would have limited the risks and curbed the catastrophes now enveloping the region.
"It is hard for them to play the 'blame game' when they chose this path freely and continued to follow it when times were good," Keylor said.
It is clear that times have changed.
The Euro Stoxx 50 Index, which measures 50 European blue-chip stocks, plunged 22 percent just in the past week, mirroring precipitous drops in exchanges in London, Germany, and Paris. As the panic spreads across oceans and national borders, many Europeans are criticizing US leaders for not doing enough to stabilize the global market.
Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took a swipe at Americans as he proposed his government's own roughly $800 billion bailout of its banks earlier this week.
"This problem started in America with irresponsible actions and lending by some institutions," Brown told a press conference on Wednesday. "The global financial market has ceased to function."
The anger marks a drastic change among Europeans, who gleefully looked on as the early stages of the US crisis seemed to show the weaknesses of America's unfettered capitalism, according to Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. But as the economic storm has ripped through Europe, schadenfreude is being replaced by anger.
The most severe excesses came from America, Gault said, but the greed and reckless behavior weren't confined to the United States, Gault said. Although European banks were much more conservative, their lending policies fueled housing booms in parts of the United Kingdom, Spain, and Ireland that are now going bust. And some European banks, including a state-owned firm in Germany, held billions of dollars in risky mortgage-backed securities.
"Is that America's fault for selling them toxic assets?" Gault said. "Or Europe's fault for not more thoroughly investigating just what they were buying?"
Some Europeans, noting the response of the Bush administration to Wall Street's woes, have chided US leaders who have railed against the European model of managed capitalism for suddenly embracing government intervention in the financial sector.
"These people were the first to state that government regulation in the market is in the long run bad for the economy, for example when it comes to environmental laws, social welfare, and of course Wall Street," Castro said. "And what are they doing now?"
In London, the wreckage of the US crisis looms over Canary Wharf, the city's new financial district. A skyscraper here until recently was the main office of Lehman Brothers. At a nearby Starbucks, next to what used to be the headquarters of First Boston Bank, Alastair Green, 50, an investment banker, expressed concern about the relentless market mayhem.
"Everybody assumes there is a solution out there," Green said. "But what if there's not?"
Emily Springford, a lawyer who specializes in bankruptcy and insolvency litigation in London, said it's obvious the United States is the main driver behind the current upheaval here, but Europe cannot escape blame entirely. She supports the US bailout because it was "necessary to take action," but says British leaders are doing a better job at protecting the people's interests.
"There is still a sense of disbelief here about how fast the crisis is spreading," Springford said.
The question for European leaders, Keylor said, is whether the crisis will cause them to reconsider American-style capitalism.
But for Phillip Massey, an information-technology worker in Dublin, the question is not what Europe can do for itself, but whether the American bailout of its financial institutions will mean a worldwide recovery.
"When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold," Massey said. "But chicken soup and home remedies aren't going to fix this one. The world as a whole needs treatment."
Globe correspondent Michael Goldfarb contributed to this report.
121 Comments so far
Show All"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson
Ummm...just thinking--do you think it would help if we overturned the "Freedom Fries" Bill?? I know that it was the GOPs big accomplishment of the year--b-b-b-but--we're gonnas need the help.
Eat Pommes Frites!!
Love, Dumbass Yankee!
There's enough blame to go around. The G7 has acted very irresponsibly. The recent intervention by the Central Banks earlier this week amounted to a declaration of war against emerging markets and their currencies. The Mexican Peso, the Turkish Lira, the Brazilian Real, the Hungarian Forint got trashed this week. The Iceland Krona got put on time out. Hank Paulson made a comment in Reuters that threatened these developing economies. The US and their G7 cohorts are like little children. If they feel that they are going down, they are going to take the EM economies with them. A pox on both the US and the EU!!!!They both suck!
Europeans are rather good at pointing fingers. Nothing, of course, is their fault.
This paper is gossip. I am a European and I don't point fingers. I am very happy with what is happening. Free market is a dream, more exactly a nightmare without control. Actually, I am more furious with our politicians than with the Americans. I want more taxes, more sharing, more education and free market. I want it all. The American model has seriously become disconnected from reality and we unfortunately have some believers in Europe.
So, when are you going to call for cancelling all those free trade deals with Europe? At least they tried to provide a safety net and provide a soft landing. Can you say the same of your Republican nazis? Until the USA can acknowledge failure and actually correct its lazy ways, Europe and others will have no choice but to blame this nation. Instead of being a Neil Boortz clone, you ought to visit Europe or better yet settle there for a few months since you refuse to believe Europeans yourself. Your misunderstanding of Europeans will be cleared up.
Mine was. Thanks.
Actually, Europeans imploy a pretty rigid set of standards for themselves. They criticize their govts all the time. No one is accused of not being "patriotic".
They care about each other, as a people. I dont se that here. Neither do they. That is why they are angry at their govts for becoming so entangled. They do not want to live like us. Neither do I.
Do you really think the mainstream French "care for" the French citizens of Algerian descent rotting in the Banlieus surrounding Paris and Marseilles? Do you believe that the 20% of French voters who plumped for Jean Marie Le Pen "care" for anybody?
Are you high?
Europe is not free of racism, cultural narrowness and xenophobia. They are dealing with their own imperialist payback. I believe that fear of the immigrants from Algeria and other former colonies is the wedge issue being used to get working class and middle class native voters there to vote for free market capitalists and against their own hard-won economic interests.
Joe
The French/Algerian problem has absolutely nothing to do with what I was saying.
And, the US is certainly in no position to judge.
URGENT!!!
PLEASE GO TO PBS AND VOTE AGAINST PHALLIN!!!
http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/poll/poll.pl
The result will go MSM. Please don't allow the right wing scum to prevail on this one!
Thank You for our own sake!
It's just Karma
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
The link doesnt open. What is Phallin
A Freudian slip.
Poet
Good riddance! I am embarrassed now. My apologies. Here is the right link. I don't know what happened.
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
You can vote whether You believe Phallin is up for the job or not.
Phallin = Phallus palin...
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
If Europe really cared, wouldn't they have already cancelled all those free trade deals with the US?
Gold was and will always the last resort, the safest investment. It's also been very handy over the centuries to buy or bribe one's way across borders, onto ships, etc etc. or to buy essentials on the black market in times of scarcity.
Since I became conscious of where gold comes from and how it's extracted and marketed, however, I've given up the idea of hoarding my savings in that metal. Gold mines have been wreaking ecological havoc all over the world - from land grabs and displacement of inhabitants to exploitation of miners and poisoning of acuifers (with arsenic, etc.).
(Abandoned gold mines from the 19th century are still in many places throughout North America leaching their toxic remnants.)
An individual's ultimate (potential) safety tied up in one of the bloodiest metals...
Think about this.
Of course the U.S. dollar and the Euro -and the Australian and Canadian dollars and the yen etc. too- are also soaked in blood. So which does one choose?
Who are these jokers trying to kid anyway? They were part of the same scam.
Sioux Rose
HUMBABA: They also negotiated by trading daughters of heads of state. I opt for the Bush twins... may not seem to feminist of me, but it's for the spirit of mankind, after all. These two darlings of one of history's most influential crime families, to negate debt that would impoverish thousands, maybe millions, who among this small CD citizenry agrees with me that the price is worth it? Too late to call off Bin Laden if he had anything remotely to do with 911, but perhaps some other sheiks of billionaires would be inspired to chip in to our common fiscal pool for such a ransom?
Perhaps we could do an arranged marriage of the Bush twins to one of the violent third world dictators the US is so fond of propping up and giving vast amounts of advanced weaponry to?
Walk in peace.
I wonder which finger Europe will be pointing at the US?
Poet
Before any American gets too complacent: There was something called Basel II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_II, initiated to a large extent by the USA.
Except that America never really signed up to these rules for financial markets in the end, whereas Europeans did. Which is why Europeans are a little miffed these days.
There is BTW a World Trade Organization but there is no World Financial Organization, which might have prevented the roots of this melt-down.
Americans live on credit, Europeans typically live on savings. It's a hell of a lot harder to get a loan in continental Europe than in America.
I've always considered it a massive mistake that anybody in Europe followed Anglo-Saxon financial practices, because they have always been directed by pure greed and reliance on unregulated markets and it all has just always looked horribly unsound to me.
If the crisis had just hit the actual culprits and champions of greed, i.e. the US and the UK, I'd have no problems. They literally asked for it. But that everybody else, i.e. everybody's bank, around the world bought their silly "the market knows best"-ideologies and their near-criminal derivatives comes as a shock to most of us.
"Americans live on credit, Europeans typically live on savings. It's a hell of a lot harder to get a loan in continental Europe than in America."
You are exactly right. BUt its only the last thirty years or so that this has been true. And we need to get back to fiscal responsibility as you suggest. I have found the financial markets around the world to be no different than our as top greed. I believe its more a sub culture, a Baronial class if you will, thats been at work while we slept.
You'll find that European banks and Asian banks are quite busy with the greedy policies they practiced. But there is no doubt in my mind that we bear the main blame for allowing the deregulation that made this possible in the US, dating from 1999 to be specific.
I think much of this catastrophy can be traced back to Richard M. (Millstone) Nixon when he gutted the Bretton Woods Agreement by taking the United States off of the Gold Standard. An ounce of pure gold was $35 then and the rest is inflation to pay for the fake war in Vietnam. What will George W. (Warmonger) Bush use to pay for his fake wars?
In olden times the 'Gods' demanded the first born of their subjects - now it will be all the born and unborn of the entire planet. Heckuva Job!
America's greedy indulgences are nothing new.
I was thinking about monks in the Middle Ages laboring in great halls to write out indulgences to sell to people wanting a false assurance of salvation. The only kind there is.
This continued at a modest pace until Gutenberg allowed the Church to flood the market with his high tech printing press in 1450.
Then Martin Luthor blew the whistle on the whole thing in 1517. The Church never fully recovered.
Then I got to thinking about bankers laboring in great institutions to write out instruments to sell to people wanting a false assurance of savings. The only kind there is.
This continued at a modest pace until deregulation allowed the Boyars to flood the markets with exotic debt instruments.
Then Pandora's box was opened and all the toxic fabrications escaped. America will never fully recover...
And so it goes. The Great Wheel of life turns and turns, always new, always the same...
Good observation about the indulgences, but I do think you're wrong about America not recovering. We've recovered from worse before we could again. Thinking that this is some end is wishful thinking perhaps. The future is not a forgone conclusion here.
new
Remy Germain October 11th, 2008 4:56 pm
Thatcher and Reagan’s pyramid scheme comes tumbling down.
Hey Remy
You say it all with such few words Excellent
Milton Friedman As a leader of the Chicago School of economics, based at the University of Chicago, he had a widespread influence in shaping and influencing numerous Governments in the western world including the USA
He opposed government regulation of all sorts, as well as public schooling. Friedman's political philosophy, which stresses individual freedom and limited government
. Friedman emphasized the advantages of the market place and the disadvantages of government intervention and regulations
He strongly influencing the outlook of American conservatives”
In the 1960s he promoted an alternative macroeconomic policy called monetarism.
Ronald Reagan and Thatcher rammed home and installed Neoliberalism deregulating every thing in sight including all the financial institutions (classic
They Instituted the Trickle Down Theory
It appears what ever the Conservative Upper class was trickling down has backed up and they are scampering for higher ground on the heads of the drowning American populous
Milton Friedman’s policies as followed by the Conservative’s Reaganomics has done irreparable damage to the USA
Sorry Americas Joe six pack if you are too dumb to know what this Election is really about ,most of the rest of the world knows, so just go and Vote for Obama
You would be contributing in saving yourself and America also stopping the rich from tinkling down on you
Public fury over the pay and perks given to Wall Street executives reached new heights when it was revealed that senior employees of insurance giant AIG had gone on lavish $440,000 retreat -- complete with banquets, spa treatments and golf -- just days after the company had been bailed out by the government.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27086714/
"When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold,"
Eight years ago, America was stupid enough to vote for "W".
Now the whole world has Rabies.
That's funny. But remember, america didn't vote for W. Gore won and the Supreme Court gave Bush the presidency.
In 2004, the election was stolen again, but that time the popular vote was not admitted. They changed the exit polls to go along with the voting machine tally.
How much do you want to bet that the exit polls will not be publicized at all this time?
Although I believe that it's time for Team B, so the machines are set for Obama.
You want to know what the answer to the world's financial problems is? It's cabbages!
Yes folks, on my blog, in simple terms, I have detailed the consummate rescue plan. You will be blown away by the simplicity of it, the commonsense. Check out:
www.dangerouscreation.com
Thatcher and Reagan’s pyramid scheme comes tumbling down.
Sioux Rose
A parallel may be drawn between the following unrelated policies (apart from the depraved indifference on the part of "managers" in both instances): Given the way the U.S. has broken international law and The Geneva Conventions to TORTURE prisoners/enemy combatants or whatever the nomenclature, and now may see that dark outcome manifest if any of its own get capture; the gentlemen's agreement around fair contracts has also broken down. In both cases the future will pay for the lax behaviors recently conducted, for in both TRUST has broken down. Who will take American military seriously, respect the so-called "laws of war" when the shoe is on the other foot? Who will take seriously American capitalistic enterprises after this entire show of smoke and mirrors has dropped the bottom out for a great many decent, hardworking people. Shams R'U.S.!
Hard to sympathize with the Europeans. Serves them right, after all, they gave us bottled water and ABBA.
"When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold," Massey said. "But chicken soup and home remedies aren't going to fix this one. The world as a whole needs treatment."
This is not a European attack on America. It is a condemnation of it's unfettered capitalism. The question is, who is going to fetter the capitalists, the people or the capitalists themselves?
That is correct. "US capitalism" has always been a losing proposition.
The EU was probably too heavily invested in it.
But, proposing to nationalize the banks, etc. are things that the EU, etc. proposed to do a long time ago.
I think that the mesasge is"this could have been averted".
Europe Points Finger at America..."
I think America should give them the finger!
What do you mean America SHOULD give them the finger?
That is what America has been doing to the world for generations!
Hey! They ASKED for it! By doin' stuff. Y'know?
Thanks. Indeed.
I think Europeans are accustomed to seeing Americans as swinish adolescents. A large number of us (thankfully not a majority) always rise to live up to these expectations.
Thats OK, a lot of Europeans are quite arrogant for no reason at all. And they are rising up to expectations as we speak. Wait till the mess they have made becomes evident.
For no reason at all, you say, Thomas More? Well, I don't much like arrogance in anyone, but thought I would mention something that would be unheard of in USA.
Canada, your mild-mannered neighbour, is right now having federal elections as well. Four (THAT IS: 4 PARTIES) are running and none of them have been excluded from the media covered debates. Conservative, Liberal, (not your idea of liberal - Canadian Liberal Party is quite conservative) New Democratic Party, and the Green Party. So Canadians actually have choices.
Each debate is conducted in 2 languages: French and English. Each candidate speaks both languages fluently. The President of USA cannot even speak one language coherently.
In my books, Canada is more democratic for having more parties than 2, and light-years away in intelligence and sophistication.
I'm just saying......no reason to be arrogant...oh yeah, Canadians don't know how to be arrogant...they are quite a modest bunch.
Similar scenarios are all over Europe.
AMEN!! But, these concepts are so foreign to most USAns., that they seem to think that even suggesting other parties, proportionl representation, instant runoff voting, even FEDERAL elections, so peoplare voting on te same ballot, for the same candidates-well, "What about states' rights???". Or, "It just cant be done--THIS TIME" (or next time or ever)
Well, I'll tell you---secede. If you do not want a strong central govt, secede.
I mean, something has GOT to change here, folks, and it cannot just beb "well, it could be worse" Why dont people see this? What will it take?
Dear Delphi, what "it takes" is knowledge about other places. They don't even know a thing about Canada!!
The only country I can think of which lives in such splendid mental isolation and ignorance of how anybody else is organized - is North Korea.
And the USA are the only country on earth that basically hasn't changed the way it is structured and governed for some 250 years - which is insane, considering what the world was like then.
Most of their troubles derive from this incredibly structural rigidity - which I fear is triggered by whopping ignorance about what modern states actually look like today.
Since "arrogant" stands for "educated" in America: Thank you. Indeed. We are a hell of a lot more educated than you, as a rule.
That seems to be the Europeans opinion, however the figures don't support your assertion.
Besides, we love ya'll, its just surprising it goes unrequited.
America is too busy giving itself the finger.
The EU sees US as greedy, uncaring, individualistic tax phobic people--because we are! It is simply very hard for then to understand how, with al this "wealth", we can not provide a decent standatrd of living for the majority.
Thats exactly right. They don't envy us. They think we're nuts.
Yes. Exactly.
We particularly think that you are nuts because the non-wealthy majority of Americans is to an alarming degree buying an ideology that benefits only the wealthy and not really them and because that majority never ever revolts when they find out that they've been had but keeps voting for more of the same, as long as someone flies the stars and stripes and pledges allegiance to the flag and praises the military in a country that can't possibly be conquered anyway and which has no raw materials that would make it a likely prey in the first place!!
Thank you . Hate to agree--but I do.
Alan MacDonald
This is the letter I immediately sent to Jenn this morning when I read our local paper; the often liberal and sometimes even progressive Boston Globe -- the only MSM press occasionally worth reading:
Jenn, your article today is spot on.
Your research is excellent, and the comments of young student Sanne Castro are not only correct today, but continuing to reflect the future course of the American pathology.
Support for ‘free market’ ideology, in a system which allows the well known ‘market failure’ of ‘negative externality cost dumping’ to be ‘gamed’, is merely support for ‘free looting’, which most knowledgeable people from George Akerlof, US Nobel laureate in economics, to Noam Chomsky recognize.
I wrote the following yesterday to Paul Krugman fully comporting with your research:
Paul, talk about “Doing the Right Thing” — your current op-ed “Moment of Truth” causes me to have more optimism — but there is still only a 50/50 chance of doing the right thing or doing the 'empire thing'.
I am heartened by your suggestion that this global financial crisis and showdown could be resolved by a merging of European/Japan and American financial policy that would save the people of both continents (and the world) from crushing pain.
Avoiding such crushing pain in their political economy for their people should be the goal of all democratic governments.
But as we look toward such a positive conclusion of our mutual and existential financial crisis we must be realistic about the prospects — both positive and negative.
Europe’s fair and compassionate social democracies will be negotiating to save their citizens and to cooperate with an American government which is well along the path to being merely a ‘Vichy’ facade of democracy, representing only the voice and interests of a ruling-elite ‘corporatist Empire’ — now dead memories to modern post-WWII Europeans and Japanese.
The European and Japanese governments entering such negotiations are genuinely ‘trusted’ by their citizens to have their best interests at heart economically — as demonstrated by their universal support of citizen rights and interests, such as universal health care, anti-war foreign policies, and an average GINI inequality index well below 0.30.
In contrast, on the other side of the pond/table will be a corporatist controlled ‘Vichy’ government which has demonstrated exactly the opposite reasons for any deep democratic trust because of economic policies that their people see as highly skewed toward expensive, militarist, and imperialistic foreign wars, oppressive domestic policies regarding human rights, economic opportunities, education, and social safety nets — all reflecting an abnormally high GINI index of inequality of over 0.48 (driving it to non-democratic, third-world levels).
These drastically differing levels of citizen trust coming out of drastically different levels of popular citizen democratic values there vs. ‘corporatist Empire’ demands here, will make the negotiating positions of Europe/Japan compared to America governments reflective of drastically different constituencies — democratic people on one side and corporate ruling-elite demands on the other.
Paul, it would be wonderfully optimistic, as you suggest, if the merging and cooperation of European/Japanese and American governments resulted in bringing the democratic interests of ‘the people’ back from the new world of modern Europe and Japan to the now faded promise of American democracy and reversed our slide to ‘corporatist Empire’ — rather than see the current perverted US model of corporatist hegemony and Empire expand further to a global level.
Thank you again, Jenn, for your excellent research, reporting, and educating of the American people.
Sincerely
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Please extend my comments and thanks to Michael.
Excellent post! Thanks. Do you have a website?
"...But it does prove that even the most hard-core free-market capitalists would rather turn in their fundamental beliefs than their money."
Free market capitalists have beliefs apart from money? Appetitive animals don't normally have a cognitive dimension.
The C.S.A. (Corporate States of Greed) is, indeed, the main culprit. The only thing that will save this dying "Republic" is DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM! Sure, that'll fly with all the in-programming of the masses.
http://www.dsausa.org/about/index.html
"Crack open a cynic and you will find an angry idealist!"
Thanks for the link.
I am in full agreement.
Capitalism is institutionalized sociopathy.
Fellow Americans let's realize one thing--our brilliant money men shoveled in toxic mortgage money at one end and repackaged it, leveraged it and resold it as gold to the rest of the world. The world is pissed!
Here's salvation for the rest of the world and the US as well:
First, We go with the Treasury Secretary we got. Henry lead us to the promised land: The New New Deal. Dethrone George Bush/Milton Friedman/Arnold Greenspan (Markets work; governments don't), install John Maynard Keynes/FDR (they helped save capitalism the last time).
Memo to Obama: Drop Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and the rest of the free market deregulators on your team. Ditto for the Cold Warriors and Liberal Humanitarian Interventionists. We need to end our vast overseas empire. Besides, we're broke and charity begins at home. Place Baker, Weisbrot and Kuttner on your economic team.
Just like Nixon who found peace with China, Paulson can lead us to a caring socialism/capitalism. It's possible: we could become a loving Scandinavian country.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
Double Duh ! It's the war stupid !
Nobel Prize economist, and author of The Three Trillion Dollar War, Joseph Stiglitz stated:
” The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.”
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.”
complete article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html
Or in other words, the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan have become the economic graveyard of the American empire !
Joseph Stiglitz writes articles that make sense. It is unusual in this crisis.
Hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps trillions, have been lost, first from the war and then from the real estate pyramid scheme. Some of those dollars still reside with those who started the pyramid scheme. We should get them back.
I do not understand what the collaborations between Japan and the US governments that Paul Krugman proposes are supposed to accomplish. Neither of these governments shows much concern for the average person. How can we make dollars re-appear? What can we do to stave off future hemorrhage? I would like to understand. In my experience, if it cannot be explained so we can understand it, it is probably bogus.
Today on line at the post office a woman from Ghana told me she thought that ending the war in Iraq and saving $10 billion a month is our only chance at salvation. I understood that. It is a small start, but a good step. I would like everyone to speak so plainly. Paulson's talk is incomprehensible, and deliberately so.
Joe
Absolutely true. As punishment for sending their sons and daughters to their deaths in a criminal war of aggression for corporate profit, Americans now stand to lose their life savings. Be smart. Stop the two party system. Vote independent.
Revolution Now!
Pope Seri Gribbitus is right. We do need a revolution to sweep away the terminally greedy vacuum cleaner of American Tornado Capitalism. The problem is that in the contemporary world the well meaning people who lead a revolution are quickly murdered by the gangsters and opportunists who lurk in the shadows and we would find ourselves being ruled by the same scum and criminals that we have presently under George Wanker Bush who, by the way, said it's a good thing he's in charge during this financial catastrophe. Lewis Carroll could not have written a more bizarre and bitterly funny scene.
Starting from last January all Germans are enforced to pay for their medical insurance, thing unthinkable since Count Otto von Bismark times more then 130 years ago. That could be done to German people only at the gun point. And gun pointed they were.
Equating EU with the US is irrational. EU is a fiction, while the US is armed to the teeth. Another difference is that Europeans used to be better organized than their American counterparts. Yes, we all are "ruled by the same scum and criminals" as we were ruled for ages. But Revolutions did change the world and the corruption is too profound to be cured by the single Revolution or two. There will be more to come.
So be prepared.
v.purto
Bullshit. Where did you get that idea?
Aaahh! Someone to scope out USans pathetic fight for health care for the rich only!
Can you come back or stick around? I cant seem to convince them that no one should die in a hosptial parking lot!
LOL--silly yankees.... ; (
I have found it to be somewhat amusing to hear the rest of the world, especially Europe, complaining about and pointing the finger of blame at the United States.
While I understand that U.S. policies of sending toxic debt out into the world are a large part of this economic meltdown, no one put a gun to to the head any of these countries to force them into participation. They were joyously taking part.
roncypert: I would suggest that you read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins and see if the rest of the world was "joyously taking part."
I would suggest that you have no idea as to what I have or have not read. I did not say that the rest of the world was "joyously taking part". I was speaking of the financial world: bankers, lenders, investors, hedge fund managers, stock-futures-commodities traders, speculators, etc., etc., etc.
Upon re-reading my original post, I suppose that it could be argued that I was indeed talking about the whole world. However, since the subject matter at hand was the global financial system(s), it would seem apparent that I wasn't referring to the populaces as a whole. Most of the people on the planet do not directly participate in the worlds of finance, such as lending, borrowing, investing, etc. Their direct participation is that of victim.
Please read this article again. Then read yesterday's Chomsky article.
Firstly, who is this "they" who were taking part? The citizens or the leaders?
Secondly, the European citizens - and even the leaders to some extent, DID have a virtual gun of powerful, global, corporate neoliberal capitalism put to their head - forcing them to adopt unpopular policies or face economic ruin at the hands "virtual parliament" of the corporations.
Thatcher was right - there WAS no alternative - although in her case it was an expression of glee rather than a lament!
And where are these global corporations largely based? The United States.
Thirdly, do you think we gathered in our thousands to hundreds of thousands in Seattle, Quebec, DC, Goteborg, Genoa, Cancun, and Miami just for fun? And what about the hundreds of thousands who worked to forged another possible world in Porto Allegre, Mumubai, Carcas, and other places? The captalists alternately ignored, ridiculed, brutally attacked, and even killed some of us. They can now all go to hell!
Basically, it is time for people to learn the real value of money. It is gonna be a hard lesson for some. Sadly, the bottom 30% of the financial spectrum will suffer the most, but I sincerely hope that this forces them to take up pitchforks and molotov cocktails and sends them into the streets to take back what was stolen from them.
It started with Reagan and Thatcher and must stop now or we are doomed to live in a destroyed world.
And yes, my estranged family deserves to be taken into the streets and hung from the trees for supporting Reagan.
"to take back what was stolen from them."
Addresses, anyone?
I hate to say it, but, what was "taken away" never really existed in the first place. I know people believed it, worked for it, and they were all pawns in a Ponzi scheme.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money_4
Still I see no "movement" to take what these thieves DO have, in the service of the people who were harmed.
We act like a bunch of cowards.
"I hate to say it, but, what was "taken away" never really existed in the first place. I know people believed it, worked for it, and they were all pawns in a Ponzi scheme."
I completely agree and have said as much in a recent op-ed piece. I'm hearing this from more sides and this is good.
But, you see, this is why I asked about your comment before about US people not doing shit. You see no "movement", but in reality, you and I seem to be doing things. They may be small things, but we are doing things. In that we, we are a movement. The problem is, not nearly enough of us are doing things.
I'm not sure it's a matter of cowardice, but of not knowing how to react and what to do. So, most people wait for someone else to start a movement, when in reality, we each have to start a movement. We each have to start a revolution inside ourselves that states, "That's it! I'm not playing this fucking game one more second!" And that's it, really. It's that simple! That's where the real revolution really starts.
We need to stop waiting for someone else and just change ourselves because I can guarantee that there is no one else who will make the changes we want. We're it! Always have been.
"It is not true that it's one damn thing after another - it's one damn thing over and over." Edna St. Vincent Millay
True. I tried to suggest it after the bailout, on here and Truth Dig.
You know, like "How many people are here? No one seems to like it. Why dont we get as many people together as possible and jsut say 'we'ere not doing this.we're going to do this instead'".
The reponse was to be ignored, or, people said, "Just wait to elections", or "People wil get hurt". What, and they are not now?? Apparently , most people are still too "comfortable"
My dad used to say that it was better to die for a cause then to die fighting the last person over the last potato.
We can start with a particular long time businessman living here in the Pittsburgh south hills suburbs. In spite of 100% opposition of his own community, this "pillar of the community" wants to strip-mine the coal from under a large portion of the communities only major public park. Needless to say, the county nixed the idea, so he is suing the county for over $200 million for an "illegal taking" of his private property - the coal seam under the park.
It is a perfect analogy of what the global corporations are doing on global scale - only in this case - the guilty party is much more accessible.
Careful. Getting very close to being classifiable as a "terrorist". Class anger must always be either unfocused and random, or misdirected somehow.
Appropriately targeted actions are called a "revolution".
20 million Dittoheads are already being frothed up to "defend the nation" against this. They're convinced electing a Corporate Stooge like Obama is a "socialist takeover" -or at least a socialist/muslim/liberal/thing I don't like takeover. So conviced they boo their OWN Corporate Stooge when he tries to say "our" Stooge is a "decent, Christian man". What will happen when the "economy" tanks and their masters can direct them at REAL "commie" stuff like what many of us may wish to struggle for.
I'm getting a very "Weimar Republic" sorta vibe about our situation nowadays.
No, not Wiemar Republic. Rather Spain; and it 1935... only there will be no Nazi Germany to help the reactionary fascists this time.
The limits of corporate media frames are glaring. On the extremely rare occasions that one of these outlets compares different societies, the corporate frame obscures the elites' class war against the people. The most relevant frame to the plight of the people is that societies are plagued to a variable degree by the presence of elites and their zero-sum rackets. European societies are plagued more, Asian, African and South American societies are plagued less, and North American societies are plagued most. To the extent that the economies are run by the people they have stability. To the extent that they are run by elites, they have instability, chaos and destruction. Will Common Dreams please post some frames that resonate with reality?
Dittos.
Mega-Dittoes!
Or have we crossed a "permissible irony level" here?
I don’t understand why people put their money in the stock market, or in investment packages that are nothing more than disguised wrappers around the stock market. I don’t have an IRA. I don’t want one. People criticized me years ago for feeling that way. Who is criticizing now? I thought people would have learned their lesson from reading history about the collapse in 1929. Evidently not. My personal belief is that everyone who is losing the value of their stock market based investments and retirement plans is getting what they deserve. Our economy would be a lot more solid if people would just keep their money in more solid and guaranteed bonds and savings accounts. But most people are too short sighted and greedy to restrain themselves. They fall for the trap of sleazy investment analysists. They did in 1929, 1985, and now 2008. When will everyone learn from history? Keep your money in guaranteed bonds and savings accounts and forget the false promises of all those investment analysts who obviously know nothing about what they are doing. By keeping your money in guaranteed bonds and savings accounts you may be curtailing rate of growth of the economy a little bit, but that’s not a bad thing. Indeed, as a result of the economy growing too fast you are now losing all your investments, as indeed you should.
For me, the economy is doing fine. I have not lost a single cent from any of my savings accounts, and the price of gas is going down. Times are good!
Same here, once I had a small 401K with a couple of hundred dollars, and I ultimately had to quit my job due to a back injury. First, I learned what a rip-off Cobra was, then decided to use the money I had in my 401K. With all the penalties I paid, I don't think I even got my principle back. It then occurred to me that while the markets could hold my money hostage, others could sell and get out at will. Seemed more like playing a game with loaded dice in Vegas. Hint: those dice are not loaded in small investors' favor. So I opted for CD's and Bonds. But hey, you're probably better off holding real gold now if you can get it because the dollar is likely to shrink to practically nothing, or buy goods that you can store for hard times.
At this moment, I would NEVER keep any money in a bank account. Your financial smugness could soon change if there are extended bank holidays, the dollar is devalued, the United States goes bankrupt, or if there is severe hyper-inflation which seems to be a given. Do you really think with over $10 trillion in debt your paper money has any worth? This not only has to do with the stock market, but the financial abuse this government has perpetrated for decades. If you were truly financially astute, you would put your 'money' into hard assets, particularly food and water and equipment / land to to feed yourself, your family, and your community.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenProgress
That’s really good advice, and if I was only interested in earning the most possible money in my lifetime regardless of whether or not I really need it, I might take your advice. For example some people are suggesting to buy gold. But I am happy enough knowing that whatever I do lose by keeping my money in a savings account, other people lose more by keeping their money in stock market based investments. So in the end I am better off. And even gold can become unstable. I remember many years ago when it went up to $750 and ounce, then fell quickly to less than $300 and remained there about for almost three decades. I personally knew people who lost half their life savings in that disaster. At the time I was young, but not rich enough to buy a single ounce of gold. Lucky for me.
The only other place I would keep my money other than FDIC protected savings accounts and government bonds is in my mattress. But I know that would eat an anxiety hole in the hearts of most greedy Americans, so I don’t expect you will do the same. Enjoy your losses, but don’t blame me for the downturn.
Yes, I am smug, and I expect to remain smug until I die, which will be sooner than you think. You see, I am a senior at the end of his life. I don’t have a lot of money, but I have enough in the bank to survive my remaining few years. I don’t need to take dumb investment advice from financial crooks, thank you very much.
It is my personal belief that if more of the population had been like me, we would not have allowed our government to deregulate financial institutions to this extent and the current financial depression would have been completely avoided.
I repeat. Enjoy our losses, but don’t blame me for the downturn.
I try to respect everybody, particularly those older than myself. My comments may have seemed a little glib, but my advice was honest. What is wrong with taking some of the money you have and buying some canned food or beans and rice or other foods that will store for maybe six months to a year? You will have it to eat in the future anyway. If we go through an incredible hyper-inflationary period such as what Germany went through in the 1920's, why not invest in what you might absolutely need for the next few years?
I do not want you or my mother ( just turned seventy-five ) to have to suffer like many did during the Great Depression. I and many others have called this recent stock market / credit / financial crisis many years ago. This whole financial trick ( including the banking system - Federal Reserve ) has been a well orchestrated magic show that is finally coming to an end. We will see near-term deflation as we are seeing in much of the commodities markets, some going to fifty year lows.
But, as soon as the present hoarding of money ( increase of LIBOR rate ) by banks ends and $350 billion reenters the economy the dollar will plummet. This is what people should really be watching; the dollar - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=DXY%3AIND . Once the dollar collapses, we will see hyper-inflation.
There is a further reason why you should have some cash on hand as well. Bank disruptions could become a reality. One hundred banks are estimated to go under in 2009 - fifteen have already gone insolvent this year. 'Bank holidays' are a threat to your savings. Who cares how much money you officially have if you can not access it.
Emergency Banking Act ( Bank Holidays ) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Banking_Act
LIBOR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor
CDS ( Credit Default Swaps ) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap
Executive Order 6102 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
GreenProgress, I see nary a thing wrong in the way you choose to save and prepare, not a thing. I do so wish you'd ease up with references from Wiki and expect to be seen as serious @ the current Global economic collapse.
BillofRights
BillofRights,
It just seems that most people have no idea as to what led up to this collapse including most of our politicians. I used Wikipedia to give a basic overview of a couple of important economic items as well as history into the Great Depression. In this instance, Wikipedia is very accurate and undisputed as these are basic facts. But, your advice is noted, and other than pertinent articles and reference material, I'll exclude links to everything else.
I think it is important that people know that the U.S. CDS market is around $15.5 trillion ( $45-$62 trillion worldwide ), a little under a third of that is subprime. A bond could have X amount of debt yet there could be 10X of CDS contracts outstanding. Warren Buffett has accurately defined derivatives bought speculatively as "financial weapons of mass destruction."
.I use Wiki myself, however I am fully cognizent of the many complaints that "facts" are slanted and opinions formed through distortions of those "facts". The folks at Wikipedia are constantly weaning out the lies and the half truths there, but it is a difficult job at best.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee,
Thank you, and I agree. I think it is a great service and has the potential to be even better.