Thanks to the global economy, President Barack Obama鈥檚 political fortunes may ride on Slovakia.
The 18-year-old Central European nation has zero electoral votes but could block a $600 billion bailout fund for debt-ridden European governments 鈥?and there鈥檚 not much Obama can do to stop it.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/091鈥?/a>|||Obama is weak, impotent, and simply a character on the stage of no importance.|||Yet more proof that the E.U is a failed experiment. And an fundamentally undemocratic experiment at that.
Edit: And a thumbs down from someone who presumably does not know what it is like to live under the E.U.|||Slovakia won't stop the bailout fund. It will be approved in the Slovak parliament with the help of the opposition.|||Plan in spending more time in unemployment line if he leaves office.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Isn't it funny how the Europeans had blaimed us for the financial crisis?
When they're the ones that are threatening another global financial crisis with their growing debts. Hypocrites...|||Firstly it was American banks fault for the global crisis , that is a fact , you can't get away from that.
Secondly , at least European countries are doing something to cut their debts drastically , while Obama keeps urging everyone not to.|||We did. Goldman Sachs caused much of Europe's economic demise. Btw, their economic demise has nothing to do with socialism.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145884/h鈥?/a>
http://www.eutimes.net/2010/04/germany-p鈥?/a>
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/鈥?/a>|||you started it|||Huh? The financial crisis was our fault. Why wouldn't they blame us?|||well it was the greed of wall street zionist that started the problems .|||They are looking for a scape goat, and Obama has handed them one with his world apology tour. Ronald Reagen would have stood tall and talked tough and told them to get their own act together. We sure put a loser into office in my opinion.
.|||The reason for that is their government deregulated trade in the 50s and America is where the jobs moved, so many eurpeans tend to put the blame on America instead of their own government, kind of like right-wingers that keep trying t blame immigrants and liberals while some people blame the chinese for the affect of right-wing trade deregulation policy for high unemployment and a decaying economy.|||We certainly wouldn't want Wall Street Bankers to shoulder the blame so let's keep pretending that they didn't cause it.|||It was not the Republicans that gave loans to people that couldn't pay them back. Barney Frank is still pushing it. Wall Street went along with it thanks to the socialist gov't backing it.
Bush and the Repubs were against these loans and were called racist. So the libs now blame the Repubs when it was their philosophy. Very clever.
Do they care about all the people they hurt? No! They blame the Republicans for what they did.
Barney Frank is Evil!
Secondly , at least European countries are doing something to cut their debts drastically , while Obama keeps urging everyone not to.|||We did. Goldman Sachs caused much of Europe's economic demise. Btw, their economic demise has nothing to do with socialism.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/145884/h鈥?/a>
http://www.eutimes.net/2010/04/germany-p鈥?/a>
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/鈥?/a>|||you started it|||Huh? The financial crisis was our fault. Why wouldn't they blame us?|||well it was the greed of wall street zionist that started the problems .|||They are looking for a scape goat, and Obama has handed them one with his world apology tour. Ronald Reagen would have stood tall and talked tough and told them to get their own act together. We sure put a loser into office in my opinion.
.|||The reason for that is their government deregulated trade in the 50s and America is where the jobs moved, so many eurpeans tend to put the blame on America instead of their own government, kind of like right-wingers that keep trying t blame immigrants and liberals while some people blame the chinese for the affect of right-wing trade deregulation policy for high unemployment and a decaying economy.|||We certainly wouldn't want Wall Street Bankers to shoulder the blame so let's keep pretending that they didn't cause it.|||It was not the Republicans that gave loans to people that couldn't pay them back. Barney Frank is still pushing it. Wall Street went along with it thanks to the socialist gov't backing it.
Bush and the Repubs were against these loans and were called racist. So the libs now blame the Repubs when it was their philosophy. Very clever.
Do they care about all the people they hurt? No! They blame the Republicans for what they did.
Barney Frank is Evil!
Has this recent eu bailout for greece been a big help?
i know the eurozone has been in a big crisis lately with countries defaulting and big debt crisis.
im european and my countries are in trouble to ( spain ) - the highest unemployment levels in europe.
recently in the news there was a big meeting in which the eurozone has given greece another bailout to stop it defaulting ?
will this make any difference the greece at all or to the problems europe is facing? -thanks|||Not really.
The bailout would have been good if it was accompanied by clauses forcing Greece to implement the austerity measures required to make this bailout more than a way of buying time. The Greek government is finding it very difficult to put cuts through, because the people don't want them. The problem is, without cuts they'll get through this new amount of money quickly enough, and will still have ever-increasing amounts of debt. So whilst the public might not want cuts to things like the army and slightly higher unemployment, it's better in the short term than the sort of cuts they'll need to make if things don't get better, and majority unemployment. So to make the bailout work, Greece needs to cut its spending drastically, France and Germany (who are driving this bailout) should help Greece encourage investment and new business, and the money needs to be spent almost entirely on paying down the debt, rather than continuing high government spending. Unless this happens confidence in Greece will continue to be nonexistent, it will continue to have much higher spending than income, and will be back to the position it's in now within months.
As to Europe as a whole, if Greece fails then it could lead to a domino-effect that ends with even the strongest economies of Europe (the UK, France, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy) going back to the situation they were in a few years ago, as European banks have to deal with Greece defaulting on its debt, and the like. So as much as I doubt this bailout will be successful, Europe as a whole needs it to be.|||We must stop thinking of ourselves as Irish or Croatian. We are all Europeans now. We are brothers.
All for one, one for all!
im european and my countries are in trouble to ( spain ) - the highest unemployment levels in europe.
recently in the news there was a big meeting in which the eurozone has given greece another bailout to stop it defaulting ?
will this make any difference the greece at all or to the problems europe is facing? -thanks|||Not really.
The bailout would have been good if it was accompanied by clauses forcing Greece to implement the austerity measures required to make this bailout more than a way of buying time. The Greek government is finding it very difficult to put cuts through, because the people don't want them. The problem is, without cuts they'll get through this new amount of money quickly enough, and will still have ever-increasing amounts of debt. So whilst the public might not want cuts to things like the army and slightly higher unemployment, it's better in the short term than the sort of cuts they'll need to make if things don't get better, and majority unemployment. So to make the bailout work, Greece needs to cut its spending drastically, France and Germany (who are driving this bailout) should help Greece encourage investment and new business, and the money needs to be spent almost entirely on paying down the debt, rather than continuing high government spending. Unless this happens confidence in Greece will continue to be nonexistent, it will continue to have much higher spending than income, and will be back to the position it's in now within months.
As to Europe as a whole, if Greece fails then it could lead to a domino-effect that ends with even the strongest economies of Europe (the UK, France, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy) going back to the situation they were in a few years ago, as European banks have to deal with Greece defaulting on its debt, and the like. So as much as I doubt this bailout will be successful, Europe as a whole needs it to be.|||We must stop thinking of ourselves as Irish or Croatian. We are all Europeans now. We are brothers.
All for one, one for all!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Do US Congressmen have an addiction to debt?
China is livid and fuming – “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets” – and recommends the U.S. cut military (of course) spending and social welfare programs. See: “China tells U.S. ‘good old days’ of borrowing are over.”
Euro-region central bank governors are scrambling to make sure the S%26amp;P downgrade does not make the European sovereign debt situation even worse: “Euro-Area Central Banks to Hold Crisis Call”
Finally, Paul Krugman thinks ratings agencies are irrelevant:
The S%26amp;P downgrade is sure to cause a global fuss and ruckus. The agency has already had to issue another press release to clarify and correct assumptions it used to calculate growth in discretionary spending. S%26amp;P did well to issue its downgrade after all financial markets were closed Friday night. The timing allows breathing room for world markets to adjust to the news without the immediate pressure of buying and selling. Economists, policy makers, etc… also get time to dream up responses before feeling the pressures of financial markets. The disagreements and displays of political opportunism should thoroughly entertain us.
Arguably, the news of the downgrade comes as little surprise, but it does present an interesting scenario for a continuation of the dollar’s bounce from its July lows. All the bad news from the debt ceiling circus and various poor economic reports failed to push the dollar index to fresh 2011 lows. Thursday’s massive 4.8% sell-off in the S%26amp;P 500 sent the dollar soaring 1.7%. Unless the Federal Reserve pushes forward with QE3 (quantitative easing) or related jawboning at Tuesday, Aug 9th’s meeting, every near-term dollar-negative catalyst will finally be out of the way. The first natural target for the U.S. dollar is another test of overhead resistance at the 200-day moving average (DMA). A break above that point could launch a sustained relief rally.|||Let's put it this way - Reagan had his congress well in hand, as the country needed to borrow trillions to fight a terrible recession in the early 80s.
The Democrats let it go for the sake of the country and THEY had CONTROL of the House !!
The Republicans only had a majority in the senate 54-46, so it was not an easy task, but the Democrats stood down, as they should and let it happen for the sake of the country(to repeat myself).
Bush 41 bumped up the debt pretty much considering he had only 4 years, but he continued on to 12 years of republicans in the White House - not good, considering.
Along comes Clinton and after 8 years he leaves with a surplus !!
Whoa, then we get Bush43 and the roof caves in - end of story - Obama is continually in clean-up mode for the Bush 43 fiscal disaster.
Along comes the Tea party and BINGO - near-default - stalemate caused by them - debt ceiling bill is a croc - S %26amp; P's downgrades the USAs credit rating.
What more can I say !!??|||China has no business doing anything but waiting for treasury bonds to mature.
If they go unpaid, then they can squawk.|||No, just to spending other people's money.
Euro-region central bank governors are scrambling to make sure the S%26amp;P downgrade does not make the European sovereign debt situation even worse: “Euro-Area Central Banks to Hold Crisis Call”
Finally, Paul Krugman thinks ratings agencies are irrelevant:
The S%26amp;P downgrade is sure to cause a global fuss and ruckus. The agency has already had to issue another press release to clarify and correct assumptions it used to calculate growth in discretionary spending. S%26amp;P did well to issue its downgrade after all financial markets were closed Friday night. The timing allows breathing room for world markets to adjust to the news without the immediate pressure of buying and selling. Economists, policy makers, etc… also get time to dream up responses before feeling the pressures of financial markets. The disagreements and displays of political opportunism should thoroughly entertain us.
Arguably, the news of the downgrade comes as little surprise, but it does present an interesting scenario for a continuation of the dollar’s bounce from its July lows. All the bad news from the debt ceiling circus and various poor economic reports failed to push the dollar index to fresh 2011 lows. Thursday’s massive 4.8% sell-off in the S%26amp;P 500 sent the dollar soaring 1.7%. Unless the Federal Reserve pushes forward with QE3 (quantitative easing) or related jawboning at Tuesday, Aug 9th’s meeting, every near-term dollar-negative catalyst will finally be out of the way. The first natural target for the U.S. dollar is another test of overhead resistance at the 200-day moving average (DMA). A break above that point could launch a sustained relief rally.|||Let's put it this way - Reagan had his congress well in hand, as the country needed to borrow trillions to fight a terrible recession in the early 80s.
The Democrats let it go for the sake of the country and THEY had CONTROL of the House !!
The Republicans only had a majority in the senate 54-46, so it was not an easy task, but the Democrats stood down, as they should and let it happen for the sake of the country(to repeat myself).
Bush 41 bumped up the debt pretty much considering he had only 4 years, but he continued on to 12 years of republicans in the White House - not good, considering.
Along comes Clinton and after 8 years he leaves with a surplus !!
Whoa, then we get Bush43 and the roof caves in - end of story - Obama is continually in clean-up mode for the Bush 43 fiscal disaster.
Along comes the Tea party and BINGO - near-default - stalemate caused by them - debt ceiling bill is a croc - S %26amp; P's downgrades the USAs credit rating.
What more can I say !!??|||China has no business doing anything but waiting for treasury bonds to mature.
If they go unpaid, then they can squawk.|||No, just to spending other people's money.
Please help me summarise the key points of this article:?
And how does this have an impact on us, family and economy.
Thank you, so much
Take it red: investors fragile and wary
The sharemarket closed firmly in the red yesterday after a fall in commodity prices and as it became apparent a full resolution of the European debt crises is not imminent. The benchmark S%26amp;P/ASX 200 index was down 68.8 points, or 1.63 per cent, to 4144.9.
CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said investor sentiment was fragile and risk-averse.
“Any bad news is magnified and positive news tends to be ignored.” He said. “We’re all concerned about the curse on out global village and we want to burn a witch.” But a market pull-back was healthy, given recent rallies on the Australian market.
“We don’t want to see markets go in a straight line because that’s just setting itself up for a reversal,” Mr McCarthy said. The view on Europe’s debt crisis was tending back towards pessimism. It was becoming clear that the situation would not be resolved this weekend, when European leaders hold a summit. “Realistically, that’s not going to happen, and at best what we’re going to see is some containment of the potential dangers to the financial system, “Mr McCarthy said. “They’ll deal with the debt market situation but won’t be able, a short time frame, to deal in an effective manner with the longer-term structural problems, that is, the budget deficits so many of those Southern European nations are running.” Mr McCarthy said investors would stay on the sidelines until the G20 meeting on November 3. He said the mining and energy sectors were the worst performers yesterday, after a fall in commodity prices, particularly for oil and copper. Among the major miners Rio Tinto was down $2.23, or 3.4 per cent, at $62.85, BHP Billiton slipped 92 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $12.07 after the company increased third quarter sales revenue by 27 per cent and maintained its full- year production guidance.
Newcrest reported a 16 per cent drop in gold production for the September quarter. The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US1614.79 an ounce, down $US45.08 from Wednesday’s $US1659.87.
National turnover was below average, Mr McCarthy said, at about 1.55 billion shares, worth $4.7 billion. More than twice as many stocks fell for every one that rose.|||uncertainty in europe has led to a corresponding downturn in our economy. this is not healthy as we are struggling to get off and out of the doldrums. so we need to have something concrete from G20
[alas - all hot air. nato - no action talk only]
Thank you, so much
Take it red: investors fragile and wary
The sharemarket closed firmly in the red yesterday after a fall in commodity prices and as it became apparent a full resolution of the European debt crises is not imminent. The benchmark S%26amp;P/ASX 200 index was down 68.8 points, or 1.63 per cent, to 4144.9.
CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said investor sentiment was fragile and risk-averse.
“Any bad news is magnified and positive news tends to be ignored.” He said. “We’re all concerned about the curse on out global village and we want to burn a witch.” But a market pull-back was healthy, given recent rallies on the Australian market.
“We don’t want to see markets go in a straight line because that’s just setting itself up for a reversal,” Mr McCarthy said. The view on Europe’s debt crisis was tending back towards pessimism. It was becoming clear that the situation would not be resolved this weekend, when European leaders hold a summit. “Realistically, that’s not going to happen, and at best what we’re going to see is some containment of the potential dangers to the financial system, “Mr McCarthy said. “They’ll deal with the debt market situation but won’t be able, a short time frame, to deal in an effective manner with the longer-term structural problems, that is, the budget deficits so many of those Southern European nations are running.” Mr McCarthy said investors would stay on the sidelines until the G20 meeting on November 3. He said the mining and energy sectors were the worst performers yesterday, after a fall in commodity prices, particularly for oil and copper. Among the major miners Rio Tinto was down $2.23, or 3.4 per cent, at $62.85, BHP Billiton slipped 92 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $12.07 after the company increased third quarter sales revenue by 27 per cent and maintained its full- year production guidance.
Newcrest reported a 16 per cent drop in gold production for the September quarter. The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US1614.79 an ounce, down $US45.08 from Wednesday’s $US1659.87.
National turnover was below average, Mr McCarthy said, at about 1.55 billion shares, worth $4.7 billion. More than twice as many stocks fell for every one that rose.|||uncertainty in europe has led to a corresponding downturn in our economy. this is not healthy as we are struggling to get off and out of the doldrums. so we need to have something concrete from G20
[alas - all hot air. nato - no action talk only]
What is the financial crisis in Greece?
And also, what do you think are some reasons that led to the crisis?
All I know about it is that the value of the Euro currency is declining,
and that other nations in the European Union along with the International Monetary
Fund are giving them loans to pay off their debt.
According to CNN, this was caused by "years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and failure to implement financial reforms left Greece badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. This whisked away a curtain of partly fiddled statistics to reveal debt levels and deficits that exceeded limits set by the eurozone."
What are your thoughts? :)|||From the bondholder's perspective, it's an investment completely guaranteed by the U.S. and German taxpayer.|||sounds like they had it coming
it would be much harder on the eu if greece goes bankrupt, so they have to bail them out|||I am Belgian but have been living in Greece since 25 years and as long as I can remember this country has been mismanaged. Corruption,favoritism,plain steeling, tax evasion by the rich, you name it. Everybody complained but nobody tried to do something about it. I cannot say I did not see it coming,because I did for a very long time now.
This country has been ruled by a few very influential families and a club of "Golden Boys" who made money on the back of the Middle Class. The poor are just too poor to take anything away from them anymore.
The country has a plague of Civil Servants, who sit around and do absolutely nothing. Greece with a fourth of the population of France has almost as many as the latter. This has been costing the country enormous amounts of money, but each time before the elections thousands are promised a government-job, if they vote for one party or another.
This is just one example, there are too many to enumerate. Most of the dirt is coming to the surface now and trials will be held. I just hope that for once justice will be done, though I am not counting too much on it. We are all paying a high price for the "brigandage" of a few and I hope it will be a lesson for the generations of young Greeks to come.
Hope this gives you an idea of the nature of the problem.
All I know about it is that the value of the Euro currency is declining,
and that other nations in the European Union along with the International Monetary
Fund are giving them loans to pay off their debt.
According to CNN, this was caused by "years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and failure to implement financial reforms left Greece badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. This whisked away a curtain of partly fiddled statistics to reveal debt levels and deficits that exceeded limits set by the eurozone."
What are your thoughts? :)|||From the bondholder's perspective, it's an investment completely guaranteed by the U.S. and German taxpayer.|||sounds like they had it coming
it would be much harder on the eu if greece goes bankrupt, so they have to bail them out|||I am Belgian but have been living in Greece since 25 years and as long as I can remember this country has been mismanaged. Corruption,favoritism,plain steeling, tax evasion by the rich, you name it. Everybody complained but nobody tried to do something about it. I cannot say I did not see it coming,because I did for a very long time now.
This country has been ruled by a few very influential families and a club of "Golden Boys" who made money on the back of the Middle Class. The poor are just too poor to take anything away from them anymore.
The country has a plague of Civil Servants, who sit around and do absolutely nothing. Greece with a fourth of the population of France has almost as many as the latter. This has been costing the country enormous amounts of money, but each time before the elections thousands are promised a government-job, if they vote for one party or another.
This is just one example, there are too many to enumerate. Most of the dirt is coming to the surface now and trials will be held. I just hope that for once justice will be done, though I am not counting too much on it. We are all paying a high price for the "brigandage" of a few and I hope it will be a lesson for the generations of young Greeks to come.
Hope this gives you an idea of the nature of the problem.
Do you agree with Obama when he criticized Europe Debt as the source of the bad Economy Or was it Wall Street?
German observers have reacted angrily to the comments, saying that the US is in no position to criticize other countries, given its own $14-trillion pile of national debt and ongoing wrangling over the country's debt ceiling. Others claim that Obama is just trying to distract attention from the US's problems and point out that the US president was in California to raise funds and voter support ahead of his reelection campaign next year.....
The mass-circulation Bild writes:
"Obama's lecture on the euro crisis 鈥?is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. 鈥?In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is 'scaring the world.' Excuse me?" "The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt 鈥?The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president's scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama's future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat." "Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis.
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another 鈥?Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.".....In the desperate battle for his re-election he'd rather construct myths, such as claiming that the Europeans alone are responsible for the American mess. Not only is this fundamentally wrong, but -- coming as it does from a friend -- it's downright pitiful and sad."
See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl鈥?/a>|||Wall Street. Obama is just another closet-Republican.|||First all these ideas are not the American peoples they are Obamas and a select few socialists that are part of his administration in 2012 America will be rid of Obama and his comrades but do not label America because of a few Mad men .|||So now he his blaming other countries for his miserable failures, lol.... Guess it wasn't nothing but a matter of time before he ran out of Americans to blame....
Vote Republican 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|||it was wall street...|||The European debt is just making worse what Wall Street did to the American people in the first place.|||he can't admit the truth, that the problems have been caused by rampant liberalism. there is NO excuse for a person whose job is to keep the trays holding the fasteners for a dashboard filled for the robots to make 6 figures a year, I don't care HOW much overtime he pulls!|||I think the nasty truth is that world capitalism is in crisis.
None of the capitalist businessmen and none of the capitalist politicians has any good solution to the crisis. Therefore they blame each other.
To be sure, the face and the dimensions of our global capitalist emergency keep changing.
Really, big problems for the world economy first emerged in the 1970s, following a remarkable 25-year period of encouraging growth in the capitalist West.
It was in around 1975 that the US, Western Europe and Japan discovered that -- having successfully reindustrialized, following the catastrophic destruction of World War II, the world's leading capitalist powers were beginning to compete with each other. Dangerously, in a zero-sum fight over markets that somebody was going to lose.
Also in the 1970s, Richard Nixon in the US helped to dismantle the old Bretton Woods Agreement by ending the convertibility of US dollars into gold.
Nixon's abandonment of the Bretton Woods ssytem touched off a surge of currency speculation and economic instability in the world. And as this drove down the real value of the dollar, falling real prices for oil inspired the OPEC nations in 1973 to impose their oil boycott on Western friends of Israel -- an act that soon caused a surge in oil prices and hyper-inflation around the world.
The result was that the mid-1970s were marked by "stagflation," falling stock market values, falling capitalist profit rates, stubborning high unemployment.
By about 1979, American business magazines like "Business Week" and "Forbes" were speculating that the world economy might be entering into another global depression. A team of economic experts from the OECD countries, in a 1979 report called "Facing the Future," speculated on the same risk.
And between 1980 and 1982, the world did in fact plunge into severe recession, as the US Federal Reserve Board jacked up short-term interest rates to break the back of US inflation, and in doing so
choked off economic growth in the West along with a sovereign debt crisis in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The world recession of the 1980s caused chaos in most Third World nations that lasted for a decade, and in the US it led to the Savings %26amp; Loan debacle of 1985 - 1989, a severe real estate recesssion from 1989 through about 1991, and a massive shutdown of American manufacturing facilities after 1987 as US corporations began to move overseas to Asia.
Global capitalism then "recovered" from the horrors of the 1980s mostly by embarking on computer-led industrial growth and the commercialization of the Internet, plus a major turn to purely financial speculation by big investment banks and hedge funds on Wall Street.
Now this temporary capitalist "solution" has led to the near-collapse of the world financial system in 2008, plus the threat of permanent stagnation and permanently high government debts today.
Obama is a capitalist politician; he has no sure cure for this crisis. The Germans and other European leaders who are criticizing him are capitalists, too, and they don't know how to fix things either. The bankers seem to be in charge, seem to be controlling many Western governments -- but the bankers also are close to ruin, because of the bad gambles they've made in the past.
So we get capitalist leaders from some of the richest and most highly industrialized nations in the world pretending to solve a global economic slowdown - with a food fight.
Ho-hum.
This is sad. Not surprising, but very, very sad.
-- democratic socialist|||I don't agree with President Obama on criticizing other countries. Someone on Wall St. needs to be prosecuted. And HE still needs to pass good reforms separating investments from banking.|||Obama has become the Blame President. Nothing is ever his fault. It used to be mainly Bush's fault that nothing that Obama tried was going right. Then it was, alternately, the fault of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio in general, Wall Street bankers, the Tea Party, and "racism." Now he has expanded his blame game to countries on other continents. Apparently he is beyond embarrassment. He has become a laughing stock, a joke, to the rest of the world. In the next 13 months he is apt to run out of earthly scapegoats, and have to resort to extending his blame to interstellar space.
The mass-circulation Bild writes:
"Obama's lecture on the euro crisis 鈥?is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. 鈥?In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is 'scaring the world.' Excuse me?" "The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt 鈥?The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president's scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama's future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat." "Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis.
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another 鈥?Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.".....In the desperate battle for his re-election he'd rather construct myths, such as claiming that the Europeans alone are responsible for the American mess. Not only is this fundamentally wrong, but -- coming as it does from a friend -- it's downright pitiful and sad."
See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl鈥?/a>|||Wall Street. Obama is just another closet-Republican.|||First all these ideas are not the American peoples they are Obamas and a select few socialists that are part of his administration in 2012 America will be rid of Obama and his comrades but do not label America because of a few Mad men .|||So now he his blaming other countries for his miserable failures, lol.... Guess it wasn't nothing but a matter of time before he ran out of Americans to blame....
Vote Republican 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|||it was wall street...|||The European debt is just making worse what Wall Street did to the American people in the first place.|||he can't admit the truth, that the problems have been caused by rampant liberalism. there is NO excuse for a person whose job is to keep the trays holding the fasteners for a dashboard filled for the robots to make 6 figures a year, I don't care HOW much overtime he pulls!|||I think the nasty truth is that world capitalism is in crisis.
None of the capitalist businessmen and none of the capitalist politicians has any good solution to the crisis. Therefore they blame each other.
To be sure, the face and the dimensions of our global capitalist emergency keep changing.
Really, big problems for the world economy first emerged in the 1970s, following a remarkable 25-year period of encouraging growth in the capitalist West.
It was in around 1975 that the US, Western Europe and Japan discovered that -- having successfully reindustrialized, following the catastrophic destruction of World War II, the world's leading capitalist powers were beginning to compete with each other. Dangerously, in a zero-sum fight over markets that somebody was going to lose.
Also in the 1970s, Richard Nixon in the US helped to dismantle the old Bretton Woods Agreement by ending the convertibility of US dollars into gold.
Nixon's abandonment of the Bretton Woods ssytem touched off a surge of currency speculation and economic instability in the world. And as this drove down the real value of the dollar, falling real prices for oil inspired the OPEC nations in 1973 to impose their oil boycott on Western friends of Israel -- an act that soon caused a surge in oil prices and hyper-inflation around the world.
The result was that the mid-1970s were marked by "stagflation," falling stock market values, falling capitalist profit rates, stubborning high unemployment.
By about 1979, American business magazines like "Business Week" and "Forbes" were speculating that the world economy might be entering into another global depression. A team of economic experts from the OECD countries, in a 1979 report called "Facing the Future," speculated on the same risk.
And between 1980 and 1982, the world did in fact plunge into severe recession, as the US Federal Reserve Board jacked up short-term interest rates to break the back of US inflation, and in doing so
choked off economic growth in the West along with a sovereign debt crisis in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The world recession of the 1980s caused chaos in most Third World nations that lasted for a decade, and in the US it led to the Savings %26amp; Loan debacle of 1985 - 1989, a severe real estate recesssion from 1989 through about 1991, and a massive shutdown of American manufacturing facilities after 1987 as US corporations began to move overseas to Asia.
Global capitalism then "recovered" from the horrors of the 1980s mostly by embarking on computer-led industrial growth and the commercialization of the Internet, plus a major turn to purely financial speculation by big investment banks and hedge funds on Wall Street.
Now this temporary capitalist "solution" has led to the near-collapse of the world financial system in 2008, plus the threat of permanent stagnation and permanently high government debts today.
Obama is a capitalist politician; he has no sure cure for this crisis. The Germans and other European leaders who are criticizing him are capitalists, too, and they don't know how to fix things either. The bankers seem to be in charge, seem to be controlling many Western governments -- but the bankers also are close to ruin, because of the bad gambles they've made in the past.
So we get capitalist leaders from some of the richest and most highly industrialized nations in the world pretending to solve a global economic slowdown - with a food fight.
Ho-hum.
This is sad. Not surprising, but very, very sad.
-- democratic socialist|||I don't agree with President Obama on criticizing other countries. Someone on Wall St. needs to be prosecuted. And HE still needs to pass good reforms separating investments from banking.|||Obama has become the Blame President. Nothing is ever his fault. It used to be mainly Bush's fault that nothing that Obama tried was going right. Then it was, alternately, the fault of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio in general, Wall Street bankers, the Tea Party, and "racism." Now he has expanded his blame game to countries on other continents. Apparently he is beyond embarrassment. He has become a laughing stock, a joke, to the rest of the world. In the next 13 months he is apt to run out of earthly scapegoats, and have to resort to extending his blame to interstellar space.
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