DER SPIEGEL: Escaping the Clutches of the Financial Markets

[GTaudiophile]

In today's Europe, the people are no longer in control. Instead, politicians have become slaves to financial institutions and the markets. We are partly to blame -- and changes are urgently needed to nurse European democracy back to health.

Since this is such a strong theme on this forum, I thought you all might welcome an article from the European perspective, complaining about the same phenomenon.

Read the entire article here.

 

[Craig234]

Very good article. With our mainstream press had things like that. But our corporatized media is able to not talk about the issue.

 

[Nebor]

Maybe we've just moved to the next natural evolution beyond democracy.

 

[Zebo]

I don't think it's as bad. Citizens can borrow from banks at what businesses can vs. here the huge rake they take off prime. Marked for later tho..

 

[PokerGuy]

What a bunch of drivel. Blah blah evil banks blah blah humility, dignity blah blah. Was there anything even remotely actionable or concrete in that article, or was it just 4 pages of whining about how dependent we've become on the evil banks? Answer: the latter.

 

[Throckmorton]

What a bunch of drivel. Blah blah evil banks blah blah humility, dignity blah blah. Was there anything even remotely actionable or concrete in that article, or was it just 4 pages of whining about how dependent we've become on the evil banks? Answer: the latter.

Weren't you rightwingers up in arms about the bailouts?

 

[PokerGuy]

Weren't you rightwingers up in arms about the bailouts?

Wasn't talking about that, just saying that the article was a bunch of drivel about how dependent we are, but contains no actionable information, no actionable suggestions, nothing concrete. Basically worthless drivel.

 

[manimal]

Maybe we've just moved to the next natural evolution beyond democracy.

evolution or regression to robber barons?

 

[senseamp]

We need to stop depending solely on financial markets to stimulate the economy and have the government take a much bigger role.

 

[Doppel]

Very good article. With our mainstream press had things like that. But our corporatized media is able to not talk about the issue.

I know, it seems like I only read this kind of thing on blogs or maybe Matt Taibbi, but anywhere else I'm rather drawing a blank.

Basically worthless drivel.

In a sense this may be true, since I doubt what the article calls for will ever happen; debt free government and detach from the phallus of the banks. But that's not to say it isn't true or theoretically actionable.

We need to stop depending solely on financial markets to stimulate the economy and have the government take a much bigger role.

Joking? The government is in great part the damned problem. It is far too big a part of the economy and running itself on debt, it has no @##&ing income. HALF the federal government's budget is pulled forward fvcking credit for pete's sake!

 

[Craig234]

Joking? The government is in great part the damned problem. It is far too big a part of the economy and running itself on debt, it has no @##&ing income. HALF the federal government's budget is pulled forward fvcking credit for pete's sake!

The government can do things that help and things that harm. We should be clear we need more of the former and less of the latter - it's not only either good or harm.

 

[Infohawk]

A lot of naive left wingers on this forum act like Europe is some socialist utopia where liberal policies have protected Europe from the Wall Street fat cats and market downturns. (To be fair you have retarded right wingers who act like Europeans are waiting in bread lines.)

Europe is very similar to the US right now. They have roughly the same economic problems and roughly the same internal debates. Both liberals and conservatives need to stop acting like it proves anything about their beliefs.

 

[Craig234]

A lot of naive left wingers on this forum act like Europe is some socialist utopia where liberal policies have protected Europe from the Wall Street fat cats and market downturns. (To be fair you have retarded right wingers who act like Europeans are waiting in bread lines.)

Europe is very similar to the US right now. They have roughly the same economic problems and roughly the same internal debates. Both liberals and conservatives need to stop acting like it proves anything about their beliefs.

Hardly, but the European media does seem to be better able to discuss the issue, to 'call a corporate spade a corporate spade'.

We have that too - in the wilderness of liberal media 2% of American reads, while Der Spiegel is the leading paper in Germany.

 

[freegeeks]

A lot of naive left wingers on this forum act like Europe is some socialist utopia where liberal policies have protected Europe from the Wall Street fat cats and market downturns. (To be fair you have retarded right wingers who act like Europeans are waiting in bread lines.)

Europe is very similar to the US right now. They have roughly the same economic problems and roughly the same internal debates. Both liberals and conservatives need to stop acting like it proves anything about their beliefs.

I could not have said it better, I'm Belgian and we are all in the same boat. Whatever differences there are between Western Europe and the USA, they are just minor details in the grand scheme of things. We all face the same issues.

 

[Craig234]

I could not have said it better, I'm Belgian and we are all in the same boat. Whatever differences there are between Western Europe and the USA, they are just minor details in the grand scheme of things. We all face the same issues.

Agreeing Europe has a lot of the same problems is one thing, asserting 'a lot' of left-wing people are saying Europe doesn't have problems is something else.

 

[bradley]

Europe managed to escape the clutches of the financial markets, yet somehow they are the testing grounds for a European Union, a single monetary currency, and the beginnings of IMF austerity seeped with a breach of sovereignty. And England somehow escaped a true monarchy, but they rise for "God Save the Queen," lick stamps of her likeness, and maintain the proxy influence of the world's richest landholder and most powerful family.

 

[freegeeks]

in reality Europe is split, there is Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scandinavian countries that survived the crisis pretty well. Especially Germany is steaming ahead economically and the rest of the countries that I mentioned just cruise along. Unemployment is at pre crisis levels or even lower and govt deficits are somewhat under control. In general, these countries survived the crisis better then for example the US. Then you have the PIGS (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain) where you have nothing less then an economic disaster and it looks it will take a long time before they can dig themselves out of the mess they created dragging the rest of the EU down with them. I know the data about my own country and according to our national bank, Belgians wealth surpassed pre crisis levels. We already had a very high savings quote and that went even up during the crisis because of insecurity. Latest figures were released last month

Total savings (stocks, savings accounts, bonds excluding property value): 930 billion euro that is 24 billion euro more then march 2007 (just before the crisis)
Total debt 196 billion euro (75% are mortgages)
Total net worth: 733 billion euro
that is 203% of the gnp (eurozone average is 120%)

We have a high national debt but savings are enough to pay for it twice!!! we are in a situation that Belgians horded a lot of savings but the govt is broke as hell!!!

 

[freegeeks]

Agreeing Europe has a lot of the same problems is one thing, asserting 'a lot' of left-wing people are saying Europe doesn't have problems is something else.

I also agree with you

 

[Infohawk]

Agreeing Europe has a lot of the same problems is one thing, asserting 'a lot' of left-wing people are saying Europe doesn't have problems is something else.

But that wasn't my main point. My main point was that a lot of partisan posters on this board (and this includes you) have bizarre views of Europe and act like outcomes in Europe prove that the partisan's ideologies are right or wrong.