Posts Tagged ‘Germany’
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015
Looks like all of Greece’s creditors have finally decided it’s put up or shut up time for reform. “Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is expected to face demands for tough reforms of Greece’s pension system, labor laws and other areas, as well as creditors’ insistence on painful budget measures to ensure that Greece runs a fiscal surplus before interest.”
At this point Greece seems completely and utterly broke, unless there’s more upfront money in that still unsigned Russian pipeline deal than reports indicate (doubtful, given Russia’s own financial straits), or Tsipras finds yet another hidden money reserve to tap (“We can can pay pensions from the children’s bone marrow fund!”). So despite Tsipras’ insistence that they be allowed to keep spending other people’s money on their bankrupt welfare state, this time the jig may finally, finally, really, we mean it this time, for sure, be up.
Here’s a piece that explains in terms of game theory why Tsipras overplayed his weak hand:
Now, as long as the EU keeps Greece in the Eurozone then the Tsipras administration will find itself forced to either exit the Eurozone or apply the austerity it promised to end. Not only would such an outcome send a clear signal to other Eurozone nations that exiting was foolhardy, it would also indicate that radical, nationalist, anti-establishment and anti-austerity parties cannot deliver on their promises.
The EU won’t force Greece to exit the Eurozone but it won’t offer anything to keep Syriza in power, either. The EU simply needs to keep negotiating without offering anything but strict compliance with what was already agreed upon, which is continued austerity in return for loans. In effect, to use a sports analogy, the EU just needs to “run out the clock.” In the end, it appears that Tsipras will either be forced out of office or forced to break up his coalition and form a new government with the mainstream parties, the outcome that EU and Germany have been angling for all along.
(Though make no mistake: that “primary surplus” was always illusory.)
A few more Greek debt crisis links:
Now Greece is threatening not to pay this week’s debt payment to the IMF unless a deal is agreed on. Once again, Tsipras is playing chicken with a Yugo, while his opponents are driving a Tiger tank…
Tsipras needs to stop making empty promises and get a clue. “He cannot expect Germans to volunteer the money Greece needs, so he can spend it on the kind of leftist economic fantasy that was discredited all over Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Just ask Argentina where default followed by populist economics leads.”
Germany has good reason to stop subsidizing Greece, namely their own crashing demographics: “Germany’s birth rate has collapsed to the lowest level in the world and its workforce will start plunging at a faster rate than Japan’s by the early 2020s, seriously threatening the long-term viability of Europe’s leading economy.” (Hat tip: Powerline.)
“A Greek exit is already priced into the euro.”
Tags:Alexis Tsipras, Budget, Euro, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, Foreign Policy, Germany, Greece, PIIGS, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 11th, 2015
Angela Merkel tamped down a party revolt to extend the Greek bailout terms by four months. And her reward for extending that lifeline? Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reviving demands that Germany pay World War II reparations to Greece.
Before Syriza came to power, the rest of the EU and the Troika seemed content to play along with the Greece farce (extending further loans in exchange for yet more empty promises of reform) at least a little while longer. However, Syriza’s virulently anti-EU and anti-Germany rhetoric seem to have finally exhausted their patience with the show. It seems even Europeans have limits to the abuse they’re willing to take from perpetual welfare recipients. It’s bad enough to underwrite a freeloader, but evidently having to put up with constant insults from them was too much.
At this point, everyone knows Greece will neither reform nor pay back their debts to the Troika (or anyone else). That’s why Europe has finally started taking a real hard line with them, insisting on inspectors on the ground to see reforms are actually implemented.
Either Tsipras has severely overplayed his hand (quite possible), or he is deliberately preparing to use Germany as the theoretical scapegoat for exiting the Euro.
To say that Tsipras and Syriza has no plan B to escape the crisis is misleading, since their cunning “insult our creditors into giving us more money” doesn’t even count as a plan A.
A bailout from Russia? It’s not like Putin is rolling in dough following a fall in oil prices and his continuing isolation over his invasion of Ukraine. Let Putin subsidize Greece all he wants. (And I doubt a Greek navel base would give him any advantage over what he has in Sevastopol.)
Greece could have avoided all this many years ago if their government had just stopped spending more money than they took in. Given their addiction to a bloated welfare state, this is the one thing they have proven singularly unwilling to do.
I doubt Syriza has thought through just how nasty a divorce from the Eurozone might turn out. Never mind asking they repay their debts, I’m thinking a complete halt to all bank transfers between the Eurozone and Greece, and international foreign exchanges refusing to list a newly floated drachma. People hate having their welfare benefits cut, but they really, really hate being unable to buy food…
Greece has finally reached the stage of socialism where they’re run out of other people’s money, and the results are not going to be pretty.
Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn from no other…
Tags:Alexis Tsipras, Economics, EU, European Central Bank, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, Foreign Policy, Germany, Greece, grexit, IMF, Syriza
Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, February 9th, 2015
Newly installed Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras gave a speech in which he basically declared “Screw your stupid economic reality! We’re still giving everyone a free unicorn!”
Remember that Greece is not just broke, but deeply in debt, has a declining economy, only a few weeks of money left, and the specter of a possible bank run for of people wanting to get ahead of a Euro-exit.
So naturally Tsipras is promising Greeks a T-bone in every pot.
“Syriza’s pledges to the electorate include a freeze on pension cuts, a property tax overhaul, free electricity to those who have been cut off, reinstating jobs and raising the minimum wage.”
“‘The (bailout deal) has been abolished by popular mandate,’ Tsipras said. I’d love to see someone try that “abolished by popular mandate” as a reason to stop making their car payments.
“We will not negotiate this people’s pride and dignity.” Yes, because spendthrift wastrels can have all the pride and dignity they can eat.
The EU is is not amused. How can they, when Syriza’s policies seem completely disconnected from reality?
In a lengthy list of policy actions, Tsipras also said the government plans to restore the tax-free threshold for individual workers to 12,000 euros a year and gradually raise the minimum wage to 751 euros a month through 2016. Both measures would breach the conditions of the bailout.
Tsipras said he’s committed to maintaining balanced budgets and wants to negotiate terms that will make Greece’s debt sustainable.
That’s like saying “I’m absolutely committed to eating eating a 72 oz steak every day, and to losing weight!”
Oh, and he’s also demanding reparations from Germany for World War II. Good luck with that.
Is Tsipras really that disconnected from reality? Well, he is a far-leftist (which in the context of Europe and Greece means that he probably makes Obama look like Dick Cheney). But a little further down in that Bloomberg piece, you get this:
Behind the public rhetoric, the Greek government has shifted to a more cooperative tone in recent conversations with the troika, according to an official representing the creditors. Greece has been told it needs to ask for a formal extension of its existing bailout deal in order to receive financing, said the official, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
It’s probably your classic “Clevon Little holding a gun to his own head” bluff. I’m sure Syriza would love to implement their pie-in-the-sky big spending socialism, but their real goal is to lie to the Greek people long enough for the EU to write at least one more check, and lie to the EU about implementing reform long enough to cash it. Since Syriza only recently came to power, they probably want keep the farce rolling long enough to feather their own nests with Euros before engineering a grexit. After all, center-right parties got their turns at the public graft trough; why not the far left?
Will the EU call their bluff? The whole purpose of the bailout regime was for insiders and bankers to dump their exposure to Greek default onto the taxpayer, something that’s largely been accomplished. These days I suspect very few of Europe’s banks hold much Greek debt (some of whcih may have ended up in various pension funds, where unrealistic promises and chronic underfunding may force managers to chase extremely risky bonds for the high yields). A grexit would put an economic hurt on Europe, but probably not one that would last terribly deep or long. A Greek economic collapse following leaving the Euro would be terrible for Greece, but would probably prod the other PIIGS into continuing to get their economic houses into something resembling order.
How bad would a grexit be for Greece? Really, really, really bad. The modern European cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable, and attempts to keep the goodies flowing even after the state is bankrupt will ruin more than one nation. It’s just that Greece managed to get there first.
The farce is going to end very, very badly for average Greeks, but it always was. The only question is just how many bodies will be on the floor at the end of the final act…
Tags:Alexis Tsipras, Budget, Euro, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, Germany, Greece, grexit, Syriza, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Welfare State | No Comments »
Sunday, January 25th, 2015
Greece’s far left-wing Syriza Party has won a big victory there, claiming about half the seats in Parliament.
What does it mean? I took a stab at analyzing it before. Even with a majority, there’s a good chance Syriza will have to continue meeting the EU’s demands (which means pretending to impose austerity measures) if they want mean old Aunt Angela to keep loaning them money. Remember: Greece has never practiced real austerity. Not once since the European Debt Crisis hit has Greece balanced its budget, and its deficit for 2014 was 12.2% of GDP.
But even the fake austerity imposed has been too much for the Greek people, who collectively want a cushy welfare state but don’t want to pay the sky-high taxes required to pay for it. Promising people something for nothing has been the left’s popular electoral strategy for more than a century, but reality can only be held off for so long. Germany is not due for a federal election, so it’s entirely possible Merkel might still underwrite another bailout or two if Syriza is willing to continue the farce. A Greece shorn of the Euro would still be broke and badly in debt, and newly Drachma-backed securities would likely be toxic investments for all but the most speculative of bond traders. (Perhaps Syriza should investigate how well that printing money thing is working out for Venezuela.) “Forgive our debts or we won’t let you give us more loans!” is a proposition Merkel would probably find quite easy to refuse, and I suspect the risk of a Greek exit from the Euro is already priced into European markets. If Syriza insists on anything more than (possibly) a token debt haircut, the EU will probably be willing to call their bluff.
It’s generally best for the driver of a 1974 Ford Pinto to avoid engaging in a game of chicken with a Tiger tank…
Tags:Angela Merkel, European Debt Crisis, Foreign Policy, Germany, Greece, PIIGS, socialism, Syriza, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Communism, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, January 19th, 2015
Enjoy a Monday LinkSwarm to get your week started:
Police conduct anti-terrorism raids in Germany, Belgium and France. Could this be the start of a real effort to halt Islamic extremism in Europe? I rather doubt it. Too many leftist parties across Europe need Muslim votes, and European elites still seem implacably hostile to the Euroskeptic parties pushing for an end to unlimited Muslim immigration.
Old and Busted: Never again! The New Hotness: More dead Jews? Meh.
The late Anwar al-Awlaki was good at two things: drawing up plans to kill innocent people in the name of Islam, and banging skanky whores.
The Prime Minister of France: “I refuse to use this term ‘Islamophobia,’ because those who use this word are trying to invalidate any criticism at all of Islamist ideology.” (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
More from France’s PM on the new antisemitism:
“There is a new anti-Semitism in France,” he told me. “We have the old anti-Semitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now.”
In discussing the attacks on French synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses this summer, during the Gaza war, he said, “It is legitimate to criticize the politics of Israel. This criticism exists in Israel itself. But this is not what we are talking about in France. This is radical criticism of the very existence of Israel, which is anti-Semitic. There is an incontestable link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Behind anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”
Michael Totten quotes the late Christopher Hitchens. on the jihadist opinion of the current controversy: “Carving up grandfathers and granddaughters with an axe on New Year’s Eve can be okay if it’s done to protect the reputation of a seventh century Arabian man who heard voices.”
Bobby Jindal: “Islam has a problem.”
“Victimology is the language and currency of our politics.”
All those Harvard professors supporting ObamaCare are shocked to discover they’re paying for it.
“In 2009, 76 Democrats represented primarily white working-class congressional districts. Just 15 of them are still in the House today.”
A majority of the GOP gains since then have come from the Democrats’ near-total collapse in one set of districts: the largely blue-collar places in which the white share of the population exceeds the national average, and the portion of whites with at least a four-year college degree is less that the national average. While Republicans held a 20-seat lead in the districts that fit that description in the 111th Congress, the party has swelled that advantage to a crushing 125 seats today. That 105-seat expansion of the GOP margin in these districts by itself accounts for about three-quarters of the 136-seat swing from the Democrats’ 77-seat majority in 2009 to the 59-seat majority Republicans enjoy in the Congress convening now.
“It was not merely Democratic politicians who were wiped out in November. A plethora of liberal shibboleths were also massacred.”
Virginia voters won’t let a little thing like pleading guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor prevent him from regaining his seat in the House of Delegates. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
How big is Texas?
Three myths about Medicaid expansion. I hope that Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick understand that we didn’t elect them to cave in on ObamaCare…
Are your tweets University of Indiana-approved, comrade? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Feminism’s empathy gap. Or the Shanley Kanes of the world reject the experiences of women that don’t fit their preferred victimhood narrative…
How a Global Warming true believer became a skeptic.
10 bodies, 11 severed heads found in Mexico.
Pictures of empty Venezuelan store shelves, as Socialism continue to work its usual magic.
Liberal California billionaire Tom Steyer may run for the senate. Hopefully he’ll have the same luck as the politicians he donated to in 2014…
Only found out recently that Death by Government and genocide/democide expert R. J. Rummel died March 2, 2014.
Conservatives win several rule fights in the Texas House.
Rick Perry’s farewell address.
Gregg Abbott’s inauguration will have 4 tons of brisket. Or, as we call it in Texas, “an appetizer.”
Times when climbing down a chimney is a good idea: Your name is “Santa Claus.” Otherwise? Not so much.
A cure for cracked winter hands.
“My personality is as spartan as a Danish furniture catalog, why can’t yours be the same?” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
American Sniper kills at the box office:
Tags:American Sniper, Anwar al-Awlaki, Belgium, Bobby Jindal, Democrats, feminism, France, genocide, Germany, Global Warming, Islam, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Medicaid, Mexico, ObamaCare, Paris, R. J. Rummel, Republicans, Rick Perry, socialism, technology, Texas, Venuzuala
Posted in Communism, Democrats, Global Warming, Jihad, ObamaCare, Republicans, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 12th, 2014
I hope you like tanks.
Here’s the first batch of pictures taken at the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, which I visited on Saturday as a gift to my inner 12-year old. (There are few prospects more pleasing to the preadolescent male mind than being encased in a 30 ton metal killing machine.) The first batch is all German tanks and tank destroyers from World War II. Let’s face it, the Germans had far and away the best tanks, and shortly after the allies managed to catch up, Germany would be about ready to introduce something better. Germany’s problem (as compared to America or the Soviet Union) was an inability to manufacture enough of them. (Good thing for us.) They had an enormous array of German tanks, and probably the best collection outside Germany’s own tank museum in Munster.
The first picture of the first of two King Tigers (AKA Tiger II, AKA Königstiger, Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B) they had on display. The mosty powerful tank Germany produced during the war, its 88mm main gun could destroy any tank on the battlefield. It didn’t get on the battlefield until 1944, and Germany produced less than 500 of them.
The other Tiger II they had there.
Here you can see the Zimmerite anti-magnetic mine coating the Germans used.
Selfie, with tank.
The first of several tank destroyers.
![](https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/q85/s720x720/10565260_10202661383075873_4578005483423743023_n.jpg?oh=73e44c9d01b5a077ae8157cda7687085&oe=5470F705")
This is a German tank destroyer that ended up in Finland. Stalin thought he could walk all over Finand, but the Finns tore the Soviets nine different new assholes in the Winter War, though this tank destroyer obviously post-dates 1940.
Alternate barrel used for the Sturmtiger close assault variant.
Here’s an early Panzer Mark I command tank. It’s amazing to realize that the initial German blitzkrieg was carried out with relatively slow, under-armed, and underpowered Mark I and Mark IIs, that, with Heinz Guderian’s new tactics of mechanized warfare, were simply Good Enough.
A Mark II.
I think this is the Mark III, would would be the mainstay of the Wehrmacht armored divisions through the end of the war.
A muzzle-eye view.
Armoured car.
An 88mm field canon.
Tags:Bovington Tank Museum, Germany, King Tiger Tank, Military, Panzer, pics, tanks, Tiger Tank, World War II
Posted in Military, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
Lots of news from around the world, where the global economy is handing like a Kia that’s just started losing traction on an icy hill:
Bundesbank: Don’t look at us, broke PIIGS, you’re going to have to screw your own people.
Does a big default loom in China?
Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals?
Meanwhile, reports that Chinese banks have stopped allowing withdrawals turns out to be a false alarm.
European earnings outlook: Zero.
Problem: Greek economy still sucking wind. Solution: change how GDP is calculated.
Japan hits record trade deficit. Remember when they were supposed to take over the world?
The ruble flirts with record lows.
Obama and the Democratic Party’s numbers are worse than they were in 2010.
Planned Parenthood wonders what’s the big deal with a little statutory rape among friends?
Florida heroin kingpin is an illegal alien on food stamps.
Another Democrat convicted of that vote fraud that doesn’t exist. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Democrats actually polling worse than they were in 2010. And that’s from Dem pollster/booster John B. Judis.
Target’s part-time workers get ObamaCared.
We have a winner for troll of the year:
Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.
Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.
Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average.
Amy Glass, come down and collect your coveted Trolly! (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show”
In case you didn’t notice, Iran’s mullahs are still lying, violent scumbags.
Strangely enough, Israeli’s trust Netanyahu more than Obama. Funny how a mere 40+ years Palestinians breaking every agreement they’ve signed will sour people on the peace process…
Michael Totten wanders around Cuba some more, where he let’s us know that Cubans can be arrested for unauthorized shrimp.
California Court determines that disgraced serial journalistic liar Stephen Glass is too dishonest to be a lawyer.
In other news, Eugene Volokh stuns Washington Post readers with non-liberal thoughts on guns and other topics.
Have you ever considered the possibility that Woody Allen isn’t a child molester?
Drive a Fit, a Prius, a Yaris, or a Fiat 500? Hope you’ve made out a will.
Anthony Weiner forced to downsize to an apartment whose rent is a mere 6 times my mortgage.
Tags:2014 Election, abortion, Amy Glass, Anthony Weiner, Benjamin Netanyahu, Border Controls, California, cars, China, Communism, Crime, Cuba, Democrats, Elections, Eugene Volokh, feminism, Florida, fraud, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Japan, Jihad, John B. Judis, Media Watch, Michael Totten, ObamaCare, PIIGS, Planned Parenthood, Russia, Stephen Glass, Welfare State, Woody Allen
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Friday, January 17th, 2014
Welcome to your complimentary Friday LinkSwarm. I steal collect these from all over, including Ace of Spades HQ, Instapundit, Twitter, Facebook, and a dozen other places
Really, is there any book that screams “love story” like George Orwell’s 1984?
Reminder: North Korea is still an unmitigated communist hellhole. Not that anyone whose name isn’t Dennis Rodman has forgotten…
More people in Illinois sign up for concealed carry than ObamaCare. That’s so delicious I might have to rerun it for the next ObamaCare and gun news roundups…
Insurers say they’re just fine and dandy with ObamaCare subsidies.
ObamaCare cast pall of gloom over Democratic attempts to take the House. Now if only I could figure out where I placed my nanoscale violin…
Jonah Goldberg further explores the theme:
In 2009, retiring Arkansas representative Marion Berry presciently warned that Obamacare was setting up the Democrats for a huge defeat in the 2010 midterms, just like “Hillarycare” had led to a loss of 54 House seats in 1994. Obama scoffed at such concerns. According to Berry, the president told him, “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.” Republicans went on to win 63 House seats and six Senate seats. It was the largest swing in the House since 1938. So I guess the difference was him.
Liberal New York Times editor wonders why cancer patients can’t just hurry up and die.
Retiring congressman Jim Moran: Scumbag.
Compared to the Obama Administration, Chris Christie is a rank amateur in the vindictiveness Olympics.
“If the current president is making a mess of everything and almost no one is being held accountable, isn’t that a bigger story?”
Every so often. the New York Times publishes a lifestyle story whose entire purpose seems to be to make you hate New Yorkers. Today’s example Left-wing yuppie tells how capitalism (in the form of her failing business) made her start stealing stuff.
Obama tells Senate Democrats that he’s going to make John Boehner his bitch on illegal alien amnesty.
Ted Cruz is America’s most efficient Senator, while Rand Paul ties for most effective.
Calling all Jews, calling all Jews. Calling all Jews, calling all Jews. (Via Ace)
It occurs to me that people younger or older than a certain edge (“My lawn! Off it!”) may have no idea what I’m riffing on, so here’s the reference:
100,000 government employees escape union control.
Obama (wait for it) gives a speech, claiming that the solution is (wait for it) bigger government. (Save this sentence, and you’ll find that you can use it over and over again the next three years…)
Michael Totten on Syria: “Today we have a near-zero chance of a non-horrible outcome.”
How the American Studies Association anti-Israel boycott breaks the law.
Baltic Dry Index collapsing?
I think I know what the next Alamo Draft House “don’t talk on your cell in the theater” ad will be.
Liberal actually says that the Obama Administration has no serious scandals. It’s like that Monty Python skit where the British naval officer is denying cannibalism while the guy next to him is munching on a human leg.
I am heartened to see that not a single commenter supports his absurdist whitewash.
Is Egypt getting ready to take the wood to Hamas?
German children taken from parents because they might be exposed to incorrect thought. Nazi Germany? Communist East Germany? Try today.
“Socialism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals.”
Tags:amnesty, Border Controls, Chris Christie, Democrats, Egypt, Germany, Hamas, Jim Moran, Jonah Goldberg, Media Watch, Michael Totten, Monty Python, New York Times, North Korea, ObamaCare, Rand Paul, Syria, Ted Cruz, unions, video, Wisconsin
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Democrats, Elections, Jihad, Media Watch, unions, video | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 17th, 2013
The indomitable Walter Russell Mead has been traipsing around Europe, and has much of interest to report from various countries there regarding the continuing slow-motion Euro crisis.
The Italians? Not happy.
The Italians feel caught in a cruel trap; the euro is killing them but they don’t see any alternative. When a German visitor gave the conventional Berlin view (the southern countries got themselves into trouble by bad policy, and austerity is the only way out; budget discipline and cutting labor costs are the only way Italy can once again prosper), a roomful of Italians practically jumped on the table to denounce his approach.
The Italian position is basically this: it’s crazy to blame Italy or the other southern countries (except Greece, which nobody seems to like very much) for the euromess; Germany played a huge role in designing the poorly functioning euro system in the first place and remains its chief beneficiary. When German banks lent billions to Spanish real estate developers and hoovered up the bonds of southern countries, where were the German bank regulators? German politicians, say the Italians, don’t want to admit to their voters that incompetent German bankers and incompetent German bank regulators wrecked the German financial system by making stupid loans worth hundreds of billions of euros. In a “normal” world, German politicians would have to go to their taxpayers to fund a huge bailout of insolvent German banks thanks to their cretinous euro-lending. Pain would be more equitably distributed between borrowers and lenders.
From an Italian point of view, much of Europe’s austerity isn’t the result of German moral principles; Italians think that a cynical absence of moral principles led the German political class to scapegoat garlic-eating foreigners in a desperate attempt to prevent the voters from noticing just how recklessly incompetent the German elite really is. Germany is using the mechanisms of the euro to force southern governments to bail out German (and French and other northern) banks at immense social pain and economic cost. The Italians, even sensible and moderate ones who want to cooperate with Europe, totally reject the logical and moral foundations of the German approach to the crisis, and they feel zero gratitude or obligation to make life easier for Germany as the drama unfolds.
The French? Not happy.
In France, the people I spoke with worried about the rise of the National Front. According to some polls the ultra-right could emerge as the biggest party in France in the next round of regional and European elections. The French Socialists under the increasingly unpopular President Hollande don’t seem to have much idea about how to move forward; their most popular politician at the moment is a Minister of the Interior who is trying to compete with the National Front for the anti-immigrant vote by breaking up encampments of Roma and denouncing them as immigrants who don’t want to assimilate.
Also they, and the rest of Europe, seriously misunderstand the Tea Party:
One of the reasons Europeans are so fearful of the Tea Party is that they assume that because it is right wing and populist it is like the National Front in France or Golden Dawn in Greece. Today’s small government American Tea Partiers are much farther from Huey Long and Father Coughlin in their political views than some European right wingers are from the darker demagogues of Europe’s bloody past, and until the European establishments understand this, they will likely continue to misjudge the state of American politics.
The Germans? It’s complicated.
There are Germans who sympathize with the Italian critique of EU austerity policy, but Germans on the whole seem to feel that in pushing a tough reform agenda in Europe, and linking further payments and bailouts to that reform agenda, they are doing their neighbors a favor. They sincerely believe that their own relatively strong economic performance is the result of their willingness to accept some liberalizing reforms coupled with a commitment to fiscal prudence. They think that by exporting this model they are helping other European countries on the path to lasting prosperity, and they believe that with some patience, the other European countries will soon begin to experience the benefits of German-style economic reform.
Europe, of course, has a very unhappy history with things labeled “German-style.”
Mead feels that Europe is rich enough to continue subsidizing it’s Euro-folly for the immediate future, but it comes at a cost:
The bitter public feelings generated by the euro crisis and its long, painful aftermath are still working their slow and ugly way through the European political system. In country after country we are seeing steady gains by political movements that bear a superficial resemblance to the American Tea Party, but in fact flirt much more with the kind of dangerous nationalist and chauvinist ideas that have proven so destructive in Europe’s past.
It’s a sobering, moderately lengthy read, and I commend all of it to your attention.
Tags:Budget, Economics, Euro, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, France, Germany, Italy, Walter Russell Mead
Posted in Budget, Economics | No Comments »
Friday, September 20th, 2013
Here’s a Friday LinkSwarm. I have a big piece brewing on the ObamCare battle I may or may not have out on Monday.
Poland seizes half of private retirement funds.
Republicans in the House actually manage to cut something.
On the other hand, if you’re a Republican congressman, and you make $172,000 a year, you don’t get to complain about it. That means you, Rep. Phil Gingrey.
Ted Cruz says the ObamaCare fight is just beginning.
Speaking of Cruz, nothing says class quite like the Communications Director of the Sacramento Democratic Party wishing for the children of a Ted Cruz staffer to die of a horrible disease. If a Republic staffer said that about Obama’s children he’d be gone faster than Domino’s could get there. (Bonus: An extra evidence to Allan Brauer’s extreme classiness, he also refers to a woman as “cumrag.”) Sacramento Democrats have taken down Brauer’s page, but you can still find it on the Wayback Machine.)
“Like your health care plan? Then you can keep it” suck it up and get shoved into an ObamaCare exchange by your employer.
The IRS scandal just keeps getting worse.
Congressional Budget offices says that the deficit is going to get much, much worse.
Biggest story you’re not hearing much about? German elections this weekend. If Angela Merkel’s party should lose, and be replaced with a party less enthused with endless PIIGS bailouts, well, things could get interesting.
Obama official refuses to release information pertaining to a a Freedom of Information Act request. Stonewalling the press and withholding evidence? Obviously he must be bucking for a promotion.
Obama Express busted for paying cash for food stamps.
FEMA grounds UAVs, preventing them from providing mapping of Colorado flood victims for free.
Mainly read this Ann Althouse piece on “lean-in” circles for the catty comments.
Amarillo restaurant closes, evidently pens insulting message to patrons?
Remember China’s “Ghost Cities”? They’re bigger, and emptier, than ever:
Tags:Allan Brauer, Amarillo, China, Colorado, FEMA, Germany, Ghost Cities, Phil Gingrey, PIIGS, Poland, Republicans, Ted Cruz
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