Paul Krugman: Greece euro exit possible next month, Eurozone-wide meltdown incoming

I have to agree that European governments are boring and very moderate and don't tend to jump into the deep end. The socialist win in France is interesting and could be a sign that people have abandoned the more right-wing bent candidates and parties that were popular the last election cycle around Europe. It still remains to be seen if what happened in France is an anomaly and the next elections around Europe will continue to go to the more right-wing, anti-immigration and EU-skeptic parties. They will have plenty of ammunition if things keep getting worse.

That said, once in power they tend to be far more pragmatic than their program proclaims and keep up the status quo as to not alienate too many voters. At least here in Finland, it doesn't really matter if we have a right leaning or left leaning coalition, things stay pretty much the same. Which tend to lead to lower vote turnouts. However, this is the first time in decades that the majority party and prime minister is from the right but so far nothing too drastic.

I just feel that the way things are discussed surrounding the crisis of the Euro/EU tend to sound more "neo-liberal" than I'd like. The lack of regulation is what started this whole mess in the first place. Has austerity measures ever stimulated the economy? Why would it work now with the complete mess Greece is in? Last time I checked the austerity measures put in place in Ireland has just made it worse. And how Greece has been handled with pretty much Germany deciding who's in charge feels a bit undemocratic to me. They had elections now, but how independent will they allowed to be? Spain and Portugal are close to exploding with record unemployment among the youths and things are just going to get tougher.

It's all terribly complicated and I am not even sure the people in the middle of it know what they are doing and how to fix this shit. Someone is always going to make bank no matter which way the economy goes. I'd like to see alternatives to the current capitalistic system be seriously brought up on the table.

We are all fucked and going to destroy ourselves.

  On 5/14/2012 at 11:12 AM, schlucharski said:

I have a message for Paul Krugman: stay the fuck out of europe

Pretty much. US debt to GDP is a golliath compared to that of EU member states. Then add in that the US doesn't seem to have a manufacturing sector and crawls along with a decrepit infrastructure, has a large unskilled labour force, et al. And you can see that Krugman's message is only there to screen what's going on in his homeland, maybe even to salve his personal anxieties over loss of hegemony. "Look over here guys".

Greece and Ireland should default on loans that they never should have been given. Once that debt is wiped, money will start flowing again and their economies will recover (like Iceland).

Aza, I really like that post right until the final two sentences.

If the EU manages to keep it's policies in the middle they're OK. It will maintain trust and keeps interests low. It's the interest rates in the background which are secretly more important than anything atm. No matter how smart a new non-capitalistic system will be, fact of the matter is that countries are currently in debt and need to be able to pay their bills. And it'll take more than a drastic change in system.

Whoever argues those things are realistic and easily accessible solutions should light another joint and relax, because they're not. Not in this world. Not the way economies and institutions are intertwined and co-dependent as they currently are. It's either a kicking a can down the road solution, or the atom bomb.

It's true that regulation has been a problem. But this isn't necessarily a problem in ideology. Thing is, the financial markets have been international for a while now. Regulation however, is mostly national. This is a fundamental flaw. But the reason it hasn't been sufficiently solved yet, has more to do with complexity than with ideology.

The annoying thing however, is that we the consumers only tend to respond to populism and cheap commercial tricks. Media outlets and politicians feed into those. So, in the media, you rarely see the actual problems being discussed. It's mostly garbage about ideologies and such. Instead of capitalism, I'd attack that system. Capitalism has actually served us well, for the most part. It's our consumerism which is our deeper sickness, if you ask me.

  On 5/14/2012 at 1:53 PM, azatoth said:

We are all fucked and going to destroy ourselves.

Fear not.

O Lord, it's the return of Jesus! Two of them!

...

What does she say though?

Papa, you wanna f*ck that!

!? Anyone?

Couldn't it be argued that consumerism is the flip side of the capitalist coin? For it to work, things need to be produced and consumed. I also agree that regulation being mostly on a national scale is a problem, international regulations would help, but it wouldn't be feasible or possible, someone would always break those to get an edge and we're right back where we started.

No, don't draw those huge conclusions so hastily. There's always instances of rules being broken. That's on any scale. And whenever that happens, it's rarely - if at all - the case that things are back like before the regulation. As any type of government, it's an iterative imperfect process.

And yes, I do believe that a world with some form of capitalism but without the current form of consumerism would make sense. Just like capitalism is not mutually exclusive to well regulated markets. To me it's a matter of regulation. Capitalism is not the same as Free-market laissez faire capitasumerism. Read the wiki. There's different kinds of capitalism. Being against capitalism is like being against having personal properties.

I agree that what failed is unregulated capitalism, but consumerism is not an economic ideology, so let's not confuse things here.

Obviously you can't have capitalism without consumerism, so it seems like you are just using consumerism as a fancy word for greed and materialism.

You can't regulate greed or materialism, but you can regulate capitalism. This is about economics, a field that should be studied using empirical methods. Clouding the topic with normative arguments about morality or philosophy is exactly what got us into this mess.

Fair point. I wasn't saying, or trying to imply that consumerism is an economic ideology. But you're right that I haven't been clear on what I actually mean. So point taken.

My problem is not necessarily with greed or materialism, but has more to do with the way people have access to certain kinds of knowledge, the freedom of knowledge and the effects of only paying attention to knowledge which confirms ones beliefs/desires. The consumerism of knowledge, if you will.

Moreover, the distinction between information and economy is not black and white in my mind.

But let's not derail this thread from the Eurobashing.

Europe's gonna be one country soon, none of the stuff in this thread is gonna matter to the crooks and gangsters that want to impose global governance on a world that dont want it

  On 5/14/2012 at 4:11 PM, chunky said:

Europe's gonna be one country soon, none of the stuff in this thread is gonna matter to the crooks and gangsters that want to impose global governance on a world that dont want it

waffle & tits, that's exactly

In 1864 Bismarck, utilizing some brilliant diplomatic maneuvers, engineered a scenario in which Prussia provoked a war with Denmark and enlisted the help of Austria, which derived little benefit itself. This soon led to the Austro-Prussian War, which Prussia won, and then gave Austria fairly lenient surrender terms.

Prussia’s victory in the war allowed it to annex more territory, and greatly increased Bismarck’s own power.

A dispute arose in 1870 when the vacant throne of Spain was offered to a German prince. The French were concerned about a possible Spanish and German alliance, and a French minister approached Wilhelm, the Prussian king, who was at the resort town of Ems.

Wilhelm in turn sent a written report about the meeting to Bismarck, who published an edited version of it as the “Ems Telegram.” It led the French to believe that Prussia was ready to go to war, and France used it as a pretext to declare war on July 19, 1870. The French were seen as the aggressors, and the German states sided with Prussia in a military alliance.

The war went disastrously for France. Within six weeks Napoleon III was taken prisoner when his army was forced to surrender at Sedan. Alsace-Lorraine was overtaken by Prussia. Paris declared itself a republic, and the Prussians besieged the city. The French eventually surrendered on January 28, 1871.

The motivations of Bismarck were often not clear to his adversaries, and it's commonly believed that he provoked the war with France specifically to create a scenario in which the South German states would want to unify with Prussia.

Bismarck was able to form the Reich, a unified German empire led by the Prussians. Alsace-Lorraine became an imperial territory of Germany. Wilhelm was declared Kaiser, or emperor, and Bismarck became chancellor. Bismarck was also given the royal title of prince and awarded an estate.

theres more to learn from standard german history than from paul krugman or the new york times. it's not surprising that krugman teaches at the woodrow wilson school, named after the worst ever president of the united states

So the point is that Europe has come a long way since the times of Bismarck? Or is your tinfoil cap telling you, Europe is a huge German ploy? Really?

If it ends up that Germany annexes Greece then he might have a point.

China will annex the US before Germany will annex Greece though. Until that day comes, monkies will fly...

I think China will bust before they can annex anyone.

It has been a Tibetan conspiracy all long!!

The stetson would imply some Texan oil magnates are in on it as well.

The plot thickens.

Gotcha!

Bismarck's policy was to play states against each other and gather power into German hands. Realpolitik is the term named after him to mean dealing with objective reality and playing your hand well, without considering the moral problems of defeating your opponents. He's one of the greatest Germans to have ever lived and one of the greatest statesmen so it is not surprising that his ideas and character have been passed on to future generations. I think Bismarck is also a good example because it shows that German borders are not solid things like the borders of Japan or Britain, German borders are always shifting. Before 1870 Germany was a bunch of city states. The origins of Germany go back to the Holy Roman Empire, so it is not surprising how Germany is acting today, it is merely acting in the same way that it has done historically, with shifting borders.

Germany was demilitarised after the second world war, quite rightly seeing as how brutally powerful the German army was. Split into the Communist east and the Western(hehe) west, it was quite powerless in Europe. After reunification things began to change as the EC transformed into the EU. After the Berlin Wall fell, then the Germany has begun to dominate the continent of Europe again, this is merely a fact of Germany's strength. Germany is rightly ashamed of its Nazi past and is genuine when it says that it wishes to see a united Europe without seeing another world war or any more bloodshed.

The two big players in Europe are France and Germany and what's happened is that the French elite have realised after the second world war that they cannot defeat Germany in a war. It's not exactly a conspiracy, more like a realisation that they don't want more fighting and bloodshed. So Germany and France have planned from the 1950s to form a new country. Naturally the main leader of this country will be Germany, due to the hard work ethic and financial strength which outperforms other European nations. France tried defending its border with the Maginot Line, but this was a completely useless tactic and France was defeated in 6 weeks by the Nazi. It is completely rational for France and Germany to merge borders, in order to avoid more bloodshed and keep the peace. How they will reconcile their different languages and cultures, I don't know, but good luck to them.

Now that the two dominant powers of Europe are merging, the question is what to do with the other countries. The elites of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Poland, etc understand that they are in no position to fight such a great power as a unified French and German block. They would be crushed to pieces in a war. Economically, they could never compete with Germany, (work ethic and culture again). The elites of all the countries know this, but the electorate is nationalistic and patriotic and would never accept openly the idea of liquidating their borders. Therefore they have to proceed slowly in creating this new country. They can't use war because of the past. They can't do it democratically because there is no European demos. They have to use money and economics in order to create a unified country, and they have to do it using Bismarckian realpolitik, which is Machiavellian scheming, hehe.

Debt is a powerful way of gettting control of property and that's the path that they've chosen in order to unite Europe as one country. The tactics are based on an old stereotype of the jews, and I think this hypocrisy is quite repellent for a country that organised the holocaust, one of the greatest tragedies in history. I'm not sure who exactly is controlling all this debt tactics, probably just an international gang of greedy rich people with no particular race or religion to blame, just greedy bastards and elites of all nations

Ok just one point. Germany caned europe in ww2 because no one was prepared for war, but germany. Because no one knew that there was going to be war, except germany. Further, despite the supposed austerity that it was under. vast sums were being sent into the country to help build this war machine. This work ethic and values idea, is pretty bullshit.

It's funny, when looking for oktoberfest pictures in google, i had to scroll down a fair way for an actual drunk looking guy. For a while, given the number of nubile young serving girl images that i was presented with. I was tempted into thinking that i may have entered into the search bar the typo, oktoberbreast.

Holy German schnitzel! A Kardashian at the Oktoberfests! I'll surrender to the Germans instantly, if I'll ever get the chance.