The GOP's imaginary Europe.

[Sallow]

Wait a minute, first Obama tells us how great China is in the SOU address and now left wing op-ed people are telling us how great Europe is? Anybody see a pattern to this? Now the left wingers on the panel are telling us that the republican majority in congress is at fault before they even propose a single bill? You lefties are worse than pathetic.

What exactly are you talking about?

 

[uscitizen]

Krugman has done a good job of analyzing the meltdown after the fact, but was only slightly above average at seeing what was coming beforehand.

 

[Bass v 2.0]

I was off on the debt but I was right about those countries not being socialist because they're not, the economies there have been hard hit lately mostly because of the euro, but not because of "socialism" policies. We have debt in America because of lax over site over big businesses and Wall Street.

 

[Sallow]

I was off on the debt but I was right about those countries not being socialist because they're not, the economies there have been hard hit lately mostly because of the euro, but not because of "socialism" policies. We have debt in America because of lax over site over big businesses and Wall Street.

It had nothing to do with "socialistic" policies and everything to do with a banking meltdown. What happened in the United States was just happening there..it was happening world wide. That's because now the world's economies are extremely interconnected and the high flying criminals running them are getting much better at convoluting their schemes.

I put this thread up because of a nutty thread concerning "Green Energy" being the cause of a meltdown in one European country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[Sallow]

Here's a more right leaning view of the crisis..

And it's still all about the banks.

Is Europe heading for a meltdown? - Telegraph

The Club Med nations – and in many senses Britain – were not so different to sub-prime households: they borrowed cheap in order to raise their standards of living, ignoring the question of whether they could afford to take on so much debt. But, as King points out, sub-prime households – and the banks that lent to them – can usually be bailed out. The International Monetary Fund simply does not have enough cash to bail out a major economy like Spain, Italy or, heaven forfend, Britain. So, again, we find ourselves in unknown territory.

There are plenty of episodes in history when countries have been as indebted as they are now, but they are all associated with periods of war. History shows that when nations reach as high a level of indebtedness as Greece, and have as few prospects of growth, they will almost certainly default. Indeed, the IMF, which has pretty good experience of fiscal crises, privately recommended that Greece restructure its debt (a kind of soft default, renegotiating payment terms). It was refused point-blank by the European authorities.

To understand why, step back for a moment. It is fashionable to compare the current situation to the Lehman Brothers collapse, but that understates its severity. The sub-prime property market in the US, together with its slightly less toxic relatives, represented a $2 trillion mound of debt. The combined public and private debt of the most troubled European countries – Greece, Portugal, Spain and so on – is closer to $9 trillion.

Moreover, whereas the pain from sub-prime was spread out relatively widely, with investors hailing from both sides of the Atlantic, the owners of the suspect European debt tend almost exclusively to be, gulp, Europeans. No one is suggesting all of this debt will go bad, but the European policymakers fear that the merest hint that Greece might default would spark a chain reaction that would cause a more profound crisis than in 2008.

 

[Chris]

The GOP lives in an imaginary universe.

The GOP itself is the source of most of our problems. They are the hand maidens of the corporate greedheads that have robbed us blind for years.

But the people are waking up all over the world...

 

[Sallow]

The GOP lives in an imaginary universe.

The GOP itself is the source of most of our problems. They are the hand maidens of the corporate greedheads that have robbed us blind for years.

But the people are waking up all over the world...

Enablers..

 

[McDowell's]

So Krugman fully realizes and acknowledges that loose money and excessive debt caused by private sector forces is destructive in the long run, but can't extend that insight to public sector forces? You're right, he's a freaking genius.

 

[Sallow]

So Krugman fully realizes and acknowledges that loose money and excessive debt caused by private sector forces is destructive in the long run, but can't extend that insight to public sector forces? You're right, he's a freaking genius.

Naw.

He's on that too..

Krugman: Republican Hypocrisy On Spending Is 'Wonderful' To Watch | TPMDC

 

[Chris]

So Krugman fully realizes and acknowledges that loose money and excessive debt caused by private sector forces is destructive in the long run, but can't extend that insight to public sector forces? You're right, he's a freaking genius.

He is a genius.

And 93% of the public debt came from Reagan and the two Bushes lowering taxes for the rich....

Go to ReaganBushDebt.org

 

[Sallow]

So Krugman fully realizes and acknowledges that loose money and excessive debt caused by private sector forces is destructive in the long run, but can't extend that insight to public sector forces? You're right, he's a freaking genius.

He is a genius.

And 93% of the public debt came from Reagan and the two Bushes lowering taxes for the rich....

Go to ReaganBushDebt.org

Basically.

Yeah...very much so.

 

[westwall]

That your debate with Bass.

Not with me.

Do keep up.

Well let's see here. My wife is French. Her family has property near Millau, her grandparents are buried in Joigny, her uncle Mimi still lives in the Loire Valley, her cousin Bridgit is based out of Toulon and her other cousin is principle photographer for a major museum (don't want to make it too easy to track us down don't you know) so that probably makes me the France expert based on the criteria you all adopt. France is mired in debt and is going down very fast. They have one of the most liberal retirement policies on the planet and it is strangling them. They are having mass riots every few years and will continue to do so till there is another revolution in all probability.

I suggest you keep up better.

That's nice.

The "Chicken Little" perspective doesn't get any newer with each iteration.

But it makes for a good panic story.

No panic at all. Just the simple realization that the governments of Europe have overextended and are continuing to overextend until it collapses. I suggest you read a little history. It has happened many times in the past, and allways because some clever fellow thought they knew more than anyone else, or because that same clever fellow could't really care less, he just wanted to loot what he could and get the hell out before the country went to hell.

Which one are you?

 

[Sallow]

Well let's see here. My wife is French. Her family has property near Millau, her grandparents are buried in Joigny, her uncle Mimi still lives in the Loire Valley, her cousin Bridgit is based out of Toulon and her other cousin is principle photographer for a major museum (don't want to make it too easy to track us down don't you know) so that probably makes me the France expert based on the criteria you all adopt. France is mired in debt and is going down very fast. They have one of the most liberal retirement policies on the planet and it is strangling them. They are having mass riots every few years and will continue to do so till there is another revolution in all probability.

I suggest you keep up better.

That's nice.

The "Chicken Little" perspective doesn't get any newer with each iteration.

But it makes for a good panic story.

No panic at all. Just the simple realization that the governments of Europe have overextended and are continuing to overextend until it collapses. I suggest you read a little history. It has happened many times in the past, and allways because some clever fellow thought they knew more than anyone else, or because that same clever fellow could't really care less, he just wanted to loot what he could and get the hell out before the country went to hell.

Which one are you?

Most European countries went south because of Aristocracy, Monarchy and De Facto Theocracy.

But mostly because of the concentration of vasts amounts of wealth into a tiny portion of the population.

It's in the history.