Europe snaps back at Harper over lecture on debt crisis
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
I can agree with us not giving the EU, money, but I can also understand the EU being frustrated with us telling them what to do with their money.
Let the EU pay the price for its actions. If Canadian money were involved that would be a different matter.
Let the EU pay the price for its actions. If Canadian money were involved that would be a different matter.
The EU is asking for Canadian money (among other nations). The EU has run out of their own and are looking to have outside nations finance their problems.
I also find it surprising that the EU isn't looking to kick-start their economies by organizing more aggressive trade agreements and getting more folks back to work
And we said we won't give it. We don't need to them tell them how to run their own affairs.
Yes. But it would likely be the end of deficit financing across the board. All governents would be forced to live within their means. Or we can keep building another story on the house of cards.
I don't see any way out for Europe unless it breaks up the Euro zone, and that will just be a start. It will also have to liberalize its rotten economic structure, to allow individuals to do business and create wealth.
A common currency has advantages. Immagine if each Canadian province had its own currency! Essentially a common currency makes trade easier and cuts out thecurrency-brokers middlemen.
There is no reason that it can't remain, however, that does mean that all of the nations that sign-on must play by the same general rules... Having a handful of countries borrow themselves into the poor house (and drag the currency down with it) is not functional, especially when they use their negative economic circumstance as blackmail against the other member nations
I agree.
But people are making assumptions about bailouts or stimulus that aren't necessarily true. You can have targeted investment that legitimately helps another economy, thereby benefiting your own as well. Spain just recently received one if I'm not mistaken, and economists were just fine with it.
This is not a black and white proposal, so nobody should be assuming abject austerity or full throttle stimulus are the proposed solutions.
And to increase the number of currencies people must trade in will do nothing to encourage trade.
Very true.
That said and understanding that my specific perspective is based solely on the MSM, one of the underlying factors here relates to the EU attaching austerity measures to any funds and to this point that has resulted in the austerity is being rejected/criticized by the recipient nations.
I believe that this alone is the biggest factor that is holding up the process of developing a homegrown (EU) solution. Assuming that this is a fairly correct analysis, it is not practical or reasonable for the EU to reach out and seek funds from outside nations until such time that they develop a strong, go-forward plan, at which time the investment into the struggling economies makes much more sense and can possibly be justified
Europeans themselves are bailing on bond notes like rats off a sinking boat. They themselves are swinging investments to corporations sending a clear signal THEY themselves don't believe their governments are responsible/smart enough to turn this around. they are indicating they trust CEO's more; how fugged up is that?
IMF was created to assist EMERGING nations and their economies. How does using this fund instead to prop up nations who've squandered opportunities even become a topic of discussion?
Barroso was the leader of one of those countries approaching abject failure and is now speaking on behalf of the "Zone" whaasup with that chit?
Harper has a tough choice after fomenting public opinion here with his shots at the NDP. Does he now risk going against public opinion and capitulate to "make nice" in the hopes he gets to come home with a "trade deal" agreement in his fist and a "see what we got for ya and it only cost me a behind-the-curtain kissy-fest and you taxpayers a billion or so".
OR:
He stands his ground, as I suspect the Canadian taxpayers want him to, and keep telling Eurodumbs "you've got to make some hard moves and institute some banking rules that we can see will work in the long term before we throw Canadian's money down your porta-pottie". "Should this result in you throwing a hissy-fit and excluding us from any trade agreements while admitting others; fine, so be it. We reserve the right to not negotiate our moral or financial integrity with people who will not accept responsibility for their failures."
Some of those countries have regional banks that had NO rules governing their lending to realty based borrowers (Barossa's being one) and it is these banks the IMF has suggested should be allowed to wind up and fail instead of throwing bail-out money at them in a futile attempt at ignoring the obvious. So far those countries affected have refused to entertain this and insist on using OUR money propping up these failed entities
While we are talking about the U.S. toxic paper finding it's way over there to trigger this meltdown; there was certainly enough home-grown fragility in their markets so as to have caused the present scenario, albeit perhaps further down the road.
IMF was created to assist EMERGING nations and their economies. How does using this fund instead to prop up nations who've squandered opportunities even become a topic of discussion?
Barroso was the leader of one of those countries approaching abject failure and is now speaking on behalf of the "Zone" whaasup with that chit?
Harper has a tough choice after fomenting public opinion here with his shots at the NDP. Does he now risk going against public opinion and capitulate to "make nice" in the hopes he gets to come home with a "trade deal" agreement in his fist and a "see what we got for ya and it only cost me a behind-the-curtain kissy-fest and you taxpayers a billion or so".
OR:
He stands his ground, as I suspect the Canadian taxpayers want him to, and keep telling Eurodumbs "you've got to make some hard moves and institute some banking rules that we can see will work in the long term before we throw Canadian's money down your porta-pottie". "Should this result in you throwing a hissy-fit and excluding us from any trade agreements while admitting others; fine, so be it. We reserve the right to not negotiate our moral or financial integrity with people who will not accept responsibility for their failures."
Some of those countries have regional banks that had NO rules governing their lending to realty based borrowers (Barossa's being one) and it is these banks the IMF has suggested should be allowed to wind up and fail instead of throwing bail-out money at them in a futile attempt at ignoring the obvious. So far those countries affected have refused to entertain this and insist on using OUR money propping up these failed entities
While we are talking about the U.S. toxic paper finding it's way over there to trigger this meltdown; there was certainly enough home-grown fragility in their markets so as to have caused the present scenario, albeit perhaps further down the road.
Last edited:
I am fully ok with Spain or any other European nation getting money as long as its not MY money.
The entire European financial fiasco is but one part of Global meltdown of free market economics.
The world does NOT have a debt crisis... it has a crisis of a decline in productive industrial output.. brought on by Free Trade and Monetarist doctrine with its attendant deregulation and privatization.. that has destroyed national integrated industrial economies. Austerity won't cure it.. and bail outs won't cure it.
Monetarism's key tenet, of treating currency as a tradable commodity, and coupling its value to market mechanisms, floating exchange rates, inflation control, money supply.. has destroyed sovereign government's the ability to develop constructive economic programs.. all are now held hostage by markets and a Global and utterly amoral Investment Organism.
Harper to dim witted to see it.. but Canada is not in anyway isolated from the shocks that are on the horizon of the world economy. He's living in a fantasy world.. he's a legend in his own mind.. as someone gifted with a special insight of economies really work... HAVE no doubt.. he is a complete fool and incompetent.
The world does NOT have a debt crisis... it has a crisis of a decline in productive industrial output.. brought on by Free Trade and Monetarist doctrine with its attendant deregulation and privatization.. that has destroyed national integrated industrial economies. Austerity won't cure it.. and bail outs won't cure it.
Monetarism's key tenet, of treating currency as a tradable commodity, and coupling its value to market mechanisms, floating exchange rates, inflation control, money supply.. has destroyed sovereign government's the ability to develop constructive economic programs.. all are now held hostage by markets and a Global and utterly amoral Investment Organism.
Harper to dim witted to see it.. but Canada is not in anyway isolated from the shocks that are on the horizon of the world economy. He's living in a fantasy world.. he's a legend in his own mind.. as someone gifted with a special insight of economies really work... HAVE no doubt.. he is a complete fool and incompetent.
It's a catch-22. If Ottawa wants to protect itself fully from whatever could happen in Toronto's markets, it would need to raise tarriffs against all imports from other cities and would need its own currency. That however would also make Ottawa less attractive as a place to do business owing to too many rules and different currency. So, to increase our economic attractiveness, all of Canada strives to be a common market with a common currency. the same applies on the world stage. Sure this means that a recession in Toronto could impact Ottawa, but on the other hand a strong Ontario economy also benefits Ottawa.
And remember protectionism had made the Great Depression worse, not better.
The basis of an integrated industrial economy is in fact to promote competition within its own borders, while protecting, especially nascent and vulnerable industry from predatory foreign competition. That does not create a isolated economy, nor does it protect industry from fair competition from abroad. It sees a cross polination of technologies as useful for both partners. It does however reject ideological Free Trade as promoted by a parasitic class of financiers and traders, that sap the life blood from a world economy based on enlightened and well organized national interests. The Global investment organism relies on shortages and distress for its profits.
The prime objective of a national economhy .. is full employment and fair wages. To do that it needs a sovereign, stable national currency.. and a credit, interest rate and investment policy independent of those functions needed to control inflation. And it needs permanent although flexible tariffs geared to maximizing physical productivity. In fact it's a situation that existed prior to the onset of the Monetarist cult, with the on set of Free Trade and Monetarist dogma in the early 1970s, notably with the revocation of the Bretton Woods Agreement.. which controlled exchange rates to narrow trading ranges.
And its one the great Myths of the Great Depression.. was the result of protectionism. It had nothing to do with tariffs. The economies of the world failed because the governments of the day did not have the courage to use the resources and laws available to them to spur production.
Last edited:
Number of reasons why it happened- and lots of economists argue over the reasons why.