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By Garry Leech
$17.13
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$18
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(CC-BY-SA)
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By Eugene Robinson — Economic austerity is a dangerous, self-defeating intellectual fad. Perhaps I should say that’s what it was, given Sunday’s election results in Europe.
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AP/Michel Spingler
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The austerity regime in Europe took a big hit Sunday, with French voters electing Socialist Francois Hollande, while the Greeks, also voting Sunday, handed out pink slips to the ruling centrist coalition that has slashed government spending on EU orders.
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Paresh Nath, Cagle Cartoons, The Khaleej Times, UAE —
Posted on May 5, 2012
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By Jozef Danglar Gertli, Slovakia —
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Photo by (CC-BY)
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Until his daughter, Marine, captured 19 percent of the vote in France’s first round of presidential elections Sunday, Jean Marie Le Pen was the country’s most politically successful right-wing crazy. In a way he saw this coming, promoting his daughter, as The Guardian recalls, as a “big healthy blonde girl ... an ideal physical specimen.”
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Gabriela Camerotti (CC-BY)
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Tally the fatal, unhappy costs of runaway capitalism. Across Europe, businessmen unable to cope with the world made by the 2008 economic crash are taking their lives.
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Photo by ctj71081 (CC-BY)
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By William Pfaff — Is the United States in decline? It’s clear to anyone who has been to Europe or the major Asian states recently, where everything works beautifully, even if Europe’s debts are not paid off.
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Christo Komarnitski, Cagle Cartoons, Bulgaria —
Posted on Apr 1, 2012
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Wikimedia Commons
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Remember when austerity sounded more like an obscure SAT word than cause for international economic panic? This time around, it’s the Spaniards who are feeling the pinch, as their government has announced major budget cuts for the year.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By William Pfaff — European missile defense against the threat of hypothetical Iranian nuclear missile attack is a make-work project for the American aerospace industry and always has been.
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AP / Jacques Brinon
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By Barry Lando — No one gained more from the crisis in Toulouse than President Nicolas Sarkozy, for whom law and order has always been a calling card.
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Christian Guthier (CC-BY)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The question is whether 2012 will mark a comeback by a left invigorated by a growing unhappiness with rising economic inequalities and a backlash against austerity policies aimed at saving Europe’s common currency. (Pictured, British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.)
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AP / Michael Probst
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Having pulled off the biggest debt restructuring deal ever, Greece is on track for yet another bailout. Meanwhile, the Greek government is also preparing to make yet another round of austerity cuts, which may involve lowering the nation’s minimum wage.
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AP / Kostas Tsironis
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By William Pfaff — Denied a referendum on crippling austerity measures, Greeks demonstrated Sunday night that if they couldn’t express their opinions one way, then they would do it in another.
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AP / Kostas Tsironis
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On Sunday, after months of economic and political turmoil, Greek citizens fed up with paying for mistakes made by their country’s power elite took to the streets by the tens of thousands to signal their disapproval of the austerity measures the government pushed through late that night.
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U.S. Navy / MC2 Brooks B. Patton Jr.
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By William Pfaff — Stephen Hadley, a former official in ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, said in Munich that Europe must spend more if it wants to be a global player. The Europeans regard the George W. Bush administration record, and now the Obama administration’s, and see the disastrous results of “global playing.”
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DoD / MC1 Chad J. McNeeley
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By William Pfaff — Americans might do better to give up their China obsession and go back to their traditional vision of a European threat.
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AP / Michael Probst
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Once again, European leaders convened for a eurozone pep rally on Tuesday, meeting up in Brussels to see if their economic resuscitation efforts in recent months are paying off and if Greece will stop hogging all the attention anytime soon.
Posted on Jan 31, 2012
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Elliott Brown (CC-BY)
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The BBC reports that while the United States and the U.K. have made a habit of buying too-big-to-fail banks and then looking the other way, the safest banks in the world aren’t just owned but operated by civil governments.
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Manny Francisco, Cagle Cartoons, Manila, The Phillippines —
Posted on Jan 29, 2012
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Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)
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This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The great Internet switch-off; the ACLU vs. jailhouse abuse; S&P’s downgrade mania; Robert Scheer on the election, and Chris Hedges discusses his lawsuit against the president.
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This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The great Internet switch-off; the ACLU vs. jailhouse abuse; S&P’s downgrade mania; Robert Scheer on the election, and Chris Hedges discusses his lawsuit against the president.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — This is what progress looks like for a president named Barack Hussein Obama.
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By William Drozdiak —
In “After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent,” Walter Laqueur explains how Europe’s success in constructing a harmonious community of states actually masked serious social, economic and political vulnerabilities that proved too fragile to bear the world’s most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression.
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Barricades in Zuccotti Park have finally come down, causing protesters to immediately reoccupy; in the face of budget cuts, some teachers opt to work for free; meanwhile, Kopimism, a new religion based on file-sharing, emerges. These discoveries and more after the jump.
Posted on Jan 10, 2012
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reuters.com
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Now that the holiday season is over, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are back in crisis management mode, huddling in Berlin on Monday before emerging to hold a joint news conference on the future of the eurozone.
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April and Randy (CC-BY-ND)
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The Nobel Prize-winning economist writes in his New York Times column Sunday that even though “it’s not a full replay of the Great Depression,” people continue to suffer without work and we should call the thing by its name.
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Tom Janssen, Cagle Cartoons, The Netherlands —
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AP / Geert Vanden Wijngaert
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At the close of an economic summit that appears to have failed to rescue Italy, Spain and more of Europe from sinking deeper into a mire of recession, Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott prefigures the collapse of the euro as a unifying currency of the European Union. (more)
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This week, at a Brussels economic summit described as “make or break,” European leaders came together but drew the line at uniting. Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, conservatives mull Newt Gingrich’s presidential prospects and President Obama speechifies.
Posted on Dec 9, 2011
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Dennis Skley (CC-BY-ND)
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By William Pfaff — The extent to which the economic policy of nations is made on the basis of misinformation or wishful thinking is not generally recognized.
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World Economic Forum / Michael Wuertenberg (CC-BY-SA)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Two politicians from different countries and with very different political pedigrees made news this week. Both spoke difficult truths and reminded us that we shouldn’t use the word “politician” with routine contempt.
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Flickr / SimplySchmoopie (CC-BY-SA)
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Traditionally, the holiday season brings good tidings for the stock market, too. There’s even something called “the Santa rally,” we learned from this Wall Street Journal article. Neat! But this year, with trouble on the European front and the ongoing recession (yes, that reads “recession”) at home, there may be less to look forward to, or so market forecasters fear.
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Paul Zanetti, Australia —
Posted on Nov 13, 2011
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Richard Newton (CC-BY)
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The same ratings firm that held the United States hostage to its debt demands and gave the thumbs up to toxic mortgage assets is again in the news for bungling things. Standard & Poor’s accidentally announced a downgrade Thursday of France’s AAA credit rating.
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NATO
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By William Pfaff — The enthusiasm that has been inspired in NATO circles by the organization’s success in overturning the Gadhafi regime in Libya provides a demonstration of how badly NATO still feels the need for a justification of its continued existence.
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Flickr / clementine gallot (CC-BY)
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Back in June, the Federal Reserve predicted a sunnier economic future for the U.S. than it did Wednesday, when the Fed released revised figures for both growth (it’ll happen more slowly) and unemployment (it’ll continue to hover around 9 percent) through 2012. But the news wasn’t all gloomy.
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Occupy TVNY has this interview with Chris Hedges, who, during the major global protests on Saturday, compared Occupy Wall Street to the other movements he’s covered around the world, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East.
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woodleywonderworks (CC-BY)
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The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Nicolas Berggruen, a billionaire who has apparently become fascinated with political gridlock and enamored with the smoke-filled room. What makes Berggruen interesting is his ability to summon personalities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joseph Stiglitz, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice. (more)
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Marco Raaphorst (CC-BY)
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Seafood fans beware: You and your appetites may be toying with evolution. A team of scientists is investigating the fallout from overfishing, which causes fish to be smaller and reproduce earlier, and whether these changes are short-term reactions or the result of unnatural selection. (more)
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The German conglomerate is getting out of the nuclear power business. Siemens built every one of Germany’s existing nuclear power plants, all of which were scheduled to be shuttered by 2022 following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. (more)
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Apokolokyntosis (CC-BY)
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Cryos, an international network of sperm banks based in Denmark, is refusing donations from gingers, because, says director Ole Schou, there simply isn’t demand outside of Ireland, where red hair sells “like hot cakes.” The company is most interested in sperm from Indian donors and those with brown hair and eyes. (more)
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On this week’s “Left, Right & Center”: setbacks in the effort to solve the European debt crisis, John Boehner’s remarks on Obama’s jobs plan, and where presidential hopefuls Rick Perry and Mitt Romney stand after the latest GOP candidates’ debate. (more)
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Flickr / Davide "Dodo" Oliva
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U.S. and European markets played follow the leader Friday, as the three main stock indexes in both regions tumbled nearly 3 percent together. Among other events, analysts pointed fingers at the euro, uncertainty over President Obama’s jobs speech and doubt over Greece’s ability to address its financial problems.
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AP / Alexandre Meneghini
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By William Pfaff — If the U.S. had gone seriously into the war, and behaved characteristically, Libya’s revolution would not have succeeded this week.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama has only one option as he ponders a world economy teetering on the edge: He needs to go big, go long and go global.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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