Replies to post #200485 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

total bs from you again and again. The statement is " How Europe ever thought AUSTERITY would FIX" it's economic woes . .and btw, stupid ..... Germany had/has a much higher welfare system than than Spain/Italy or Greece ever did ... you know so little and pretend so much .........

[StephanieVanbryce]

The PROOF that what you are selling is BS!

The Republican story is that it’s all about excessive welfare states. How does that hold up? Well, let’s look
at public social expenditures as a share of GDP in 2007, before the crisis, from the OECD Factbook:



Hmm, only Italy is in the top five — and Germany’s welfare state was bigger.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/european-crisis-realities/

[arizona1]

6 Charts That Show How Conservative Politics Are Destroying America

We've been in the clutches of conservative economic orthodoxy since 1980, and this is the result.

These were compiled by Dave Johnson at Campaign for America's Future:

In each of the charts below look for the year 1981, when Reagan took office.

Conservative policies transformed the United States from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years, and it has only gotten worse since then:



Working people’s share of the benefits from increased productivity took a sudden turn down:



This resulted in intense concentration of wealth at the top:




And forced working people to spend down savings to get by:



Which forced working people to go into debt: (total household debt as percentage of GDP )



None of which has helped economic growth much: (12-quarter rolling average nominal GDP growth.)



There are, of course, many reasons for all this. But there is no doubt that we've been in the clutches of conservative economic orthodoxy since 1980 and this is the result. Whether it's the cause or whether it's because it has no capacity to react to external events properly doesn't matter. It has failed. And is still failing. #Austerity
http://www.alternet.org/economy/6-charts-show-how-conservative-politics-are-destroying-america?akid=10264.37251.irk2Ar&rd=1&src=newsletter818003&t=7

[F6]

Fontana delle Tette, Treviso, Italy

[BullNBear52]

The difference between us and them.

Cyprus Was Not an Exception
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The recent crisis in Cyprus has highlighted the curious and dangerous phenomenon of banking systems that are much bigger than the economies in which they are based. One reason the government of Cyprus struggled to deal with its failing banks was that their assets were seven times as big as the country’s economy.

Cyprus is not the only such country in the euro zone. Luxembourg and Malta, which have established themselves as tax havens serving big global corporations and the superrich, have banking systems that are even larger. Luxembourg’s bank assets are a staggering 22 times its gross domestic product, and Maltese bank assets clock in at eight times the size of its economy.

Leaders of both countries have insisted that they should not be compared with Cyprus and that they expected European leaders to stand behind their governments and banks come what may. Speaking of his banking system, the finance minister of Luxembourg, Luc Frieden, said: “We want to expand it further, not to downsize it.”

Banks in Luxembourg and Malta, many owned by big European and American financial firms, are healthier than those in Cyprus, according to the International Monetary Fund. But the I.M.F. raised concerns about the ability of the countries to properly monitor their banks or support them in a crisis. In other words, the euro zone and the I.M.F. would have to step in to bail them out if they ran into trouble.

In any case, the euro zone needs urgently to finish work on a banking union that would allow the European Central Bank to supervise large banks instead of leaving that task to national policy makers who may be too protective of their banks. Europe should also have a common process to restructure troubled banks, which should reduce the risk of Cyprus-like debacles. A banking union would also give savers more confidence that their insured deposits are truly guaranteed, an assurance that was deeply shaken by what happened in Cyprus.

Thankfully, the crowds were not as big and chaotic as people had feared when banks in Cyprus reopened last week after for two weeks — but only after the country imposed tough capital controls to prevent depositors from fleeing. Europeans may not be as lucky next time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/opinion/cyprus-is-not-an-exception.html?hp&pagewanted=print