LAT: Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown

El Pinko

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Sun Sep-21-08 11:35 PM
Original message

LAT: Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-euromood20-2008sep20,0,7535469.story

Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown
Fears Grow For Economy As Shares Continue To Plunge

They list greed and Greenspan among the culprits, and there are comparisons to . . . Albania. But amid the gloating, there is fear for financial systems in Britain, Spain, Italy and elsewhere.

By Sebastian Rotella and Janet Stobart, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 20, 2008
LONDON -- It's a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street. The finance minister of Italy's conservative and pro-U.S. government warned of nothing less than a systemic breakdown. Giulio Tremonti excoriated the "voracious selfishness" of speculators and "stupid sluggishness" of regulators. And he singled out Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, with startling scorn.

"Greenspan was considered a master," Tremonti declared. "Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis." In an interview Thursday in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Tremonti drew a comparison to corruption-ridden Albania in 1997, when a nationwide pyramid scheme cost hundreds of thousands of people their savings and ignited anarchic civil conflict.

"The system is collapsing, exactly like the Albanian pyramids collapsed," Tremonti said. "The idea is gaining ground that the way out of the crisis is mainly with large public investments. . . . The return of rules is accompanied by a return of the public sector." On the other end of the political spectrum, among leftists who have long predicted calamity for what they call the "savage neoliberal capitalism" of Wall Street, there were gleeful allusions to the stock market crash of 1929.

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BrklynLiberal

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Sun Sep-21-08 11:36 PM
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1. They have been ridiculing this country since November of 2000...

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Fumesucker

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Sun Sep-21-08 11:38 PM
Response to Reply #1

3. Nowhere nearly enough though n/t

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melody

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Sun Sep-21-08 11:50 PM
Response to Reply #1

4. So what else is new? lol

They won't be laughing so hard when it all comes rebounding on them.

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El Pinko

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Mon Sep-22-08 01:19 AM
Response to Reply #4

5. Europe is a lot less dependent than we are on the rest of the world...

...after all, our entire economy is based on massive borrowing from Japan, China and the rest of the world.

We are the least solvent nation on earth, with a gaping current accounts deficit. Of course there are a few European nations in our league, especially when GDP is figured in, but regardless of how you slice it, America has become disgracefully unproductive and parasitic, hence out ever-declining wages...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_current_account_balance

Rank ↓ Country ↓ Current account balance
(million US$) ↓ date ↓
1 People's Republic of China 372,000 2007<5>
2 Japan 201,300 2007 est.
3 Germany 185,100 2007 est.
4 Russia 93,035 2008 est.
5 Saudi Arabia 88,890 2007 est.

....

155 Portugal -18,530 2007 est.
156 Romania -20,950 2007 est.
157 France -35,940 2007 est.
158 Turkey -36,270 2007 est.
159 Greece -36,400 2007 est.
160 Australia -50,960 2007 est.
161 Italy -57,940 2007 est.
162 United Kingdom -111,000 2007 est.
163 Spain -126,300 2007 est.
164 United States -731,214 2007 final revision <6>

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melody

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Mon Sep-22-08 01:22 AM
Response to Reply #5

6. I beg to differ

That changing relationship will become very evident over the next two weeks, if I'm correct in my guesses.

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aquart

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Sun Sep-21-08 11:36 PM
Response to Original message

2. "Greed and Greenspan." Not disagreeing.

Yet I feel there is more blame to go around.

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Dark

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Mon Sep-22-08 04:37 AM
Response to Original message

7. "gleeful allusions to the stock market crash of 1929."

Are they fucking brain dead> Di they realize that the Great Depression hit almost every country across the golbe, before globalization?

Do they realize what happened in Germany afterward?

Do they realize what would happen if the U.S. had an economic meltdown?

Goddamn they people are stupid.

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El Pinko

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Mon Sep-22-08 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #7

8. Keep in mind that the "gleeful" part is editorializing on the part of the writer.

Just like some posters on DU do. Just because some of us saw this coming YEARS ago and may want to rub a few deserving noses in it, that doesn't mean we are enjoying the broader consequences.

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