Posted on 10/20/2008 8:58:56 PM PDT by Flavius
In recent years, as Wall Street boomed, Americans often dismissed Europe as a place for languorous meals and vacations, not economic innovation.
London remained a financial hub, of course, but it was often treated dismissively — as a flashy aberration pumped up by petrodollars from Russia and the Gulf, an exception to the otherwise somnolent Continent.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Yeah we should be more like Europe, that way nonexistent growth and high unemployment would seem normal like in France.
Not me man! None of this halfass wannabe crap for me! I’m going all the way! I’m looking at Red China, North Korea and Cuba!
Aware that IHT is the intl edition of the NY Slimes I was waiting for the absurd punch line...
>”In London, where the British government’s willingness to follow the United States into Iraq five years ago still evokes outrage, officials have been especially quick to point out they didn’t follow Washington’s lead this time.
“There’s no doubt that it was a British plan that was copied by the U.S.,” said Leon Brittan, who served as home secretary under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was a top official at the European Commission. “It shows that the American conception of Europe as an economic basket case is outmoded and wrong.”
“Europe showed the capacity to respond to a crisis more quickly than the U.S.,” he added. “The U.S. went through agonies to come up with a plan.<”
hmmm...I kinda remembered the Euroweenies were so “quick” and “original” to WAIT for us to approve the bailout.
How very true. Poland sounds really good so does Georgia and the Ukraine.
I feel a song coming on.
LOL. There ya go! Let’s get to goose-stepping.
First: His initial premise is wrong, I’ve seen my share of hand-wringing from both right and left that London might actually surpass NY as the financial capital of the world (which incidentally always seemed like a silly thing to worry about).
Second: European stock markets have been faring even worse then our own.
Third: Ten days? Ten days? He’s basing his analysis on the events of a week and a half! I would hope he’s joking, but it seems he’s not.
If anyone looks at the situation with the Euro Banks vs US Banks they will soon find that the Euro banks were much weaker. They had hidden their loans and leverage. Note in the article that the different countries have put 1 Trillion euro into them to keep them afloat. Look at shares of any of them and you will see the disaster.
The Eruo solution that they are crowing about finding is exactly the same as the japanese solution of 20 yrs ago. It didn’t work in japan, won’t work in Europe, and won’t work here in the US. It keeps the banks alive holding bad assets that they cannot get rid of. The money from the govt will just be kept in the bank and used to buy ultra safe loans such as govt bonds. It will do nothing to help the economy.
The part of the article is that these Euro bankers are patting themselves on the back for saving a system that has about 10% unemployment in the best of times. Something for the drawing room chatter but worthless as an economic solution to the problem. If the Euro banks had had good lending opportunities they would not have the need to buy the nonsense US mortgage bonds in the first place.
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