The Political Fallout

[prole]

While our own Punch and Judy Show continues in America, Europe's trajectory has a familiar ring.

 

Bigwigs in Brussels are dubbing this week the economic and financial equivalent of 9/11 – world-shattering, system-changing, things will never be the same again. As well as financial and economic, there will be political hell to pay. Barroso and other strategic thinkers like Mario Monti, Italy's former European commissioner, or Peter Mandelson are warning about a new protectionism and the "renationalisation" of policy-making in Europe.

 

That's already happening in various fields related or unrelated to the economic crisis. To retain its credibility, the EU has to agree the fine print of its ambitious climate change package by December.

 

But national special pleading is rife. Disputes are raging behind the scenes. The German government is resolved to protect its car industry, the Poles are dependent on dirty coal, the British are incapable of committing to their mooted renewable energy obligations, and everyone has gone off biofuels since the policy aims were unveiled last year. The headline aims of the package will no doubt remain. But the means to that end are being shredded.

 

National governments are now much more defensive on climate change, says Barroso, who fears that the package could be a big casualty of the financial chaos.

 

Then there's Russia, gas supplies and energy security, where attempts to fashion a common European position are being constantly undermined by the conflicting national interests of, say, Germany and Poland, to name but two.

 

There is no appetite among the likes of Germany, France or Italy for another confrontation with Russia in the wake of the Georgia war, says a senior European official. So, for example, when decisions are being taken next month about how to reconfigure the international role and presence in Bosnia, the big Europeans (though not Britain) will effectively side with Russia against a US that is otherwise engaged.

 

More diffusely, the political fallout from the market mayhem is to wreck public confidence in the governing, managerial and business elites, triggering a popular insurgency against incumbency, a kick-the-buggers-out mood.

 

"Eurosceptics are going to rise very forcibly in the next European elections" next June, predicts Michael Connarty, the chair of the Commons EU scrutiny committee. "There is a massive undertow of resentment."

 

It is getting harder and harder to govern properly across large swathes of Europe. It is the era of the caretaker government.---from Guardian 10/10/08

 

Brushing up on your Schumpeter and Polanyi?

[olyclimber]

Has the Iron Curtain fallen?

[prole]

The tensions between a coordinated, global response and a fractionalized, local one to what is in essence a global crisis will be very interesting in the days, months, years to come. If the management of economic crises and the institutions erected to do this are to be global, what does that mean for political systems that are local and national in nature? How do populations maintain a semblance of democratic control over decision making processes that take place above the national level? On the other hand, national responses, as the 20th century has shown, can be quite destructive and do not necessarily lead to more democratic outcomes.

[billcoe]

Did you call Trashvocloa "psycho" so that he wouldn't respond to threads like this and you could discuss it amongst yourself?

[prole]

The questions raised are not rhetorical ones, if that's what you're asking.

[STP]

Access to credit is key to the survival of maritime trade and insiders now say the supply is being severely restricted. More than 90% of the world's trade by volume goes by ship.

Grain piles up in ports

 

What do you think will be the fallout, political or otherwise, of this development?

 

And FYI, on an unrelated note: If the government won't protect you, then you have to take responsibility for your own self-defense and that of your family.

[TREETOAD]

what do you need protecting from

[prole]

 

Brought to you by...neoliberal capitalism:

 

Booklovers Turn to Karl Marx as Financial Crisis Bites in Germany

 

Kate Connolly in Berlin

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday October 15 2008 12.19 BST

 

Karl Marx is back. That, at least, is the verdict of publishers and bookshops in Germany who say that his works are flying off the shelves.

 

The rise in his popularity has of course, been put down to the current economic crisis. "Marx is in fashion again," said Jörn Schütrumpf, manager of the Berlin publishing house Karl- Dietz which publishes the works of Marx and Engels in German. "We're seeing a very distinct increase in demand for his books, a demand which we expect to rise even more steeply before the year's end."

 

Most popular is the first volume of his signature work, Das Kapital. According to Schütrumpf, readers are typically "those of a young academic generation, who have come to recognise that the neoliberal promises of happiness have not proved to be true."

 

Bookshops around the country are reporting similar findings, saying that sales are up by 300%. (Though the fact that they are not prepared to quote actual figures suggests the sales were never that high).

 

Literature comes and goes and it is nice to see that trends are not always driven by slick marketing campaigns. Just as Rudyard Kipling would have been delighted that his poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings which contains the apt lines: "Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew." is modish once more, so Marx would have reveled in the idea that an economic crisis had reignited interest in his works. (Not, you understand, because of the increased royalties that would be coming his way over the next few months were he still alive.)

 

Increasing numbers of Germans appear ready to out themselves as Marx fans in a time when it is fashionable to repeat the philosopher's belief that excessive capitalism with all its greed finally ends up destroying itself. When Oskar Lafontaine, the head of Germany's rising left-wing party Die Linke, said he would include Marxist theory in the party's manifesto, in the outline of his plans to partially nationalise the nation's finance and energy sectors, he was labeled as a "mad leftie" who had "lost the plot" by the tabloid Bild. But even Germany's finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, who must have had some sleepless nights over the past few weeks, has now declared himself something of a fan. "Generally one has to admit that certain parts of Marx's theory are really not so bad," he cautiously told Der Spiegel.

 

"These days Marx is on a winning streak in the charm stakes," Ralf Dorschel commented in the Hamburger Abendblatt.

 

But for those not quite ready to immerse themselves in Marxist theory, Marx's correspondence to Friedrich Engels at the time of an earlier US economic crisis makes more entertaining reading. "The American Crash is a delight to behold and it's far from over," he wrote in 1857, confidently predicting the imminent and complete collapse of Wall Street.--from Guardian 10/15/08

 

 

[STP]

[video:youtube]jB9fuIvksLw

[Fairweather]

Good post. If I recall, the last president who went crazy with the printing presses was Jimmy Carter. Federal troops in the streets? I don't think so.

[prole]

Good post. If I recall, the last president who went crazy with the printing presses was Jimmy Carter.

 

Hey Rip Van Winkle, your stimulus check from the former owner of the Texas Rangers is sitting in your mailbox.