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What I don’t understand about the current stance of Brussels and Germany, is their distorted view of reality. Michael Pettis apparently and many others, view wh
by atmosx 12y ago
What I don’t understand about the current stance of Brussels and Germany, is their distorted view of reality. Michael Pettis apparently and many others, view what Brussels and mainstream economic magazines fail to see.
Take this excerpt from Buttonwood's article[1] in the “economist” on Feb 3rd.:
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Yes, the Greek voters have given their opinion but what about voters in other democracies? German voters, when polled, seem pretty clear that they don't want Greece to be given debt forgiveness. Since they would bear the cost of a Greek write-off, why should their views count for nothing? And what about the Finns, Dutch, Austrians etc?
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For some reason ‘Buttonwood’ ignores Podemos in Spain, UKIP in the UK, M5S in Italy and LePen in France. All these anti-EU parties are leading the polls in their respective countries. It’s not something that will happen in the future it is something that it IS happening NOW.
The rhetoric has it that by punishing SYRIZA the current French, UK, Italian and Spanish governments can make a bad example out of Greece and reclaim lost votes. While to me seems a very unlikely outcome. No matter what will happen to Greece, LePen is going to win Frances election if Frances economy doesn’t change drastically in the next months. Same goes for Spain, Italy and the UK. The economy can not change following austerity prescription by the Germans unfortunately, that’s crystal-clear, so why are they sticking with austerity?!?
I might be wrong, I don’t know time will tell, but I get the feeling that people in key-positions throughout EU right now are severely under-educated.
The article was quite refreshing. Let’s hope for the best.
1 http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/02/greece-and-euro-crisis](http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/02/greece-and-euro-crisis) http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/02/greece-and...
- justincormack 12y agoUKIP is not an anti austerity party, you should not mix them in, and the National Front in France should not be lumped in with Syriza and Podemos. Syriza is not really anti-EU, either. Nor is debt forgiveness a pro/anti EU issue, other than in the construction of the ECB.
- atmosx 12y agoYou're right, they shouldn't be mixed and SYRIZA is not really anti-EU. But UKIP and LePen are anti-EU while Podemos and SYRIZA will probably not comply with Brussels. All of them may be oppose to the EU (or EU's austerity policy) for different reason, however the fact that all these new parties are a product of the EU's choice of policy remains IMHO.
- alextgordon 12y agoUKIP is mainly a product of the Labour party policy rather than EU policy. Upon the expansion of the EU in 2004, the Blair government did not put any restrictions on freedom of movement[1] unlike Germany, France, Netherlands, etc. Predictably, the UK was drowned in a torrent of migrants. UKIP is a nationalist party: they don't just want to be removed from the EU, but the EEA and the Council of Europe too. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_enlargement_of_the_European_Union#Free_movement_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_enlargement_of_the_Europe...
- danmaz74 12y agoM5S comes as a far second in Italian polls.
- WildUtah 12y agoNeither FN (Le Pen) nor UKIP has any chance of winning power in their respective countries regardless of economic conditions. The local centers of wealth and power in each nation is committed to transnational politics and mass importation of cheap labor to control and depress wages of working people. They own the media and the mainstream parties and will not allow that control to fade. If necessary, the Labor and Tory parties will unite and dissolve their differences in order to defeat UKIP.
- tsotha 12y ago>Neither FN (Le Pen) nor UKIP has any chance of winning power in their respective countries regardless of economic conditions. I wouldn't be too sure about that. I don't know much about FN, but it isn't at all inconceivable UKIP could win an outright majority in the UK.
- alextgordon 12y agoUKIP are unlikely to win seats in London, Scotland, Wales or NI, which are 190 out of 650 seats. That means they'd have to win >71% of the remaining English seats for an outright majority.
- tsotha 12y agoI don't know why you think they can't win seats in those areas, particularly as anti-EU sentiment increases.
- alextgordon 12y agoUKIP won't win in London because London is full of migrants. These migrants are unlikely to vote for their own christmas, so to speak. UKIP won't win in Scotland, Wales, or NI because these areas already have alternative parties (SNP, Plaid Cymru, DUP). Anti-EU sentiment has actually been decreasing as UKIP support increases[1]. In 2013 and before, most people wanted to leave the EU, but now it's more of a wash. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_referendum_on_United_Kingdom_membership_of_the_European_Union#Standard_polling_on_EU_membership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_referendum_on_United_...