Crisis what Crisis $

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is not making the headlines here but it should be, it is another fine mess that deeply involves News Intl. [Fox News] and it comes to a head this week ...

fine piece by Will Hutton [great in print and diagnosis, lousy on telly and solutions]

...looks like the USA is going to make us all pay for Bush and Cheney's wars and deregulatory instincts

[aeolium]

Yes, Calum, it looks to me like a sunset of the Western economies from which it is hard to see another sunrise.

This article by Paul Mason is another piece of fine analysis by the Newsnight journalist. Added to which is an interesting comment with video by Channel 4 News political commentator Gary Gibbon about the way many formerly middle-class jobs are simply vanishing.

Part of the problem is a real paralysis of political decision-making both in the USA (for the reasons you have illustrated) and in Europe, where there is what seems to me an almost wilful refusal to acknowledge that economic monetary union is not working, and that its model is fundamentally flawed. The Mason article really brings the latter out.

The only consolation is that at least we do not - yet - face the hell of world war which was faced by our ancestors' generation 100 years ago, and also 75 years ago by the generation coming out of the Great Depression.

[Lateralthinking1]

Last September, I warned the Permanent Secretary of my Department in writing that what used to be described as the lower middle class would crash, (disappearing into the space between skilled blue collar workers and the so-called underclass). Shortly after that, I crashed myself!

I still believe it to be true. In fact, I've got quite a good record of saying political things that have made me seem crackers at times, only to be proven right in a small number of years.

I also said this to him. Those in charge are currently brushing aside alternative viewpoints but with 50% of people going on to university, that is a huge amount of intelligence to be disgruntled. It will eventually lead to civil war.

Here is an excellent article today from Tim Lott. It focusses on News International but actually it equally applies to those who brought about the financial chaos. At the very least, across the board, the mood music needs to change.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/tim-lott-blame-the-bullies-ndash-but-dont-forget-those-who-let-them-get-away-with-it-2314915.html

(In 1982, at university, I told fellow students that I doubted that we would receive pensions but if we did, we would all be going to collect them on horses. It sealed my reputation for some comic ability but I was being serious. At 48, my money, such as it is, is still on that one, not that I am thrilled by the prospect.)

[aeolium]

It will eventually lead to civil war.

Yes, Lat, that is a strong possibility in a number of the societies where harsh austerity measures combined with rising unemployment could provoke unrest on a scale which perhaps we have not yet seen. There are huge levels of youth unemployment now in Europe, and with the complacency of the wealthy financiers who have in part created this economic crisis, the potential for explosive rebellion is high. Economic despair has been a significant factor in the rebellions of the Arab spring. Those who simply try to resolve financial crises with purely monetarist economic solutions without taking account of the political and social impact of those solutions are playing a very dangerous game.

[Serial_Apologist]

The Hurd mentality

Last September, I warned the Permanent Secretary of my Department in writing that what used to be described as the lower middle class would crash, (disappearing into the space between skilled blue collar workers and the so-called underclass). Shortly after that, I crashed myself!

I still believe it to be true. In fact, I've got quite a good record of saying political things that have made me seem crackers at times, only to be proven right in a small number of years.

I also said this to him. Those in charge are currently brushing aside alternative viewpoints but with 50% of people going on to university, that is a huge amount of intelligence to be disgruntled. It will eventually lead to civil war.

Here is an excellent article today from Tim Lott. It focusses on News International but actually it equally applies to those who brought about the financial chaos. At the very least, across the board, the mood music needs to change.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/tim-lott-blame-the-bullies-ndash-but-dont-forget-those-who-let-them-get-away-with-it-2314915.html

(In 1982, at university, I told fellow students that I doubted that we would receive pensions but if we did, we would all be going to collect them on horses. It sealed my reputation for some comic ability but I was being serious. At 48, my money, such as it is, is still on that one, not that I am thrilled by the prospect.)

R4 just now discussed China's growing influence in seeking to use the Euro as a reserve currency, enabling them to get out of the Dollar. Douglas Hurd was on suggesting this was all in our interests. After all, he droned on, they were already investing in Africa (!) He then went on to say that Britain with its past record was in a good position in this respect to advise China on the inadvisability of collaborating with African regimes with poor human rights records!

Rebekah Brooks has been arrested, it was announced at the end of the programme.

S-A

[Frances_iom]

There is I think a strong possibility that the USA will become a fascist (or near fascist - corporatist) state in very near future
- the popular media is dominated by a rabid right wing coupled with fundamental christians who feel their universe is under attack from 'liberal' intellectuals and are willing to lash out - last week's Economist showed that near 75M Americans were at or below poverty line and were in receipt of Federal aid - the simplistic solutions proposed by this unholy alliance will lead to disaster - China is in a situation now (or will be very shortly) when it does not need the USA and could start to call in its debt - the USA will then lose cheap oil and lat's nighmare of the horse based ecomony might come to pass .
The same rightwing tendencies based on simplistic views of society can be seen in much of Europe together with xenophobia (partly fuelled by several goverments total disregard for the effect certain immigration policies have had on the less well off in their societies coupled with large scale immigration of those from hugely different backgrounds which has encouraged the formation of ghettos)

[aeolium]

That's presumably the same Douglas Hurd who was such a shining light in British foreign policy in the Bosnian war leading up to the Srebrenica massacre

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

...looks like the USA is going to make us all pay for Bush and Cheney's wars and deregulatory instincts

But surely we've been doing this ever since Mr Blair cuddled up to GWB and sent troops to Afghanistan & Iraq. But out governments want more money, they'll continue to slap taxes on those who could not have been responsible for the policies - like increasing public service pension contributions by 50% instead of charging those responsible (the bankers - some of us still remember).

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

let's not be diverted from L'actualité ...Eurozone and USA can hit the rocks this week .... as implied above this is too big for politics although it is deeply political; if it is all a fiasco then it will be a far bigger disruption to the world's well being than the bankers' peccadilloes two years back ....

both the political arenas in EU and USA look incapable of addressing it all, actually they look as if they would find a paper bag a challenge to get out of ... such groupings as can address such immense issues seem to emerge in response to disaster or catastrophe, rarely in anticipation ... duck!


and given the state of Africa at the moment [funny how Chinese investment doesn't seem to provide any food] financial crisis could cause a severe aggravation of the famines and droughts there

[Boilk]

let's not be diverted from L'actualité ...Eurozone and USA can hit the rocks this week .... as implied above this is too big for politics although it is deeply political; if it is all a fiasco then it will be a far bigger disruption to the world's well being than the bankers' peccadilloes two years back ....

Very valid point. China has been lending to the US a lot of late, but is reducing this month-on-month as it wakes up to the fact the US is bankrupt without an exit strategy, even if given 25 years. Furthermore China will be infuriated by Obama's second meeting with the Dalai Lama this weekend, only increasing the likelihood of flexing its financial muscle.

When no foreign governments will lend to a terminally bankrupt country, and it cannot print more money to ward off the inevitable, it turns on the measure of last resort, stealing from its citizens of course. In a nutshell, the US may have to stoop so low as to introduce emergency laws whereby states forcibly use a percentage of their citizens' pension pots to finance future spending, with the comforting proviso (of course) that they will be refunded "as soon as possible" ... more debt sucked into the black hole! It's feasible too that money, metals and other assets may not be able to leave the country until the state of emergency is declared over. Of course, the smart money has mostly gone offshore already.