Staring at the abiss with Paul Krugman | 235 comments (235 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

Again, the euro is not the problem.

Yes, it is.

Right wing policies are the problem.

The euro is governed by institutionalized right-wing policies.

It is possible to do left wing policies and solidarity with a strong currency and limited public debt.

"If we only had the right people in charge...."

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:08:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

I still think the policies and ideologies of the people in charge do matter.

by IM on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:11:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

I do, too, but that doesn't mean the crisis would cease to exist if the EU were governed by socialists.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:13:33 PM EST
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Re: solidarity (none / 0)

why not? A different reaction to crisis will give different results?

by IM on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:14:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

Because reactions the other way are hamstrung by the nature of the system.

There's also the obvious problem that all of the so-called socialists are with the austerians on this lunacy.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:18:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

I don't believe in unchangeable systems. Or in unchangeable directions of political parties, for what. The future is still unwritten etc.

by IM on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:20:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

That's fine if you're talking about five or ten years from now (at best), but that's a bit late here.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:23:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Let's have that conversation in 6 months (4.00 / 2)

if the socialists win in France and trigger a new Europe-wide debate on the treaties. Hollande is saying a lot of good things today.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:42:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (4.00 / 4)

Clegg was saying a lot of good things before he was elected.

Now it's clear it was all lies and PR, and his real interest is in abetting the Tory agenda to the maximum possible extent.

This has been a consistent pattern by 'left' leaders since at least the mid 90s.

Hollande is already something of a Third Way-ist. So excuse my cynicism if I don't expect great things of him. (Although I'll be delighted if I'm proved wrong.)

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:14:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (none / 1)

Eurointelligence Daily Briefing: Complacency watch: Why raise the size of the ESM when the markets are calming? (19.03.2012)

Hollande does not manage to get an explicit support from the European left to renegotiate the fiscal pact
According to Les Echos, Francois Hollande on Saturday managed to overcome the impression of being isolated in Europe by bringing his European counterparts like SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel and Italy's Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani others to a common electoral rally to Paris. According to Le Figaro he mocked the ,,holy alliance" that conservative Europeans leaders like Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Mario Monti and Donald Tusk had put in place by agreeing not to meet with him during the election campaign. But the announcements about a renegotiation of the fiscal pact stayed very vague and the idea of a common ,,Paris Declaration" that Hollande would have liked to publish was dropped because of a lack of agreement on what to say on the fiscal pact, the paper writes. According to Les Echos, Gabriel said he was in favour of ,,complementing the treaty with a real European initiative in favour of growth" but he said nothing that the SPD would use its influence on the vote to force Merkel's hands. According to Financial Times Deutschland, however, Gabriel wants to wait for the French presidential elections before ratifying the fiscal pact in order to be able to force her to agree to an EU growth initiative.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:28:01 AM EST
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Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (4.00 / 4)

The Holy Alliance (also called the Grand Alliance) was a fourth coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon. Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of charity and peace in European political life, but _in practice Klemens Wenzel von Metternich made it a bastion against revolution. The monarchs of the three countries involved used this to band together in order to prevent revolutionary influence (especially from the French Revolution) from entering these nations. It was against democracy, revolution, and secularism. The Alliance is usually associated with the Quadruple and Quintuple Alliances, which included the United Kingdom and (from 1818) France with the aim of upholding the European peace settlement concluded at the Congress of Vienna. The Alliance was conventionally taken to have become defunct with Alexander's death in 1825.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:30:05 AM EST
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Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (none / 1)

The Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria and Prussia) refused Ferdinand's request for help, but the Quadruple Alliance (Britain, France, the Netherlands and Austria) at the Congress of Vienna in October 1822 gave France a mandate to intervene and restore the Spanish monarchy. On 22 January 1823, a secret treaty was signed at the congress of Verona, allowing France to invade Spain to restore Ferdinand VII as an absolute monarch. With this agreement from the Holy Alliance, on 28 January 1823 Louis XVIII announced that "a hundred thousand Frenchmen are ready to march, invoking the name of Saint Louis, to safeguard the throne of Spain for a grandson of Henry IV of France". At the end of February, France's Chambres voted an extraordinary grant for the expedition. Châteaubriand and the ultra-royalists rejoiced - the royal army was going to prove its bravery and devotion in the face of Spanish liberals, fighting for the glory of the Bourbon monarchy.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:33:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (4.00 / 3)

Otto, Royal Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece (Greek: Ὄθων, Βασιλεὺς τῆς Ἑλλάδος, Óthon, Vasiléfs tis Elládos; 1 June 1815 - 26 July 1867) was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers (the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire).
The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended the newly created throne of Greece while still a minor. His government was initially run by a three-man regency council made up of Bavarian court officials. Upon reaching his majority, Otto removed the regents when they proved unpopular with the people and he ruled as an absolute monarch. Eventually his subjects' demands for a Constitution proved overwhelming and in the face of an armed but peaceful insurrection, Otto granted a Constitution in 1843.

by Katrin on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:49:38 AM EST
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Re: Let's have that conversation in 6 months (4.00 / 2)

I didn't know we were that close to success in the project to reverse the French Revolution...

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 06:03:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

Nobody says Fico will save us! But if a critical mass is reached - perhaps after the elections in France. So in half a year, a year things could change.

by IM on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 12:48:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

Though he was for me the last Democrat left standing I still gave Obama six months before I despaired of his doing anything constructive about the problems with the banks and finance, so perhaps we should give Hollande at least until the summer solstice. In truth, from what I have seen of his positions on ET, I am not too optimistic of his being able to make the sort of fundamental challenges to the course and policies being followed to be able to succeed in effecting basic change.

Since the fall of 2008 I have believed and maintained that the problems with the existing system and the reasons why it must be reformed must be forcefully presented to the public in order to prepare them to accept and then demand basic reforms. But the existing system remains a quasi-sacred order and candidates will only talk about changes at the margins. I find it hard to see that changing absent an even more fundamental collapse of that system - one that cannot be papered over with fiat currency created and given only to bankers.

At present all remain caught in the spell of the existing system. In Europe that takes the form of the myth of the EU and the Euro. It is as though the bankers have left us as wasps leave victim insects - paralyzed but alive as food for their larvae. Someone or some event must break the spell. The sooner the better.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 06:29:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 3)

Obama is finally beginning to make some noises about finance.

But it is an election year, so some cynicism is reasonable.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:17:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 2)

See here about Obama and the "Hedge Fund Democrats"

Actually, I've seen this in action at meetings where financial big wheels and professors mingle. You'd think that the people with the big bucks would be confident; on the contrary, they're insecure, because they want respect for their minds. And I know for a fact that some of Obama's big-money early backers were motivated in large part by the lure of being in the inner circle in a way that someone like Hillary, with her long record and connections, couldn't offer.

They supported Obama because as a relative Washington outsider they though he'd sell slots in his inner circle? And now after 4 years Obama has developed the Washington connections and doesn't need the Masters of the Universe any more? Is that it?

And now Obama says what anyone paying attention would: that these big-money people were, to some extent, making their money in socially destructive ways -- and they go insane, precisely because in their hearts they know that he's right.
And because money talks in politics, this pettiness, this display of ego and hurt vanity, may have disastrous consequences.

(Krugman)

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 05:25:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

From my experience, the big wigs from different elites (financial and academical in this example) are as a rule insecure when they meet, because they need each other to confirm that they are indeed important and great men. And as a rule they get it.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 07:50:43 AM EST
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Re: solidarity (none / 1)

After all the purpose of power, according to psychologist David A. McCelelland, at an individual psychological level, is to feel powerful. Ain't life grand.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Mar 30th, 2012 at 02:31:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

This is Rorschach. The concept of 'Power' in its broadest assertive sense is unknown to the vast majority living on this planet. The word the majority relates to, even if they are unable to express it directly or clearly, is 'dignity'.

Dignity is the perception that individual life is worthwhile, giving is rewarding, and that one is not powerless to effect change where injustice is witnessed.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 30th, 2012 at 02:43:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

I believe what McClelland was trying to assess was how 'power' was perceived by those who were perceived to have it - across three cultures, but it has been >35 years since I read the work. The title of his book was Power - The Inner Experience 1975. At the time he was head of the Dept. of Psychology at Harvard.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Mar 30th, 2012 at 05:19:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

Those who have power demand dignity. Those with out power simply want dignity.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Mar 30th, 2012 at 05:20:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

On this point, you might refer IM to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

by rifek on Thu Mar 22nd, 2012 at 05:15:02 PM EST
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Re: solidarity (none / 1)

The euro is governed by institutionalized right-wing policies.

Precisely. The Euro makes neoliberal la-la-land the law of the land. Which means not only that sensible economic policies are subversive, but that the system is on a collision course with economic reality (Fisher's debt deflation).

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 01:27:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

Again - lower taxes and balanced budgets are NOT THE SAME THING. German austerians are not against tax increases to balance budgets. It's the combination with neoliberal policies which is absolutely toxic.

And when your creditworthiness is decided in London, being prudent with debt is not geostrategically silly. We worry about our energy coming from Russia, but we should worry about our money being valued by the Anglos.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 06:54:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

We should also worry about the ECB being the only sovereign in the Eurozone.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 06:56:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

When will you drop the Anglo paranoia? There's enough idiocy on display in Brussels, Frankfurt and Basel without needing to blame the City.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 06:57:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

I think I must agree with Migeru here. The rating agencies and Wall Street banks might carry huge culpability in creating the US crisis (as predicted by Jerome here on the ET), but the Euro crisis is entirely homegrown.

Remember; it's not like investors always even care about the rating agencies. Japan was downgraded years and years ago, and their sovereign rates have been falling ever since. When S&P downrated the US, US bonds soared, while it was the stock market which went into the toilet.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 07:01:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

caring about ratings (4.00 / 8)

is a purely anglo thing, coming from reliance on capital markets (rather than debt lending) for finance. It has led to the quest for valuing everything in monetary terms (so that it can be traded), liquidity (or lack thereof) in everything, the concept of riskless assets, and a general lack of due diligence in your lending practices. You rely on the rating rather than on your own analysis (and I've seen this from the inside - using ratings are the absolutely easiest way to be lazy inside a bank).

The lack of due diligence should not be a problem if the stupid money is punished (and not bailed out - this is where financial capitalism will break), but the reliance on monetising and valuing everything through the prism of finance brings short-termism, the "there is no society" mindset and, in the absence of a strong State, runaway greed & al.

So "anglo" is a short cut for the Reagan/Thatcher ideology, but there are roots for it where it came from.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 07:17:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: caring about ratings (4.00 / 2)

using ratings are the absolutely easiest way to be lazy inside a bank

Heh. Everytime the guys from the bank come and suggest we buy this or that corporate bond (I help manage some research stipend money) and say that it has this or that rating, I give them a look and mutter something about MBS's or CDO's or the S&P downrate of the US, and then they look rather sheepish. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 07:23:44 PM EST
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Re: caring about ratings (none / 0)

In a society where everything is market-based, everything has either a market value or no value. And no fair factoring back in the externalities the market makers have so cleverly swept under the rug.

I've always found it amusing that the Royals were generally fans of Maggie when her markets-ueber-alles approach was directly contrary to every interest and tradition of the monarchy.

by rifek on Thu Mar 22nd, 2012 at 05:31:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 4)

Migeru:

There's enough idiocy on display in Brussels, Frankfurt and Basel without needing to blame the City.

If the City (and Wall St) impinge on the Eurozone situation, should that be ignored? When it's pointed out that either rating is a superfluous function, or should not be in the hands of private City/Wall Street corporations, the response is invariably, "the rating agencies didn't cause the euro crisis". No, but they have arguably exacerbated it at every turn by publishing (often correct) analyses and consequent rating changes with an acuity and rigour that were so strikingly absent concerning American financial bubble-and-fraud in the lead-up to the first leg of this crisis. Is it absurd to find logical that US interests (and those of Britain, the GBP having been sidekick to the dollar for decades) lie in avoiding the loss, in the financial crisis, of the world-reserve-currency status of the dollar, and therefore in seizing an opportunity to weaken the relative status of the main contender for replacement? Or that global financial capitalism (to a considerable extent offshore but pre-eminently centred on New York and London, currently at least) abhors the regulatory tendency the EU represents at world level?

Why place a theoretical ring-fence round continental Europe (where, I'm not denying, our "leaders" bear huge responsibility for driving us over the cliff) and ignore global power struggles? If, tomorrow, the euro fell apart and our countries were severally sovereign, would those power struggles have no relevance?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Mar 18th, 2012 at 06:27:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 2)

There is a line beyond which pointing out malign foreign interests becomes an exercise in excuse-making for domestic collaborators and general idiocy, rather than analysis. And reasonable people can disagree on which side of that line Jerome's comment is on, given that it is made in response to the observation that the Euro elevates liberal (neo- or ordo-, doesn't matter - they agree on this particular delusion) fantasy world economics into the law of the land.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Mar 18th, 2012 at 09:34:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 5)

There may also be a line beyond which continually imputing defensiveness and excuse-making to other participants here may be improductive of debate and analysis.

I was not writing to defend Jerome's comment, he can do that himself, but to support the view that excluding global power struggles from the field truncates the discussion, which then appears to conclude that Europe's problems are solely self-inflicted and that sovereign nation-states will be either the inevitable result of those self-inflicted problems, or the correct response to them. Well-adapted macroeconomic policies for those states may be suggested (with great confidence, even), but it's legitimate to have doubts about, not their theoretical effectiveness, but their chances of being applied in real conditions - will global finance go away, will laissez-faire neoliberalism go away, will economists change their spots, will right-minded governments emerge from the polities we have, will global imbalances and their attendant pressure to race to the bottom disappear, because the euro is no more and we have independent nation-states? Luis's (self-admittedly) doomer scenario above has the merit of putting the subject on the table. It's not enough to reply (hyperbole for hyperbole) that what's happening within the euro is just as bad, or that all a government needs to do is this or that. A serious (probably multi-scenario) description of what might and what is likely to happen to our several nation-states in the event of leaving the euro or of a general euro collapse, is called for. Alongside which (though great doubts may be legitimate on this score too), the chances of a return to the '80s to re-debate and identify an acceptable construction sans Maastricht for what has become the EU (including what the outlines of an acceptable construction would be), need to be assessed. Vast programme.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Mar 18th, 2012 at 12:47:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 4)

I'm not sure I fully understood all of that and so my point may be similar: There is a distinction between academic and policy analysis. Academic analysis should be wholly objective/fact driven - but rarely is. Policy analysis focuses on the policy leavers and factors over which you actually have some influence/control. So it makes sense for those of engaged primarily in the EU policy/politics space to focus on the shortcomings of the EU/Eurozone itself. That is not to say anglo neo-liberal influences haven't exerted a baleful influence on EU policy/decision makers and may indeed be the cause for a lot of our ills. But it is easier to address the known and obvious defects in the design of the Eurozone project itself rather than to be tilting at generalised neo-lib shibboleths and windmills all the time... If we could fix the structural defects and lack of solidarity in the Eurozone architecture, we wouldn't have to worry over-much about what the City/Wall street are up to.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 11:11:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

That is right. You could crowd out Migerus german paranoia.

by IM on Wed Mar 21st, 2012 at 06:47:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

we should worry about our money being valued by the Anglos

Nothing secondary market purchases by the ECB with a stated cap on yields wouldn't solve faster than you can say 'Weimar'.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 07:02:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

Were it not for the fact that the ECB has been busy undermining the credibility of its own sovereign debt purchases.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 07:03:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

The EU is still trying to have a sovereign currency without a sovereign. Not a good mix.

by rifek on Thu Mar 22nd, 2012 at 05:34:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 0)

The ECB is the only sovereign, it just pretends that it isn't.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 22nd, 2012 at 06:03:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 2)

On the contrary, it seems to rather enjoy being the sovereign. It's just an old-fashioned sort of sovereign. Specifically, the sort of which went out of style around 1792. For reasons and in ways that the ECB may yet come to experience first-hand if they persist in the destruction of European society.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Mar 22nd, 2012 at 08:47:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (none / 1)

Again - lower taxes and balanced budgets are NOT THE SAME THING.

Low taxes is not the only form of fantasy economics practised on by the right wing.

Balanced budgets are fine, whatever, as long as they are regarded as an incidental circumstance rather than an actual policy objective.

And when your creditworthiness is decided in London,

... then your central bank is not doing its job.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Mar 17th, 2012 at 09:23:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 5)

Jerome a Paris:

German austerians are not against tax increases to balance budgets.

Taxes on the poor is ok, but a luxury tax on cars in Greece was not allowed.

ReporterNet.com | Tax on Luxury Cars to be Abolished

The government is expected to abolish the luxury tax on private cars with ex-factory prices of more than €20,000 for new and €16,000 for used, according to statements by Deputy Finance Minister Pantelis Oikonomou, who cited European legislation.
"In order to prevent the country from being referred to the European Court, a draft provision has been prepared for the abolition of the luxury tax on private cars," he said in Parliament.
Luxury tax rates vary between 10% and 40%, depending on the ex-factory price.
Oikonomou said the ministry is also preparing a more favorable tax regime for imported used cars. Greece has already lost a case at the European Court on this issue.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Mar 18th, 2012 at 03:50:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: solidarity (4.00 / 2)

Slashing the salaries of psychologists to less than what some would earn stocking shelves in a grocery store here, and then taxing them higher through their utilities, is Very Serious.

Just don't you dare tax BMWs.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Mon Mar 19th, 2012 at 09:52:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Staring at the abiss with Paul Krugman | 235 comments (235 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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