It’s a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street.
The finance minister of Italy’s conservative and pro-U.S. government warned of nothing less than a systemic breakdown. Giulio Tremonti excoriated the “voracious selfishness” of speculators and “stupid sluggishness” of regulators. And he singled out Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, with startling scorn.
“Greenspan was considered a master,” Tremonti declared. “Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after [Osama] bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis.”
Oh grow up.
London has held more financial influence than New York for some time now. The world is awash in Chinese, Russian, and Arab cash in amounts that are multiples of American accounts, the majority of it leveraged in highly speculative, non-transparent, non-free market applications. Indeed, shocking amounts of it are aimed at actively undermining American interests. Yet only the U.S. is attributed with the moral agency necessary to be blamed for the world’s problems. The idea that City financiers and Abu Dhabi magnates and Russian oligarchs and the PLA are somehow mere “regional powerhouses” is bizarre to anyone who can use an internet browser.
It seems to me that both in 1917 and 1941 we put ourselves, our Armed Forces, and our money on the line to get Europe as well as other nations out of trouble. It seems to me it is their turn to help us out. I’ll pay more attention to their squawking as having some meaning if I see some help coming from them.
Europeans are one to talk about bizarre economic system schemes, from the people who brought you Communism, Socialism, National Socialism, and Fascism, and every time it was Americans that largely bailed out Europe. And its not like the current EU psuedo-capitalist system in Europe is anything to brag on. High taxes, industrial output is virtually non-existent in most sectors.
Mr. Pot…there’s a Mr. Kettle on Line 1 for you, sir!
Perhaps, though, France is right to have second thoughts about following the US example of deregulation? Certainly the shocks have been felt less in France and Nicholas Sarkozy is no longer as much in favour of the American model. And regarding Harvey’s history: last time I looked in the history books the UK and the Empire fought on alone for two years and the US came in only after it was attacked. To the Archer of the Forest: have you ever compared per capita incomes between (say) the US and Sweden, the UK, Germany? I have noticed that every time something about Europe comes up on this site people bridle. Nothing wrong with loyalty to one’s country. But da question is: Do you think that the US can ever learn from other nations?
According to the CIA World Factbook, Germany’s per capita GDP is 74.7% of the US, Sweden’s in 79.6%, the UK is 76.6%, France is 72.5%, Italy is 66.4%. The EU as a whole is 70.5%. Unemployment in the EU ran 6.8% in July 2008 vs 5.7% in the US according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This is another headline in search of the news, and could more appropriately be called Several Europeans Ridicule U.S. Money Meltdown. An analogous article about any number of European subjects ripe for ridicule could be written from an American standpoint by interviewing a treasurer of one of the larger U.S. states, the editor of the Utne Reader, and a cell phone salesperson in Boston. Please, for the next news article purporting to describe the views of an entire continent, could we do a better job of marshalling actual viewpoints?
I thank Steven for a judicious and balanced comment to which I say heartily Amen!. I feaer that Andrew717 is using an out-of-date CIA factbook. Courtesy of Mr Wiki Pedia here are the figures of June 2008 for per capita income based on GDP, in US $:
France 40,200
Germany 40,315
UK 45,626
USA 45,959
Sweden 50,415
This is of course without factoring in social value eg the amount that a private citizen must provide for health care (in the US: vast; in France: modest; in the UK: little). Does this prove that one country is better than another? Absolutely not. The UK remains a crowded little island, France remains strangled by bureacracy, and the US remains the world’s leading industrialised country in terms of its citizens shooting one another.
My figures are up-to-date (2007, the last full year available) but use Purchasing Power Parity terms, which tend to put the US in a better light as prices tend to be lower here vis a vis western Europe, but was considered a far more accurate method when I was taking my Int’l Economics courses at university.
I make no value judgements, only that your comment seemed beside the point on the face of it. As shown by your backing away from that point now.
Andrew I am not backing away from the main point of my post, which was exasperation at an attitude far too frequently encountered on this site: namely, the belief that the US has nothing to learn from other nations. Some might say – if I recall correctly have indeed said on this site – that there is a corollary here with the boundless self-confidence of Episcopal leadership, disregarding the advice and pleas of the rest of the Anglican Communion, having nothing to learn from them. That much said, I would be the first to admit that national chauvinism knows no boundaries. There is plenty of it over on this side of the pond. It is as difficult for us to learn humility nationally as it is personally.
There is something I do back away from. I ended my previous post with a cheap shot. I regretted it as soon as it was sent.
Re PPP stats: they do indeed reflect purchasing realities, as you say, and you could have added, are less likely to be distorted by exchange rate calculations. But PPP stats do not take into account social capital, including, as I indicated, health care considerations, which constitute a major source of household expenditure in the US (health care also being a booming and major sector of the economy. Hmmm …. )
Thank you for the apology. I was reacting to what I percieved as yet another condescending European, and the oft-encountered view of those on the Left that things be done “on Earth as it is in Europe.” (Must admit, I didn’t coin that, came across it on a car blog) I appologize for my tone.
In my view there is no really satisfying metric for comparing the different social models of western Europe and the US, which is why I used per capita GDP figures which should leave issues of differeing levels of taxation to one side. That is a whole other kettle of fish! There are things to be learned on both sides, and there are also larger cultural differences than I think many realize, so that solutions which work in one may not work in the other.