This is either frightening or hilarious. The people in Washington who are trying to make America more like Europe are advising the Europeans to double-down on the awful policies that have pushed the continent’s welfare states to insolvency.
Here are some of the surreal details from a CNBC report.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will take the unprecedented step of attending a meeting of EU finance ministers in Poland on Friday. It will be his second trip to Europe in a week after he met his main EU counterparts at a G7 meeting last weekend. Obama said that while Greece is the immediate concern, an even bigger problem is what may happen should markets keep attacking the larger economies of Spain and Italy. “In the end the big countries in Europe, the leaders in Europe must meet and take a decision on how to coordinate monetary integration with more effective co-ordinated fiscal policy,” the news agency EFE quoted him as saying. Geithner is likely to urge euro zone finance ministers on Friday to speed up ratification of changes to their bailout fund and consider boosting its size, an EU source said. …Obama’s comments suggested that Washington is trying to nudge European governments toward closer fiscal union or a bigger bailout fund to recapitalize teetering banks but European politics, especially in Germany, make that difficult.
Your eyes are not deceiving you. Obama and Geithner want more bailouts, which will simply encourage more profligacy. And the President even endorsed more harmonization of economic policy, which will exacerbate the problems in Europe by leading to higher taxes, more spending, and additional regulation.
But you have to give Obama and Geithner credit. They support the same bad policies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Obama, however, is not fully consistent in his beliefs. During a visit to Africa, he said, “No business wants to invest in a place where government skims 20 percent off the top.” But I guess bigger government is okay in Europe, where the burden of government is already 50 percent of economic output.
[…] them on fiscal policy in 2011. But don’t think they were being rude. They already had to endure his bad advice earlier that year and back in 2010 as […]
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[…] Obama and Geithner Advising the Europeans on Fiscal Crisis?!? This Is a Case of the Blind Leading th… Your eyes are not deceiving you. Obama and Geithner want more bailouts, which will simply encourage more profligacy. And the President even endorsed more harmonization of economic policy, which will exacerbate the problems in Europe by leading to higher taxes, more spending, and additional regulation. […]
[…] Friday’s post about the absurdity of Obama sending his Treasury Secretary to lecture the Europ…, you can imagine my great amusement today as I read that the Europeans basically told Geithner to […]
Re: George Johnson. He says yes (to Angela) we lose through the debasement of our currency and our resultant loss of wealth, He says no and we lose from the ripple effects of Europe’s resultant chaos and likely collapse. I am not sure how you consider those outcomes “sweet”, unless the only thing you care about is politics. Pain is coming to all from years of government waste, overspending and massive debt accumulation that cannot possibly be paid back. It is only a matter of whether it happens sooner or later. The pain will not be sweet.
If the Euros are smart enough to do the exact opposite of what Obama and Geithner recommend they should be just fine.
I hope the Congress can say ‘no’ when the time comes.
Wait until Angela puts the arm on Kommander Zero for a Trillion dollars so as to avoid worldwide financial meltdown. He says yes, he loses the 2012 election. He says no, he loses the 2012 election. Sweet.
What does eye-rolling sound like with a German accent?
[…] DanMitchell […]
Speaking of the blind leading the blind, a few weeks ago the Spanish govt issued a press release noting that president Zapatero had telephone conversations with Obama, Berlusconi and Sarkozy to analyze the economic crisis. That same day from ONE Spanish govt dept ONLY, namely the Environment Ministry, we get:
1) It is spending Eur5.9 million to retrain rural folks,
2) another Eur8.0 million to subsidize interterritorial and transnational cooperation projects (huh),
3) another Eur4.0 million to carry out works related to the integral water cycle of Huesca and Zaragoza provinces (whatever that means),
4) Eur1.0 million to bury power lines on Gomera Island to eliminate their negative visual impact,
5) Eur3.2 million to construct a wolf museum (the rest of the Eur30+ million tab is to be picked up by the local regional govt),
6) Eur14.4 million to finance pilot projects aimed at economic diversification and sustainable development in rural areas.
The Spanish govt, along with most others, is a spending junkie.
[…] DAN MITCHELL: Obama and Geithner Advising the Europeans on Fiscal Crisis?!? This Is a Case of the Blind Leading th… […]
This was so incredible to read. Speechless I am.
Obama must be thinking it’s quite an innovation to propose bailouts. Well, he has no consistent beliefs, but must be thinking whatever he comes up with is an innovation!
And so in Europe today one sees the hypocrisy of Democracy and Welfare Socialism:
A number of countries that support the Social Democratic Welfare State (i.e. advocate that mediocre people have a right to compensation earned by more exceptional people) have stated their determination to unite in a super country. Yet the rich socialists of the North are unwilling to extend the very same welfare socialism advocated within their borders to their poorer southern neighbors. In other words, they vehemently defend socialism within their own borders but refuse extending same treatment to the mediocrity of the south, in spite of their stated goal and aspiration to a unified Europe.
And so here comes the hypocrisy of democracy: The only reason why resistance to cross country redistribution is even an issue is simply that Southern Europeans have no voting power in the North (yet). The moment pan-European Democracy is finally established (the stated dream and aspiration of many Europeans — in spite of second thoughts lately) the Southerners will promptly form a majority and vote whatever Northern productivity is left their way – and Europe will finally seal an even faster path to its already inescapable fate of decline.
So as the American president looks East for inspiration, with that smirky and arrogant beyond the horizon look of hope and change, Americans know where you’re going…
In the rhetoric of contagion which aims to present European woes not as the fundamental loss of competitiveness under welfare policies, but rather as an unfair calamity of forces beyond control, one fundamental aspect is purposely omitted: The very problem with the so called “Domino effect” is not that the first domino falls, but the fact that all the other elements are also …well… dominoes.
So go ahead European dominoes, move ever closer to each other and await for the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) to sneeze…
Uncle Sam and his emerging welfare house of sticks has little reason to feel cocky…:
Welfare shortcuts to prosperity, loss of competitiveness, decline. Q.E.D.
The Administrations motivation is to keep Europe away from the headlines, so that American voters remain as unaware as possible of Europe’s true status — at least until the 2012 election — since may people with IQ above room temperature are able to see that Obama’s fundamental and structural plan for America is to E u r o p e a n i z e i t .
That is the core and central theme of all structural policies enacted and pursued by the Obama Administration: to Europeanize America. So, hidden behind the noise of passing crises QE1,2,3 bailouts, prosperity though expensive energy, setting an irreversible path towards nationalization of healthcare, partial nationalization of industries, redistribution and overall collective management of the economy, the backbone of America’s decline is being set by the current administration. It is the:
“Europeanization of the United States of America”.
Basically the American Liberal’s motto is best summarized as: “Europe, we now regret having waged a war of independence against you, in the end you were right, we now finally recognize it and belatedly aspire to finally become like you” … and follow your path to economic irrelevance and extinction. This is the essence and pivotal American transition to decline the American people are now living through – a decline they brought upon themselves.
So Geitner is basically pushing the few remaining productively motivated people left in Europe to spend their money to postpone disclosing to the world how far into a path of decline they have slid, against the central world change occurring in the early 21st century: the backdrop of 3+ billion people in the developing world who have finally woken up to some, albeit limited, economic freedom. 3+ billion people who have no time or desire to wait and find out how Europe’s and now America’s experimentation with socialism turn out. In economic terms they will simply take no prisoners.
Perhaps we can make Geithner an ambassador, and he can relinquish his current position.
Unbelievable.
Which is scarier that they manipulate the system to screw it up on purpose or out of ignorance?
The blind, deaf, dumb, and mentally challenged leading the blind.
Remember Obama is still well liked in Europe.
Is Soros happy yet?