I’m still coming to grips with the reality of Europe being more fiscally prudent than the US. An American (who else?) think-tank head has framed the European opposition to Obama’s obscene deficit/bankruptcy/inflationary spending, with reference to “a certain backlash against the American economic model,” hubris I find difficult to parse. Such “vulgar Keynesianism” is not a model; it’s a crime!
I worry that Obama will work his magic on Merkel and the rest and convince them to adopt his voodoo economics. Then there really will be no place to run. A pied piper will have enticed the world over a cliff … (And I have family in Europe.)
Chancellor Angela Merkel, to her great credit, has said “Nein” to stimulus and bailouts. Disparagingly, American diplomats put it down to combined “profound German instinct against debt – and its accompanying inflation – with a widely held sentiment here that the US and Wall Street are to blame for creating the global crisis.”
Can’t argue with the Chancellor, can you?!
Obama departed today for London, in advance of the Group of 20 Summit there. Reports The Christian Science Monitor:
“The White House recently signaled it has all but given up hope that the leaders Obama meets this week will make major commitments along the lines the US would like to see – either in terms of big spending packages for the economy or of additional troops or resources for Afghanistan.”
“Obama is expected to encounter an adoring public but a deep skepticism – even resistance – among heads of state.” …
“How well Mr. Obama can parlay his personal popularity into convincing leadership is a key question hanging over his global coming-out party. With many leaders blaming the United States for planting the seeds of the first global recession since World War II, America’s ability to continue as the world’s unrivaled power, whether in economic or other matters, is likely to be an undercurrent of meetings with the G-20 leaders, NATO, and in bilateral meetings with his counterparts.”
[SNIP]
As to “A War He Can Call His Own”; that’s old. Obama has always wanted to “maintain a meaty presence in Afghanistan, and “may even be conjuring up new monsters and new missions” we don’t know of yet. Europeans don’t like that; Demopublican globalists stateside do.
Update (April 1): Naturally, realize we must that, while Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel must be lauded for not wishing to take their respective countries down the road to ruin Obama has set us upon; the two European leaders are still only half as bad as Obama.
Both are working from the premise that unbridled capitalism, the system that has almost never been tried—the Unknown Ideal in Ayn Rand’s words—is the culprit in the meltdown.
The man who married a bimbo said he aims “to give capitalism a conscience, because capitalism has lost its conscience.” “This is a historic and unique opportunity to build a new world,” he added.
Brother Obama is down with that fallacy. So while Europeans will not heed him in as much as spending goes, they will find common grounds “on tax havens, hedge fund regulation, banking transparency and a worldwide cap on bankers’ pay.”
However crippling to capital markets and to financial freedom these and other draconian measure agreed upon in Europe will be—they do not rival the damage of bankruptcy.
Thanks to The Leader the American people elected, here in the US, we’ll be the beneficiaries of a double dose of poison: international regulation, with its attendant implications for national sovereignty, and bankruptcy.
Joy!
Note: Obama is hip to the fact that “United States was unlikely to return to its role as a ‘voracious consumer market.’” That much is true.
