More from Joschka Fischer on what's at stake in the future of the European Union

This is an earlier article from Joschka Fischer than the one I quoted yesterday. But it gives a good reminder that a depression of the kind the world economy seems to have entered can have far-reaching consequences, though he lists some qualitative differences between today's situation and those of the Great Depression of 1929. And he continues (Our Post-Modern Crisis Project Syndicate 05/31/2010):

For all these reasons, the global crisis will not be devastating in the same way as the Great Depression was. Indeed, our current predicament has all of the hallmarks of a "post-modern" crisis. But we need to ask ourselves where and how the energies unleashed by this crisis will be discharged, because there can be no doubt that they will be discharged one way or another. After all, the evidence so far suggests that the crisis is here to stay for a long time, with unforeseen eruptions, such as the recent adversity in Greece and surrounding the euro, as well as inflation, stagnation, and populist rebellion.

Indeed, there are good reasons for believing that the Tea Party movement in the United States, connected as it is with the economic disaster that followed Lehman’s collapse, is one of the channels of the energy released by the crisis. Developments in Greece or Hungary make it easy to imagine failed European states if the EU unravels.

The fact that the current global crisis is a post-modern one does not make it any less dangerous. Post-modern crises entail post-modern risks, resulting in disintegration and implosion of power vacuums, not the danger of classical wars. But, given European governments’ behavior, the urgent question presents itself: Do these governments have any inkling of what is at stake at the table where they sit playing roulette with history? [my emphasis]

Maybe we should be calling this the Postmodern Great Depression.

Tags: european union, recession, joschka fischer

Herbert Hoover economics

The business of America is ... pleasing the plutocrats? (Photo: J.P. Morgan, 1903)

Dick Cheney/George Bush economics is kind of like the Herbert Hoover variety. At least in some key respects.

The basic problem of the country needing an administration like this one to do something constructive to meet a mounting economic crisis was summarized on the PBS Newshour for 03/14/0608:

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how do you see that, David? I mean, again, in terms of what ordinary people are feeling, at what point does the political system have to make a turn, make a decision to do some of these things that Jane's describing?

DAVID WESSEL [economics editor for the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal]: Well, I think we're getting pretty close. I think it's unfair to say that they haven't done anything. The efforts they took were designed to try and force lenders and mortgage servicers and borrowers to come to terms voluntarily, to set up a system to make that happen. ...

I think what's happening, though, is the Fed is about to run out of ammunition. And if we have a few more weeks like the one we had this week, the system will just have to respond because so much will be at stake.

Secretary Paulson, the treasury secretary, is talking to these people on Wall Street all the time, and we know he's getting yelps of pain from them. At some point, the combination of that, the shakiness of the markets, and the political pressure from Democrats is going to make them move. (my emphasis)

That pretty much sums it up. They're "talking to these people on Wall Street all the time" and the Cheney-Bush officials really empathize with their pain.

They're not talking much to the people who face losing their houses through foreclosure, though. Because Cheney and Bush and Paulson and Bernanke don't give a flying fig what happens to them as long as their plutocratic friends don't have to suffer too much "pain" as a result.

JPMorgan just agreed to purchase ailing investment bank Bear Stearns, which survived the Great Depression but not Cheney/Bush economics at a price around a tenth of what it was last week and around a fortieth of what it was at the end of November ($80 vs. $2). Bloomberg reports, "The U.S. Federal Reserve will provide financing for the transaction, including support for as much as $30 billion of Bear Stearns's 'less-liquid assets'." Among other things, this means that the Federal Reserve's attempt at bailing out Bear Stearns just a few days ago has already failed. (JPMorgan Chase Buys Bear Stearns for $240 Million by Yalman Onaran Bloomberg.com 03/16/08; Asia Stocks, U.S. Futures, Dollar Decline After Fed Cuts Rate by Patrick Rial and Emma O'Brien Bloomberg.com 03/17/08).

Y'all are doing a heckuva job on the economy, too, Republicans.

Tags: recession, republican party, republicans