Europe

[YMix]

[AzariLoveIran]

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CDU/CSU holding tight .. if not .. Euro will fall like a rock

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[Endovelico]

[YMix]

On the astuteness of the business community in Hamburg. They wanted stability, the SPD appeared to be a clear winner, so they backed them. The SPD candidate had, by the way, endorsed the CDU project for widening the Elbe River's bed, a project that the Greens had strenuously opposed.

I'm not saying that the SPD has moved permanently to the right, but I think they saw some easy pickings among the members of the annoyed business community and decided to go for it. Plus the SPD is a center-left party anyway. The Left Party remained at the same 6.4%, the Greens gained less than 3%.

[Endovelico]

[YMix]

The Linke got 6.4% of the vote, slightly less than the center-right FDP. The Greens are sort of leftists (more like crazies). The SPD is playing the center for all it's worth. However, we should probably wait and see what the SPD actually does.

[Endovelico]

[Torchwood]

[Colonel Sun]

[Endovelico]

[YMix]

[Ibrahim]

I believe Huntington called these Euro banking charmers "Davos Men." The modern "let them eat cake" crowd.

[HAL9000]

[monster_gardener]

[Colonel Sun]

[Endovelico]

[Alexis]

[Torchwood]

The irony is, of course, that the German economy is the greatest beneficiary of the euro, which is considerably weaker than the D-mark would be, and southern Europeans and the Irish its greatest victims. Growth in germany has to be export driven, given the common European problem of saturated markets, the need to raise savings rates, and good external (BRIC etc.) demand. To add to the effect of crap demographics - a problem for the future (but an inexorable one) in southern and central Europe, but a problem now in Germany, as birth rates have been so low for so long.

[Ibrahim]

[Azrael]

[Azrael]

[Azrael]

[Endovelico]

[Colonel Sun]

[AzariLoveIran]