Comments on: WATCH the euro crisis explained with lego

By: chaosx

chaosx — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:48:57 +0000

who is the dinosaur?

By: FifthDecade

FifthDecade — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:24:45 +0000

Curmudgeon, thanks for your help understanding the fine details of what Presidents are able to do. It was my understanding that there were serious problems getting the consent of Congress for the Health Bill, the Debt extension, and many others besides. Clinton had similar problems during his term of office. Strange that Republicans in opposition turn out to be far less patriotic than Democrats under a Republican administration in that they put the politics of their party before the good of the Nation.

As for European politicians, it can be infuriating to non-Europeans (and ordinary Europeans too) watching the seemingly slow progress, but like a whirlpool, just because it is still for the eye to see doesn’t mean there isn’t furious activity going on behind the scenes with considerable progress being made that just hasn’t been announced. Not everything that happens in Europe ends up as a soundbite the same evening.

As far as slow decision making is concerned, the behaviour of the US Congress in delaying the passing of the Debt extension until the eleventh hour (if not beyond) and in wide public view across the world did the global reputation of the US no good whatsoever. The Europeans are nowhere near that yet.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:49:00 +0000

When I was a very junior member of the US military, many years ago, the primary lesson I learned was to make a decision, because any direction was ultimately better than no direction.

@FifthDecade: >>”politicians in different countries do not hate each other like the Republicans and Democrats do.” It may seem so, and to a minor extent may be true in some cases, but what they are really doing right now is fundamentally disagreeing on some of roles of government. It’s an inconvenient time to have that debate, but it was going to happen sooner or later.

>>”the executive can’t do anything financial without the agreement of Congress”. The US President can actually do just about anything he/she wants, even finacially, and then it’s up to the other arms of government to challenge it through the separation of powers. Of course, you need a strong executive to initiate that leadership, which we lack.

By: acertainperson

acertainperson — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:13:05 +0000

Wait, the video is not there, it just stops after a few seconds.

By: FifthDecade

FifthDecade — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:31:24 +0000

You are of course missing some things – in Europe the politicians in different countries do not hate each other like the Republicans and Democrats do; also, in the US the executive can’t do anything financial without the agreement of Congress, in the EU the executive can do things after some discussion, even though there is what appears to be a lack of public political leadership at the moment. In the US it is the President who has the power of veto; in the EU it is the Nations who hold this power, but in a more limited way.

Yes, Europe is different to the US, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. As for the US sorting out the financial crisis, I don’t think so. All that has happened so far is a downgrade of US debt and lots of short term, pre-election politics.

However, the announcement that the Central Bank will be releasing unlimited amounts of US Dollar denominated debt is perhaps a sign that the EU is not intent on replacing the USD as the world’s reference currency.