Mitt Romney is venturing overseas to spend two days each in the UK, Israel, and Poland. It will hone his international credentials, give him an opportunity to look “presidential,” and allow him to establish or refine connections. He will also court Americans living abroad. Every vote counts. Campaign brawls will stay “at the water’s edge,” so no speeches or news conferences. But there will be fundraisers. And foreign corporations are donating to both sides.
Democracy
Wielding The Corporate Tax Dodge Code Like A Cudgel
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
I was making coffee this morning when President Obama’s voice ruined it. His words didn’t even sound unreasonable, as I was still half asleep. He advocated giving tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the US, rather than those that create jobs overseas. Mitt Romney also wants to hand out tax breaks and tax cuts, just different ones.
Will the Euro Survive This Year?
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
The European Stability Mechanism and the fiscal union pact are the two ploys that were supposed to fix the Eurozone debt crisis and save the euro. They were put together in all haste after hectic summits with dog and pony shows designed to soothe edgy markets. Negotiations involved mud-wrestling and extortion. It’s been one heck of a ride. But now they’re in the hands of the German Constitutional Court – and there are no good options.
The German Constitutional Court Rules Against Euro Hysteria
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The German Constitutional Court Rules Against Euro Hysteria
Chancellor Angela Merkel did the right thing. She left Germany. And Germany is in turmoil. The bailout policies she and her government had pushed through and that parliament had passed just after the EU summit ran into discord, accusations, and threats. Everybody was applying pressure. And the Federal Constitutional Court will now have to decide—and it already made its first decision.
The “European Monster State”
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The “European Monster State”
Rather than solving the Eurozone debt crisis once and for all, the EU summit gummed up the bailout process with controversy in the very country that everyone is counting on to save the Eurozone, Germany—but also elsewhere—and nothing has been resolved. And as before, there’s Greece, inexorably tottering towards its more or less graceful exit from the Eurozone as… “The patience of the public has been exhausted.”
Cyprus and the EU: Bitter Medicine
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Cyprus and the EU: Bitter Medicine
In Cyprus, it’s panic time. €1.8 billion is needed by June 30. That’s just the beginning. Its banks have been eviscerated by Greek government bonds, Greek corporate debt, a real estate bubble that collapsed, and a title-deed scandal that they colluded in. It has a communist president and vast deposits of natural gas. Russia and China hover nearby. And it points out, unwittingly, why no country should ever do what the EU Summit will focus on: transfer even more sovereignty to the EU.
The EU Summit To Save the Euro Has Already Collapsed
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The EU Summit To Save the Euro Has Already Collapsed
During the two-day EU summit on June 28 and 29, all eyes will be breathlessly riveted on German Chancellor Angela Merkel—with one question on all lips: will she blink? Because nothing less than the future of the Eurozone and the euro is at stake. And by extension, the world economy. Only she can save it. And she’d have only 48 hours!
Italy Trembling on the Brink
by Wolf Richter • • 2 Comments
“I believe, no,” is how Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti answered the question if Italy would seek a bailout—lacking the bravado and vehemence with which Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had claimed for the longest time that Spain wouldn’t need one. Until it needed one. The question was hot. It followed the kerfuffle that ensued when Austrian Finance Minister had let it slip that Italy might also need “support.” But Italy is too big to get bailed out.
“The Euro Is Like a Knife in the Hands of a Child”
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on “The Euro Is Like a Knife in the Hands of a Child”
While France is preoccupied with the legislative elections next weekend, Germany and Austria plunge into public soul searching about the euro, its meaning, its relevancy, the sheer and endlessly growing expense of maintaining it. To which are now added the $125 billion for bailing out Spain, the first in a series. Then there’s Italy. Like so many things that appear useful and sensible, the euro has become dangerous.
Bailout Rebellion Reawakens In Germany
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Bailout Rebellion Reawakens In Germany
Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank’s CEO until a couple of weeks ago, who knows a thing or two about skeletons hidden in the bank’s vast closets, says that he is “grateful the US is pushing Europe to act faster.” Just like his US counterparts on Wall Street in 2008, he wants massive bailouts of the banks. He has “no doubt” that the German people would rescue the Eurozone, he says. But the German people aren’t so sure about that.