German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi led pro-business parties over socialists in European Parliament elections, lessening the pressure for more stimulus measures to fight the recession.
Amid signs the worst economic slump since World War II is bottoming out, the continent’s top three leaders escaped the drubbing in European Union-wide elections that was handed to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and socialists in Spain, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia.
“I expect a more pro-business Parliament,” said Grace Annan, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in London. “With the center-right having won, it will be more in tune with industry.”
Given the lurch to the left the U. S. has taken since the Congressional elections of 2006, how many Americans are aware of a move to the right throughout much of Europe?
“It is a very sad night for Social Democrats in Europe, we’re very disappointed, we had hoped for better results,” Martin Schulz of Germany, the Socialists’ floor leader, said. “It’s a very bitter evening.”
In Germany, a repeat of yesterday’s voting in the national election on Sept. 27 may enable Merkel to stay in power, forming a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats instead of the Social Democrats, her party’s historic rival with whom she currently rules.
Merkel resisted President Barack Obama’s pleas for additional pump-priming measures, criticized the European Central Bank for buying assets, and was the first to reflect publicly on rolling back the stimulus.
I believe that we are seeing the continued slow end of American domination of the global economy, due to many factors including reversion to the mean, including specifically a combination of European and Chinese resistance to Team America's financial policies, continued independence of India, and proselytizing Islam on the march. The above comments suggest that Europe is becoming more the way the U. S. liked to think of itself, while the financial sector here (with G. M. and Chrysler belonging to that sector in far too many ways) has fallen under such complete Federal influence that we see the following from (h/t Calculated Risk): Regulators Eye Pay Czar. This article begins:
The latest buzz around the administration’s plans for financial industry regulation overhaul indicates a compensation czar might soon be in order for banks and financial institutions accepting government aid.
No need to quote more; you get the picture.
Barack Obama will be effectively in charge of of substantially influential in the largest or nearly-largest insurance company (AIG), mortgage companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), auto companies (GM and Chrysler), bank holding companies (Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo). No one is talking in the U. S. of a more pro-business climate, as they are in Europe. In the U. S., statism is indeed on the march.
What happens next is anyone's guess.
Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2009
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