Wasted Opportunities and OT 11/24
How Europe and the US Wasted the Opportunity Presented by the Covid and Climate Crises
The silver lining in the gloomy cloud of the pandemic was the opportunity it gave the West to mend its ways. During 2020, rays of light shone through. The European Union was forced to contemplate a fiscal union. Then, it helped remove Donald Trump from the White House. And a global Green New Deal suddenly appeared less far-fetched. Then 2021 came along and drew the blackout curtains.
Last week, in its financial stability review, the European Central Bank issued an angst-ridden warning: Europe is facing a self-perpetuating debt-fueled real estate bubble. What makes the report noteworthy is that the ECB knows who is causing the bubble: the ECB itself, through its policy of quantitative easing (QE)–a polite term for creating money on behalf of financiers. It is akin to your doctors alerting you that the medicine they have prescribed may be killing you.
As 2021 winds down, Western governments, having wasted their chance to do something about the clear and present climate emergency, are choosing to focus on exaggerated worries.
The scariest part is that it is not the ECB’s fault. The official excuse for QE is that once interest rates had fallen below zero, there was no other way to counter the deflation menacing Europe. But the hidden purpose of QE was to roll over the unsustainable debt of large loss-making corporations and, even more so, of key eurozone member states (like Italy).
Once Europe’s political leaders chose, at the beginning of the euro crisis a decade ago, to remain in denial about massive unsustainable debts, they were bound to throw this hot potato into the central bank’s lap. Ever since, the ECB has pursued a strategy best described as perpetual bankruptcy concealment.
Weeks after the pandemic hit, French President Emmanuel Macron and eight other eurozone heads of government called for debt restructuring via a proper eurobond. In essence, they proposed that, given the pandemic’s appetite for new debt, a sizeable chunk of the mounting burden that our states cannot bear (unassisted by the ECB) be shifted onto the broader, debt-free, shoulders of the EU. Not only would this be a first step toward political union and increased pan-European investment, but it would also liberate the ECB from having to roll over a mountain of debt that EU member states can never repay.
Alas, it was not to be. German Chancellor Angela Merkel summarily killed the idea, offering instead a Recovery and Resilience Facility, which is a terrible substitute. Not only is it macroeconomically insignificant; it also makes the prospect of a federal Europe even less appealing to poorer Dutch and German voters (by indebting them so that the oligarchs of Italy and Greece can receive large grants). And, despite an element of common borrowing, the recovery fund is designed to do nothing to restructure the unpayable debts that the ECB has been rolling over and over–and which the pandemic has multiplied.
So, the ECB’s exercise in perpetual bankruptcy concealment continues, despite its functionaries’ twin fears: being held to account for the dangerous debt-fueled bubble they are inflating, and losing their official rationale for QE as inflation stabilizes above their formal target.
The scale of the opportunity Europe has wasted became obvious at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. How could EU leaders lecture the rest of the world on renewable energy when rich Germany is building lignite-fueled power stations, France is doubling down on nuclear energy, and every other EU member state saddled with unpayable debts is left to its own devices to deal with the green transition?
The pandemic gave Europe an opening to devise a credible plan for a well-funded Green Energy Union. With a eurobond in place, and thus liberated from the purgatory of perpetual bankruptcy concealment, the ECB could be backing only the bonds that the European Investment Bank issues to fund a Green Energy Union. So, yes, Europe blew its opportunity to lead the world by example away from its addiction to fossil fuels.
We Europeans were not alone, of course. As US President Joe Biden was landing in Glasgow, the usual corrupt congressional politics back home were uncoupling his already much-shrunken green agenda from a very brown infrastructure bill, placing climate change on the back burner.
He also talks about the new bogeymen—inflation and China, briefly. Yanis has a gift for writing intelligent, savvy, well-edited pieces and the whole, fairly short article is quite good.
Enjoy. I only made it for one day because I thought someone might want to do a special Thanksgiving one. Have fun preparing, those of you who are.
There is a small gathering of wayward AA people having a dinner at someone’s home, but I found out about it too late and had already planned on taking a mini vacation here and really figuring how to connect to a creative and productive life more over the weekend.
gobble gobble!
🦃😊
Happy Thanksgiving Orl!! ❤️
Happy Thanksgiving polarbear! ❤️
Thanks PB for the Thanksgiving Eve post. I got my booster and flu shots today. I’ll be traveling tomorrow morning to MA to visit familly and friends.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/24/us-covid-thanksgiving-travel-hospitals-health-workers-vaccines-boosters
Really?
Now I want to get my booster. Pretty sure I qualify now. Had a long convo with associate who is totally anti-vax, did what I could to gently present (so she doesn’t harden against me) an alternative view.
Happy Thanksgiving jcitybone!! ❤️
How ya feeling?
Yes, jcitybone, are you feeling ok?
Happy Thanksgiving wi63!! ❤️
You as well mags
I’m fine. The most so ever get from vaccinations are feeling a little chilled.
👏🏻😂🐻❄️
I’m seeing this narrative all over the place, it’s clear to almost everyone that we’re being gouged!
🤜🏻🤛🏿
Not sure this would’ve happened if not for Bernie and us!
and the insulin. if it makes it. So it sounds like the house did pass a cap for everyone unlike what is apparently currently in the bill – – must be in the Senate.
I, personally, don’t know if some kind of cap is in the bill, will survive the Senate, but if so, that’d be awesome.
Joe has apparently decided to run again in 2024…meanwhile all we hear is rumors about Pete and Kamala. It’s kind of awful.
SloMoJoe will barely be able to think in 3 years. He’s on meds now. And Pete and Kamala? Which bunch of oligarchs is pushing that disaster?
It’s a depressing scenario and, wait, Bernie was supposedly too old to run two years ago? give..me..a.. break
OTOH, I must admit there are times in which I wonder how effective Bernie would have been during these times, the gov’t so messed up!!
One thing I know though, neither Kamala or Pete are going to cut it with voters. Noooo way. And Joe…well I will say that my Independant hubby has actually become a fan of Joe.. that’s how low the bar is now.
imo, Bernie would be tons more effective than joe.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/23/poll-finds-most-us-voters-support-insulin-price-cap-senators-push-inclusion-build
One of my best friends lost a dear friend from the same thing. Her friend knew she was a Type 1 diabetic. She could not always afford her insulin. It killed her. That was a long time ago but big PHrMA has been pulling this for years.
Not sure which one will kill you first, having that illness or cutting the dose as you cant afford the insulin? The real sad thing the Pharma CEO dont give a rats ass as long as they hit the quarterly profit goal, what a sad state of affairs death care is in this country.
That’s terrible! 🙁
I’ve been living in this country for quite awhile now, but I can never get over this..was about to say ‘idea’….FACT that people in what is supposedly the best country in the world are dying from not getting insulin!
Way to msny people are still under that Illusion that were the best. The only thing the US excells at is generating wealth at its citizens expense. Were not even in the top 10 a lot of catagories that determine a quality of life
American exceptionalism certainly should be a re-examined concept!
We need a leader that can forecefully, and coherently, express a new vision, one that TRULY results in a better way forward that is plausible and believable and delivers.
Sadly i think it will take a WW3 to start over and do better as a species. Well if thiers anybody left to start over. Mother nature will take care of the human infestation hurting the planet as well. It will just take her longer but some people will survive. No matter how it goes down their will be several areas of the world that will be uninhabitable due to Nuke plants melting down due to lack of proper maintenance. I hope that man grows up but i just dont see it right now the ones(PTB) that have to effect change are to obsessed with $$$$$$ and absolute Power.
And to think this would have been a modern day lynching without the video “Southern Justice” was more than ready to sweep it under the rug. Upstanding southern boys wouldnt do such a thing would they?
I don’t recall who took the footage, but without that footage I can’t help but wonder if the assailants’ arguments would not have found a different verdict.
OTOH, yayyy justice finally served! It’s a relief.
I also wonder if the fact that 9 of the 12 jurists were women. No implied criticism to our wonderful male birdie friends!
None taken Mags, i believe they would’ve found a different verdict as an ex police officers word carries a ton of clout ,but that video Thankfully
You’re so cool, wi63, yes, the person in the position of authority’s narrative almost always prevails…but…the video…..
I remember this incident when it happened, before I saw any video (and, truthfully, I cannot bear to watch the video past a certain point) and from what all I read it was crystal clear that poor Ahmaud’s only infraction was to reach out to try to re-direct/grab the barrel of the gun to prevent himself from being killed. Soooo tragic, and it kind of broke my heart to see his family’s reaction 🙁
I’m super-glad for his family got some justice, and some closure, but that doesn’t bring Ahmaud back.
Ahmaud had to make that fight or flight decision which was a no win secenario for him. The flight or fight was what i thought of when i saw the video of him grabbing at the barrell. His white t shirt picture was very disturbing to me. If you didnt see it thier was no white to be seen on it.
Lolol…
Ridiculous!
Traffic light coalition taking over in Germany from Merkel.
wowowowow!!!
Interesting.
Potential Squad member or ally.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/11/24/state-rep-jasmine-crockett-expected-to-announce-run-for-tx-30-with-eddie-bernice-johnsons-support/