> So will the German left (I don't feel quite so justified saying "such as it
> is" in this case as I would with the U.S. left) now fall dutifully in line
> behind Schröder in the interests of pragmatism and "access," on the Clinton
> model? Were the markets right to buy the euro on this news?
Nah. Oskar and Gerhard loathed each other intensely -- a bad case of "Chancellor envy". Apparently there was speculation as early as November in Der Spiegel that Oskar was on his way out, but I never gave such reports much credence. On the bright side, we can now gaze upon the Left-less SPD with the proper admixture of loathing and horror appropriate to the hirelings of Eurocapital -- kind of like the US Democratic Party after McGovern.
It's true that IG Metall won big 4% pay hikes, the unions have been flexing muscles they haven't used for years, and the street heat is hitting the Eurostate. I have to admit, though, that even though I myself am registered Green, the German Greens are starting to worry me. They *ought* to be taking advantage of this moment to press their own eco-socialist economic vision. But I can find neither hide nor hair of even the slightest vision of an alternative to the rule of what we might call the ECBlatura. Nothing about massive EUkeynesianism, 200 billion euro spending packages, bailouts of Visegrad, and a thorough soaking of the rich. But plenty about "democracy deficits" in a drastically underfunded EU. If the Greens keep this up, the German workingclass is going to tell them to screw off, and frankly, they'll deserve it. Anyone know if the PDS is at least *thinking* about spending some real money?
-- Dennis