On Oct 6, 2010, at 12:31 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Doug: "I think the Euro-elite has envied the wealth and power of their
> American counterparts"
>
> [WS:] But that has always been true, no? But it did not have much
> impact on Euro states in the past. So why has that changed now?
The growing power of the EU and the euro. Creating the euro removed a lot of economic policy making from the national sphere, which is a great convenience for politicians, who can always blame outside forces for what their paymasters want them to do. The IMF has long served a similiar role in the "developing" world - an outside Bad Guy before which national politicians can appear helpless. So now when the welfare state is attacked, it's euro-denominated bonds whose value has to be preserved, and there's no escape through devaluation.
Doug