Canadians live in a bubble. Our cozy banking structure has prevented a financial collapse. Our resource exports keep the economy above water.
But Europe — our second-largest trading partner — is outside the bubble. And in Europe conditions are dire.
Great chunks of the continent are tipping back into economic recession.
Politically, the far right is on the rise.
And by far right, I don’t mean the Stephen Harper right. I mean the neo-Nazi right.
Consider the news. Britain has slipped back into recession. Its economy, which had rebounded after the crisis of 2008, is shrinking again.
Wednesday’s announcement is a damning indictment of the Conservative-led coalition governing Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron has argued (in language echoed here by Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan) that the main enemy is government debt and that savage spending cuts are needed to bring Britain’s finances under control.
Yet all that these cuts have managed to do is abort the country’s already shaky recovery.
If Britain were alone in slipping back into recession, that would be bad enough. But it is not.
Spain has already returned to the territory of what economists call negative growth. This is particularly tragic in that, until the crisis first hit four years ago, Spain was doing everything right.
Its government finances were in order; its productivity was high.
But then real estate prices crashed, creating a massive bank debt problem and savaging the construction industry.
That, in turn, sent unemployment to levels unseen since the 1930s, starving government of tax money, turning fiscal surpluses into deficits and ultimately creating a crisis over public debt.
Finally, Greece. Under pressure from its creditors in the rest of Europe, Greece’s government has been implementing an austerity regime that is crippling the country.
All of this is occurring in large part because Europe’s rulers — and particularly the Germans — are insisting that those hammered by the continent’s debt crisis endure even more pain.
What these rulers forget, however, is their own history. People will put up with only so much before they embrace extreme measures.
And in Europe, fascism is an extreme many countries are familiar with.
The real story from this week’s first round in the French presidential elections is not that middle-of-the-road Socialist François Hollande outpolled middle-of-the-road conservative Nicolas Sarkozy.
It is that Marine Le Pen of the racist National Front won almost as many votes as either of her two mainstream competitors.
She did so not only by attacking immigrants but by tapping into a deep wellspring of resentment against the conventional wisdom of the elites, a conventional wisdom that subordinates jobs to bondholders and that sacrifices national interests on the altar of the euro, the common currency.
In nearby Holland, the anti-immigrant Freedom Party — sensing the new popular mood — has torpedoed a centre-right coalition government committed to restraint.
In battered Greece too, the far right is on the move. Polls indicate that the overtly neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party (it uses a stylized swastika as its logo) will, for the first time, reap enough votes in the May 6 election to win seats in the country’s parliament.
Golden Dawn’s agenda is simple: Welfare for unemployed Greeks; expulsion of all immigrants.
Why the rise of the right? The answer seems to be that in Europe, where even socialist parties are complicit in the bungled agenda of restraint, only neo-Nazis offer an alternative vision.
And yes, that is obscene. It is also very, very dangerous.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Thomas Walkom
But Europe — our second-largest trading partner — is outside the bubble. And in Europe conditions are dire.
Great chunks of the continent are tipping back into economic recession.
Politically, the far right is on the rise.
And by far right, I don’t mean the Stephen Harper right. I mean the neo-Nazi right.
Consider the news. Britain has slipped back into recession. Its economy, which had rebounded after the crisis of 2008, is shrinking again.
Wednesday’s announcement is a damning indictment of the Conservative-led coalition governing Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron has argued (in language echoed here by Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan) that the main enemy is government debt and that savage spending cuts are needed to bring Britain’s finances under control.
Yet all that these cuts have managed to do is abort the country’s already shaky recovery.
If Britain were alone in slipping back into recession, that would be bad enough. But it is not.
Spain has already returned to the territory of what economists call negative growth. This is particularly tragic in that, until the crisis first hit four years ago, Spain was doing everything right.
Its government finances were in order; its productivity was high.
But then real estate prices crashed, creating a massive bank debt problem and savaging the construction industry.
That, in turn, sent unemployment to levels unseen since the 1930s, starving government of tax money, turning fiscal surpluses into deficits and ultimately creating a crisis over public debt.
Finally, Greece. Under pressure from its creditors in the rest of Europe, Greece’s government has been implementing an austerity regime that is crippling the country.
All of this is occurring in large part because Europe’s rulers — and particularly the Germans — are insisting that those hammered by the continent’s debt crisis endure even more pain.
What these rulers forget, however, is their own history. People will put up with only so much before they embrace extreme measures.
And in Europe, fascism is an extreme many countries are familiar with.
The real story from this week’s first round in the French presidential elections is not that middle-of-the-road Socialist François Hollande outpolled middle-of-the-road conservative Nicolas Sarkozy.
It is that Marine Le Pen of the racist National Front won almost as many votes as either of her two mainstream competitors.
She did so not only by attacking immigrants but by tapping into a deep wellspring of resentment against the conventional wisdom of the elites, a conventional wisdom that subordinates jobs to bondholders and that sacrifices national interests on the altar of the euro, the common currency.
In nearby Holland, the anti-immigrant Freedom Party — sensing the new popular mood — has torpedoed a centre-right coalition government committed to restraint.
In battered Greece too, the far right is on the move. Polls indicate that the overtly neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party (it uses a stylized swastika as its logo) will, for the first time, reap enough votes in the May 6 election to win seats in the country’s parliament.
Golden Dawn’s agenda is simple: Welfare for unemployed Greeks; expulsion of all immigrants.
Why the rise of the right? The answer seems to be that in Europe, where even socialist parties are complicit in the bungled agenda of restraint, only neo-Nazis offer an alternative vision.
And yes, that is obscene. It is also very, very dangerous.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Thomas Walkom
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