EU-DIGEST - special edition

It was inevitable that the subprime financial crisis would provoke jeremiads from the left. That has been particularly true across the Atlantic, where politicians and eurocrats have used it as an opportunity to pour scorn on “Anglo-Saxon casino capitalism.” As such, the crisis has been particularly useful in distracting attention from the problems of overregulated European economies. Moreover, it has presented an opportunity to climb aboard the old moral high horse and trot out the hoary Marxist menagerie. Last week, German President and former IMF head Horst Kohler described global financial markets as a “monster” that needed to be put in its place. He compared bankers to medieval alchemists. French President Nikolas Sarkozy has called for a “re-moralization of capitalism.” (Wonder if that would include a re-moralization of marital relations?) In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has returned to power bemoaning globalization. EU finance ministers have spent a good deal of time lately berating executive pay. Nobody calls for the outright scrapping of capitalism any more. Instead, what is reportedly needed is more and wiser “governance” of the capitalist beast by diehard proponents of the system that failed.

Note EU-Digest: Excuses and more excuses. The fact is that the unregulated Global Markert Place has been exploited by a greedy corporate world and not benefitted the average citizen

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