They can thank their leaders:
"Latvia gets endorsement to use euros" by Jack Ewing and James Kanter | New York Times, June 06, 2013
FRANKFURT — The tiny Baltic nation of Latvia received official endorsement for membership in the euro currency union Wednesday, a move European leaders clearly hoped would demonstrate the endurance of the eurozone despite its dismal economic performance and damaged reputation....
Related: Eurozone shows little sign of improving
Also see: Slow Saturday Special: E.U. Unemployment
Both the European Commission, the European Union’s main policy-making body, and the European Central Bank said that Latvia had met the requirements for membership, which include limits on inflation and government debt. Latvia also had to demonstrate that its laws on issues like central bank independence are in line with EU standards....
The country, with 2.2 million people and economic output last year worth about 20 billion euros, is often held up as a model by advocates of austerity because it responded to a severe banking crisis in 2008 by slashing government spending.
Keep that in mind.
Economic output plunged, unemployment soared, and wages fell, but the Latvian economy gradually recovered....
“Latvia’s experience shows that a country can successfully overcome macroeconomic imbalances, however severe, and emerge stronger,” said Olli Rehn, the European Union’s commissioner for economic and monetary affairs.
However, opinion polls indicate that most Latvians are reluctant to join the eurozone, even though they have a powerful political incentive to do so.
So ONCE AGAIN the WILL of the PEOPLE is FOILED!
Like Estonia, another Baltic nation, which was the most recent country to join the eurozone in 2011, Latvia is anxious to tie itself to Europe and distance itself from its former Russian masters. The Latvian government did not hold a voter referendum on euro membership.
The governor of the Latvian central bank will automatically join the ECB’s governing council and have a vote in decisions on interest rates and other monetary policy issues. It is unclear who that person will be....
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They are the model for austerity, huh?
"Roaring like a Ferrari?" June 06, 2013
In Tokyo these days, it’s 1989 all over again. After two decades of chronic recession and stagnation, corporate Japan’s balance sheets this year have never been stronger. Chic restaurants, department stores, and auto showrooms are packed. Ferrari sales are up 40 percent, according to media reports.
This newfound largesse is thanks to “Abenomics” — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bold economic plan, complete with cheap cash, very low interest rates, deregulation, and ample inflation. So far it appears to be working: In the first quarter, Japan’s $5 trillion economy rose 3.5 percent, and, even more key, this growth was driven by household consumption. Certain forecasts even suggest Japan’s economy could grow faster this year than any other major economy but China’s.
Early returns aside, it’s still hard to tell if this can last. Already the Nikkei, the world’s best-performing stock market for most of 2013, dipped dramatically in late May off news that China’s economy is slowing. Plus, the buoyancy has been limited to the well-to-do.
Yes, other than the elite of the world the rest of us have been MIRED IN the GRAND DEPRESSION!
Of course, the RICH doing FABULOUSLY does tend to MAKE THE NUMBERS LOOK GREAT!
A long-term fix will require an expanded tax base to help the country pay down its huge debts. Companies will have to spread their new wealth to workers by building factories, upping investment, and raising wages.
Yet if the revival continues, Abe will have not only cured much of what ails Japan, he’ll have set a new course forward for the rest of the developed world as well. Policymakers in the United States and Europe will be forced to rethink the recent rush to austerity, and finally take up the advice many economic thinkers gave Japan back in the 1990s: Spend.
Go tell it to Latvia as you run up more debt on taxpayers, Globe.
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Related:
"Michelle Singletary column: Is art imitating life with “The Haves and the Have Nots” TV show?" by Michelle Singletary | Washington Post, June 06, 2013
We can deny it if we want, but we love to be entertained by shows about people derailing their lives. Throw in an underlying theme of rich versus poor, and the ratings soar.
Speak for yourself! I never watch that crap.
So I was curious how Tyler Perry’s two new shows for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network would play. Pretty good.
“The Haves and the Have Nots” and “Love Thy Neighbor” delivered the network its largest and second-largest series debuts. “The Haves and the Have Nots,” which airs Tuesdays, is a drama about the Cryers, a rich white Savannah family (philandering powerful judge husband, old-money stay-at-home wife, drug-addicted son, and psychologically frail law-student daughter).
Their lives intersect with that of a new maid, Hanna Young, and her estranged, lying, scheming daughter and entrepreneur son. To balance the low-income Young family, Perry has included a stuck-up new-money black family, the Harringtons.
“The rich get richer, and the poor get even,” the tagline for the show reads.
Is this art imitating life?
I have to ask because the rich are indeed getting richer.
The average net worth of households in the upper 7 percent of the wealth distribution chain increased 28 percent during the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery. But households in the lower 93 percent saw a 4 percent drop in their wealth, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.
Then THERE NEVER WAS A RECOVERY!
But hey, what is ONE MORE LIE from the ELITE MOUTHPIECE known as the AmeriKan pre$$?
At the start of “The Haves and the Have Nots,” Judge Jim Cryer lies to his wife, telling her he is at the courthouse when he is in a hotel waiting for his paid escort, the twentysomething Candace Young, who is Hanna’s daughter. He invites Candace in. She says, “I thought I was coming to see an old man.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he says.
“Well, money will get you this,” she says, opening her coat to reveal an outfit that looks like strips of black masking tape stuck to her body.
We find out Candace works as an escort to pay for law school and take care of her baby. She can’t stand being low-income. Candace is envious that the Cryer family takes vacations twice a year. She covets the closet of the lady of the manor — as big as a studio apartment....
Money is a main character in both shows. I think of myself as a financial anthropologist examining our culture by the entertainment we watch. Another cable network, Bravo, has cashed in by letting us observe housewives with real and fake wealth. On other networks we gawk at, and in some cases envy, folks who strike it rich by acting buffoonish....
Maybe she is watching that shit, but I sure am not.
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"US wealth gap grew during recovery; Stock holdings outpace homes" by Pauline Jelinek | Associated Press, April 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for the other 93 percent of US households, a report released Tuesday said.
(Blog editor brings his legs together, sits up straight in his
seat, and calmly types that this is proof only the elite that caused the
Grand Depression benefited, there never was the recovery the ma$$ media
shit bags constantly proclaim, it's all been lies, lies, lies, lies,
lies, lies, lies about the economy, lies about the environment, lies
about wars, lies about mass shootings, lies about every single thing you
see from them. Everything. Everything. Everything)
The upper 7 percent of households owned 63 percent of
the nation’s household wealth in 2011, up from 56 percent in 2009, said
the report from the Pew Research Center, which analyzed Census Bureau
data released last month.
The main reason
for the widening wealth gap is that affluent households typically own
stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy tend to have more of their assets in their home, which has not rebounded from the plunge.
???
But I've been told again and again and again home prices have been rising, have been rising, are in good shape.
And my pension is still flat when the stock market is zooming. What's
up with that (blog editor almost in tears and can't see type no mrkw)?
Tuesday’s report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests....
Which has been all but forgotten, and for good reason.
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