The Nordics don't want to bail out anyone

The money boys are doing something very dangerous—they are screwing with their legitimacy.  Now it's one thing for guys like me to question the legitimacy of the high priests of finance who turn paper and electronic information into symbols for wealth that virtually everyone agrees with, it's quite another thing entirely when these conversations migrate out into the general public.  And while it is tempting to describe bankers as these dim mediocrities who not only cannot design or manufacture light bulbs—they are hard-pressed to change one, their claims to Masters of the Universe status are justified simply because they get the rest of us to believe their magic / bullshit.  I consider this perhaps the most interesting sociological fact, ever.

But when you ask someone in Finland or Denmark to cosign for bad loans made by German and French banks made to Spain and Greece, you are seriously taxing the bullshit's ability to describe reality.  After all, why should some monetary information contained on computer chips be used to destroy living standards in Rovaniemi Finland?  And when folks are asked to accept something so fundamentally unjust, they begin to question the mechanisms that allow it to happen.  Now bankster bullshit is very powerful, but it will not stand up to much close inspection.  Because while the bullshit is powerful, it's still bullshit.  As the French nobility discovered in the 18th century, it's a very short ride from Master of the Universe to the guillotine.

We are about to discover if the banksters are smart enough to act in their own interests.  Because if they are, they will act to save their legitimacy—their single most important asset.  They will reverse their austerity agenda, they will clean up the raging corruption in their trading houses / casinos, they will radically restructure debt, and they will dramatically tone down their public presence.  If the banksters wish to survive, they will quietly restore the global economy to health.  And with abundant examples of how this can be done, there is absolute NO excuse for them not to do it.

EUROPEAN UNION

Sweden and Denmark call for EU reform delay

Published: 18 OCT 2012, Radio Sweden 11 gillar

The European Union should concentrate on improving its competitiveness before starting on a new wave of deeper integration, and taxpayers in Denmark and Sweden should not have to bail out failing banks in other countries.

That's according to the Swedish and Danish prime ministers, who have written a joint article, published today in two Nordic newspapers, ahead of a new EU summit in Brussels.

They say much of today's economic problems in the EU are due to poor competitiveness and an inability to implement structural reforms.

Fredrik Reinfeldt and Helle Thorning-Schmidt write that what Europe needs is to make sure that labour markets work better, that more women are in the workplace, and that welfare systems are sustainable and reflect demographic changes. They add that welfare states need to be more effective, with higher quality education systems and investments in education and research.

EU leaders are meeting in Brussels today to discuss the first steps to the establishment of a "genuine economic and monetary union", including a banking union. But Reinfeldt and Thorning-Schmidt say they do not think that taxpayers should pay for the mistakes made by banks, especially not by banks in other countries.

"If we build a new system, we have to make sure the new system is better, and doesn't increase the risks. We have a particular responsibility to our taxpayers on this", they write in newspapers Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Politiken in Denmark. more