WARSAW–Tens of thousands of people marched through the center of the Polish
capital Saturday in an anti-government rally organized by the conservative
opposition hoping to unseat the country’s popular prime minister who it says has
turned Poland’s democracy into a facade through his firm grip on power. Police estimated that 50,000 people participated, while the conservative Law
and Justice party said 200,000 people took part in the march, held under the
slogan “Wake up, Poland.” The party’s leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said Poland
doesn’t give equal opportunities to all its citizens and discriminates against
Catholics. He put the blame on Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“These huge crowds mean strength,” he said at the end of the march at
Warsaw’s Castle Square. “This means that Poland has awakened. The cup of evil
has overflowed and we Poles, we Polish patriots, say ‘no’.” Mr. Tusk’s administration, which took power away from Mr. Kaczynski in 2007
and is now in its second term of office, has been going through several rough
patches recently. The collapse of a gold fund, Amber Gold, which the authorities
said was a Ponzi scheme, highlighted possible systemic problems with enforcement
of financial regulation. On Mr. Tusk’s watch, bodies of victims of a Polish
government airplane crash in Russia in 2010 were mixed up and buried in
incorrect graves, with the administration taking the heat this month for relying
on autopsies performed in Moscow and not ordering that all coffins be opened
upon arrival. The economy is slowing more than expected, while the latest statistical data
showed that Poles continue to emigrate to other European Union countries in
search of better life. Poland has been growing robustly since the early 1990s,
at 4.3% in 2011, much above EU and regional averages. But the EU’s largest
emerging economy is expected to grow 2.5% this year amid the crisis in the euro
zone, the largest recipient of Polish exports. With economic output per capita adjusted for purchasing power about $20,000 a
year, Poland remains a poor relative of the more developed nations in the
European Union, which it joined in 2004 after more than a decade of transition
from communist central planning.
Mr. Kaczynski said Poland under the current administration is based on “a
system of clientelism” and said the mostly leftist and liberal media flatter the
ruling Civic Platform party by painting a rosy picture of Poland’s economic and
international situation while ignoring challenges and keeping mum on the
governing camp’s shortcomings.
5 comments:
The longer these imbalances persist, however, and the bigger they grow, the more unstable the whole system becomes. So to argue, as some economists do, that they are unimportant is a bizarrely complacent way of looking at the problem.
All money systems are a version of Europe’s Target 2, which is merely an interbank payments system for cross border transactions. When contained within countries, nobody even bothers to think about the way the system works. It’s plainly not going to matter, for instance, if a big trade and capital imbalance develops between the north-east of England and the South East, if only because there is a unified banking and fiscal system to intermediate. If there is a sudden rush of deposits out of the North East to the South, it makes no difference to the banks involved; their net position in terms of assets and liabilities is unaffected.
Yet when these flows are between nations with different banking and fiscal systems, then there is potential for big trouble. Go back to the origins of the eurozone crisis and, in broad outline, this is what occurred.
Throughout much of the first eight years of the euro’s existence, there was a steady improvement in German competitiveness against the eurozone periphery, resulting in a growing German current account surplus. This imbalance in trade was largely financed by German banks, which were, in effect, lending the periphery the money to buy German goods. German credit also financed major construction and credit booms in some periphery countries. Periphery governments were equally profligate, if not worse, in spending on the German credit card.
Then along came the financial crisis, German banks stopped lending to the periphery and, worse, started withdrawing their credit as fast as they could. With no good use for the money back in Germany, the resulting surplus is placed on deposit with the Bundesbank.
ne of the most mind-boggling debates going on in euroland right now – only one of many, but particularly guaranteed to make the head spin, this one – is over the build-up of so-called “Target 2” claims and liabilities. Target 2 is the mechanism by which money is transferred around the euro area to ensure that each national central bank has sufficient euros to fund its banking system.
Accumulated cross border claims are now so extreme that they threaten to leave German taxpayers with huge losses should the euro break up, or any one of its members leaves.
Greece and Spain have the highest unemployment rates in the eurozone, around 25 percent for both.
Other countries are also pushing through reforms that are designed to make it easier for companies to hire and fire workers. However, there are doubts that governments have the willpower to continue with the tough measures in the face of widespread popular protests.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Madrid, Lisbon and Paris this weekend to protest austerity. In Spain and Greece last week, demonstrations descended into violence as protesters clashed with riot police.
"It's clearly unacceptable that 25 million Europeans are now out of work," said Jonathan Todd, an EU spokesman for employment, citing figures for the entire European Union. "The figures ... demonstrate the importance of putting into place effective reforms."
Not all countries are struggling with high unemployment. Austria's jobless rate, for instance, is 4.5 percent, although that's worse than it was a year ago. Germany's stands at 5.5 percent – and has actually improved since last August.
In general, European countries outside the eurozone are faring slightly better than those inside. Britain's unemployment rate in June – the latest available – was 8 percent.
For all 27 countries in the EU, the unemployment rate for August held steady at 10.5 percent after the July rate was also revised up slightly.
New York, September 29 (FinanceEnquiry.com) – Analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities report on US Daily Economic Notes.
In a research note published on September 28, the analysts mention that growth in the sector of export has been observed vigilantly over the course of the last several months. Furthermore, motivating the manufacturing sector and other related industries and by this means creating employment & income growth, exports have played a vital role so far in the economic cycle by providing an outsized share to output.
In addition to this, it has been signified by the recent records that contribution of export is reducing quickly. Over the past few months, a worrying profile is demonstrated by new export orders of ISM, a major and most important indicator of exports; when the recession came to an end, the month of June listed the initial sub-50 reading (47.5), July skidded more (46.5) and August, although stayed under neutral, reported merely an insignificant development (47.0).
Moreover, in H2, this is an important indication of a possible reduction of exports. Even though an even transition is not definite and will mostly link upon job and augmentation of income stoking up demand of the customer, still a move from external demand toward domestic drivers of output is expected together with customer spending, business investment and housing. Downside risks to the outlook can be posed by this if exports stumble all of a sudden in the intervening time, the analysts add further.
You should listen to all sides of a debate. Two weeks ago I spoke at the UKIP conference in Birmingham while last week I spoke about the euro at a Green movement Conference in Berlin. As you might expect, the two occasions, and my reception, were very different. I so wish that I could introduce these audiences to each other – and to you.
The German conference was striking. Admittedly, I must be careful in drawing general conclusions about Germany, because this audience was pretty individual – the equivalent of a Guardian readers convention. Nevertheless, the degree of mutual incomprehension astounded me. As I have discovered on previous occasions, discussing the euro with Germans is like a dialogue of the deaf.
It is a cultural thing. There is a chasm between us in our understanding of the way the world works. I was repeatedly told that I was being “too Anglo-Saxon”. (I had always regarded that as a compliment but I must have missed something.)
What I argued about competitiveness was completely logical, they said, yet the euro isn’t about logic but about political will. In that context the actions of the markets in selling Spanish and Italian bonds are seen as little short of treason. I even felt on dangerous ground myself for questioning the euro-orthodoxy.
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