Can Financial Markets Avoid Collapse? by Danny Schechter

[Mira]

The world's financial system continues to teeter near a very nasty brink, with the United States and Europe disagreeing about how to pull back from the edge.

By Danny Schechter

Earlier this week, comedian Stephen Colbert announced dramatically that there were important developments underway in Europe that we should know about. True to form, Colbert didn't talk about the big problem. His story, ha ha ha, was about a butter shortage in Norway.
We all know that European countries have been wrestling with what to do about saving the Euro. There have been warnings of an economic catastrophe if the Euro falls, and it's plain that the already shaky American economy will take a big hit if it happens.
The drama in Europe seems to be beyond the ability of both comedy and "serious" financial programs to explain. Perhaps it's more of a divine comedy in the Danteian sense, because we are all perched on the edge of a circle of hell that many of us don't want to wrap our minds around.
While many news outlets prefer to recycle endless sound-bites of Newt Gingrich bashing Mitt Romney and vice versa, and as American diplomats seem to be cranking up a war against Iran as if that can save the economy the way World War II pulled us out of the Great Depression, the world economy is tottering thanks to all the debt American firms sold Europeans who then managed it so stupidly and corruptly.

for the rest:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Can-Financial-Markets-Avoi-by-Danny-Schechter-111213-832.html

[Warpy]

1. FDR's programs pulled us out of the Great Depression

WWII pulled us out of the Great Recession of 1937, caused by Congress voting in a balanced budget that prematurely ended all FDRs programs that had been working so well.

War is never the answer to anything and costs us much more than we could ever hope to save by it unless we are keeping barbarian hordes directly invading the country at bay. It most certainly did not end the Great Depression.

But yes, the right wing loves to push that lie. We can now rub their noses in the fact that we've had two wars dragging on for 10 years now and we're still edging into depression because those wars aren't doing a damned thing but killing a lot of people on all sides while squandering money and oil we don't have to spare.

[JDPriestly]

2. +1