Europa, USofA, and the Global Economy

Something happened in Bremen, I know
Something I don't want to
And it will be a long long long time gone
before my spirit will in accident
go back and come from Bremen Nacht
Ich rausum mach aus Bremen nacht
-- The Fall

A day after the financial press was a flutter that Irish bond sales were met with robust demand with help of the ECB and Fed, it gets hit with the Irish economy contracted in the last quarter. Better have another Guinness Mr. Cowen. Add to that the German export miracle of the past few months may not be all its cracked up to be, "tumbling" the FT states, and suddenly questions about the health of Europe's banks come back to the forefront.

With a broken global financial system, following day to day, month to month, quarter to quarter, and even year to year economic data is fraught with misguidance. Easier to understand that the global economy is tremendously imbalanced, the financial system built atop of it is in disarray, held together by an unprecedented pumping of money by the planet's central banks, further removing ethereal money from any correlation to the physical economy. Where does this all go? Well, as they say, place you're bets, but betting there will be a robust economic recovery based on the failed policies of the past three decades certainly seems the longest shot.

One of the great present imbalances the planet faces was caused by the deindustrialization of America over the course of several decades. Alternet has another excerpt from Jefferson Cowie's Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, and it's well worth reading, describing what was really the final death knell of organized labor in this country, Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers. What's most interesting is Mr. Cowie's description of the disappearance of the working class/labor from American politics, culture, and of course economics. Now, you read about back in the 60s, 70s and 80s the disappearing of political opposition individuals in Central and South America, but leave it to the United States to disappear a whole class of society. The most important point to understand is the political economy element of this country which fought for the interests of working people, was founded in organized labor, which no longer exists, so there is no alternative to our present failing and flailing Wall Street corporate globalization economics. With an understanding of the 21st century, that's what needs to be thought, created, and organized. That's where we are.