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EU Overturns Agreement With US On Banking Data
Following the lead of the civil liberties committee which last week recommended dropping it (against the wishes of the US), qmaqdk writes "The EU parliament overturned the previous agreement with the US which allowed US intelligence agencies to access EU banking data."
Good for them, way to grow a spine, Europe! Now if only American banks had the same motivation to protect its customers data from the very same agencies.
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
In case of ambivalence, create emergency
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Americans that want to avoid taxes, can now bank in Europe again.
Right, so to stop a few corrupt individuals and companies in the US avoiding paying tax in the US by banking in Europe, every banking transaction that passes through Europe (or the EU, with 27 countries and over 500m people - that's more than all of North America) should be reported to the US... Something about setting ones own house in order before messing with other people's springs to mind.
Moving on, it is nice to see that the (democratically elected) European Parliament is finally able to stand up to the (appointed) Council of Ministers (and the US); the Lisbon Treaty does have its good points (even if it was pushed through in a rather undemocratic way). Now if only the rest of it could get implemented and the Swedish Pirate Party could get their second MEP into office.
Actually, as I understand it, this one was more a case of I'll show you yours if you'll show me mine.
The intelligence "sharing" is done precisely because each side could get in legal and/or political trouble for spying on its own citizens without good cause. On the other hand, if it's just foreign intelligence provided by a friendly state, well, that's OK, then. This is as much one in the eye for certain EU governments (whose appointed representatives previously forced this measure through at European level mere hours before the Lisbon Treaty kicked in and meant the elected MEPs would get a say, remember) as it is for the US.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are the worst but not the least. Most of the countries in Europe have spending and Debt levels that (as a percentage of GDP) are double the US level everyone is worried about. ...
Uhm, the US federal deficit stands at 10.64%, only slightly lower than the 12.5% of Greece, the worst performer in the Euro zone at this time. Portugal seems to have a deficit of 9.3%, Spain 11%. The I in PIGS is Ireland with 11%, not Italy. Mind you, these are the worst performers in the Euro zone, and relatively small economies, the average figures of of the entire Euro zone are looking a lot better than the US right now, and definitely better than the UK. The market doesn't only look at cold, hard figures though.
About the Euro tanking vs the dollar, I remember almost a decade ago, the Euro was worth about $0.70, now it stands at twice that amount. Both those extreme values are unrealistic and harmful, it would be better to have a stable exchange rate close to 1:1
The dollar has gained quite significantly since 2007. The Euro's mindshare was the first thing to go in the recession... Not just a chink in the armor, but a forced realization that a defacto currency, from which any country can opt-out at any time, with no central governing authority, but with individual authorities with a poor understanding of how to handle such changes, and with several weak players involved, is not a safe bet in the slightest
The dollar regained gained some, after having steadily declined from about EUR 1.25 to about EUR 0.65
I don't know what you base the idea on that any country could opt-out of it at any time. Such an operation would be purely theoretical, the actual process of leaving the EUR after having joined would take years, carry a staggering cost and would seriously harm the economic outlook of any country attempting it. It's unthinkable, joining the EUR is a one way path.
I'd point to Kosovo for a look at what European "diplomacy" can do... Lots of speeches over the years about "never again," and then a whole lot of nothing when a real stand needs to be made,
It has a whole lot to do with the reluctance towards looking at only one side of an issue. I'd call it a difference in culture between the US and post WW2 Europe. In the US, there is still a strong belief in right vs wrong, good vs. evil. In a conflict, there must be one side that's right and another one that is wrong. Kosovo and Bosnia were solved very decisively by the US, by picking a side, obliterating the other side, and blaming the entire conflict on the obliterated party. It worked, the conflict is over. It no longer matters that the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo later turned out to have been a fabrication, and that the good guys in Bosnia turned out to have been almost as nasty as the bad guys.
I say this not as an ignorant and arrogant American, but as a distant observer.. /. so often is a rather serious case of not being able to see the forest for the trees. The grass may seems greener on the other side, but it's pretty clear that there's no grass at all over there...
(...) but this (largely Europeans) fervent anti-Americanism we see touted on
I say this as a half-yank, half-eurofag. In my experience the anti-Americanism in Europe is exaggerated in the US media. Euros just tend to be more 'negative' in general, and many Americans experience any shimmer of doubt or negativity as anti-American. I don't experience anti-Americanism in Europe as worse than anti-Europism in the US, or anti-California-ism in Texas.