Financial hypocrisy in times of crisis

[Deleted]

This EU intervention by Daniel Cohn-Bendit is mostly about what the EU is doing to Greece, but it is just as true concerning most of the world, where we ask everyone to tighten their belts while getting countries to purchase as much military equipment as possible.

[bixaorellana]

Bravo for the impassioned appeal to logic and fairness, and for the finger-pointing at greed and speculation!

The question is, do the politicians of the various countries of the EU have as many vested interests as politicians in the US have? If so, all that well-reasoned and compassionate rhetoric is simply spitting into the wind.

Less cynically, perhaps his speech, with its appeal both to the virtues of compassion and to the simple sense of protecting ones country's pocketbook, will bear fruit. He certainly points up the fact that the EU, like any family, must protect each member in order to keep the family healthy.

This is not exactly related to the above, but I feel it's a indication that impossible things can happen, and that the world may be turning away from ways that don't work and towards rapport built upon mutual interests. click on headline for story:
For Turkey, an Embrace of Iran Is a Matter of Building Bridges

[hwinpp]

I just read the EU 'foreign office' alone is going to have a budget of 8 billion EUR per year. I felt like puking.

[onlymark]

The population of the EU is about 500 million, so that's about 16 Euro per man, woman and child.
Doesn't sound too bad when you put it like that. But the budget is a horrendous figure. Just think of how much will get wasted on perks and allowances.

[Deleted]

That's only a bit more than 4 eurocents a day. A real bargain.