{"id":1846,"date":"2010-07-25T13:26:14","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T11:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1846"},"modified":"2010-07-25T13:26:14","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T11:26:14","slug":"1846","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1846","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

America in the Round<\/strong><\/p>\n

America has overdone things over B.P. and Lockerbie, whatever\u00a0its anger at events in the Gulf of Mexico or over the bombing of the Pan Am flight. Americans see themselves as innocent in both disasters, but the rest of the world does not see so clear cut a picture. On top of this,\u00a0the Afghan war is going badly, the Karzai government is both corrupt and dysfunctional and all\u00a0of NATO now seeks a way out. Iraq is unstable and may yet erupt when the U.S. leaves.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the coin the U.S has re-capitalised its banks,\u00a0stabilised its financial system and passed the greatest reforming legislation of the banking sector since the great depression. Goldman Sachs has been charged with fraud and paid a spectacular fine, before announcing profits down by over 80%. President Obama has made it clear that the U.S can no longer borrow to buy cheap overseas goods from Asia until crippled by debt,\u00a0so that emerging economies end up with all\u00a0the cash.<\/p>\n

Europe meanwhile has settled for announcing that almost all its banks have passed quite meaningless stress tests which are so feeble that they do not allow for a major economic downturn or a national default, let alone both. The Eurozone has staganated, weighed down by excessive sovereign debt and a banking system in which nobody has complete confidence. Without German exports Eurozone figures\u00a0would look a lot worse.\u00a0Without\u00a0 a Federal policy or executive to manage the economies of those in, what is in effect, a federal currency, nobody knows what is coming round the corner, or what to do when it hoves into view.<\/p>\n

Although The U.S was the epicentre of the great financial collapse, it has been timely and resolute in setting its house\u00a0in\u00a0order. There is some divergence with Europe\u00a0over\u00a0fiscal policy, but it is way ahead at creating a sound financial base. The U.K has a foot in both camps but we are outside the Euro.\u00a0This is a blessing. Osborne and Cable need to sort out the banks now, so as to build on the excellent new economic\u00a0mangement role of the Bank of England announced in the Budget.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile this all shows that in\u00a0the huge U.S.\u00a0economy, which is made up of the varying economies of fifty states, there is sufficient federal authority and national will to act when crisis demands. This was Lincoln’s vision. America was one nation, not a multitude. He resolved the issue by war. Europe has had all the wars already. It now has to rise to the challenge of what the Eurozone is and and how and by what authority it will be led. It may find it has more to learn \u00a0from America than it is fashionable to admit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America in the Round America has overdone things over B.P. and Lockerbie, whatever\u00a0its anger at events in the Gulf of Mexico or over the bombing of the Pan Am flight. Americans see themselves as innocent in both disasters, but the rest of the world does not see so clear cut a picture. On top of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1848,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions\/1848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}