UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S FINANCIAL CRISES
PART 2

By Michael S. Coffman, Ph.D. and Kristie Pelletier
May 7, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
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Economics for Dummies 102—International Implications and Politics

Europe’s Economy is falling like dominos. The Obama administration is following the same destructive socialist expansion of government using smoke and mirrors to convince us that it is the right way to go. It is clear that Obama is sacrificing America for political gain. We have to choose now who to follow.

For the past year we have been watching Europe’s economy unravel. It started in Greece as its debt got out of control. They were forced to make drastic cuts in their budget in order to get bailouts from the European Union (EU) and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Riots ensued as unions demanded their salaries and benefits not be cut.

The crisis soon spread to Ireland and then Portugal. Again, budgets had to be slashed resulting in more riots and discontent. Although England and other European nations are not in immediate trouble, they see the handwriting on the wall and are beginning to make needed cuts before their budgets have to be slashed. That has precipitated angry protests from unions which do not want to give up their cushy benefits.

The situation in America is rapidly becoming eerily similar to the dire circumstances that caused Greece, Ireland and Portugal to go belly up forced them to seek international bailouts.[1]

In the past decade Greece, Ireland and Portugal borrowed heavily to fund their exorbitant socialist programs. In the fall of 2009, investors began to lose confidence in Greece’s government’s ability to rectify its economic problems and its ability to come good on its debts. That culminated in April of 2010 with requests to the world for a bailout.[2]

Ireland and Portugal were not far behind. Last week a scathing report of the causes of the collapse in Ireland hit the news. The analysis was done by Peter Nyberg, a former International Monetary Fund economist. He provided hard evidence that the Irish banking collapse was caused by bankers taking risks on a "almost unbelievable" scale, which was ignored by a complicit public, and a lack of adequate regulation. The report, commissioned by former finance minister Brian Lenihan, goes on to further blame the breakdown on “the unhindered expansion of the property bubble financed by banks using wholesale market funding.â€