As European Banks start going down cracks appear in the Euro zone

At this moment I would say Europe handles the banking crisis pretty well. Slow start, but political leaders did agree on a common approach. Which approach Bush today adopted by announcing part of the US bail out-money would go into buying bank shares.

In this thread Europe's spirit was declared 'bankrupt' because of individual states closed up on their national banking problems. I'm European, it's nice. Can be nice, depending the perspective.

Which problems/questions do you want to be accounted for as a collective, that's the question. It's ups and downs. I'm Dutch and Holland (still) has a democracy in working order. We are, due to some silly Atlantic inclination (UK, US), involved in Afghanistan, we were involved in Iraq. Both wrong, and Holland still has to answer the commitment to acts of revenge, the US going bezerk.

Sorry, off topic.

I would say, in the end we as human kind need to be able to manage our world. This will take time. In the meantime we need states, players, that work to this end. Our world is complex. Lack of good reasoning, guns in abundance. Vote for the world too, US.

reply to post by Roosje


Never thought I would know more about European economics then a European. Y'all always seem so .. involved

Most European countries, or rather, as we now refer to as The Western World (North America, parts of the Me, Australia and Europe) all had SEVERE mortgage "problems" ..

Not exactly mortgage defaults.. but rather falling equity. When you buy a house for 50k Euros and sell it 1 year later for 150k Euros.. it a damn good thing for the seller. Now the person who bought it for 150k Euro's and then the value drops to 75k Euros... well by God that is a mess.

Home owners suffer from negative equity.. banks do to .. it lowers the security level of the securities sold to back them.. from positive investments because property values kept rising, to "bad debt" that cost more then what the value of the object being invested in. What investment bank wants to buy a 150k mortgage for a house, if foreclosed, could only get 75k Euros and lower?

Some countries, like Spain, Ireland, the UK, they suffered from very fast rising home prices. Some countries like for instance, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic etc suffered huge development depreciation .. massive apartment and office development in the "booming economy" .. all depreciate and billions where lost ..

Europe's problem is at times considered far worse then America's, only because America is larger as a single nation is it bad as they say, if all European nations where considered a United States I fear you guys are fairing much worse..

We suffered opposite types of inflation .. our decreased, yours increased..

Meaning that while property values fell here, because of lower currencies foreign investments really stabilized us in some respect.. where as few by summer hit could even afford to invest in Europe, your currency was so highly deflated..

I know first hand.. I tried to buy a house in Europe my self, in the middle of no where.. I believe my neighbor would have been a run down sheep farm..

In the states imported goods prices soared, over in Europe the valuable tourist trade took huge hits (none worse then in France) because of Currency exchange rates..

The Western World is in trouble..

So before we squabble over which country is ok, which is not.. perhaps we ought to be discussing what is going on with our Eastern Brothers .. because the Far East has been very... quiet... about the entire situation..