Published Friday, July 4, 2008 at 10:23
by
franciscopolo 
in New Social Europe (389 views and 0 comments)
As you all know the
European Central Bank has its main goal to control the interest
rates, that is to say, the price of money in the eurozone. The
matter is that the Federal Reserve of the United States is
keeping an interest rate much lower than the European ones. While
we are having a 4% interest rate, in the States the interest rate
is around 2%.
This has several consequences but the most important ones are that our companies can’t invest so they can’t become more competitive and that our products become more expensive abroad Europe so our companies become even less competitive.
If we add to all that the fact that oil is having peak prices almost everyday so everything is becoming more expensive for them, the result is easy to see: they are trapped.
In order to face this situation “the European Central Bank should ask itself not only about inflation but also about economic growth”, Mr. Sarkozy said. “You can double interest rates and that will not make go down the price of the Brent barrel”.
This is a position held by Sarko. I wrote about it yesterday in my blog. And then I wondered…
What’s our political response to the economy crisis?
read morePublished Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 14:20
by
Poul_Nyrup_Rasmussen
in New Social Europe (784 views and 1 comments)
I agree with
our PES activist when he writes that we need a
strong PES to counterweight global capitalism.
Last summer I presented, together with my colleague Ieke van den
Burg from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament,
a report on private equity and hedge funds.
In the last four years the financial market has grown 30 to 50
percent a year. Today it is no longer the real economy that
controls the financial market – it is the other way around! The
real economy is governed by nation states and the EU – but who
decides on the financial market? The answer is, unfortunately,
only a very few people behind closed doors. We in Europe made our
democratic political choice in 2000 – with the so-called Lisbon
goals – to safeguard the future of our welfare states with more
and better jobs and social cohesion. This democratic political
choice – made in the European Council – must be respected by all
– including the big guys dominating the financial markets.
We need to make the market behave, the same way we have made our
markets behave in our nation states and at the European...
Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 10:24
by
frederic.vareillas
in New Social Europe (894 views and 3 comments)
Hi,
American scientists have just filmed an electron in motion. Watch
it on Yahoo
News. It is time for us, Europeans, to pay our scientists a
decent wage, and pay them well. It is time for us to fund
correctly our science universities.
Who's going to find the next source of energy?
Yours friend,
Frederic
Published Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 16:51
by
Editor
in New Social Europe (1031 views and 1 comments)
Published Friday, February 8, 2008 at 16:40
by
Editor
in EU in the world (877 views and 0 comments)
The PES delegation in
the US have found strong agreement with Democrats on the need to do
something about international financial markets, especially hedge
and private equity funds.Published Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 09:42
by
Editor
in EU in the world (731 views and 0 comments)
Almost four in ten
Americans say the economy and jobs is the number one issue in the
presidential campaign - up ten per cent in the last three weeks
and now twice as many as cite Iraq as the top issue.
Six in ten Americans believe the US economy is in recession. And
Europe is in the same boat.... economic gloom in the USA is
matched in Europe with estimates of an economic slowdown. The
interesting thing - a small silver lining to the cloud of
threatening recession - is that Americans are talking about
investing in growth, like the PES has been saying for years, and
in contrast to the prevailing conservative economic view that
says the market will sort itself out without intervention.
Democrats want to invest not in tax cuts for the rich but in
health care and renewable energies. Together Democrats in the US
and social democrats in Europe can make new thinking about
creating in jobs and growth. It's a chance to change the
prevailing leave-it-all to-the-market orthodoxy.
Published Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 11:56
by
Editor
in New Social Europe (1182 views and 3 comments)
“New Beginning” is what the
Labour Party of Malta (MLP) is offering voters
as it prepares for general elections expected in March or April
this year. New investment and new jobs top the Labour Party’s
programme, alongside better education and health services.Published Monday, December 3, 2007 at 09:45
by
Sortir de l'Impasse
in New Social Europe (1166 views and 2 comments)
There are currently 23 millions small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe, representing 99 percent of European companies and account for around two thirds of European jobs.
In the latest Eurobarometer report dedicated to SMEs published in May 2007 (16,339 SMEs interviewed in 27 country members), we are told that European SMEs believe that “competition in their markets has increased over the past two years. Six out of 10 managers stated that competition has recently intensified. The perception of increased competition is even more widespread among LSEs.”
According to this survey, 12 percent of the SMEs' turnover comes from their “new or significantly improved products.” France has one of the lowest rates with 7 percent only, whilst Slovenia equals 24 percent, Romania 21 percent, Germany 11 percent, and Italy 12 percent. Actually, one of the ways to resist this increasing competition is to invest in research and development in order to be able to launch new products.
The right wing parties often claim that labour costs are too high for the SMEs. This Eurobarometer pointed out that “labour costs” are regarded a constraint for...
read morePublished Thursday, November 22, 2007 at 17:32
by
Editor
in New Social Europe (1066 views and 0 comments)
There are plenty of examples of the negative impact on society of certain kinds of hedge and private equity funds. These funds, many financed with investments from pension funds, are on a hunt for short-term profit – something which too often is at the expense of worker’s rights and the long-term development of the company invested in. Many hedge and private equity funds also pay very little tax and, because they finance company buy outs with huge accumulated debts, they pose a threat to financial stability.
This type of ‘unhealthy investment’ was the topic of today’s second plenary at the PES Council. There was broad agreement among the speakers at the podium that the unregulated behaviour of hedge and private equity funds are a serious problem which urgently needs to be dealt with – for the sake of both workers and companies.
One of the speakers, Democratic Congressman Barney Frank (Chairman of the US House Committee on Financial Services), had taken the trip during the American thanksgiving holiday, across the Atlantic to urge collaboration between the US and Europe.
"If the US and Europe do not coordinate our efforts we will never be able to tackle the problem of hedge and private equity funds. The funds will then move and the problem is the same."
The...
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