Woods, you appreciated hearing about how this crisis affects other parts of the world.
The latest from Holland is a reassurance from the Minister for Finances , Mr Bos, to the public. The Govt. has placed 20 billion euro's in reserve, available to banks ( in case they have cash-flow difficulties) and state institutions and individuals ( for investments). Individuals will be guaranteed a compensation of up to 100.000 euro's. A very respected banker informed us that basically the Dutch banking system is sound. What has happened in the US ( what in Holland is described as Wild-West practices) is simply not possible due to tight controls, sound financial common sense and a mix of external/ internal and government supervisory bodies. This is reassuring to know. Of course, some repercussions will be felt because it has affected the confidence of the entire financial system (see the falling indexes on the exchanges world wide). The psychological fall-out may be more serious though. There's always been a bit of a love/hate relarionship between Europe and America. Pirsig talks about this. America is seen by many Europeans (perhaps not so much its politicians but certainly its population) as "trigger happy"... an attitude of 'shoot/bomb first and ask questions later'. Europeans prefer dialogue. Put this perception in the current context and lots of negatives are flying around again. Apologists for American thinking often cite its assistance, with a great many sacrifices in freeing Europe of the Nazi's. Absolutely no denying this but what people forget is that , underneath that sacrifice lay loads of self- interest. America wasn't interested in the war until Pearl Harbour. Anyway, this role America has taken upon itself in moralising and intervening in loads of parts of the world in the name of liberty and democracy and freedom and what have you is now backfiring. It has been abused too often. And I think I do not need to cite specific examples. "America" really needs to watch itself from now on i.e its intellectual patterns of value. And it has absolutely lost credibility and trust. In peace André Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
