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Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum
The future is greek
Anne Applebaum
Måndag, 1 Mars 2010 11:55
I have seen America's future, and it is Greece.
By this I do not mean that the Midwest will soon be covered with ancient ruins or that Texans will swap hamburgers for feta cheese.
I mean that the ongoing Greek financial crisis is the same kind of crisis the United States might face a few years from now if we continue to make the same kinds of mistakes the Greeks have made over the last decade.
For those who haven't followed this saga, let me reassure you that the story is quite straightforward: Greece is bankrupt.
And although Greece's bankruptcy is headline news this week-Greece's weak finances threaten the stability of the euro, the common European currency-the truth is that Greece has been bankrupt for years.
Its budget deficit in 2009 was 12.7 percent of GDP. Overall debt was 113.4 percent of GDP.
Those are not figures that can be achieved overnight.
Some of Greece's economic problems are highly specific.
The country has an unusually old-fashioned legal system, a bureaucracy straight out of a Kafka novel, and a byzantine system of regulation worse even than our own.
The Wall Street Journal points out that-extraordinarily-Greece, practically alone among developed economies, does not have a centralized and computerized land registry, which means, for example, that farmers can surreptitiously cultivate public land and eventually become de facto owners.
By European standards, Greece also has an exceptionally closed economy.
Barriers to doing business, both legal and informal, are very high, which is part of why Greece has one of the world's lowest levels of foreign investment.
More to the point, Greece has borne all these burdens for a long, long time.
Yet nothing has been done, because the country's deeply partisan political system is totally paralyzed.
Try to carry out any social security reform in Greece-raise the pension age, stop early retirements-and watch what happens: Mass rioting followed the passage of a pension reform bill in 2008, and the government became so unpopular it lost the next election.
The land registry cannot be modernized, because those who possess land illegally will fight back. The barriers to investment cannot be lowered, because business lobbies are more powerful than politicians.
The political class is aware of the country's economic problems, but it denies them.
Last month, the European Commission issued a report accusing Greece's finance ministry and statistical service of "severe irregularities" stemming from "the submission of incorrect data."
In eurospeak, that means the commissioners think the Greeks have been lying: That 12.7 percent budget deficit was originally forecast to be 3.7 percent, and plenty of other figures coming out of Greece seem to have been way off.
No country makes accounting errors like that by accident.
Greece shares its financial weaknesses with several other European countries (nowadays referred to-really!-as the PIGS: Portugal, Italy-or sometimes Ireland-Greece, and Spain).
But in a different sense, Greece's weaknesses are also shared by the United States.
Though we do not have precisely the same problems, we do have a similar level of political paralysis and a similar level of partisanship.
It is not possible to reform U.S. Social Security: President Bush tried halfheartedly and gave up before he started.
It may not be possible to reform health care, either: Hillary Clinton failed, and President Obama, despite throwing in expensive sweeteners, may well fail.
The influence of lobbyists cannot be reduced.
The power of interest groups to influence legislation cannot be tamed.
We might not have farmers squatting on state land, but we do have farmers dependent on huge, distorting agricultural subsidies that apparently cannot be reduced.
Fortunately for American politicians, we do not have to submit our financial statistics to a European Commission, and thus we do not have to lie about them outright.
But aside from our very large budget deficit-at the moment, 9.9 percent of GDP and climbing-we also have liabilities that are rarely acknowledged.
The costs of Medicare and Medicaid are going up, as is the cost of veterans care.
Markets assume that the vast debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are underwritten by the government, and someday the government might be called upon to pay them.
No one is lying about these things, but no one is talking about them very much, either.
The good news is that the American government's bankruptcy is not on the front pages, and it won't be for many years: Our sheer size, our entrepreneurship, and our relatively open business culture will keep us going for a long time.
But the Greek crisis shows that the combination of debt and political deadlock can be deadly.
The catharsis we feel as we watch it unfold-that Aristotelian combination of pity and fear - should shock us far more than it has so far.
När muren hade öppnats
Anne Applebaum
Torsdag, 12 November 2009 13:09
Under en längre tid nu har jag försökt komma underfund med vad det är som irriterar mig när det har varit tal om Berlin och festligheterna kring 20 år sedan murens öppnande.
Det är förstås inte fel att hålla dussintals konferenser, och jag talar också varmt för alla de nya böckerna.
I Washington talade också förbundskansler Angela Merkel inför Kongressen. I Los Angeles hade man byggt upp en fabulöst kitchig "mur" som sedan sparkades ner av inbjudna dignitärer. (Med tanke på invånarnas liv och leverne hade dock tidpunkten för denna ceremoni i LA flyttats från eftermiddagen till midnatt så att den inte skulle störa trafiken).
Vem bryr sig om Nobelpriset?
Anne Applebaum
Måndag, 19 Oktober 2009 11:39
Varför fick han det? Förtjänade han det? Borde han ha tackat nej? Vem borde ha fått det i stället? Vad skulle han säga?
Nationen talar bara om President Obamas fredspris. Här kommer en bättre fråga som vi bör ställa till oss själva: varför skall vi bry oss?
Kvinnostyrka
Anne Applebaum
Måndag, 29 Juni 2009 10:56
Kvinnor försedda med solglasögon och sjalar som talar i mikrofoner och som bär skyltar med klara budskap.
När dessa fotografier från kvinnoprotesterna vid universitetet i Teheran först publicerades 2005 gav de oss en kraftig påminnelse om de iranska kvinnornas sanna potential i kampen för sina rättigheter. Fotografierna var inspirerande och de visade kvinnor av många olika åldrar och de cirkulerade länge efter det att själva protetsterna hade dött ut. Nu har dessa fotografier ersatts av betydligt brutalare och redan ökända fotografier: Fotografierna och videon som togs senaste veckoslut av en ung döende iransk kvinna på Teherans gator som sannolikt hade skjutits ner av en prickskytt.
Bara ord
Anne Applebaum
Måndag, 16 Mars 2009 17:01
”We pretty much know what they're going to say.” Hillary Clinton om kinesernas reaktion på diskussioner kring mänskliga rättigheter, religiös frihet och Tibet.
Obamakonspirationen
Anne Applebaum
Måndag, 2 Februari 2009 13:41
Du har säkert hört historierna om avsvimmade utrikeskorrespondenter, om andlösa internationella skriverier, om fjäskande rubriker på många olika språk - och jag kan säga att allt det där stämmer.
Dagen efter presidentinstallationen stod jag vid ett tidningsstånd i London, och kan säga precis vad många brittiska och europeiska dagstidningar fyllde sina första sidor med: det handlade om helsidesfotografier av President Barack Obama, och de flesta hade tagits ur en vinkel där 2 miljoner människor syntes i bakgrunden under honom.
Och alla dessa fotografier hade triumferande rubriker med stora bokstäver skrivna ovanför sig.
Glädjen var förstås inte helt enstämmig, och detta berodde inte inte minst på att den översvallande pressbevakningen provocerade fram ett slags backlash.
Kalender
Mars
April
