Why Europeans disagree with Obama

From a NYT discussion about Obama at G20:

Twelve reasons why Obama’s G20 quest will fail. A European perspective:
1. The historical economic nightmare of the U.S. is depression; the historical economic nightmare of Europe is hyperinflation.
2. Europeans are renters; they have not defaulted on their home loans and are not responsible for the economic crisis.
3. Europeans already have universal health care and have paid dearly for it.
4. Europeans have not lived beyond their means like the Americans have, and have a positive savings rate.
5. European financial institutions are in trouble, not because they lived beyond their means, over-financed subprime mortgages and bundled them up into obscure securities, but because they purchased the securities on assurances from American rating agencies who lied to them.
6. Europeans already have a social safety net.
7. Europeans already spend a large part of their income on public projects through higher taxes.
8. Europeans have always paid double for fuel than Americans through higher fuel taxes.
9. Europeans did not engage in subprime home ownership mania; if they went overboard on anything it was in providing social safety nets, which have never depressed anyone’s economy but their own.
10. Europeans did not blunder into a costly war in Iraq, but spoke out overwhelmingly against it.
11. Europeans are sick and tired of Americans telling them what to do every time that Americans blunder the world into a catastrophe.
12. Europeans have every right to want Americans to bear the burden of getting the world out of the mess that Americans created.


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