European Financial Industry: Germany, France back EU tax on derivatives - by Jean-Baptiste Vey

France and Germany agreed that a planned pan-European tax on financial transactions should cover all derivatives products, a source close to French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Wednesday.

President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a joint meeting of their two cabinets in Paris that they wanted other EU partners to agree on such a levy by European Parliament elections in May.

France and its banks have in the past warned that imposing a transactions tax across the board of financial products could damage Europe's financial sector. But Germany has in recent days suggested a compromise under which different components of the tax could be phased in over time.

While Hollande and Merkel signalled their will for the 11 countries who back the tax to conclude a deal on it by the European elections, it was still not clear how high the final tax would be and when it would be applied to specific products.

Asked whether he favoured a phase-in of the tax as suggested by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - starting with share trades first - Hollande said such details would be worked out in minister-level discussions.

"The main thing is that it happens. If we seek the perfect product, I know there are some people who will go so deep into details that there will never be a financial transactions tax. I prefer an imperfect tax to no tax at all," he said.

Note EU-Digest: every politician in the European Union should keep in mind that we elected them to defend the interests of the voters and not only the interests of  the financial, banking industry, or specific corporate interest groups. 
 
Read more: Germany, France back EU tax on derivatives - French source | Reuters

the Guardian: "Que se vayan todos! - that's the global backlash talking - by Naomi Klein

For the complete report from The Guardian click on this link

"Que se vayan todos! - that's the global backlash talking - by Naomi Klein

Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles in 2002: "You are Enron. We are Argentina." Its message was simple enough. You - politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit - are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We - the rabble outside - are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") - and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model: this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism. It has taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment.

The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale.

New Deal: US Politics - Obama's Squandered Honeymoon: How botched bailouts hamper healthcare reform - by Robert Johnson

For the complete report from New Deal 2.0 click on this link

US Politics - Obama's Squandered Honeymoon: How botched bailouts hamper healthcare reform - by Robert Johnson

Has the Obama administration’s fumbling on finance led to a loss of faith that’s roadblocking healthcare reform? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Robert Johnson explains what happens when a choice of government or free markets looks like no-win scenario, and calls on Obama to regain our trust. We live in an era where the effectiveness of government has been denigrated for more than 30 years. The echo chamber of the right, particularly since the election of Ronald Reagan, has sought to intimidate anyone who let the romantic notion into their head that government can help. They even denigrate the New Deal, like it was a bad dream rather than a series of programs that helped many people, and may have saved capitalism from itself. With the romance of government trampled, the void in social theory was filled by the romance of markets. The free market fundamentalists vehemently promoted the notion that markets were not just a means to achieve social goals. To their way of thinking, social goals themselves would have to be designed to curry favor with the “wisdom” of the market.

The Obama Administration’s credibility and ability to inspire has been damaged by their actions in the bailout arena. We are back to the place where we can envision good policies but no one trusts that our government can deliver and execute them. The public option suffers as a result. The Administration acts surprised –they rightly sense they have lost control of the process and are now back to beating up the left for making the public option their Waterloo. Connect the dots, ladies and gentleman of the Administration, You blew finance, so you lost control of health-care.

Salon.com: Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan - by Glenn Greenwald

For the complete report from Salon.com click on this link

Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan - by Glenn Greenwald

On what's really happening in the health care fight:
MOYERS: I don’t think the problem is the Republicans . . . .The problem is the Democratic Party. This is a party that has told its progressives -- who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform -- to sit down and shut up. That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: "no public insurance option, no health care reform. And I think the reason for that is -- in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Part has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money. I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street. And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .

Money in politics -- you’ve had in the last 30 years, money has flooded politics . .. the Supreme Court saying "money is free speech." It goes back to the efforts in the 19th Century to give corporations the right of personhood -- so if you as a citizen have the right to donate to campaigns, then so do corporations. Money has flowed in such a flood into both parties that the Democratic Party gets a lot of its support from the very interests that -- when the Republicans are in power -- financially support the Republicans.

You really have essentially -- except for the progressives on the left of the Democratic Party – you really have two corporate parties who in their own way and their own time are serving the interests of basically a narrow set of economic interests in the US.

Note EU-DigestIn a way this is also happening in Europe and to a lesser extend in China. Politicians are no longer serving their constituents but mainly those wo fill their coffers.