U.S. will lose financial superpower status: Germany

[City Lights]

Source: Reuters via Yahoo

By Noah Barkin 38 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany blamed the United States on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis with a blind drive for higher profits and said it would now have to accept greater market regulation and a loss of its financial superpower status.

In some of the toughest language since the crisis worsened earlier this month, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament the financial turmoil would leave "deep marks" but was primarily an American problem.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the center-left Social Democrats, told the Bundestag lower house.

"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080925/ts_nm/us_financial_germany_steinbruecknews_1

[quiet.american]

1. Thanks, Bush. nt

[pnorman]

2. THE BUSH LEGACY

n/t

pnorman

[ingac70]

3. We can tell our grandkids...

how we were an economic superpower once, and Bush pissed it all away. :mad:

[tama]

25. Why the anger?

Do you really think it's GOOD to be an economic superpower?

[ingac70]

26. A decent standard of living is nice...

Would you rather we were all in shacks?

[tama]

27. Ecological footprint

worth several planets is not "nice", it means literally feasting on your childrens and grandchildrens lives.

Greed is not nice, it is a mortal sin.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

28. economic superpower does not necessarily equal greed.

it is what is. or has been. though it is clear there has been a LOT of greed in this country over the past few decades.

[ingac70]

30. Get of the computer and save energy...

do you have any idea the pollutants in computers? Practice what you preach.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1960428

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877182,00.html

[tama]

31. In due time

I'm currently 50-50 (half month online, half month offline); whereas some time ago I was online all the time. I preach gradual learning process, taking baby steps. It's taking the first steps the counts most, others come easier when one learns to walk. But learning to run before learning to walk does not usually end well.

[tama]

32. Why the anger:

Psychology 101 tells that the more you owns, the more you are pwnd by your possessions, gripped by fear of loosing your possessions (MY PRECIOUSS!), the more you fear the more you feel anger.

Ownership society = society of hatred.

[Demeter]

4. Considering How the US Has Abused This Power (Outside of the Marshall Plan)

This is a good thing.

No nation should be in the business of making or breaking other nations.

The responsible adult takes the matches and sharp tools away from children.

[Eurobabe]

5. I think it has already lost superpower status

Thank Bush & Company for destroying the US in 8 short years.

Priceless.

[City Lights]

7. Like most DUers, I was leary of Bush from the get-go and feared he'd be a complete disaster,

but even I didn't think he would be as big a FUBAR as he's turned out to be (at least for those of us in the lower 99%). Everything he touches turns to shit. The pre-Bush USA is a distant memory. :-(

[Eurobabe]

35. One of my good friends in Texas said "God help the USA"

when the asshat stole the election. He lived through 5 years of * as Governor, and said this guy is pure poison. Watch you won't recognize the country when he's finished with it.

I tell him "L. you are prescient!!" He groans.

[Javaman]

43. Count me in as one of those Texans that saw the writing on the wall...

I told my sister back then, "I lived under morons* governorship for 5 long years, believe me he* will ruin this nation, just give it time".

Believe me, this is one time I really don't like being right. Oddly, now my sister is a big Obama supporter, funny that. :)

[KamaAina]

37. Nonsense.

The self-destruct process began with St. Raygun. It took the repukes nearly thirty years to destroy what one of their own called "the last, best hope of Earth". :eyes:

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. This sounds very much like the direction it is heading - MUST READ!

[depakid]

8. Europeans played along with many of these games

so they're hardly in any position to talk....

[GinaMaria]

15. it worked in their favor n/t

[mmonk]

9. Yes. China called in its chips.

It's what everybody who isn't an ideologue warned about.

[shadowknows69]

10. This will be our reasoning to start the resource wars

Or continue them I should say. "Waahhh the world won't trade with us anymore, everyone has dumped the dollar and we must invade (Fill in blank) to protect our Murikan way of life. Oh BTW we don't have enough cash to hold the election anymore. Sorry. Maybe in a couple years."

[shadowknows69]

11. Our military, and a few tourism dollars, are the only thing keeping us any kind of power.

We nearly have nothing else to offer the world at this point. They don't need our resources, they don't need our manufacturing and they damn sure don't want us fucking up world economics anymore.

[Pavulon]

39. Incorrect.

The us drives technology and design, we then send manufacturing out to low bid (a big mistake) nations to make the gear.

Run a big company you use Z/OS/I or P class , EMC, or others. Need aerospace, we are the best period.

You are way off base. Germany does not even make a wide body jetliner.

What we do manufacturer is by far the best in the world.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. You should tell that to the people in Hamburg

who work in the factory of Airbus Industrie, which started out as a joint venture between France's Aerospatiale and Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace.

:eyes:

[PA Democrat]

12. Unregulated greed is a terminal disease. Who could have guessed?

:mad:

[workinclasszero]

13. It only took eight years of Rethuglian rule

to destroy everything that made America great.:mad:

[Lost4words]

17. No, It took 28 years, 28 long corporate years!

Reagan 8 years
Bush 1 4 years
Clinton 8 years
Bush II 8 years count em up its 28 years Clinton was not really a true democrat.

28 Fucked Up years of moving backwards!

[Selatius]

20. Clinton isn't the same kind of Democrat like FDR or Truman were. That's for sure.

Unfortunately, anybody can register as a Democrat, and their party registration papers would say they're Democrats. Even right wing people can register and call themselves Democrats.

[Art_from_Ark]

42. Clinton started out as a progressive Democrat

He almost won his bid for a Congressional seat in Arkansas' dyed-in-the-wool-Republican 3rd District in 1974, but lost a lot votes because he was "too liberal". He then became state attorney general in '76, and became the country's youngest governor in '78, on a surprisingly liberal (for Arkansas) platform. However, after his defeat by creationist Frank White in the Reagan landslide of 1980, Clinton figured he needed to tone down his "liberal" credentials in a not-so-progressive state to get back into the governor's mansion.

[GinaMaria]

14. that could be one of the consequences of

having * in power for 8 years. We will be paying for this for a long time in many different ways. :(

[Javaman]

16. No, duh. nt

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

18. From the world's most powerful dictator to guttersnipe overnight.

Hell of a legacy, Georgie Boy. Hell of a legacy.

[shrike]

19. I think that ship sailed before he made his remarks n/t

[RedLetterRev]

21. Whadda they mean "will" lose?

It's a bit late. That water is already over the dam and gone, thanks to all the cast and crew that made this day possible. Begin :sarcasm: For this award, we'd like to thank Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, John McCain and the cast of the Keating Five, the entire Bush Family, the entire Pierce family, the entire Harriman family, Grover Norquist, Mellon Scaife, every Republican in the House and Senate since 1972, many others too numerous to mention in the time and space we've been alloted before the music starts and we're ushered off the world stage ...

... and we'd also like to thank every other shill, enabler, apologist and propagandist who knew better but didn't do better. End :sarcasm:

For the crimes of fraud, larceny, election theft, and treason to name but a few, each and every one deserves to be depended from a short, stout rope from the nearest tall, sturdy object. If they had any honor, they'd do themselves, but -- look around -- QED, they don't.

:nuke:

[bullwinkle428]

22. (Blatantly stealing from Bill Maher) - On Bush's watch, we've lost

almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, the City of New Orleans, AND NOW OUR ECONOMY. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

[NC_Nurse]

23. Maybe that's a good thing in the long run. I've been thinking we were past

due for a fall like Rome when it was in it's last days. Corruption and shallow materialism have invaded the
culture and we are going down. Maybe if they'd just let it happen we could rise again as a better country.

Or maybe not. :shrug:

[fascisthunter]

24. Republicans Destroyed Their Number One Myth:

they they were better at handling the economy than Democrats

[The Backlash Cometh]

29. What took them so long?

[Hawkowl]

33. Good!

Because our system sucks a big, gangrenous ass. No health care, no labor rights, fraud and corruption on an unprecedented scale.

[David__77]

34. That would be a good thing.

Finance must be multi-polar. The whole world is clamoring for the end of the superpower system of world affairs. The end of the USSR as a superpower was only half of this task.

[indepat]

36. The US will always be a superpower debtor nation with a vast arsenal of

the most advanced lethal weaponry so graciously financed by other nations. :P

[Pavulon]

38. GER GDP divides in to US GDP leaving whole numbers

we buy their shit (cars, high end technical stuff, etc).

His explanation why his economy is jacked. Blind investment in Mortgage securities.

[greblc]

40. Will we then cut all foreign aid...

ad pull Troops out of Germany?