Opinion (Daniel Gros, Director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies): “At high-level gatherings of the European Union elite, one often hears the following type of statement: ‘Europe must integrate and centralize economic governance in order to defend its social model in an age of globalization.’ …

“But the claim that only deeper EU integration can save the ‘European’ social model from the onslaught of emerging markets is not true. Yes, globalization represents a challenge to all EU member states; but it is not clear how more integration would help them to confront it. More European economic governance is not a panacea.

“In fact, it is not even clear which European social model needs to be saved. There are enormous differences among EU members in terms of the size of their public sectors, the flexibility of their labor markets, and almost any socio-economic indicator that one can think of. The common elements that are usually identified with the ‘European’ social model are a quest for equality and a strong welfare state.

“But neither of the main problems confronting Europe’s social-security systems – slow economic growth and aging populations (a function of low fertility) – can be addressed at the European level. …

“The key to ensuring the future of Europe’s social-security systems, and thus its social model, is faster growth. And, again, it is difficult to see how more Europe would improve the situation. The obstacles to growth are well known, and have existed for a long time without being removed. The reason is quite simple: if there were a politically easy way to generate growth, it would have been implemented already.

“Moreover, most national policymakers have a tendency to blame ‘Brussels’ for all of their difficult choices, thus creating the impression at home that the economy would improve if economic affairs could be managed without EU interference. More integration is preached at the European level, but implicitly portrayed at home as an obstacle to growth.

“This double-speak on the part of national political elites is perceived as such by voters, whose trust in both national and EU institutions is naturally declining. The claim that Europe needs more integration to save its social model has long lost credibility. Integration is irrelevant to that question, and, in those areas where deeper integration really would benefit Europe, it appears to be the last thing that national leaders want.”

My Comment: It is necessary to look at the pressure put on us by objective natural forces of our development. No problem can be resolved internally within a country but only through their complete integration. But this assumes a preliminary change of general thinking from egoistic to integral thinking. This can be achieved within a few months by the method of integral education, which was not done before the formation of EU. But of course, the claim that integration will not save the EU is a profound mistake.
[98798]

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In the News (from Plan and the Overseas Development Institute): “Girls are bearing the brunt of the global economic recession – being more likely to experience poverty, reduced life expectancy and drop out of school, according to a new report from Plan and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). …

“It says family poverty hits girls hardest – with only a 1% fall in GDP increasing infant mortality by 7.4 deaths per 1,000 girls versus 1.5 for boys.

“The findings also indicate that food shortages and malnutrition are more common among girls than boys. Women also reduce their own food consumption to become ‘shock absorbers’ for household security.

“As women go out to work longer hours for less money, more girls are pushed out of school and into filling the gaps at home with domestic work, into hazardous child labour or even transactional sex.”

My Comment: Integral education leads us to building a society of equals, providing everyone with basic needs, and everyone’s duty to participate in their own correction (education and upbringing). If we stop producing more than is essential for existence, we will get rid of unnecessary and harmful work and will be able to raise ourselves to the next level dictated by nature, the level of integral humanity.
[98756]

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Opinion (Aditya Chakrabortty, columnist): “More than 2,500 business executives and bankers will converge on the highest town in Europe for the annual World Economic Forum. …

“The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Resilient dynamism.’

“As participants acknowledge, the real business lies in private sessions with industry peers and amenable politicians, and access to those starts at around £98,500.

“And this is what makes Davos so fascinating: it is the most perfect case study of how the practitioners of free-market, globalised capitalism give the public one explanation for what they are doing and why, while privately pursuing the complete opposite. … From its inception, the whole point of Davos has been to promulgate the gospel of free-market fundamentalism. …

“And it’s true: unlike previous generations of the ultra-wealthy, many of the modern super-rich work for a living, in running major businesses or in finance (although the Davos guestlist still includes plenty of sheikhs and royals). But that doesn’t mean they truly earn the millions they claim. …

“Take a look at who’s in the Davos set. Last spring, two American academics, Jon Bakija and Brad Helm, and a US Treasury official, Adam Cole, published the most comprehensive analysis yet of the richest 0.1% earners, based on tax returns. Of these top dogs, nearly two in three were top corporate executives and bankers. And the story in both those professions has not been of brilliant returns to shareholders or vast improvements for society, but of wealth extraction and lobbying politicians, Davos-style.

“Earlier generations would have known what to call this Davos set of wealth extractors and rip-off merchants. Andrew Sayer, a Lancaster professor working on a book to be called Why We Can’t Afford The Rich totes up the terms: Ruskin referred to such wealth as illth, the liberal JA Hobson as ‘improperty.’ Only now, the top 0.1% are able to conceal what they’re up to in plain sight.”

My Comment: Until people decide that only through changing themselves will they correct the world and that otherwise they will destroy themselves, everything will continue as dictated by our egoism, and everything will be done only for its sake, even if it does not lead to the better. After all, our nature is like the serpent that absorbs everything but is not sated. Only immense suffering will compel us to kill it (the path of suffering) … or we can come to the awareness that it is something that brings death (the path of awareness, Light).
[98669]

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In the News (from Espanarusa.com): “The economic crisis has disappointed Spaniards so much that 14% of unemployed people aged over 30 are willing to work for free, with no financial reward. The survey revealed that among the Spaniards, who have a job, 18% do not receive a salary. Three out of every four explain that working for free will help them find a paid position in the future.”

My Comment: Society is not obliged to provide everyone with work, but it must take care of providing basic necessities for everyone. It also should take care of integral education for all the citizens in order to bring society to equilibrium with Nature.
[98583]

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In the News (from Business Inquirer): “The world’s political and business elite gathered in the snow-covered resort of Davos on Wednesday, aiming to instil some confidence in the global economy amid tentative signs of recovery.

“About 45 world leaders will rub shoulders with around 2,500 lobbyists, journalists, captains of industry and economists in the picture-postcard Swiss ski resort for the five-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). …

“Organizers have chosen the theme ‘resilient dynamism,’ reflecting the need for an improvement in the structure of the global economy to resist sudden emergencies like the eurozone debt crisis.”

My Comment: As long as politicians and economists are not aware of the dead end in egoistic protectionist development, do not recognize that the future of the world lies in global integral development, sustainable production and consumption, avoiding excessive production, and accept the need for equal rational consumption by all the people in the world, up to the point of full integration of all of humanity as the next stage of our development, the crisis will inevitably force us to recognize our mistakes through its dramatic manifestations.
[98571]

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Opinion (José Barroso, President of the European Commission): “‘This crisis was not created by the European Union. This crisis was created by unsustainable public debt created by national governments and by irresponsible financial behaviour tolerated by national supervisors,’ he says. ‘The European Union is a victim of the crisis, not the cause of the crisis. We are not the problem. We are part of the solution.’ …

“‘Sometimes in the debate this is presented as a crisis of the euro, which it is not. The reality is that countries that are not in the euro are some of the most affected,’ he says. ‘For instance, the country that has done more to mobilise taxpayers’ money in supporting the banks was Britain, not a euro area country. Or let’s not forget the case of Iceland.’

“Austerity, he argues, has also been erroneously characterised as a European policy.

“‘Some people try to link the policy of rigour in public finances to the euro. This is a myth. Britain is having the most restricted budget since the second World War and Britain is not a member of the euro. It’s true that financial stability in the euro area, because of the differences among the 17 countries, raises specific challenges and that is what we have been trying to address.’”

My Comment: Not entering into a discussion with Barroso, we can say that there are objective laws of nature. To the extent of similarity with them, we win, and to the extent of our difference with them, we lose. And the more we develop, the more we feel either reward or punishment for the extent of our likeness to Nature. Excuses will not help us. It is possible to hide from criticism temporarily, but as Russia is paying for its “socialist” past, Europe will be paying for its incorrectly created unification for a long time.
[98268]

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Opinion (George Friedman, Chairman of Stratfor): “It is the political dimension that has become the most important, not the financial. It may well be that the European Union is in the process of dealing with its banking problems and might avoid other sovereign debt issues, but the price it has paid is both a recession and, much more serious, unemployment at a higher rate than in the United States overall, and enormously higher in some countries.

“We can divide the European Union into three categories by measuring it against the U.S. unemployment rate, which stands at about 7.7 percent. There are five EU countries significantly below that rate (Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, Netherlands and Malta). There are seven countries with unemployment around the U.S. rate (Romania, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the United Kingdom and Sweden). The remaining 15 countries are above U.S. unemployment levels; 11 have unemployment rates between 10 and 17 percent, including France at 10.7 percent, Italy at 11.1 percent, Ireland at 14.7 percent and Portugal at 16.3 percent. Two others are staggeringly higher — Greece at 25.4 percent and Spain at 26.2 percent. These levels are close to the unemployment rate in the United States at the height of the Great Depression.

“For advanced industrialized countries — some of the most powerful in Europe, for that matter — these are stunning numbers. It is important to consider what these numbers mean socially. Bear in mind that the unemployment rate goes up for younger workers. In Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece, more than a third of the workforce under 25 is reportedly unemployed. It will take a generation to bring the rate down to an acceptable level in Spain and Greece. Even for countries that remain at about 10 percent for an extended period of time, the length of time will be substantial, and Europe is still in a recession.

“Consider someone unemployed in his 20s, perhaps with a university degree. The numbers mean that there is an excellent chance that he will never have the opportunity to pursue his chosen career and quite possibly will never get a job at the social level he anticipated. In Spain and Greece, the young — and the old as well — are facing personal catastrophe. In the others, the percentage facing personal catastrophe is lower, but still very real. Also remember that unemployment does not affect just one person. It affects the immediate family, parents and possibly other relatives. The effect is not only financial but also psychological. It creates a pall, a sense of failure and dread.

“It also creates unrooted young people full of energy and anger. Unemployment is a root of anti-state movements on the left and the right. The extended and hopelessly unemployed have little to lose and think they have something to gain by destabilizing the state. It is hard to quantify what level of unemployment breeds that sort of unrest, but there is no doubt that Spain and Greece are in that zone and that others might be.

“It is interesting that while Greece has already developed a radical right movement of some size, Spain’s political system, while experiencing stress between the center and its autonomous regions, remains relatively stable. I would argue that that stability is based on a belief that there will be some solution to the unemployment situation. Its full enormity has not yet sunk in, nor the fact that this kind of unemployment problem is not fixed quickly. It is deeply structural. The U.S. unemployment rate during the Great Depression was mitigated to a limited degree by the New Deal but required the restructuring of World War II to really address.

“This is why 2013 is a critical year for Europe.”

My Comment: Although the year 2013 is not expected to be critical, but passing quietly, time weakens the EU and the world. There are more social, rather than economic, problems, but they cannot be solved except through the education of society because it is lost, has no guidance, leaders, or goals. People cannot be managed in these conditions, nothing new can be offered to them. That is why leaders disappear, and the boat is rocking in the middle of the ocean …
[98234]

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Opinion (Daniel Innerarity Grau, Spanish philosopher and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Zaragoza, Spain): “Power is the ability to define the situation, that is, to impose, by force and manipulation or argumentatively one’s vision. … In the EU, all the members participate in that.

“The euro crisis has caused break up of the weak union that was formed around certain shared goals and equally shared fears. But this union was fragile and yielded to the powerful voice of some states. …There is no solution to the institutional crisis of the EU until all the member states become convinced that they are not autonomous, but interdependent and hence are obliged to cooperate as a whole. ….

“An understanding and acceptance of these duties require a sense of co-belonging that no historical distinctiveness or administrative body seems able to provide. …

“The European Union is a real challenge to the idea that a national state is the only form of political community and identity. A uniform national identity is not a requirement either for democracy or for solidarity. … The European democratic experiment is precisely an attempt to share rights and responsibilities, costs and benefits, but without the guarantee of a national interaction of the old style.

“Consequently, Europe is established not only through institutional reforms, but also through shared practices. … Governments have to end up accepting, however reluctantly, the fact the European Commission will have more power.

My Comment: An egoistic approach by each country to the EU tears this union apart, and it is quickly heading towards its collapse. Salvation is only in intensive integration. But this is possible only under the condition of educating all the EU members in the spirit of unity. Its absence before the creation of the EU brought about all their problems. But this defect has not been corrected yet. It is necessary to implement integral education for the EU; otherwise, we will witness its collapse …
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In the News (from Global Talent Strategy): “According to the Ernst and Young Eurozone Forecast (EEF), 2013 will be a tough operating environment for both business and political leaders. Businesses need to plan for a European “lost decade” as growth will remain muted and unemployment will continue to rise throughout 2013, peaking at close to 20 million. The peak in unemployment is expected to be both higher and slower to unwind in the peripheral economies with the unemployment rate expected to reach over 28% in Greece, 26% in Spain and almost 17% in Portugal.”

My Comment: Inevitably, they should be engaged in integral education; otherwise, unrest will spread and flare up throughout the EU; that is, the error of not implementing mandatory integral education that was allowed when the EU was created needs to be corrected. The same error continues to this day with the reception of immigrants; they are not required to study and accept the laws and rules that exist in the society to which they immigrate.
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