WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it’s up to voters now to make their position known to Congress.
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Showing posts with label voters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voters. Show all posts
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
German Finance Minister says Italian voters have not rejected euro
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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble pauses during a Reuters interview in Berlin February 27, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz
BERLIN |
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said he does not believe Italians rejected the euro in their strong vote against austerity policies in last month’s election.
Urging Italy’s leaders to stick with the economic overhaul started by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, Schaeuble said: “I do not think that the euro or Europe or even the economic policy of the Monti government were the decisive factors behind the election result.”
Merkel’s challenger for the chancellor’s job in Germany’s election in September, the Social Democrats’ Peer Steinbrueck, caused irritation in Italy and embarrassment in Germany last week when he described anti-establishment politician Beppe Grillo and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as “clowns”.
But in an interview with Austrian daily Der Standard published on Saturday, Schaeuble emphasized Italy’s efforts to control its sovereign debt burden, one of the world’s biggest.
“Italy has steadily improved its competitiveness with the structural reforms of the past one and a half years, it has improved its financial position and won the trust of the markets. That is the right policy, regardless of the outcome of the elections,” he said.
“It would therefore be wrong to change the path now. There is a politically complicated situation in Italy now, we know that, but the Italians will have the strength to form a government out of this,” Schaeuble added.
The pro-euro center-left won a majority in Italy’s lower house but not in the upper house Senate in the February poll, raising the prospect of fresh elections in a few months’ time.
Reinforcing market concerns over the political stalemate, rating agency Fitch cut Italy’s credit rating on Friday. Italy has been in recession since the middle of 2011.
Grillo wants a referendum on Italy’s membership of the euro bloc while Berlusconi has criticized what he sees as German economic “diktat” in the currency bloc.
Schaeuble and Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly backed Monti’s policies and have been cautious in their comments since the election for fear of bolstering his opponents.
But Rainer Bruederle of the Free Democrats, the junior partner in Merkel’s center-right coalition, voiced a widely shared German fear this week when he said Italy may decide to exit the euro or take other drastic action.
(Reporting by Gareth Jones; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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German Finance Minister says Italian voters have not rejected euro
Thursday, March 7, 2013
63% Think Congress Can Always Make Things Worse (the Other 37% are Wrong)
An amusing poll by Rasmussen shows 63% Think Congress Can Always Make Things Worse.
Poll Questions
- Generally speaking how do you rate the way that Congress is doing its job? Excellent good fair or poor?
- Over the past year, has Congress passed any legislation that will significantly improve life in America?
- What is a more important role for Congress – passing good legislation or preventing bad legislation from becoming law?
- Who does the average congressman listen to the most — the voters they represent or party leaders in Congress?
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: No matter how bad things are, Congress can always find a way to make them worse?
Results
- 9% of Likely U.S. Voters think the average member of Congress listens to the voters he or she represents more than to congressional party leaders. 81% believe the average member listens most to his or her party’s leaders in Congress. 10% are not sure.
- 63% Think Congress Can Always Make Things Worse. [The rest are obviously wrong - Mish]
The article did not give the answers to the first three questions. A related article shows 8% Think Congress Is Doing A Good or Excellent Job
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
63% Think Congress Can Always Make Things Worse (the Other 37% are Wrong)
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Germany"s SPD tries to win voters with pledge to tame markets
BERLIN, March 3 |
BERLIN, March 3 (Reuters) – Germany’s Social Democrats are vowing to “tame” financial market radicalism, split up banks and raise taxes on high earners in a left-leaning campaign programme the party hopes will help it defeat popular Chancellor Angela Merkel in a September election.
According to a draft of the programme seen by Reuters on Sunday, the SPD said no financial market participants, financial products or markets should be left unregulated in the future.
“The era of market radicalism is over. The ideology of conservatives and neo-liberals that markets look after the common good and increase prosperity by themselves was … buried under the ruins of the global financial catastrophe,” it said in a draft which the SPD executive will discuss on Monday.
“Europe needs to be at the vanguard of new market regulations with which we will tame the financial markets.”
The SPD hopes its shift left, prompted by Merkel’s move to the centre, and its increasingly sharp attacks against the powers of big banks will help it win back voters who deserted the party in the 2009 election when its percentage of the vote fell to a post-war low of 23 percent.
An Emnid poll on Sunday showed support for the SPD was at 27 percent.
SPD leader Peer Steinbrueck has got off to a bad start with his campaign however, alienating many core supporters by revealing his lucrative earnings as a public speaker, saying chancellors should earn more and scoffing at wine that costs less than 5 euros a bottle.
This week he also caused an uproar by calling Italian former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo “clowns” following their strong performance in weekend elections.
In its draft programme the SPD reiterated its plans to separate retail and investment banking and said it wanted to regulate the shadow banking system, ban speculative financial products and force derivatives trading onto regulated platforms.
The party also said it wanted to limit high-frequency trading and impose minimum holding periods on the practice which involves numerous lightning-speed automatic trades that make money from tiny price moves in the market and which has been blamed for causing market volatility.
The party said it planned to raise the top rate of tax to 49 percent after the last SPD-Greens government cut the top tax bracket: “In future we want to draw more on high earners and the wealthy to finance our community,” the draft read.
It also said it wanted European states to coordinate more closely on tax policy and introduce compulsory minimum standards for corporate profits and income from capital.
The SPD said it would call for a European restructuring fund for big banks and a European investment and reconstruction fund which would make financing EU-wide programmes to promote sustainable growth and boost domestic demand mandatory.
The party hopes to seize on evidence that many Germans have not benefited from robust growth in 2010 and 2011, when Germany’s economic output grew by a post-reunification record of 4.2 percent and 3 percent respectively.
It said it wanted a debt redemption fund and a compulsory plan for debt reduction and reforms so that the European Central Bank no longer has to intervene in bond markets. (Reporting by Holger Hansen and Michelle Martin; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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Germany"s SPD tries to win voters with pledge to tame markets
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