Welcome to the Utopia Forums! Register a new account
The current time is Thu Mar 28 05:13:14 2024

Utopia Talk / Politics / Eurozone crosses Rubicon
swordtail
Anarchist Prime
Sun Oct 25 17:26:20
Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal's anti-euro Left banned from power

Constitutional crisis looms after anti-austerity Left is denied parliamentary prerogative to form a majority government


By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

4:30PM BST 23 Oct 2015

Portugal has entered dangerous political waters. For the first time since the creation of Europe’s monetary union, a member state has taken the explicit step of forbidding eurosceptic parties from taking office on the grounds of national interest.


Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to appoint a Left-wing coalition government even though it secured an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament and won a mandate to smash the austerity regime bequeathed by the EU-IMF Troika.


• Indebted Portugal is still the problem child of the eurozone


He deemed it too risky to let the Left Bloc or the Communists come close to power, insisting that conservatives should soldier on as a minority in order to satisfy Brussels and appease foreign financial markets.

Democracy must take second place to the higher imperative of euro rules and membership.

“In 40 years of democracy, no government in Portugal has ever depended on the support of anti-European forces, that is to say forces that campaigned to abrogate the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact, the Growth and Stability Pact, as well as to dismantle monetary union and take Portugal out of the euro, in addition to wanting the dissolution of NATO,” said Mr Cavaco Silva.

“This is the worst moment for a radical change to the foundations of our democracy.

"After we carried out an onerous programme of financial assistance, entailing heavy sacrifices, it is my duty, within my constitutional powers, to do everything possible to prevent false signals being sent to financial institutions, investors and markets,” he said.

Mr Cavaco Silva argued that the great majority of the Portuguese people did not vote for parties that want a return to the escudo or that advocate a traumatic showdown with Brussels.

This is true, but he skipped over the other core message from the elections held three weeks ago: that they also voted for an end to wage cuts and Troika austerity. The combined parties of the Left won 50.7pc of the vote. Led by the Socialists, they control the Assembleia.

• Stalemate threatens to derail eurozone's model pupil

The conservative premier, Pedro Passos Coelho, came first and therefore gets first shot at forming a government, but his Right-wing coalition as a whole secured just 38.5pc of the vote. It lost 28 seats.

The Socialist leader, Antonio Costa, has reacted with fury, damning the president’s action as a “grave mistake” that threatens to engulf the country in a political firestorm.

“It is unacceptable to usurp the exclusive powers of parliament. The Socialists will not take lessons from professor Cavaco Silva on the defence of our democracy,” he said.

Mr Costa vowed to press ahead with his plans to form a triple-Left coalition, and warned that the Right-wing rump government will face an immediate vote of no confidence.

There can be no fresh elections until the second half of next year under Portugal’s constitution, risking almost a year of paralysis that puts the country on a collision course with Brussels and ultimately threatens to reignite the country’s debt crisis.

The bond market has reacted calmly to events in Lisbon but it is no longer a sensitive gauge now that the European Central Bank is mopping up Portuguese debt under quantitative easing.

Portugal is no longer under a Troika regime and does not face an immediate funding crunch, holding cash reserves above €8bn. Yet the IMF says the country remains “highly vulnerable” if there is any shock or the country fails to deliver on reforms, currently deemed to have “stalled”.

Public debt is 127pc of GDP and total debt is 370pc, worse than in Greece. Net external liabilities are more than 220pc of GDP.

The IMF warned that Portugal's “export miracle” remains narrowly based, the headline gains flattered by re-exports with little value added. “A durable rebalancing of the economy has not taken place,” it said.

“The president has created a constitutional crisis,” said Rui Tavares, a radical green MEP. “He is saying that he will never allow the formation of a government containing Leftists and Communists. People are amazed by what has happened.”

Mr Tavares said the president has invoked the spectre of the Communists and the Left Bloc as a “straw man” to prevent the Left taking power at all, knowing full well that the two parties agreed to drop their demands for euro-exit, a withdrawal from Nato and nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy under a compromise deal to the forge the coalition.

• Defiant Portugal shatters the eurozone's political complacency

President Cavaco Silva may be correct is calculating that a Socialist government in league with the Communists would precipitate a major clash with the EU austerity mandarins. Mr Costa’s grand plan for Keynesian reflation – led by spending on education and health – is entirely incompatible with the EU’s Fiscal Compact.

This foolish treaty law obliges Portugal to cut its debt to 60pc of GDP over the next 20 years in a permanent austerity trap, and to do it just as the rest of southern Europe is trying to do the same thing, and all against a backdrop of powerful deflationary forces worldwide.

The strategy of chipping away at the country’s massive debt burden by permanent belt-tightening is largely self-defeating, since the denominator effect of stagnant nominal GDP aggravates debt dynamics.

It is also pointless. Portugal will require a debt write-off when the next global downturn hits in earnest. There is no chance whatsoever that Germany will agree to EMU fiscal union in time to prevent this.

The chief consequence of drawing out the agony is deep hysteresis in the labour markets and chronically low levels of investment that blight the future.

Mr Cavaco Silva is effectively using his office to impose a reactionary ideological agenda, in the interests of creditors and the EMU establishment, and dressing it up with remarkable Chutzpah as a defence of democracy.

The Portuguese Socialists and Communists have buried the hatchet on their bitter divisions for the first time since the Carnation Revolution and the overthrow of the Salazar dictatorship in the 1970s, yet they are being denied their parliamentary prerogative to form a majority government.

This is a dangerous demarche. The Portuguese conservatives and their media allies behave as if the Left has no legitimate right to take power, and must be held in check by any means.

These reflexes are familiar – and chilling – to anybody familiar with 20th century Iberian history, or indeed Latin America. That it is being done in the name of the euro is entirely to be expected.

Greece’s Syriza movement, Europe’s first radical-Left government in Europe since the Second World War, was crushed into submission for daring to confront eurozone ideology. Now the Portuguese Left is running into a variant of the same meat-grinder.

Europe’s socialists face a dilemma. They are at last waking up to the unpleasant truth that monetary union is an authoritarian Right-wing enterprise that has slipped its democratic leash, yet if they act on this insight in any way they risk being prevented from taking power.

Brussels really has created a monster.

http://www...ro-Left-banned-from-power.html


Forwyn
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:40:59
Is he denying his Constitutional duty and the results of the election because they differ with his personal politics?

If so, he should be Mussolini'd
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:45:26
Technically he's not violating the Constitution, he's just acting in bad faith, dispelling the notion that his office is impartial setting up the government for guaranteed failure. But he's not acting unlawfully.
Forwyn
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:46:36
So there's no obligation to appoint the winners of the election?

God, European politics are retarded.
Ork
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:49:12
This seems like a good way to get a revolution going.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:49:26
The (flawed) logic is that he offered the formation of a new government to the party that placed first, even though that party proved to be unable to form a coalition that would constitute a majority.

My guess is that the President knows that the new government will fail, at which point he calls for new elections and hopes that he's scared the masses with threats of economic instability enough that, this time, the people will vote for the "right" parties. It's a scumbag move, but he has the right.
CrownRoyal
Member
Sun Oct 25 17:51:47
head of state can choose who is going to for government, so yeah, this is not unlawful. Horrible politics though, it is going to lead to even more radical parties. And practically speaking, how are they going to govern if socialists have a majority. First chance they get, they a going to vote no-confidence. So, new elections?
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Sun Oct 25 17:52:50
Marco Rubio should start calling himself 'the Rubicon', sounds cooler (& less hispanic...)
CrownRoyal
Member
Sun Oct 25 18:13:32
apparently previous president refused to allow a right-wing majority coalition to form government so perhaps this is normal for portugal, nothing to do with left or right
CrownRoyal
Member
Sun Oct 25 18:31:24
"The conservative premier, Pedro Passos Coelho, came first and therefore gets first shot at forming a government, but his Right-wing coalition as a whole secured just 38.5pc of the vote. "

"just 38.5" seems like an odd description here, since it is more than any other party

http://www.legislativas2015.mai.gov.pt/
jergul
large member
Sun Oct 25 18:39:53
God I hope the police do not kill anyone in the inevitable riots.

Seb would be forced to call for a humanitarian intervention to bomb the crap out of the country.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 18:43:25
No, see, Seb only thinks humanitarian intervention is warranted when the government in question isn't considered to be a UK ally. In this case, however, the regime forces could massacre half of Lisbon and he wouldn't care in the slightest.
CrownRoyal
Member
Sun Oct 25 18:55:10
Poland also had an election today, look at the intricacies of first-past-the-post parliamentary system. 39% of vote means you have a rare outright majority


http://www...a6d4728f74e.html#ixzz3pcvb5VCP

Exit polls forecast that PiS had won 39.1 per cent of the vote, comfortably ahead of PO on 23.4 per cent. Preliminary official results were expected early on Monday morning.
TV channels forecast that the party would win 242 seats, which would be the first outright majority in the 26-year history of democratic Poland."
Garyd
Member
Sun Oct 25 20:52:33
This is the fun of the multiparty parliamentary state. Especilly when no party has a clear majority..
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:03:13
"So there's no obligation to appoint the winners of the election?"

Nope. Almost all European nations are Parliamentary, which means the elected government serves at the pleasure of the Head of State. In some countries the Head of State is an elected President, in others they are a hereditary monarchy.

To form a government, you must have the support of a majority of the parliament. Keep in mind however, that what the Head of State can do in a Parliamentary democracy is give preference to one party leader over another to form a government should no one party earn a majority of parliamentary seats.

In practice the Head of State will give the majority party first whack at forming a government. But they do not HAVE too. Especially for a "majority" party representing 30% of the electorate.

Portugal has not "crossed the Rubicon". Nor is their President acting in bad faith.
jergul
large member
Sun Oct 25 21:23:54
Aeros
Untrue.

The situation here is like the US electoral college choosing to elect the other guy. Sure they can do that, but it would be a travesty.

Under federal law, they can cast their vote any way they like and their vote would be valid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:37:50
Not even a close comparison. He's just given the 27% party a chance to form a government first over the 30% party. It does not mean they will succeed, but they could.

The USA is a first past the post election system. Parliaments just require you get the most people to vote for you IN PARLIAMENT. The people are a supporting reference.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:40:38
ITT, Aeros shows his failure to understand what coalitions and simple majority requirements for legislation are. Why was I forced to pay for your (obviously worthless) college education again?
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:40:59
You would have to make tortured references to try and compare the US System to Parliamentary democracies. Things like saying the Speaker of the House is the Prime Minister, Obama is the King and so on. It holds no water.
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:41:59
"ITT, Aeros shows his failure to understand what coalitions and simple majority requirements for legislation are. Why was I forced to pay for your (obviously worthless) college education again"

Are you saying a party with a 27% hold in a parliament would be unable to form a coalition with other parties to reach 50.1%?
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:42:38
When the "majority" party is only 30%? No party in Portugal represents the "will of the people".
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:44:21
First of all, it's 39% and 31%. And secondly, yes, the 39% came back and said that they were unable to form a coalition government, after which the 31% said they could.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:46:46
And the whole idea of coalitions is that, collectively, the member parties DO represent the "will of the people." Personally, I think it's fucking retarded, but there you go.
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:48:37
So there you go. All the President has done is given first go to a party with a small plurality of parliament over the party who had a somewhat larger plurality.
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:50:41
Neither party is a majority, and thus neither party "won" the election. That is why they need to form a coalition. They did not win. Since the US System is first past the post, this might seem strange. In a multi party struggle, whoever manages to get the most wins. We could have a President representing the will of just 20% of the American population, if there were 7 other parties who only managed to garner 10% of the vote each.

You can now see the inherent problems with our own system now.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:51:39
Except he gave a party that CAN'T form a majority a run at a government against a party that CAN, with the near-inevitable result that the government will be unable to pass anything at all and will immediately face a motion of no-confidence. And hey, maybe in the resulting chaos, the president ends up getting the result that he wants. But there will be chaos.
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:53:18
In which case that's egg on the Presidents face for being a dumb fuck for giving first whack to a party who can't form a government.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:55:14
"You can now see the inherent problems with our own system now."

Coalitions are fucking retarded, as is the concept of 3+ party politics. There are only two positions that you can take on any issue, yes or no. Our system isn't perfect but it's far better than that bullshit.
Hot Rod
Revved Up
Sun Oct 25 21:57:26

Aeros, you need the republicans to get the government straight again so you will something to give away the next time you are in power.

Or so you can get back in power.

Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:58:48
The problem is not yes or no on any given issue. The problem is which issues you agree too in your party platform and which you reject.

The Republican Party is living proof of this schizophrenia, as it tries to fuse ultra-leftist Anarcho Capitalists with Ultra-Rightist Christian Conservatives, who between the two are squeezing the Conservatives who want a strong moral state with decisive federal authority on issues of morality and no meddling in business.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 25 21:59:38
By the way, this is a complete tangent, but how embarrassing is it for Portugal that 1) a party of this name exists, and 2) that is has a seat in the legislature?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-Animals-Nature
Aeros
Member
Sun Oct 25 22:00:46
Portugal has only been a democracy for 40 years. They are still working out the kinks.
jergul
large member
Mon Oct 26 00:48:52
Aeros
My point was in regards to the mechanisms. In the US system, the electoral college is free to fill the office with the candidate of its choice.

Similarly, the Constitutional possibility that a head of state might invite something other than a majority block to form a government exists, is about as damning as an electoral college electing the wrong president.
seb
Member
Mon Oct 26 04:04:10
Jergul:

See, this is why you get two line responses - either you are too stupid to see the difference between a deaths from proportionate civil policing, and unleashing the army effort going on national TV to threaten to go "house by house to cleanse the country".

Rugian:
Increasingly, the West had for relations with Gaddafi, until the point he reverted to his mean.

Obviously, anyone you are in a conflict with isn't an ally, so your possession is trivially true.

seb
Member
Mon Oct 26 04:04:58
Jergul:

Hanging sentence: too stupid or just disingenuous. Either way, two line response is ask that is required.
seb
Member
Mon Oct 26 04:08:04
The farce of the eurozone continues.

Economic crisis -> social crisis -> political crisis.

Madness, just madness.
Paramount
Member
Mon Oct 26 05:27:12
"And practically speaking, how are they going to govern if socialists have a majority. First chance they get, they a going to vote no-confidence. So, new elections?"


Yes, new elections until the "correct" block wins.
Garyd
Member
Mon Oct 26 09:47:00
Or until one of the major opposition parties gets 50% of the vote in which case the party in power automatically loses power.

Seb how do you fix it? Near as I can tell a lot of it is just that a southern tier that is very heavily reliant on tourism is tired of German economic domination.
pillz
Member
Mon Oct 26 10:54:49
There is no reason southern Europe needs to be reliant on tourism. At a time they had limited industry and they still have lots of agricultural capacity.

It's just a matter of time until it blows up and they tell Germany and North Europe to fuck themselves.
CrownRoyal
Member
Mon Oct 26 11:09:14
"Yes, new elections until the "correct" block wins."

From what I am reading if the center-right fails to form govt, then the left gets a stab at it. Not new elections. The OP seems overly dramatic, upon further reading. Also, hard to see what EU has to do with it, this is Portuguese politics, even if EU idiotic austerity is behind most of the problems in the south.
jergul
large member
Mon Oct 26 11:15:32
Seb
Kettle-pot, put damn, you take yourself way to seriously.
Garyd
Member
Mon Oct 26 11:42:29
The problem isn't austerity but trying to carry out pie in the sky promises that given the economies of the countries involved should never have been made in the first place. When you owe your ass to a third party creditor who doesn't live in your country and he decides that if you don't change how you do business he's not going to continue ad infinitum to support your stupidity. So you havea choice, You can comply with his requests or you can plan on going down like a crack whore three days late for her fix.
jergul
large member
Mon Oct 26 12:02:55
Sovereign debt does not work that way Garyd.
garyd
Member
Mon Oct 26 14:01:34
Tell it to Greece...
Aeros
Member
Mon Oct 26 14:15:44
Tell that to the idiots who wanted a monetary union without what that entailed. Centralized budget and banking control.

This is not Greece or Portugal fault. Europe wanted the cake of a loose confederacy and want to eat it like it was a strong federal entity. It failed as everyone said it would.

Europe is discovering why the United States failed to have a working confederation. States were pursuing policies in opposition to national strategy. They also issued independent currencies or were debasing the national one and it was all in all a huge economic and political mess.

Europe is going to have to decide what it wants to be. Because confederations of such a size the EU is right now never work. They will have to federalize or else scrap the common currency and EU legislative system.
jergul
large member
Mon Oct 26 14:23:06
Or just wait for depopulation to reduce the EU to a manageable size.
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 26 15:11:23
Gary D:

So the solution is obvious - the ECB is furiously engaging in QE. If they focused that on buying peripheral debt in exchange for pro growth reforms then you would have the makings of a solution.

Instead the weighting is far more towards the core economies as its weighted by BBC economy (on the grounds that otherwise its a fiscal transfer by pushing down borrowing costs for peripheral countries).

However any analysis of the crisis shows that actually that precise mechanism has resulted in huge fiscal transfers to the core, predominantly Germany.

Instead a huge deflationary pressure OS being forced onto the periphery instead.

Anti austerity is completely the correct policy - its destroying demand in the eurozone, and its also creating systemic weakness through mass youth unemployment and decline in education systems, and suppressing uptake of tertiary education.
Garyd
Member
Tue Oct 27 10:23:35
You had heavy youth unemployment before anyone ever heard of Austerity Seb. Unless you think all the kids should go to work for the government you're stuck with that until you relax some of the regulations that make hiring kids especially those that can get pregnant essentially unemployable.

Pro growth at least pro private sector growth requires less government intrusion and more economic freedom. To the extent that Austerity in Europe requires higher taxes you are correct. Government isn't an economic engine it is an economic break. QE can work provided you are willing to let off the other two brakes on economic growth the government holds, taxes and regulations if you don't QE just produces other economic distortions as you try to pour evermore liquidity into the same size pipe.
Seb
Member
Tue Oct 27 12:59:22
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=youth+unemployment+rate+portugal&client=ms-android-samsung&prmd=nisv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAmoVChMIqpCR4YbjyAIVh4NyCh1MHgLo&biw=360&bih=559#imgrc=ClD11X5Qk9QTAM%3A

The crisis made it much much worse.

The main thing affecting youth unemployment is first jobs (normally retail and simple services) which are being clobbered by declining demand.

Austerity exacerbates this by cutting public worker salaries in real terms, laying public workers off, and cutting unemployment benefit and pensions.

All of these have dramatic impact on aggregate demand, and worsen fiscal position because you loose the taxes on the businesses these people were supporting.

If you want to think of it in terms of trickle down - its the reverse of a tax cut. Tax cuts boost disposable income and people go out and spend the money boosting demand and increasing economic activity, which can pay for itself in some circumstances. OTOH Aggressively cutting spending in a recession while holding taxes the same or increasing them does the reverse. You can end up with a worse economic performance than if you had persisted with the deficit.

There are much less damaging ways to correct the imbalance and reduce deficits.

Portugal, Spain and even Greece have dramatically reduced regulatory burdens. Potugal is only one place behind Germany (and three behind the US) in forbes best place to do business list. And Greece has made huge improvement up that list even as the econony continues to tank.

Sucking money and credit out of the econony really isn't a solution.
Garyd
Member
Tue Oct 27 19:28:27
Demand is declining not because of austerity but because strangely tourism is down...
Garyd
Member
Tue Oct 27 19:29:15
And again high youth unemployment in the Eurozone has been the norm for decades.
pillz
Member
Tue Oct 27 20:32:25
Garyd legitimately believes these countries subside entirely on tourism?
Aeros
Member
Tue Oct 27 21:13:11
Of course. Garyd knows only America makes stuff and does stuff. Everyone else needs American tourists.
Rugian
Member
Tue Oct 27 21:17:52
On the flip side, other than the whole "Hey this is Europe and Europe is kewl" angle, what incentive does ANY business have to set up shop in that utter hellhole? Literally every other place in the world offers better profit margins. The Europeans themselves, being the very archetypes of postmodern lethargy, have nothing to offer other than the legacy of the wealth accumulated when their great-grandfathers were plundering the globe of its riches. Seriously, fuck Europe.
Garyd
Member
Tue Oct 27 22:09:55
I speak of course in the main of the Southern tier. And please I never said they were entirely dependent on tourism just heavily so. Italy is less so than the others, however. And is consequently in better shape And where, Aeros. did you get the idea that only Americans are tourists? Damn are majoring in lame or stupid these day Pillz?
Seb
Member
Wed Oct 28 02:59:10
Garyd:

Taking 25% of youths out of the consumer base of going to have a much bigger impact.

Besides, tourism isn't down.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=spain+international+arrivals&prmd=imnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIztvLvdfkyAIVhroaCh0QdwO7&biw=360&bih=559#imgrc=4IAGMQNAS1qvq%3AA

High youth unemployment has doubled in the peripheries since the crisis. See first link in last post.


jergul
large member
Wed Oct 28 04:27:20
Thank god employment opportunities exist for them in Syria.
CrownRoyal
Member
Fri Oct 30 09:09:59
http://twitter.com/ambroseep/status/659485598865096704

OP author -

"@AmbroseEP: Storm over my Portugal (opinion) blog goes on. For the record, I never said it was a coup or that Brussels forced Cavaco to do anything"
Garyd
Member
Fri Oct 30 21:53:58
If your still five places behind the US which is adding something on the order of 80k new regulations a year you aren't really serious about deregulation. By the way the WSJ is now the mouth piece for crony capitalists.

The US tax code is roughly ten times as long as Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and far more poorly written. Add to that the fact that it is mainly about micromanaging people's economic activities and not incidentally making sure that mom and pop never become a threat to major corporations, than it is about generating revenue. Now tack on to the fifty different state tax codes and more than a few city tax codes.
Seb
Member
Sat Oct 31 07:25:09
Gary D-

Mostly because it's full of business friendly tax exemptions!

Look, the data demonstrates you are wrong.

Firstly you said youth unemployment was ahistoric persistent problem, but evidence shows its doubled. Then you said it was due to tourism, but tourism has increased even as unemployment remains high and the economy stagnates. Then you said it was regulations - but all countries have actually improved their position in that respect dramatically while growth has remained weak and unemployment remained high.

The UK and the US recovered because in both there was monetary stimulus through QE and a readiness to realise banks losses and sort them out so they could lend to businesses; fiscal stimulus that boosted demand (in the UK most of this was through automatic counter cyclical stabilisers) and mild fiscal consolidation (in the US the sequester in the UK through the greatly misnamed "austerity" - which actually meant holding down the growth in govt expenditure overall and delaying capital investment). In effect, the combination of policies is not dissimilar to those that are supposed to make a tax cut based stimulus work.

Thus the US and UK have recovered.

Meanwhile the Eurozone had largely not forced its banks to realise bad loans, it's delayed monetary stimulus and perversely applying it to countries that need it least, and engaged in a deflationary attempt to increase growth by driving down wages in the periphery as though they were big exporters - which has only achieved hollowing out of their internal economies to the point that it's negatively affecting their prospects as exporters anyway.

Essentially they have done the reverse of a tax cut - increasing the cost of living and reducing disposable income. It is a no hrainer that this leads to depression. In essence it is a re-run of the countries that persisted in maintaining the gold standard during the great depression.

Garyd
Member
Sat Oct 31 07:47:44
Dude most if not all of it gives unfair advantages to some businesses while penalizing others. This is scarcely a recovery We've had two quarters since Obama became president in which economic growth has been as much as 3%. Last quarter was less than 2%.
swordtail
Anarchist Prime
Tue Nov 10 12:15:54
http://www...nment-falls-after-11-days.html
show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message:
Bookmark and Share