04-25-2012, 05:07 AM
(04-24-2012, 02:19 PM)kandrathe Wrote: I'm wondering today if the fall of the Dutch government signals the beginning of a new decline in the EU. Will the EU be able to keep a hard line on spending if stalwart Netherlands balks? It will be hard on the people whether its pensions, or a failed financial system crushed by defaults and debt. For the US, where things are beginning to heal, this might just be the tug that tears open the recession wound again.
*in occhi voice* 'you stupid american, why are writing about things that are going on in the netherlands'
Seriously: just some information for people who are interested.
Yesterday the dutch government fell because they couldn't agree on measure to get the government budget deficit back to 3%. One of the coalition parties (the populistic PVV from Geert Wilders) didn't longer want to cut in pensions so he stopped the discussions.
Of course he could have also known that 2 months ago.
The big thing here is that the Netherlands has always been the most strict in telling other countries to get their budgets straight, and now, because we will have new elections probably we wont be able to get under the 3% deficit in 2013.
Some of the parties now say they don't want to keep with this strict 3% rule and say to take it easy and reach the 3% a few years later and other parties want to do everything they can to get the deficit back to 3% already next year. Elections will be September 12th.
Personally I don't think there is a huge problem and the proposed heavy budget cuts might have actually been worse for the economy than a bit more lenient method but having no government in this time is of course a bad thing.
Another thing that is bad in the Netherlands that people here also have relatively high personal debts (mortgages mainly) which of course is one of those things that can make things tip over to the wrong side when there is a financial crisis.