HeatherN offers a short primer on elections around the world.
With the years-long election cycle of the U.S. finally entering the final stages, it can be easy to ignore other countries’ elections. Huffington Post has a quick little article providing a rundown of six European countries that are holding general elections. Though the next “leader of the free world,” won’t be decided from these elections, quite a lot is still at stake. France’s Sarkozy looks like he might lost his election to Socialist Francois Hollande after five years in office. Greece, still reeling from the economic crisis, could end up without a government and have to hold elections again. Overall, Europe’s looking at some big changes.
Perhaps even more importantly, though, are the upcoming elections in Egypt. The three men who appear to be at the front of the race are Mubarak’s former foreign minister Amr Moussa, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, and a moderate Islamist, Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh. The results of this election could have a huge effect on Egypt’s future. And yet, there seems to be a growing and legitimate fear that the military is doing what it can to retain power, regardless of who ends up being elected. Perhaps the label of “Arab Spring” was applied too early, and too ethnocentrically.
Which elections this year do you think will have the greatest global impact?
Is there a candidate you are hoping for in any of these elections?
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About HeatherN
I’m concerned for Europe over the push against austerity measures by Hollande. Asia is drastically reducing their imports of the manufacturing equipment that Germany produces and all of this is coming down hard on the European economy. Many economists who don’t “cheerlead” but are more realistic are noting these changes and warning of a worldwide megadepression. While the USA is fueling the dollar bubble by silently printing off more and more dollar bills, its only creating a larger problem for the rest of the world. Asia is being more realistic about the coming recession over the next few years and has been scooping up precious metal like a fat kid grabs candy! They are grabbing as much as they can before the value of their money drops off dramatically. Once that happens, Europe is really going to be hurting and America will too (though not nearly as bad for us statesiders). America has a better cushion than Asia or Europe because our economy is more diverse. But Europe has become highly dependent on emerging Asian markets and Asia is highly dependent on their exports to America. They’ve seen a dramatic fall in American sales and have been adjusting their workforce and imports accordingly.
The biggest bubbles haven’t yet popped! The personal debt bubble is going to be worse than the whole real estate bubble, with jobless rates being worse than reported (unemployment rates in USA are based on the number of people COLLECTING benefits and not the number of people out of work, i.e. doesn’t count those people no longer eligible for benefits or the people who are under employed with jobs paying minimum wage). The ‘Dollar Bubble’ (inflation) will be the biggest and last one before the worst of it. Congress doesn’t have control over the Fed (which is a privately owned bank, not a government run entity) and it has been providing more and more under the table handouts to banks that are not being reported, hence the short lived push for an audit of the Fed earlier this year.
In the end, european elections are going to have the greatest effect on the world economy, while middle eastern ‘elections’ are going to have the most influence in human rights. But I predict the ‘Arab Spring’ was only a trial run and things will get much worse. And no one will openly admit it, but NATO and the rest of the world will get involved, because wars boost the economy more than any other events in history!
Gordon,
I’m genuinely curious where you get your information from.
I’ve studied economics for years, and very few of the things you say match the predictions that I’ve read.
For example, you wrote:
“unemployment rates in USA are based on the number of people COLLECTING benefits and not the number of people out of work, i.e. doesn’t count those people no longer eligible for benefits or the people who are under employed with jobs paying minimum wage:”
While it’s true that the unemployment rate doesn’t count the “underemployed” the unemployment rate also doesn’t come from counting benefits. The BLS, which provides the most widely cited unemployment rate in the US, computes it using two separate surveys: one of households and one of businesses. None of their data comes from government benefits.
Furthermore, you referenced a “personal debt bubble” but this sort of hard to believe given that household debt levels are their lowest since 1994 (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/business/not-exactly-a-miracle-but-us-debt-levels-are-falling.html ).
I’m not saying everything is coming up roses, but there seems to be some serious disagreement here.