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Subscribe to RSSReacting to Canadian PM Harper's contention that Europe should not seek bailout funds outside of Europe, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe doesn't need lessons from across the Atlantic.
At a press conference during the G20 Summit Monday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso fired back at critics who say Europe should bail itself out, arguing that the euro crisis was spurred by “unorthodox practices” across the Atlantic.
“We are extremely open and we are engaging with our partners but we certainly are not coming here to receive lessons from nobody!” Barroso, former prime minister of Portugal, exclaimed in English.
An hour before at the G20 Summit, held in Los Cabos, Mexico, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper challenged Europe to overhaul the Eurozone to create a “genuine” financial union, the Montreal Gazette reported. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard weighed in the day before, criticizing European leaders while boasting about her country’s economic growth, according to The Australian.
Barroso’s outburst was triggered by Canadian journalist David Akin, who asked him to explain “why North Americans should risk their assets for a Europe that many believe is wealthy enough to sort out its own problems.”
Canada and the United States have refused to contribute to a fund drive by the International Monetary Fund to help Europe. So far, the IMF has raised $430 billion from countries around the world -- about half of the money came from European nations -- to double its lending capability.
Although President Barack Obama would need Congress to approve a transfer to the IMF, a nearly impossible proposition, it appears the president wouldn't support the action. In April, his Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, said Europe should solve its own economic problems, The New York Times reported.
“Europe is a rich continent,” Geithner said, according to the Times.
The need to outline a lasting strategy to save the euro currency and the escalating violence in Syria are on the agenda, as world leaders meet in Los Cabos, Mexico for a G20 summit. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
Back at the summit, Barroso remained defensive.
“Many of our financial sectors were contaminated by, how can I put it? Unorthodox practice from some sectors of the financial market,” Barroso said, referring to Wall Street banking practices that triggered the recession.
PhotoBlog: World leaders pose for family picture at G20 summit
He added that while deliberations among the 27 members of the European Union may take time, Europeans do not need advice from other nations.
“Frankly, we are not coming here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy,” Barroso said. “The European Union has a model that we may be very proud of.”
NBC’s Rich Gardella contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misidentified Jose Manuel Barroso’s title. He was prime minister of Portugal from 2002 to 2004.
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Famous last words.probably.
The banks in England "invented fractional reserve lending...
1 dollar backs 10 dollars in loans and then that backs 100 dollars in loans to joe public. In affect making that ONE DOLLAR worth 100 dollars of debit owed plus interest.
In debited servitude while gaining interest the whole time. England and the European Union deserve everything they are getting for their PROUD banking system of sham and greed. The royalty lives off the interest earned off the workers. Oh the joy.....
Let England eat cake.....
So yes Vismaya, one can only hope for the famous last words of greed and money and most of all power buy a select few.
Better yet: "Europeans do not need CASH from other nations."
The IMF is nothing more than a tentacle of the United Nations for World redistribution of wealth.....and.... providing European BAILOUTS.
Pretty sad that some less fortunate member European Nations are required to provide the IMF with funding to bail out another European Nation and then have to pay a higher interest rate on the money they borrowed to give away for another BAILOUT. Sheeesh, this cannot go on forever.
Your European Union "model" is one which SHOULD NOT be used anywhere else in the World. It has not passed the litmus test. The EuroUnion is toast.
Shosyn....ah! It works almost exactly like the currency and commodity trading markets here in America!
“We are extremely open and we are engaging with our partners but we certainly are not coming here to receive lessons from nobody!” Barroso, also the president of Portugal
How can those who are used to lecturing all over the world, can receive lessons from others?
This is how "open" EU leaders are!
US, Canada are doing the right thing by not opening the purse to save sinking ship!
Remember: Portugal is part of the PIIGS!
Since the US is providing 20% of the funds the IMF will potentially use to bailout the EU, they certainly have to listen to what the US has to say. If they don't want our money, we can certainly take away the back stop.
Of course, this may lead to further decline of the Euro, which will further damage the European economy (to which we sell a lot) which will hurt our economy.
You can't win, however, this person is acting as stupid as the Tea Party members who say they don't want any federal government interference in their Social Security.
Can't they just tax their rich more and fix all the problems?
Batches? We don't need no stinkin' batches.
it only took eight year ,after the repeal of Glass-Stegal, for the banking/investment industry to collapse the world economy, just as they did in 1929; Glass worked from 1935-2000; then Allen Greenspan convinced a republican congress and a Democrat president (Clinton); that the regulations were no longer needed, since we can trust the Financial central banks to regulate themselves(like trying to convince a wild lion not to eat meat); the bill in Congress to re-impose Glass is stalled by both party's, each time the authors attempt to bring it up, the banking interest flood the halls of congress with campaign money to stop it; Congress best money can buy.
“Frankly, we are not coming here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy,”
Great - then everyone is agreed - let the Europeans sort their problems out by themselves.
dirp "Of course, this may lead to further decline of the Euro, which will further damage the European economy (to which we sell a lot) which will hurt our economy."
Our trade with Europe is minimal, but a recession over there will affect other parts of the World, which will affect us.
"Our trade with Europe is minimal, but a recession over there will affect other parts of the World, which will affect us."
Wow. Don't you just love it when people post "facts" on these sites? And what they post is absolutely not true...but they state it in such a way that it sounds like they know what they are talking about. Take the above statement for example. Sounds authoritative, but is utter rubbish.
Do a simple internet search regarding U.S. trading partners and you can easily find the right answer. It will go something like this-
"As a single economy, the EU is the largest trading partner of the US with $367.8 billion worth of EU goods going to the US and $268.6 billion of US goods going to the EU as of 2011, totaling approximately $636.4 billion in total trade."
So...what have we learned? Our trade with Europe is NOT minimal. As a union of European economies, it represents a very important trading partner to the U.S. And any profound, extended recession in the E.U. will likey hurt the U.S. economy (and any recovery) deeply.
Thank you almighty Google for providing accurate & readily accessible information.
how did the "Bank of England" invent fractional loans.??? The fools on wall street were the ones packaging mortgage derivitives and the reselling them three times and four times over for decreasing return amounts....in effect that 1 dollar was backing about 300 dollars in American mortgages. Then when we ran out of investors here we conned the Euro Banks to buy trillions of dollars worth so they could join in on the "massive" returns. Too Bad the returns were a pyramid scheme that ran out of fresh money and then the real estate market went into negative growth. Negative to the point of up to a 50% drop in over half of the Nation. And then we taxpayers bailed out our banks and we blame the European banks for "bad practices"? Classic.
Julia Gillard is Prime Minister of Australia, not President. But what she said is right, though...
Crikey. Gillard needs to keep her nose out of other countries business and as for flapping her gums and telling them how great Australia is going.....she is a fool. You know as much as I do the only reason we are not doing it tough is the mining, and that is the only thing saving our arse. China cuts back we are cactus. And how many billions did Rudd/Gillard inherit when Howard got the boot??...and how many billions are left now?? Gillard is an embarrassment can you picture her "telling the world leaders to get their house in order" what a pathetic statement from whose own leadership is under threat yet again...she has visions of grandeur and the sooner she gets the boot the better for us.
Australia has a GDP similar to that of the state of Texas. They are doing well, so is Texas, but so what.
"We're not here to 'receive lessons from nobody'" How about a lesson in English Grammar?
English is not his native language. Cut him some slack. I'm not sure about Portugeuse, but in Spanish a double negative is correct in many cases. He's probably a hell of a lot smarter than you are.
Don't know if he is smarter than Crikey (probably is though) but I can say his English is much better than my Portuguese.
Crikey - 6192020 - Considering JMB's native language is not English I think he did quite well and certainly does not need a lecture from you.
Crikey, where is your punctuation mark? Do you need a lesson in grammar?
Loll ! this is so sweet keep on feeding the money hunger it taste so good no desert needed.
Sounds like a teenager who still can't read. I don't need lessons from nobody.
Ha ha ha ...All tub sit on it's own behind message in transcript M.Y.O.Bs.
HUH?
With all that debt probably they should have met in Sesimbra and save all that air fare and help the Portugal economy. Duh.
"...we certainly are not coming here to receive lessons from nobody!"
I don't know why the rest of the G20 is upset with this statement... after all, it does mean he DID come to receive lessons from somebody.
Farming in money land ... What an insult !!!
OK, so he's pretty comfortable spreading the blame and taking everybody else's money, but he's infuriated at the mere suggestion that someone might have something to say about their crisis? What a clown.
And they say that Americans are arrogant...
Don't lecture me just give us money. Oh, an our system is a fine economic model.
Great common sense have you, on his hot air with a face of a brazen hawk.
I think Obama gave hiim some lessons on blame spreading. Obama is so good at it, he should be professor teaching the world that class. Oh that is right he is teaching it with the whole world as his classroom.
always nice to hear from the people who always blame Obama for our economic mess. Try to get serious since it happened BEFORE he got elected. Seriously people- find an actual reason to blame the dude who steped into the doo-doo and is trying to clean up someone elses doggie mess. Maybe try saying his shoes stink or something.
Sure glad he's not looking for help ither.
The writer of this article needs to learn some basic political facts. Jose Manuel Barroso is not the president of Portugual. He is the prime minister. Also, Julia Gillard is not the president of Australia; Australia has no president. Again, she is the prime minister. The fact that the writer of this story didn't know that shows that she is a neophyte political writer.
It appears that journalism is not the noble profession it once was.
Don't try that. not all journalist. You all know most of these scoundrels hate journalist and strive on those whom gives soft rides. Our AC would leave that hungry fool with scars. and who cares.
Grammar and political titles aside, it seems to me that Wall Street is the last place anyone should look for sound advice.
Oh, I don't know about that. Wall Street seems to be pretty good at privatizing profits and nationalizing losses. That is exactly what these EU leaders want to do, have everyone else pay for the failures of their banks to operate in a prudent manner. This is just bank bailout 2.0, the sovereign debt investment failure.
well put "dirp". Chase just lost 2 or 3 trillion playing the "Debt Derivitive" game on Euro debt, just like others were doing on "Mortgage Derivitives". Someone should outlaw derivitives or something.
WTH is a derivitive? I never really understood that for the sake of my life!
There go the Europeans again acting like children and blaming someone else for their mismanagement of the EU economy. Why not blame the Americans!! I'm really glad to see that the Canadians & Americans aren't contributing to an IMF bailout for the shiftless southern Europeans. To begin with, the Greeks and the southern Europeans cooked their books in order to get into the EU and the rest bought into it. There should be two EUs - one for northern Europe and one for southern Europe.
The problem is that by having the "shiftless" Southern Europeans in the mix, they keep the value of the euro low, making German products cheaper on the world market than they would ordinarily have been under the German Mark. The cheaper the currency, the more the Germans sell and the more Germans have jobs. An EU with all the hard working northern European would essentially be priced out of the market. That is why they let the "dog-sh-t" countries in....the ones with the better food and it's one of the reasons they don't want to let them out of the euro. You see, the combined EU is the largest economy in the word, larger than the U.S. They call a lot more of the economic shots than they would if each of those countries had their own currency. They have effectively blunted the Dollar as a reserve currency in Europe and relegated the English Pound to the history books...all this primarily to the benefit of the Germans. See, an economically powerful Germany and EU screws us. Don't feel sorry for them.
At least those southern European countries most young people know 2 or 3 languages and do not have to worry about big bills if they have to go to the doctor. Yes it's an american made problem with bad corrupt wall street deceiving half the world. As well as the ponzi scheme that was the housing market with banks telling appraisers never to appraise under the value of the loan. Maybe the no doc loans that many people got forced into by less honest lenders like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Lets sell those notes and make sure we bet against them. That is fraud.
"...Barroso, also the president of Portugal, exclaimed in English."
Wow, that's news to me. I'm an American having lived in Portugal for over a year now. Somebody may want to notify Calvaco Silva about this though.
Leave them alone and time will bring then in dragging their tails behind them as little BO Peep does loll.
It's never pretty when the liberal gravy train comes screeching to a halt after running out of other peoples money. They tax the ass right off their people over there and it still wasn't enough. If they raised taxes to 100% they'd burn through that cash like Charlie Sheen through a pile of coke and whores.
Hey! Leave whores out of it! They lead relatively respectable lives compared to tax and spend politicians!
hedward,
I'm not going to get into a long discussion on this, but it is a little more complicated than that. There's a big difference in Northern European nations and Southern European nations. The North is very financially sound, taxes or no taxes. Also, they (the north) have a higher quality of living than that of U.S. So yes, some countries are taxing high and some are burning through that money, but you can't look at each country as the same.
CharlieBrown - The North is financially sound? You mean France who is broke? Or Sweden who is headed the same way as Italy and Greece? Norway is the only financially sound country and that's cause it has more oil than Iran.
That EU idea doesn't seem so hot now, does it.
Wrong.
The problem is that by having the "shiftless" Southern Europeans in the mix, they keep the value of the euro low, making German products cheaper on the world market than they would ordinarily have been under the German Mark. The cheaper the currency, the more the Germans sell and the more Germans have jobs. An EU with all the hard working northern European would essentially be priced out of the market. That is why they let the "dog-sh-t" countries in....the ones with the better food and it's one of the reasons they don't want to let them out of the euro. You see, the combined EU is the largest economy in the word, larger than the U.S. They call a lot more of the economic shots than they would if each of those countries had their own currency. They have effectively blunted the Dollar as a reserve currency in Europe and relegated the English Pound to the history books...all this primarily to the benefit of the Germans. See, an economically powerful Germany and EU screws us. Don't feel sorry for them.
Lol!!!! Hard working Europeans LOLOLOL. You mean hard working Germans. Europeans like the French, Spanish and Swedes are lazy as hell. All their economies suck and are going down the toilet same as Italy and Greece. Even Norway is largely full of ne'er-do-wells that are supported by all the oil profits. The EU is DOOMED. I wonder how soon I'll be able to buy a small European country with the once again mighty greenback.
Long live the pound sterling and the greenback. The only reliable currencies.
He's got a point. This crap did start on Wall Street. No two ways about it.
It started with people taking out mortgages they didn't read the fine print on and couldn't pay, offered by bankers who planned on bundling and selling the mortgages as triple A assets when they KNEW they were subprime. Crooks offered, bundled and sold mortgages taken out by fools too stupid to read and understand before signing. Banks holding the "toxic assests" (bundled sub prime mortgages) were bailed out, foolish home buyers are given principle reductions, and who pays? The fiscally responsible.
That SUCKS and I'm PISSED!
Seriously - What can you do about it? Or What do you think should be done about it now?
I tend to think lenders should be responsible to collect the loans they make and suffer the loss if the borrower fails to pay rather than bundling and selling the loans to investors. That will make them more careful about the terms of the loans they make. But I'm not an expert on such things, I'm just pissed.
You mean if politicians(congress and the president) change the terms and requirements on guaranteeing loans and investments and demand that lenders offer/allow credit and loans to those without sufficient income to repay and in fact demand that lenders/banks demonstrate that they have/are increasing the number of people with poor credit that receive loans from said bank, or the government will subsequently penalize your institution, that somehow it's all, completely and entirely the lenders fault? I just can't buy that. I'm not saying lenders are remotely innocent, I'm just saying there's more to it then that.
Somehow we need to get everyone to understand(and the media to represent) the facts that
1 The government definitely pushed lenders to lend more to those that couldn't afford it
2 The government changed financial regulations allowing lenders and insurers to merge into megacorps
3 The lenders actually did it and found ways to cover their own asses
4 people that shouldn't have, signed up for a loan anyway, didn't do enough homework and didn't pay the loan back
Everyone in the process should have some of the blame here.
And the EU was formed so that Europe could develop their own continent and manipulate their own banking practices by the same sorts of people that manipulate banking practices here. They nearly begged Greece and other countries to join the EU (otherwise known in many circles as a pyramid scheme - and remember the last to join loses the most) They've made their bed - they can lie in it
the hidden truth is that the only way 20 million illegal Mexican immigrants could buy a home was through No-Doc loans since they do not have tax records with valid social security numbers or pay stubs. Those buyers are now out of the American Housing Market.
The EU is not %100 wrong in this. Wall st did help start this ball of crap rolling around the world ! Yet,all the wall streeters walked away with billions .not a day in jail nor a penny to pay back. I wanna see all the wall streeters hang & burn ! The media & %1 are playing this perfect .Make sure everybody is fighting each other and not watching/blaming them.
I have about $1.87 in savings the Governor of California and the IRS haven't figured out how to steal from me and give away for future votes from the foreigners who invaded us. It might as well go to help Europe bail out. Odds are someone in government will figure out how to steal it from me sooner or later.
Hide it under your matress and keep your mouth shut!
Ah ha ha ha under the matress ? The first place the crook will look lmaol...
Cynthia..time to request a full refund from Rosetta Stone...It didn't work! sos
Obama knows that with our money problems here in the USA ( 40 cents of every dollar the US Govt spends is borrowed), if he were to advocate giving money, any money, to the EU he wouldn't just lose at the polls in November, he would be humiliated.
Don't let them fool you the EU will become just as it was before WW2. The pie is just not big enough to go around. The Inevitable job stalemate where there is no future for the young work force trying to get a job. China by itself will absorb most of the excess or they will be in a heap of trouble too.
Timothy Geithner, said Europe should solve its own economic problems, The New York Times reported.
"Europe is a rich continent," Geithner said// Obama wouldn't dare ehh or would he ! Make us go further in debt while they go further in debt and will never pay it BACK .! We won't help so they must cough up some more and more till they "CRACK".
"“We are extremely open and we are engaging with our partners but we certainly are not coming here to receive lessons from nobody!” Barroso, also the president of Portugal, exclaimed in English."
Open to what? Receiving cash.
It is clear that what they need from us is NO money. It is not up to the US to bail-out Europe's bad banking practices. The Banksters there used the same criminal tactics to over-leverage their banks and they lost. TOO BAD! Do better than we did here. Charge, convict, and imprison, the criminals.
Dang gamblers crying they want their money back from the robber barons on this side of the pond.
Ok, so if they're not there to learn anything, why are they there?
Europe is smarter and older than the u.s. and somehow got tricked into the wall street clown show. nothing in america is real or based on anything that is good anymore. everyone looks like a joke or is practically homeless. the u.s. should have listened to our old countrybut instead our so-called leaders misled us (reagan, bush, etc.) could have cared less.
europe should just cut their loses and get away from america
bye bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
How about a bake sale...or a car wash?
To get bailout you've to get help from someone who can pay bail and Uncle Sam's broke so ask Uncle Wong