THE TELEGRAPH: A top cast of European statesmen has issued a blistering denunciation of financial markets and called for a creation of a pan-EU body to protect the citizens against the "social risk" posed by modern capitalism.
"The financial world has accumulated a massive amount of fictitious capital, with very little improvement for humanity," said the group in an open letter to the European Commission and the EU presidency.
"The current financial crisis is no accident. It was not, as some top people in finance and politics now claim, impossible to predict. For lucid individuals the bell rang years ago. This crisis is a failure of poorly or unregulated markets, and shows us, once more, that the financial market is not capable of self-regulation," it said, calling for the a new "European Crisis Committee" to take the matter in hand.
"Free markets cannot ignore social morals. Decent capitalism needs effective public policy. But when everything is for sale, social cohesion melts and the system breaks down," it said.
The letter is signed by former premiers and finance ministers from Europe's socialist bloc, including ex-German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, France's Lionel Jospin and Michel Rocard, and former Commission chief Jacques Delors. While the initiative comes from the Left, it is in tune with the views of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Both have called for measures to clamp down on "speculation".
The fulminating text is the clearest evidence yet of the mounting drive for an EU-wide "super regulator", which would reduce Britain's Financial Services Authority to a regional branch - and pose a grave threat to the City of London. EU-Wide ‘Super Regulator’ Poses Threat to City of London >>> By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | May 22, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
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