Well the liberals in the USA are big time socialists....the whole democratic party is now. BIG taxes so they can buy up more votes. The ONLY way the demorats get power is buying votes (via guberment handouts, food stamps, odumbo phones, etc), race baiting and circle jerking with the unions. Anyways, the dem/socialists/libbys needs dem $$ to keep the fraud going.
People fall for this trick for ages. You have to differentiate what liberals say and what they mean. They are not liberal at all and only try to fool people into their vision of liberalizm which is total control of the society by small group of corrupt people. Europe had fair amount of socialists/liberal systems in their history including National Socialist German Workers Party in the 30'. Just read what they promised to people and what they delivered and not the hype that is being spread today.
I think there is a misunderstanding, when in the US liberals mean the left wing of the political spectrum, in continental Europe it usually means the right wing (also not all right wings in Europe are progressive in matters of civil rights, nor particulary pro business, like one sees in France. )
Yes, old misunderstanding. Liberals in Europe are free market defenders. Liberalism = low intervention of state in economy and regulation. You have the "liberty" to create more business endeavour without agreement of the state . To me, the american definition is more obscure. What does socialism and state intervention has to do with "liberty"? Just an etymologic question, guys.
We call them Libertarians ala the "Milton Friedman" model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Makes sense. Good news here : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...-biggest-danish-fund-slams-financial-tax.html
http://www.europolitics.info/financial-transaction-tax-opponents-pull-out-all-stops-art349780.html http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/news/10316177.Cable_backs_financial_transaction_tax_plan/
Note that European liberals in the mainstream politics are *very* far from libertarian. Anarcho capitalism is science fiction in the old continent.
As an American, I read Der Spiegel online at least once a week and I enjoy it very much. I follow German politics. I thought the Free Democratic Party (FDP) - Merkel's junior coalition partner - was in decline and they were the lone voice against FTT. And yes, I see on Wikipedia that FDP is described as "classic liberals," sort of what you describe above. In the US, that translates to "economic liberty", whereas liberal in the U.S. means big government spending on social causes. Back to German politics. I though the FDP fought and lost against FTT and that Merkel was going to have to build a new coalition to win re-election and form a new government. That Germany was turning center and even center left from center right now, which builds more support for FTT.
I think that since the EC released its plan, something happened in Germany. There must be some heavy lobbying efforts in Frankfurt coupled with the ruling party realizing it would shut Frankfurt, Eurex and every international german desk. So that 's why they are kind of freezing the FTT for now or asking for a delayed implementation for derivatives( as told in one article ).Add to that huge pension funds telling they will switch from german bonds to danish one with FTT and suddenly they are not in a hurry to kill their markets...