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eyes on the U.S.

European Eye On 'Antics' Of Looming U.S. Debt Debacle

Op-Ed: In view of the global consequences of even a temporary U.S. default, American politicians are being astonishingly irresponsible. That they have lectured Europe on economics is laughable.

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (Medill DC)
U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (Medill DC)
Jan Dams

DIE WELT/Worldcrunch

BERLIN – In recent months, U.S. President Barrack Obama has repeatedly called German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders to talk economics. Obama applied so much pressure that many felt that it was tantamount to interfering in these countries' internal affairs. Why all the pressure? To bring it home to the Europeans that, no matter how much it cost, they had to solve their debt crisis. If they didn't, capital markets -- and the US economy -- would be severely damaged.

But now that the euro zone has at least temporarily solved its problem by throwing billions of euros at it, investors are still jittery. And the reason for their jitters this time isn't Europe. It's the USA, in what looks to Europeans like surreal squabbling over budget policy.

For some time now, observers around the world have been expecting the Americans to get over the bickering, raise the debt ceiling and move on. That has always been the case in the past, and so assumptions were that reasonable members of both parties would prevail this time too. But after every meeting, the impression grows that irresponsible hardliners on both sides have taken their parties hostage. And America with them.

The conflict, of course, is about a lot more than different approaches to budget policy. For some Republicans, this isn't just about making sure there are no new tax hikes. They also don't care that a large part of Obama's financial woes were caused by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. What they do care about is damaging the president. Even the good of the economy doesn't appear to be a price too high to pay. The Democrats' overbearing attitude, on the other hand, is no help, making it difficult for moderates in both parties to agree on some form of compromise. It's a dangerous mix.

If things stay this way, the world faces catastrophe. Already, the big U.S. money market funds, fearing a liquidity crisis, are hoarding cash in the event of the worst case scenario: America's inability to pay its bills. That cuts European banks off from access to significant financing options. The same thing played out when Lehman Brothers went bust, and everybody knows what happened next.

One can only hope that the influential members of both US political camps can manage to reach agreement -- and convince their party members to go along with it -- before the August 2 deadline. The consequences of a US default would be nothing short of disastrous. But with an eye to coming elections, partisan antics seem to be winning the day in Washington.

photo - Medill DC

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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