Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
French economist Thomas Piketty found unexpected fame with his book on wealth inequality, Capital in the 21st Century, and has now turned his attentions to the situation in Greece. The country is struggling under a mountain of debt and is resisting German-led demands for more austerity in exchange for aid, culminating in a landmark referendum…
Figures released by Germany’s Interior Ministry just two days before the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe are sobering. They reveal a “sharp increase” in right-wing violence, with 175 racially motivated attacks in 2014, as compared to 58 the year before. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said asylum seekers and…
12/21/2014 Font: – + The End of Tolerance? Anti-Muslim Movement Rattles Germany By SPIEGEL Staff REUTERS Members of the loosely organized “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West,” gather at a major protest in Dresden in eastern Germany on Dec. 8. Disenchanted German citizens and right-wing extremists are joining forces to form a protest…
With Jean-Claude Juncker demanding a Unified European Army, it appears Germany is wasting no time in simultaneously boosting its own economy with warfare spending and comforting a ‘fearful populace’ with more military might. As Reuters reports, Germany plans to procure more than 100 additional Leopard 2 tanks, increasing its total Leopard 2 tank inventory by…
The threat, made by the Greek justice minister and reported in the daily Kathimerini newspaper, has been supported by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who told the Greek parliament he would pursue the “very technical and sensitive” matter. Justice minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos has reportedly called for “war reparations, the repayment of a forced loan and the…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out cancelling any of Greece’s debt, saying banks and creditors have already made substantial cuts. But Mrs Merkel told the Die Welt newspaper she still wanted Greece to stay in the eurozone. Greece’s left-wing Syriza party won last weekend’s election with a pledge to have half the debt written…