Friday, April 24, 2009

Germany's slump risks 'explosive' mood as second banking crisis looms

Uh oh.
From the Telegraph:
A clutch of political and labour leaders in Germany have raised the spectre of civil unrest after the country's leading institutes forecast a 6pc contraction of gross domestic product this year, a slump reminiscent of 1931 and bad enough to drive unemployment to 4.7m by 2010.

Michael Sommer, leader of the DGB trade union federation, called the latest wave of sackings a "declaration of war" against Germany's workers. "Social unrest can no longer be ruled out," he said.

Gesine Swann, presidential candidate for the Social Democrats, said "the mood could turn explosive" over the next three months unless the government takes drastic action.

While authorities have belatedly agreed to create a "bad bank" to absorb toxic loans and stabilise the credit system, further financial troubles are almost certainly in the pipeline.

Swiss risk advisers Independent Credit View said a "second wave" of debt stress is likely to hit the UK and Europe this year as the turmoil moves from mortgage securities to old-fashioned bank loans. A detailed "stress test" of 17 lenders worldwide found that European banks have much lower reserve cushions than US banks, leaving them acutely vulnerable to the coming phase of rising defaults. "The biggest risk is in Europe," said Peter Jeggli, Credit View's founder....MORE

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oOJMYL8TW6E/SW1RvSmFnHI/AAAAAAAAAXU/FDYMS5phwm0/s320/brawl.jpg
Nazi/Communist street brawl-pre 1933

At least this time the pictures will be in color.

Of course it wasn't only Germany, just that they let things get a bit out of hand.

Here's a Teamsters strike in 1934. I have to think the guy on the ground died, that's a full swing:

http://www.teamster.org/files/jpg_images/strike2.jpg