Banker's Choice

Banker's Choice: And the way this fits into democratic theory is – well, it doesn’t fit into democratic theory. It’s closer to a coup without tanks. To be sure, these are temporary coups until each nation holds new elections, but Papademos and Monti are not supposed to be mere caretakers until the real leaders arrive. To the contrary, they’re assuming power under instruction from the markets – the markets that have seen Italy’s financing costs rise and the value of stocks everywhere topple – to make sweeping cuts in services and substantial hikes in taxes, cuts so sweeping and hikes so substantial that no elected leader would dare make them. They’ve been instructed by the markets, in essence, to lower the living standards of their peoples.