Bankers are once again doing well in the financial sector but businesses and consumers are not, which is leading to popular anger, especially as the bonus round is about to be paid. Coyle says that Project Merlin, which the British government hopes will smooth relations between the country’s banks, politicians, and the electorate, does not address the fundamental problem that Britain’s banks are uncompetitive. Competition reform, along with replacement of the complex regulations that act as barriers to entry, are now the only ways forward for the banking industry. Coyle says we need a healthy undergrowth of smaller financial institutions to balance the existing monoculture of vulnerable giants, but Project Merlin will not deliver this.

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When Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a confidence vote last week by a mere three votes, it proved that in politics you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be better than the other guy. And in Italy right now that’s a pretty low bar. The only people in Italian politics who are worse than the prime minister are everyone else. Unless the various opposition parties are able to find an actual issue or reform on which they profoundly disagree with Berlusconi, and so can mount a campaign on substantive issues, then they’re just wasting everyone’s time. Marsden notes that the socialist left hasn’t done much better: the traditional left-wing approach of doling out favors to their constituents is no longer viable.

Marsden is an international political and communications strategist and writer who teaches at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

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In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko was “elected” to a fourth term as president after a violent crackdown by his regime. The violence, says Applebaum, was evidence of Lukashenko’s weakness. Truly popular leaders do not need to resort to bloodshed and beatings to intimidate their opponents and shut down communication. Lukashenko rejected a deal with the European Union that involved Belarus receiving, among other things, more open borders in exchange for free elections. He did, however, sign an oil deal with Moscow. This represents the decline of the West. The United States and Europe are “out of money and out of ideas” and can not offer any “carrots” as attractive as Russian oil.

Applebaum is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign affairs.

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Unlike their stoic acceptance of government spending cuts this fall, disgruntled British citizens took to the streets several times over the past month and engaged in riotous vandalism, presumably in response to raised university tuition rates. A younger generation feels no nostalgia for the austere postwar years. Applebaum suggests there is resentment on the part of young people whose baby boomer parents enjoyed free university tuition and other benefits from taxpayers. The British protests are similar to those that occurred in Greece two years ago, perhaps due in part to both countries lacking an “organized political outlet” through which to vent their grievances.

Applebaum is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign affairs.

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Spain faces its worst political crisis and a critical economic situation, writes Aznar. Now at the center of Europe’s financial turmoil, just six years ago Spain was creating six out of 10 new euro-zone jobs, its government accounts were in surplus, and public debt was decreasing swiftly. Yet today investors are assigning the highest default risks to the Spanish government’s debt since it entered the euro zone. In the social sphere, the situation is distressing. Aznar explains that Spain’s crisis is rooted in decisions to encourage regional divisions and to abandon successful market-based policies. He concludes that with a new national political project and the implementation of the appropriate policies, Spain can recover confidence in itself.

Aznar is the former prime minister of Spain (1996-2004).

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Whyte criticizes British PM David Cameron’s request that the Office of National Statistics construct a survey-based measure of the country’s general well-being. They will publish their first findings in the summer of 2012. If “happy” means only that you have satisfied your desires, then it is trivially true that people seek only happiness, notes Whyte. Cameron claims to reject governmental interference in favor of individual liberty. His taste for industrial policy, nationalized health care, compulsory charity, and population control make some doubt him. Whyte concludes that no one with a shred of liberal principle could think it the state’s proper job to specify the nature of “the good life” and then design policies that get people to live it.

Whyte is a management consultant and author of “Crimes Against Logic” (McGraw Hill, 2004).

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Ireland’s bailout highlights serious dangers in the coming years for Europe as a whole. The Euro currency and centralized monetary policy prevented Ireland from taking a more proactive stance toward its economic health, and the same will hold true for Spain, Portugal, and other struggling economies. Social program spending in Ireland and in Europe as a whole has moved beyond being merely an economic challenge to being a political menace. The change that must occur to stabilize the economic outlook will not come without considerable turmoil.

Samuelson is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on political, economic and social issues.

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Germany may be small (with a population of only 82 million), but its trade balance is second to China’s. Its unemployment rate is at 7.5 percent, the lowest since Germany’s reunification (and lower than America’s). Wages are rising and the economy is growing. Germany’s “mittelstand,” or family-owned manufacturing businesses, are a key factor in their economic success. In the past, Germany was accused by the US and Britain of being too “locally focused”, but it is precisely this investment in its own manufacturing businesses that has kept Germany thriving. Germany has “stakeholder capitalism, not shareholder capitalism,” says Klaas Hubner, former German parliament member and owner of a successful mittelstand company. Germany’s economy, says Meyerson, is “running rings around America’s.”

Meyerson is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing mainly about politics.

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China, Germany, and the Republican Party are all trying to bully the Federal Reserve into calling off its job-creation efforts. Krugman says their motives are suspect. He calls the three the Axis of Depression. China and Germany don’t want the dollar to fall because it would make US goods more competitive, and a smaller US deficit would then cause them to run a deficit. Republicans’ reasons are odd and incoherent since the Fed is following the policies of none other than Milton Friedman. Krugman says Republicans are afraid that if the Fed succeeds and helps the economy, it would foul their election chances in 2012.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.

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Without risk capital, Europe will go nowhere, says Kamall. He regrets that stricter EU rules for hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers will be expensive for the economy. From 2018 fund managers for businesses in the EU will have to meet stricter guidelines monitored by the new European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). These fund managers will have to comply with strict disclosure rules about their business strategies and hold larger amounts of capital, which reduces their revenues. Kamall argues that European investors must not be isolated from the financial action in the rest of the world. While protection against default or negligence is desirable, nobody wants protection against risk itself.

Kamall is a conservative member of the European Parliament for London.

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