PES Manifesto

1. Pension funds by Bobcat on Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 16:57

2. other Leaders by peterk on Friday, October 31, 2008 at 02:11

I would like to put the questions to the europeans rather than the "PES leaders". It seems to me to be a good time to change the agenda- to change from the upside-down perspective and to put forward an agenda that mobilise the people - not in relying on govermental intervention but in relying on themselfes.

Take for example the pension-funds.  If they were used to perform an active ownership of the assets they own - in the name of, as representatives of the people whos money they actually represents - we could imaging a totally different management. Then the investments should not be short term, it should be longterm (as pensions require). If the capital was used to own banks we could imaging banks which would be interested in helping people out, low interest on people having small margins and so on.

3. A few questions by carl0s on Friday, October 31, 2008 at 21:23

-The EU is pushing liberalisation of services such as postal networks and railway transport and currently forbids the provision of state aid to "crucial" industries (which has always been ignored by the major European manufacturing countries in any case).  If governments are expected to increase public spending in the downturn, to provide jobs, how can this be done in a way which does not unduly enrich the private sector owners of what are increasingly privatised service providers and contractors? Or have we already surrendered the ownership debate?

-As the above poster argues, the way forward is for be banks to have elements of collective social ownership. How will you push these institutions forward and support co-operative credit providers?

-One of the contributary factors in any economic crash is the growing gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. Can the EU ensure that the hyper-rich pay their fair share of tax?It seems national governments can't.

-A new trans-Europe high speed rail network would give a big push to struggling Eastern European economies, but the current predictions are for this to be undertaken in 2025. Wouldn't the money currently spent propping up some of the banks executive salaries be better off spent on building these links and tying this in with various regeneration schemes?

-China supplies goods to the EU but this leads to imbalances in trade, also a contributory factor. Whilst liberalisation of trade has had many positive points, the process appears to have run amok. For example, there is no need for Chinese foodstuffs such as milk or honey to be imported to the EU as the EU has close neighbours who could provide these goods with less environmental cost and more reliably. Can we see a clarification of what China can and cannot supply us?