Articles with the Tag Wouter Bos

Wouter Bos resigns

Dutch politics
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The news had resigned his position as leader of the PvdA (the Dutch Labour Party) came as a bolt out of the blue. He had given no previous indication of being tired of his job, nor had there been any pressure on him to resign. The local elections last week had seen his party, if not win, at least limit its losses and in the national polls the downward trend seemed reversed as well. In no small part this was due to the PvdA’s refusal to agree to another extension of the Duch occupation in Afghanistan and subsequent collapse of the CDA-PvdA-Christenunie coalition government, which had re-energised the party’s base and played well with those voters who had left it for the SP, the Socialist Party, back in 2006. So why did Bos resign, when he had managed to lead the party so well, especially knowing how despised and weak it was when he took over in 2003.

The official reasons he gave was that he wanted to spent more time with his wife and family, that the long hours and pressure of politics had taken its toll and he wanted to step back. It’s certainly true that he has aged a lot in the past two years or so. Nor is he the only prominent politician to announce his retirement for these reasons – Carmiel Eurlings, one of the youngish up and coming talents of the CDA had done it the day before.

But as any fule knows, you should never trust a politician’s reasons for retirement, especially when they give their families as the reason why. Nobody becomes a politician to built a good family life, but you can certainly decide that the work-family balance needs to be altered if the job has lost its glamour and the work got harder. And if there’s one thing that’s certain, after the upcoming elections the job will get a lot harder.

Because there never has been a time when the Dutch electorate was as divided as it is now, or the parties as far apart. CDA and PvdA for obvious reasons can’t get back together, certainly not with Balkenende remaining the Christian Democrats’ leader, though it helps that Bos is resigning. A leftwing government of PvdA and SP is impossible because even with one or two of the other leftwing parties like GroenLinks or even D66 they won’t have enough seats. A straightforward rightwing government, the rightwing liberal VVD joining CDA runs into the same problems, while the elephant in the room is Wilder’s PVV. Wilders is supposed to become the big winner of the June elections, his party on track to become the third-biggest party in parliament and therefore in a key position for coalition negotiations.

The problem is, Wilders doesn’t really want to be in government — his entire schtick is based on being radical and uncompromising, being in government undermines that completely. PvdA meanwhile has already ruled out being in government with them anyway, while other parties are also weary. It all mkaes for quite a headache for whoever gets the task of preparing a government after the election, with no clear coalitions possible yet. Government is going to be a hard slog, knives in the dark stuff, bad compromises and betrayals. No wonder Bos let this opportunity pass…

That Bos’ announcement, while surprising, wasn’t completely unexpected at least in his own party, came slightly later today, when the current mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, announced his bid for the leadership of the PvdA, which he is reasonably certain he will win. Cohen has bee asked before to fullfil a role in national politics when Bos suggested he could become prime minister if the party won the elections back in 2003. Then he wanted to stay in Amsterdam, now he’s ready to do so. A good choice he would be to, having a national profile as a well liked and respected mayor amongst voters of all parties. He has a reputation as a bridgebuilder and appeals to those voters who are repulsed by Wilders and his histrionics. It will also help that he hasn’t been involved in the last government of course, to repair relationships with the CDA…

Bos want smaller, safer Dutch banks

Dutch politics, economic crisis
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Fucking rich coming from the man who allowed the takeover of ABN-Amro which laid bare the weaknesses of the overextended Dutch banking system. When he had the opportunity to do something to stop the rot, he declined to take action. What’s more, even now he may say he wants smaller banks, but the takeover of ABN-Amro by Fortis is still going ahead. Surely that would be the first thing to stop if he really meant what he said?

The problem with Wouter Bos is that he’s a product of the same system he supposedly wants to reform, a minister for a social democratic party who before he went into politics fulltime worked for decades at Shell in various management and consultant positions. Of course any social democratic principles his party adhered to had been long ago been abandonded under the previous party leaders, most notably Wim Kok, who had urged his members to “let go of the social democratic plumage” (prompting the Socialist Party to later remark that “it can get cold without feathers”). Other than some platitudes about “equal opportunities” and the like the PvdA has long since resigned itself to the status quo and in time has become just as much a supporter of it as the liberal or christian-democratic parties. It is therefore not suprising that despite their presence in the current Dutch government, it is ill-suited to handle the crisis. there has been some tough talka bout bankers taking their responsibilities and anger about their bonuses, but any real measures to radically change the system are not even considered. It’s subsidies for banks, some halfhearted measures to alleviate the pain in other sectors and budget cuts or tax hikes for everything else.

Blame Wouter Bos

Dutch politics, economic crisis
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John Lanchester has written yet another brilliant article on the financial crisis for the London Review of Books. Much of the article deals with the RBS and how its takeover of ABN Amro led to disaster:

The consortium’s plan was to split ABN Amro up, with RBS getting the Anglo-American and wholesale parts of the business, Fortis the Belgo-Dutch, and Banco Santander the South American. It wasn’t in principle a ridiculous scheme, but the problem was the price. Most of what has been written about the financial crisis is pure hindsight, but not this: many observers thought that the winning consortium had overpaid. The consortium won their takeover on 10 October 2007; by April 2008, RBS was going to the markets to raise more capital, to cover losses from the deal; by July 2008, Fortis had lost two-thirds of its value and its CEO, Jean-Paul Votron, had resigned; on 28 September, Fortis was part-nationalised by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourgeois governments. We’ve already read what happened to RBS. So within months, the ABN Amro takeover destroyed RBS and Fortis and what was left of ABN Amro itself. Along with the AOL-Time Warner merger and the Daimler-Chrysler merger, the ABN Amro takeover is one of the biggest flops in corporate history.

There’s one person who could’ve avoided this mess, but didn’t, whose role in the whole debacle has never been fully acknowledged, not by the media and certainly not by him: the Dutch finance minister, Wouter Bos. Had he vetoed the takeover, or the earlier Barclays bid, ABN Amro, Fortis, Barclays and RBS would’ve been in much better shape now, perhaps not have needed the Dutch and British state to bail them out.

Dutch Finance minister attacks shareholders

Dutch politics, economic crisis, Life under Capitalism
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It’s a bit late, considering even I already argued this same point four months ago. Bos also ignores the role his own ministry has played in fermenting this crisis. After all it’s the ministry of finance, through the various insitutions it controls that’s supposed to safeguard the financial markets and which failed miserably. They completely missed the problems with the Icelandic banks for example, gave their blessing to the takeover of ABN Amro which destroyed four banks and counting and in general stayed true to the neoliberal partyline of minimal interference as the market knew best.

The anger at the bankes is understandable, but it was the whole system that failed. The recession isn’t caused by a few too greedy CEOs, but because capitalism always encourages short term greed no matter the consequences and the measures and safeguards that were put in place after the last Great Depression were deliberately dismantled from the seventies onwards. Something in which succesive finance ministers actively colluded. The Netherlands should become more American in its approach towards the markets, with less state control and more freedom for business. The current recession is the logical end result.

Dear Wouter

Dutch politics, economic crisis
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Dear Wouter, what do you think? 350.000 euro is not too much to ask, is it?

Well done. The plan you and Jan Peter cooked up with your colleagues this weekend worked a treat. Sure, it cost a bob or two, almost 250 billion euro by my account (17 billion to buy up Fortis & ABN/AMRO, 20 billion to safe guard saving accounts and now some 200 billion to make the banks lend each other money again), but it worked. The stock market recovered beautifully, with the Amsterdam stock exchange having its second best day ever yesterday.

Which brings me to the reason I’m writing you this letter. You see, it’s not just the stock market or the bankers that have lost their confidence in the Dutch economy. Yes, it’s true, even I have become gunshy due to the credit crisis. I was planning to build an extenstion to our kitchen while we were remodeling it, but these plans unfortunately already had to be dropped. I couldn’t raise the credit to do everything we wanted to do, nor did I want to run the risk of getting stuck with bad debts, especially now the interest is getting so high on them.

Therefore I would like to use your help in this crisis of confidence. Because you’ve done such a marvelous job for people who need much more than me, I’m sure you can also fulfill my modest request. What I’m asking for is almost a rounding error compared to the huge sums of money you’ve already given away to people who’ve done much less to stimulate the economy than I have done. All I need is a straight forward cash injection of 100,000 euros, plus a guarantee for another 250,000, just in case my mortgage supplier gets shirty.

Be honest: who’s more deserving of your support? The losers in the banks and credit companies who caused this crisis in the first place by wasting billions buying dodgy merkin mortgages, not to mention tens of millions on their hot shot stock brokers who told them these were good ideas? Or me and others like me, who’ve been working hard to keep the economy growing by working hard and doing our best to inject cash into the market through kitchen remodelings or by spending it on essential investments like that big plasma television screen I saw in the shopping centre the other day.

Yours sincerily,

Martin Wisse

P.S. In return for your support I’m of course more than willing to make a pledge not to ask for a salary higher than that your pal Balkenende, as you’ve also asked of all your public sector executives. Is the board in charge of your new state banks Fortis and ABN/AMRO also prepared to pledge this?