The protectionist game is one that leaves me with very little patience. While it's more open than a few decades ago, protectionism is alive and well and not necessarily always a bad thing. Everyone screams "foul" when the other country or region does it but has a million justifications when they do it themselves. In this case, the EU is indeed promoting protectionist banking plans though they're not entirely wrong to pressure Washington on more regulation for the Wild West gamblers in the US financial industry. (Not that they don't exist in the EU though, because they do.) Better coordination and more unified regulation is in the best interest of most people outside of the banking gamblers. They're making too much money with too little downside to want any change. CNBC:
European Union officials are mulling plans to regulate hedge funds and private equity firms, which Greek officials said bear part of the blame for the country's debt crisis because they speculated on its debt.
Some analysts also said that by placing bets that a country is likely to default, hedge funds destabilize markets.
Geithner sent a letter this month to Michel Barnier, the European Union's commissioner on internal markets, warning of a clash with the US if the Commission goes ahead with a law that Washington fears could be protectionist, the Financial Times wrote on its Web site.
