The following article about the metastasizing euro crisis was publish on March 10 by Junge Freiheit. Many thanks to Hermes for the translation:
The crisis remains
“I am convinced that we have overcome the worst of the crisis,” EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier said at the end of last year in Berlin. Barnier spoke the same way as a blind man would have done about colors. The crisis is not coming back. It has never been overcome. It is only that it was less talked about.
Not a problem was solved, not a euro of government debt was repaid. To the contrary, the third wave of problems is rolling in on the Old World (West) in the fifth year of the crisis: the first wave led to the collapse of the financial sector in 2007 and 2008 in Germany, which led to the nationalization of HRE (Hypo Real State Bank) and the partial nationalization of Commerzbank. The second wave led to a sharp decline in the real economy, which the government pushed back up by pumping money into economic stimulus programs such as the car scrappage bonus scheme. The billion was the smallest unit of account.
A continental risk zone
The third wave is brutally making its way through the porous dams: It’s the debt tsunami, which no savings plans, tax increases, or expropriations can counter. However, politicians and Euro bankers are denying that the tide is coming: “The idea that we in Europe have a liquidity problem is completely wrong,” said Jean-Claude Trichet, the former president of the European Central Bank and Mario Draghi’s predecessor. The latter is also called “Super Mario” due to his policy of using the miraculous process of money multiplication. Draghi himself added: “Italy is not a country at risk.”
The whole continent is a risk zone. “In the course of the financial and economic crisis, the EU countries have accumulated debts in a breathtaking way,” former Federal President Roman Herzog complained. Figures corroborate this: For example, the debt of EU countries has increased since 2008 from 6.5 to 9 trillion euros. In Europe, the trillion has become not the smallest, but the common unit of account. Never since the Second World War has Europe been so much in debt. Greece, with its 321-billion euro debt, is still a minor problem.
Things are improving nowhere
Germany has 2.1, France 1.9, Italy 2 and Spain 1 trillion euros of debt. The interest to be paid on this will strangle economic growth and lead to stagnation in the economy. 12 million people were unemployed in the Eurozone at the beginning of the crisis; today the number is 19 million. The decline in Europe continues in 2013. As was already mentioned in the Orwellian Newspeak, the European Commission predicts a “negative growth” of 0.3 percent for this year. This means that the economy is shrinking. Things should have been improving long ago.
It is especially Southern Europe which is not able to come out of recession. Greece in free fall despite all rescue operations, and Cyprus is actually bankrupt. Spain and Portugal are also going steeply down the hill. Italy’s economy shrank eight percent since the beginning of the crisis, while Germany has reached at least pre-crisis levels. Now it’s France which is breaking down. Its industrial share has in the past four decades fallen from 30 to 13 percent and continues to shrink. The “French patient” (according to Handelsblatt) has high fever, against which Draghi’s bond purchases act just like an aspirin: the pain is mitigated for a while, but the cause of the disease is not fought. “They’re looking ahead to an overwhelming crash,” FDP parliamentary leader Rainer Brüderle acknowledged.
Germany has chained itself to others’ enormous debts
The leaders of Europe decided on strict savings measures and deficit limits. But they will comply with them just as they did regarding the agreements for the stability of the monetary union. The EU Commission is already mentioning (the possibility of) indulgence towards those transgressing the debt limits, and proclaims the slogan that the year 2014 will bring a “growth spurt in the Euro Area”. This is just as credible as the testimony of the former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who made the always well-meaning Germans believe in March 2011 that: “We will pay back every cent. Germany will get its money back — and with high interest.” For a long time there has been no more talk about this. Papandreou’s successor is avid for the next debt relief package.
Germany is not a secure island of salvation against the debt tsunami. The rescue packages hides 700 billion euros in payment obligations, and the Bundesbank has accumulated Target-2 balances worth around one trillion euros. If the European house is washed away by the flood, it will also wash away Germany, which has irresponsibly let itself be chained to the debt mountain, and will suffer just as Prometheus had to in the Greek myth. According to Bernd Lucke, the chairman of the new party “alternative for Germany”, there are “dependencies that we no longer have control of.” How scornful Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s statement from June 2010 sounds now: “The rescue packages are expiring. We have clearly arranged this.”
The proof that the peoples of Europe are not willing to silently put on themselves under the yoke of interests was clearly seen in the Italian elections, which caused panic in Brussels, Paris and other cities. The people have voted against Europe. Peer Steinbrück, the SPD (German Socialist Party) candidate for the post of chancellor and founder of a new German wilhelminist identity was “aghast that two clowns have won”. He was talking about Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo, who turned a keen edge towards Brussels with his five-star-movement. In medieval courts it was not advisors and ministers, but court jesters who used to tell the truth. Therefore Grillo’s words are a warning not only for Italy, but for all of Europe, “(As I see it), the old parties have just six months left, and then all will be over.”
He’s close — but critically wrong where it counts.
Europe’s crisis is not debt.
It’s state spending — which is then ‘covered’ by debt issuance.
Debts that can’t be repaid, naturally.
Immigration has to be reversed, retirement ages have to be lifted, and the Keynesian faith has to be destroyed.
These drivers rupture the ‘Pink Model’ — Socialism Lite.
It’s a thought crime of the first order to admit it… but muslim immigrants swamp the economic life boat. They are, by far, the dominant drain on Europe’s finances and are the reason why Europe is destined to be the Weak Man of Earth… Sort of an Ottoman Empire on estrogen… a strategic attack of the dependency ummah.
This strategic parasitism is an opportunism of malignant intent.
It is now resulting in a genetic replacement akin to the Africanized honeybee. Aggression is destined to replace production.
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Whereas the average European IQ norms around 96ish the ummah’s IQ norms around 81ish. That, alone, has profound implications for economics and social order. Lower per capita GDPs are strongly associated with declining IQ norms.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/imm.htm
As you might expect, the Left insists that such correlations just can’t happen. ‘Cause they said so!
My personal experiences inform me that below a certain level of cognition, productive output collapses. Individuals can’t run rope from A to B, etc.
For the ummah, seriously dumb individuals are shockingly common. Too many consanguineous marriages and terrible prenatal nutrition run down IQs — and many other body metrics.
Such societies can breed more problems than any do-gooder can handle in a dozen life-times.
Providing free food, etc., actually works to magnify the problems — as does bringing those souls out of their native environments.
It may shock Swedes, but Africans regard an endless winter to be very depressing, and something that they’re not able to cope with.
The ummah is very rich, and busy destroying itself in Syria. If all warlike young men get killed over there, the complacent muslims of the Gulf States will be very vulnerable.
“European IQ norms around 96ish the ummah’s IQ norms around 81ish.”
I think you have got the figures reversed. The European IQ is 81ish and the ummah’s is 96ish. Why do I say this. The Europeans are behaving like morons for electing totally incompetent polictians to rule them and they are behaving like zombies when their women and children raped and their hard earned tax money is used to fund more and more of these ummah parasites.
Both Soviet citizens and Nazi citizens put up with (literally) insane national policies.
They did so because they were successfully lied to.
We’re seeing this in North Korea, today. Even the Red Chinese speak of its autocrats as being, functionally, insane. Such is the power of groupthink.
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The West is also suffering from mass self-delusion. In our case, our collective psyche is being damaged by Active Measures* and by the Winston Smithing of inconvenient data points.
Active Measures … Google Bezmenov…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4
Today, Active Measures includes even blog sites. Central attends to the most important blogs — across the spectra — so as to stay ‘on the pulse.’
Any gardener would tell you that weeds are best removed promptly. Central would tell you that social trends are best manipulated early in. Only a trivial fraction of humanity actually thinks ahead, culturally or politically. It is this fraction that Central games/ manipulates.
The absolute last thing that Central (or the Devil) could want would be exposure — most particularly its very existence.
As a mass producer of lies, Central’s agents hate being fingered. When this actually happens in a blog stream — they run away. (They’re so nervy that they’ve been caught posting from Moscow, itself. Careless!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnj_ai0PaGo
Anna Chapman ^^^ described as a ‘Spy’ is, in fact, not a spy at all. She was a First Directorate agent, alright. However, even a cursory inspection of her tail makes it plain that her role was that of conducting Active Measures. Indeed, every other SVR agent (incorrectly described as KGB) was similarly oriented. Not one of them was a spy.
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BTW, real spying, as in collecting military secrets is not a KGB/SVR role at all. The USSR/ Russia maintains a completely separate spy service dedicated to military secrets: the GRU. It’s not attached to the Party. It is an organ of their defense complex.
In countless Western films and reports GRU agents are referred to as KGB. Such disinformation suits them both.
One example: the Falcon and the Snowman. Under absolutely no circumstances would the KGB be allowed to even touch them. Their radar oriented material was the exclusive turf of the GRU. Any KGB agent that came into contact with them would have to turn them over to his GRU peers within the day.
KGB/ SVR = dirty politics, vote corruption, agitprop, etc.
GRU = every aspect of military secrets, etc.
Both spy agencies hate, hate, hate, each other.
Read Suvorov, ex GRU agent, ISBN 0-02-615510-9
Actually there is one country – one – where things are going well: Iceland
Why?
They let the banks go bust, the foolish lenders take their losses. That included British banks, for which the British government activated anti-terrorism (!) law in a futile attempt to keep Iceland burdened with debt. In a 2011 referendum, almost 60 % of the Icelanders refused to yield on the issue. This has led to a productive credit crunch in Iceland, where people and companies can no longer build on debt, and that is sound.
The Iceland example is underreported. If it was better known, the peoples of other European countries would realize that they have little to lose but their chains.
Oh: Apologies for the Marx reference here – Marx was a great advocate of central banking, which unfortunately remains a key component of our problems.
Marx had much to say about central banking — and he hated them — as a class enemy, no less.
Iceland is NOT similar to the other banking follies.
1) The Russian Mafia, de facto, took over the naïve Iclandic fanancial sector.
2) In particular, they created a ‘long con’ known as IceSave: an Internet entity that sucked in British and Dutch retail savers — using the high reputation of Icelandic institutions to gull them in.
Virtually the E N T I R E Icelandic financial debacle revolves around the horrific beatings taken by non-Icelanders fleeced by IceSave.
Everything you read about the British government turns on them wanting the Icelanders to make good on the conned retail savers. The money was shipped off to Moscow, wired, no doubt.
When the Icelandic government tried to get Moscow to give the money back — Putin & Co said, “Nyet.”
The Soviet Mafia connection and Putin’s cover for the perps goes rarely remarked. Journalists have found that pursuit of this line of inquiry has lethal consequences.
London can’t get Moscow to play ball with contract murders. No one hopes that Putin is going to cough up the winnings from the IceSave con.
BTW, the retail depositors to IceSave were NEVER insured by an official organ of the Icelandic government. IceSave was not marketed to Icelanders, themselves. (!!!) If the Dutch or British want to bail out their victims — they should do so with their own sovereign resources. Iceland couldn’t possibly pay.
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If you can grasp the above, then the magical recovery of Iceland becomes easy to understand. Its citizens were not depositors to IceSave — with some trivial exceptions. Iceland is not a massive net borrower in international credit markets. So moving to a cash basis economy was not such a big burden.
Lastly, Iceland is now a serious ‘exporter’ of electric power. A major dam, completed in this century, is powering an alumina reduction smelter — also brand new. Iceland is so small, that this project has a material impact on its currency flows. Iceland is, stepwise, moving away from being a fisheries only economy.
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Ireland is a much larger variation on the Soviet Mafia – bank-bust-out con. Arrest warrants have been issued. But the perps, again, are hiding in Moscow.
But, at least the Irish banks invested in American prime commercial real estate. Its recent rise might actually bail Ireland out — at least part way.
You’ll not see too much in print. The word is out: any journalist pursuing either story faces brutal counter-force.
Even the 2008 has a Soviet Mafia angle. The tiny broker that was shorting Lehman Brothers like crazy has an American Mafia and Soviet Mafia connection. FTD shares sold short = same effect as counterfeiting shares/ money. Billions of dollars were made in just days by this mechanism.
That false short selling of Lehman brothers shares was carried out by certain Gulf Arabs.
OK, that was interesting! The lack of sources (which I can understand, but still…) is a problem, though. I’ll mark this as ‘plausible’ and keep my eyes on similar developments.
I don’t think such huge frauds would be possible under a gold standard, BTW…
And that is why Marxists don’t like criticism of central bankers. Israel and Zionism, however, are fair game. This means the central bankers are enemies of Israel and Zionism.
Central Bankers = Class Enemies
Marxists A L W A Y S liquidate the central bankers once they gain political control.
Put down the bong.
Marx had m a j o r screeds against central bankers — in particular.
They were absolutely #1 on his hate list. You couldn’t be more wrong.
Europeanss, and particularly Germans, were dragged, kicking and screaming into the Eurozone, the ‘stability pact’ was to be the protection for the average German in the street, no borrowing over the limit. The stability pact did not last out the first year.
On the whole, Europeans, as opposed to their elites, do not want ‘ever closer union’, they were sold it on the basis of ‘no more wars’.
Now there is only one way out of all this; a good nasty war. The problem is, who will be the victim. Lets look and see what country the propaganda machine is currently vilifying.
I think I do not have to look very far…..
You’re completely rewriting economic and political history. Don’t.
Nixon took the US Dollar off the quasi-gold standard in 1971. Until that moment, Paris was swapping currency for metal at a ramping tempo.
Between ’71 and ’74 industrial prices inflated remarkably, oil shocks and all, it was a world of fiat versus fiat. ( Fiat USD vs French Francs vs German Marks, etc.)
Paris and Bonn ran a co-joint iron-steel-coal cartel — ever since 1955. This era of total fiat meant that both were in a position to re-rig trade terms by manipulating their fiat currencies. (vs the USD — still the benchmark)
Paris approached Bonn with a new unit of account — to be used/ invoked for cross border trading by the iron-steel-coal cartel rather than that nasty alien US Dollar. ( Using US Dollars as a method of settlement — for longer term contracts in alien lands — is termed Dollarization. Until 2008, dollarization was pervasive across the planet — especially to include Russia, Red China, and the Third World.)
The US Dollar replacement had to be something that neither Bonn nor Paris could rig. The experts came up with a (European) trade-weighted unit of account — the Euro. This new fiat was not a currency. It only existed within the contract terms of the production cartel, starting late in 1974.
As the years rolled by, Belgium adopted the Euro. It spread to ever more long term intra-European (cross border) trading contracts in other industries. Such a spread was politically directed by Paris. The Enarques (The elites of Paris — Google is your friend) wanted to expunge dollarization from France, then the world.
What had happened ‘at wholesale’ was ultimately deemed (by Paris) ready for ‘the streets.’ WWIII was over. (Cold War) It was high time to get the US Dollar out of the tourist trade. (It was t h e international money.)
Their scheme was simple: swap new fiats for old — but, in the doing, rig the exchange rates so that the new ones would trade (cross) at 1:1 in the currency market.
Berlin wanted these new currencies to be named:
German Euro
French Euro
Spanish Euro
Dutch Euro
etc.
Paris nixed that. Even though absolutely no changes were to occur to the existing central banks, she wanted the new fiats to look virtually identical — and to be promoted as being international money. (They can trade at 1:1 across European borders.)
Berlin gave in — but got the ECB HQ’d in Berlin — and the illusion that a strong money policy would thence spread outwards from Berlin to the rest of Europe. (Hah!)
Since nothing has changed, it was necessary to keep track of who’d printed which note. This was done by a letter suffix.
X=Germany
U=France
Z=Belgium
Y=Greece
etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes
The ECB is plopped on top of all the pre-existing central banks. None have been disolved. They are still keeping track of all cross-border accounts.
If the Euro was really one currency — like the US Dollar — then Athens could just print up some ‘Y’s and hand them over for the ‘X’s that she borrowed.
Berlin says, “No way! We want our ‘X’s back!” Only German Euros can balance the books back in Berlin.
But, but, but, the MEDIA, you say… They never mention this. (!!!)
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Do your own research: find out how many European central banks have been dissolved. ( Answer: zero. )
Do the Europeans still issue unique coinage? ( Yes )
Are their notes unique? ( Yes )
Is there any cross guarantees for sovereign debts? ( By treaty, No. )
How are they keeping this rig afloat? ( US Federal Reserve System is buying — at nice premiums — US Treasuries and various mortgage connected debt instruments held by Foreign financial institutions. These realized profits are boosting European bank balance sheets just enough to kick the can down the road. Their need is so great that they are the dominant sellers — American institutions are standing pat.) (!!!)
Folks, this Euro scheme is but a new form of the old classic: rigid exchange rates under either a silver or gold standard. The only thing missing is the metal. Otherwise, the math is the same.
It’s modern mercantilism. No wonder Paris is in rapture!
That ties in with an observation I made quite a while ago – that in the 1½ years up to “closing the gold window”, the reportings on US gold reserves were remarkably stable. That does not match with Paris taking in large amounts of gold, using the Bretton Woods system the way it was formally designed to work, but not meant to be used in real life. When the participants took advantage of that foolish scheme, it rightly broke.
Which banks hold the west’s debt? Surely not the banks that the west bailed out – so which banks? Does anyone know?
The bail out was triggered by an international bank run — these days conducted by ‘wire.’ ( that is, electronic means: the central banks run a variation of the Internet just for themselves. )
The run got started because of macro-embezzlement within the American real estate mortgage origination business.
With embezzlement-classic, the victim is fleeced over time — years even — the panic sets in when the bleeding stops — because the perp is caught –at which time it becomes apparent that the books have been corrupted. If the institution is publically traded, the stock might fall entirely out of bed. This can happen even if it’s a money spinner — like Apple. It could actually suffer the loss of $ 80,000,000,000 and keep on kicking.
If the embezzlement is due to control-fraud — typical for financial institutions — the leverage normally implodes all straight into the ground. For such events, the money lost is not retained earnings — it belonged to depositors.
With macro-embezzlement you have systemic fraud — manufactured mass-production style.
In the case at hand, it reached global scale because the US Federal Government implicitly guaranteed the paper.
The panic started when the embezzlers couldn’t roll-over the fraudulent paper with even bigger lies. Result: the leading edge of RMBS went into default. Because of bubble dynamics, the insolvency cascade began.
Truncating a lot:
The US Government ultimately realized that it H A D to step up and make bad paper good. The markets were locking up. An international run — $250,000,000,000 per HOUR at the peak was hitting the money markets.
Insolvent banks are banks that can’t cash payroll checks — nor anything else. When this happens across the planet the effect is catastrophic.
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BTW, Banks are purely intermediaries. They don’t ‘own’ hardly anything. They’re holding assets in the name of everyone else — in real terms. When you wipe them out — you hit everyone else, instead. All that a bank has is stacks of documents — paper, if you will.
European banks are levered 40 to 1, so was Lehman. This reality is the primary reason that the government – actually all of them – can’t spank the bankers. The punishment just shoots straight through to the voting public.
The US Government didn’t bail out the bankers, per se, they bailed out the SYSTEM — and the retail and wholesale depositors.
The bankers take their winnings as insanely fat paychecks — right out the front door. They’ve created such complicated systems that the government is afraid to kick them out and try and run it with amatuers.
So which banks hold the west’s debt?
Thank you for a very enlightening analysis.
“Thank you for a very enlightening analysis” is directed to blert for both his March 15, 2013 at 11:50 pm comment and his March 16, 2013 at 4:05 am reply.
Another part of the issue is that recessions are a natural adjustment, but as this reduces income and destroys jobs many governments pump-primed their economies as soon as a recession started, building up large debt. This happened multiple times and its like a staircase, but one that leads to a big drop.
Add to this the massive debt caused by excessive state spending, welfare costs that are not covered by tax, ponzi scheme retirement systems, the bringing in of vast numbers of people who were unemployable in countries that were no longer competitive in world markets, and the social costs adding to the woes of their companies so that they go to the wall or relocate.
When the well set up financial attack on Lehman brothers was carried out by certain Middel Eastern people, who used fraudelent short selling trades, there was a collapse of the banks and their debt was taken on by Governments who were already swiming in it.
At this point we are falling off of the top of the stairs as there is no money left so the economies are in free fall.
Add to this the Green policies, massively increasing energy costs, for people thus cutting their purchasing power and reducing demand and for companies making them less competitive by adding to their costs, impacting them further on top of heavy social charges.
Peak oil, they are finding new oil all over the place, however the financial market is now controlled by Muslim money, they are using Oil futures on the back of the peak oil myth to keep energy prices high and therefore strangle Western economies, they know now that this is required to weaken them so they can be taken over easily.
At this point most European countries to cut costs are reducing their armed forces to such a small level that they will not be able to defend themselves. I can only look in admiration at the skilful and very well calculated attacks on the Western world by the long term Islamic planners.
On the back of all this we have a population that has been conditioned to left wing stupidity and votes for people that will promise them things they cannot deliver.
We are in a major change period, the West is no longer top dog, and the real collapse is closer than most people think.