Here Come The Threats: Europe

Here Come The Threats: Europe

You knew it was just a matter of time....

Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.

In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.

How did that happen?  Was it someone else's fault?  Was it some "exogenous" event?  Some natural catastrophe?

Or was it profligate spending, handouts and bailouts, promises made to public employee unions and intentional, willful and wanton bubble-blowing?

And by the way, how does a "popular uprising" destroy a representative government?  That happens when the government stops representing the governed, doesn't it - and if that has happened you don't have a "democracy" any more, you have a ruling junta, whether you call it that or not.

The people always reserve, as a matter of fundamental human rights, to cast off - by peaceful means if possible, by other means if necessary - any government that has failed to be representative and/or responsive any longer.  Doubt me?  Go read The Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Not my words folks. 

Those of brave men who lived more than 200 years ago.  The United States of America exists because of those words - and brave men. 

Don't ever forget it, or you'll get to relearn it.

The stark warning came as it emerged that EU chiefs have begun work on an emergency bailout package for Spain which is likely to run into hundreds of billions of pounds.

Now wait a second... just the other day we were told that Spain was in no need of a bailout!

Was that a lie?

Mr Monks said union barons across Europe were planning a co-ordinated ‘day of action’ against the cuts on 29 September, involving national strikes and protests.

Union barons?  Who enabled public-employee unions to exist in the first place?  That would be governments, right?

Who enables them here in the United States?  That would be governments, right?

This threat-game sounds awfully similar to what Paulson ran with Bernanke in front of Congress.  The correct response to them at the time was "screw you!" and a pair of handcuffs for each.

We now have proof that acquiescence to such threats are the wrong answer - we have done nothing but built in a $1.5 trillion structural deficit which we appear unable to withdraw without cataclysmic consequence, and yet we are also unable to continue said profligacy into the indefinite future.  It is therefore a mathematical certainty that the path demanded and followed will fail - we argue only when, not what.

Mr Barroso and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank are united on the need for a rescue plan.

The looming bankruptcy of Spain, one of the foremost economies in Europe, poses far more of a threat to European unity and the euro project than Greece. 

The looming bankruptcy of Spain?

Spain has continued to insist that it does not require a bailout and that its finances are stable!

Who's telling the truth?   And if Spain is just fine, why is Eurostat meeting on this matter?

The first casualty of war - and fascism - is truth.

PS: The money doesn't exist to "bail out" all the PIIGS.  Remember, we were told they didn't need to, and that's why the market has stabilized - more or less.  If we were lied to by EU and ECB leadership then one wonders how long it will be before the market says, as the Red Queen did, "Off with their heads!" - figuratively, of course.

All lies are eventually uncovered, and fiscal lies, when maintained for too long, ultimately result in fiscal and often political destruction.

Return of the Deutsche Mark and the disintegration of the Euro anyone?