Category Archives: EU

Zero, His Magic Number

Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Labor, Political Economy

Under Barack Obama, the misery index has risen dramatically.

“Food stamp rolls have risen 8.1% in the past year,” reports the WSJ. “[I]n August, the number of recipients hit 45.8 million.” That’s an astounding figure.

Whatever BHO claims to the contrary, the debt is only increasing: $203 Billion in the month of October. The national debt is approaching 15 trillion dollars.

Officially, close to 14 million Americans are unemployed. However, the liars at Labor (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) ought to use the U-6, which includes the unemployed and people who would like to work, but who have not looked for a job recently, as well as those involuntarily working part-time. The latter is closer to 25 million. It’s all very sad.

For his part, BHO has gone tripping in Europe. Evidently, “we have the standing to lecture them.” Or perhaps the president has traveled to the Continent, ostensibly to convince Europeans to continue on the road to ruin Obama has set the US upon? Who knows? Except that his contribution to a debate about debt will be … zero, his magic number.

Smaller Unit of Bondage?

Conservatism, Economy, EU, Europe, Liberty

Mainstream conservative opinion is catching up with secessionist sentiment and prescriptions expressed over these pixelated pages (September 9, 2011), except that these conservatives can’t quite bring themselves to speak of the benefits of dissolving the dysfunctional EU.

Brett M. Decker of The Washington Times advocates a new, if smaller, unit of bondage:

“… a new Mark-based monetary union with fellow northern economies that maintain strict fiscal controls could help salvage something when the next economic tsunami hits Europe.” (October 21, 2011)

BUT:

German taxpayers are fed up with having to constantly bail out suicidal spendthrift policies in irresponsible countries. They understand that bailouts are only temporary band-aids because welfare states will keep coming back with hats in hand for more cash injections but never improve their failing practices.

If they are dropped from the EU, “loser countries” will better able to serve as cheap labor and resume exporting goods to their neighbors.

Percolating Euroskepticism

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Foreign Policy, Nationhood, Political Philosophy, States' Rights

Last month I warned that European “politicians had better beware: Ordinary Germans have come to realize that adding an overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to their own government has benefited them as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.”

Mainstream media is catching on:

“…there has been a colossal misunderstanding,” writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph, “around the world of what has just has happened in Germany. The significance of yesterday’s vote by the Bundestag to make the EU’s €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) more flexible is not that the outcome was a ‘Yes'”.

This assent was a foregone conclusion, given the backing of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens. In any case, the vote merely ratifies the EU deal reached more than two months ago – itself too little, too late, rendered largely worthless by very fast-moving events.
The significance is entirely the opposite. The furious debate over the erosion of German fiscal sovereignty and democracy – as well as the escalating costs of the EU rescue machinery – has made it absolutely clear that the Bundestag will not prop up the ruins of monetary union for much longer.

Left and right, American statists want to believe that work-horse Europeans (Germans, for instance) support the Eurozone and the wider European Union (EU). As I ventured in “Euro-Bondage & the Next Tier of Tyrants,” it is but a matter of time before patriotic Euroskeptics, to whom our press makes only veiled mention, reject the absurd claim that the EU colossus would or could advance their interests.

Fans of freedom, and hence of nullification and secession, should watch the developments in Germany with great interest. That country’s government and high court have flouted the people’s sovereignty for too long. A change is a coming…

Gormless Geithner

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Federalism, Inflation

In June of 2009, US Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner drew loud laughter from amused Chinese students when he made ludicrous claims about American solvency. “Chinese assets are very safe,” he assured students at Peking University, who wanted to know how exposed China was, given that it was the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds.

The Europeans are not as good-natured about Geithner as these Chinese youngsters were. The US treasury secretary told “Europe’s leaders to stop bickering and take control of the debt crisis that has brought ‘catastrophic risk’ to financial markets.” (Via FT)

Pot. Kettle. Black was the retort of Maria Fekter, Austria’s finance minister:

“I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the eurozone, that they tell us what we should do and when we make a suggestion…” (FT)

It is natural for Geitner and the administration, who are undeterred in their “vulgar Keynesianism,” to worry about the healthy “ongoing conflict between governments and the central bank” in Europe. For one thing, Europe is being more fiscally prudent than the US; it is making us look even worse than we are. For another, the EU may be on the verge of decentralizing—or even dissolving. … The “Great Centralizers” in DC would not embrace that development.

Also obvious is the Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s fondness for Geitner’s “leverage plan” for the EU. That’s probably code for liquidity. Ireland is one of the EU’s “PIGS” states. Europe’s profligate states are Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. (And now Italy.)