You know how you sometimes see an event unfolding in what seems to be slow motion and yet you remain frozen in place and unable to react? That’s exactly how the EU is now reacting to the Greek fiscal fiasco.
Unlike its recently deposed leader, the International Monetary Fund is impotent. They’re pretty sure something needs to be done but no one agrees on what. So the Eurocrats have worked up a dandy selection of equally unworkable plans.
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Please allow us – or in this particular case, please allow Paul de Grauwe of the University of Leuven – to dissuade you from any lingering fantasies regarding the future of the Euro.
We’re talking DOOMED. In all caps.
De Grauwe does a brilliant job of analyzing and summarizing the key differences between the Euro and the Pound:
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We’ve been assured by all the talking heads that the Euro is the world’s sickest currency. “The dollar’s weak,” they tell us, “but that Euro, why, it’s ready to totally disintegrate.”
Axel Merk is president and chief investment officer of Merk Investments and he says that point of view is nonsense, exactly 180 degrees out of phase.
We have to admit that Merk makes a certain amount of sense:
[Click to hear what Axel Merk has to say...]
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Warren Buffet told CNBC:
“It’s not unthinkable that the euro could collapse. know some people think it’s unthinkable … I don’t think it’s unthinkable” He added, “”You can’t have three or four or five countries that are in effect free-riding on the other countries. That won’t work over time — they have to get their fiscal houses in reasonable harmony.”
The “other countries” is essentially Germany. How long will the Germans put up with paying for the more fiscally irresponsible Eurozone nations.
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All the billionaires are in Davos, Switzerland this week to see how they can make more billions. Erik Schatzker of Bloomberg Television’s “On The Move” caught up with investor George Soros and got a great interview out of him. They talked about the European sovereign debt crisis, the outlook for commodities and the U.S. deficit.
You won’t walk away form this video feeling too good about where the world is headed, unless you are one of those billionaires in Davos who will find ways to profit from our sorrow.
You either love or hate George Soros, and I fall into the latter camp. But I still forced myself to watch it and found the interview enlightening. You should take ten minutes to listen in.
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Okay, I admit it, I’ve got a man crush something bad for Nigel Farage, UK Representative to the European Parliament, and leader of the UK Independence Party. In this clip he gives a trashing to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on January 19, 2011. The subject: the disaster that is called the Eurozone. After his two minutes are up, Olle Schmidt representing the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, tells Nigel he’s clueless, and stands up for the Euro. Of course, Farage gets in the last word.
Listen to my man Nigel give the European Parliament members hell.
We need leaders like this in the United States, leaders who are not afraid to speak the truth, who speak their mind freely, and say damn the consequences of “impolite” speech, not like the sissy leaders we have lawmakers this country.
Just to show you what wusses we’ve become in the U.S., listen to the horror expressed by CNN host John King, when guest Andy Shaw used the term — you might want to close your ears — “in the crosshairs.” (h/t IHateTheMedia.com).
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So far, Italy, the third largest economy to use the Euro, has been able to keep its distance from the sovereign debt problems facing other PIIGS. But, recently its economic woes are coming to the forefront. How long can Italy go without seeking its own bailout?
There’s no one like European Parliament Member and leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, to give it to us straight. I love this guy — whether it’s the global warming fraud or financial corruption, he tells it like it is. About Italy, the rest of the PIIGS and the whole Eurozone mess.
Farage is also concerned that the disappearance of political sovereignty after bailouts will give rise to violent nationalist, political groups:
When you join the Euro, you give away control over interest rates and now that they’ve been bailed out, they’ve given away the ability to decide their own budgets. Greece and Ireland have now become protectorates of the European Union. They’ve lost their democracy, they’ve lost their self-government, and I’m deeply fearful, I do feel, that extreme political groups, even violent political groups, will now be on the rise, because if people feel they cannot alter their own destiny by voting, what are they left with?
And I love this reply, when asked about why Estonia could still join the Eurozone:
This is an empire…the European Union is the first ever non-military empire and what empires try to do is expand.
It’s a great interview.
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European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed to set up a permanent mechanism to save Eurozone economies sinking in debt. They promised to do “whatever is required” to safeguard the common currency. It can’t come soon enough, with rating agencies suggesting several nations are close to being insolvent.
All across Europe there is a feeling of discontent, that the lower and middle classes are shouldering the burden of the financial crisis, a crisis that was caused by bankers and governments. And it doesn’t help that European Parliament members are about to give themselves a raise to $170,000 Euros a year, while calling for austerity.
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Jim Rogers was interviewed at the 2011 Investment Outlook Summit and among many other things he called the U.S. government inflation data “a sham.” Anyone that pays rent, buys groceries, goes out to dinner, and just about any other activity, knows that there is most definitely inflation. As Rogers says, “Everybody in this room knows prices are going up for everything.”
In this 30 minute interview, he comments on inflation, the Federal Reserve, rising interest rates, the Eurozone, commodities and other concerning world issues.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Source: Reuters
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You heard leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage’s wonderful rant against the Euro on the floor at the English Parliament. Now, listen to him interviewed by RT, about the Eurozone’s bailout troubles. Another Eurozone country, Italy, might need a financial bailout soon. The third largest economy that uses the Euro currency has started plunging in the same direction as Greece and Ireland, who he says couild be kicked out of the Eurozone. It comes as fresh protests sweep across Europe — with people angry at facing tough cuts to pay for it all.
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Pimco’s CEO Mohamed El-Erian is one of the brightest guys around. In this video he comments on the Irish bailout, telling viewers on CNBC that the Eurozone has not met the first rule of crisis management: get ahead of the crisis; be seen as proactive, rather than reactive. He says “as long as they are being reactive, they are going to have a slow motion wreck going on in Europe and we are going to wake up and it’s going to be a new country that you are talking about.”
He calls the order of the problematic countries, following Greece and Ireland, as Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Italy.
Listen to the whole interview to hear his recommendations for navigating the coming devastation.
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One by one, Eurozone nations are being devoured by the Euro-state, losing their sovereignty by way of the new debt they are incurring as they are bailed out. The voices of the people, protesting the loss of their countries’ independence, are not headed. The voices of the political class are considerably more quiet. But there are a few that stand up and tell it like it is.
One such politician is Nigel Farage, a member of the European Parliament representing the United Kingdom. In this video, filmed in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on November 24, Farage tells fellow members what they can do with their Euro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KAWXC5Z0wU
“We don’t want that flag, we don’t want the anthem, we don’t want this political class. We want the whole thing consigned to the dust bin of history … You are very, very dangerous people indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro-state means that you’re happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro-dream can continue ….”
If Nigel Farage tires of fighting the losing cause that is Europe, we could use you over here in the States. If Immigration won’t let you in, just come across the Mexican border and you’ll get the welcoming mat.
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Charles Nenner, founder and president of Charles Nenner Research, told CNBC Monday that the Eurozone is “not fixable and was a mistake from the beginning” and the Eurozone politicians have made a major mistake creating the Euro and as long as they are in power they will keep it going.
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Ireland’s debt problems are not going to be contained by its borders, or even to the PIGS nations. The banks in France, Germany and particularly the United Kingdom have made large loans to Ireland, and when they default — not if, but when, says former IMF Executive Desmond Lachman — these banks will suffer huge losses.
Bank problems at the core of Europe would be bad for the Euro and good for the U.S. Dollar. And this is bad for American exports. And these exports that benefit from a weak dollar is what the U.S. stock market has largely been pinning its hopes on. And beyond this, of course, the U.S. financial system is part of the global financial system, and as we saw two years ago, everything is interconnected. If they go down hard, the U.S. will feel it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBU3AsZwC4
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