Right now the ingredients for a "perfect storm" are developing in Europe.

international | public consultation / irish social forum | news report

Tuesday June 19, 2012 01:23

by Ben Jackson

Right now the ingredients for a "perfect storm" are developing in Europe.

The election results from Greece are in and the pro-bailout forces have won, but just barely. It is being projected that the pro-bailout New Democracy party will have about 130 seats in the 300 seat parliament, and Pasok (another pro-bailout party) will have about 33 seats. Those two parties have alternated ruling Greece for decades, and it looks like they are going to form a coalition government which will keep Greece in the euro. On Monday we are likely to see financial markets across the globe in celebration mode. But the truth is that nothing has really changed. Greece is still in a depression. The Greek economy has contracted by close to 25 percent over the past four years, and now they are going to stay on the exact same path that they were before. Austerity is going to continue to grind away at what remains of the Greek economy and money is going to continue to fly out of the country at a very rapid pace. Greece is still drowning in debt and completely dependent on outside aid to avoid bankruptcy. Meanwhile, things in Spain and Italy are rapidly getting worse. So where in that equation is room for optimism?

Right now the ingredients for a "perfect storm" are developing in Europe. Government spending is being slashed all across the continent, ECB monetary policy is very tight, new regulations and deteriorating economic conditions are causing major banks to cut back on lending and there is panic in the air.

Unless something dramatic changes, things are going to continue to get worse.

Yes, the Greek election results mean that Greece will stay in the euro - at least for now.

But is that really a reason for Greeks to celebrate?

Right now, the unemployment rate in Greece is about 22 percent. Businesses continue to shut down at a staggering rate and suicides are spiking.

So far this month, about 500 million euros a day has been pulled out of Greek banks. The entire Greek banking system is on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, the Greek government is still running up more debt. It is being projected that the Greek budget deficit will be about 7 percent of GDP this year.

The Greeks went to the polls and they voted for more of the same.

Are they crazy?

Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Unfortunately, it looks like things are going to continue to get worse in Greece for quite some time.

And the rest of Europe is heading into a very bleak economic future as well.

At the moment, unemployment in the eurozone is at a record high.

Most analysts expect it to go even higher.

To say that Spain has an unemployment problem would be a massive understatement. The unemployment rate in Spain is even higher than the unemployment rate in Greece is. In fact, unemployment in Spain is the highest that it has ever been since the introduction of the euro.

The Spanish banking system is a complete and total disaster at this point. The Spanish government has already asked for a 100 billion euro bailout for its banks.

But that might not be nearly enough.

Spain is facing a housing collapse similar to what the United States went through back in 2008 and 2009. Right now, home prices in Spain are absolutely collapsing....

Fresh data yesterday shows how desperate the crisis is becoming in Spain. The property crash is accelerating. House prices fell at a 12.6pc rate in the first quarter of this year, compared to 11.2pc the quarter before, and 7.4pc in the quarter before that. Prices have fallen 26pc from their peak.

"Fundamentals point to a further 25pc decline," said Standard & Poor's in a report on Thursday. It may take another four years to clear a glut of one million homes left from the building boom.

Meanwhile, money is being pulled out of banks in Spain at a very alarming rate. As panic spreads we are seeing slow motion bank runs all over Europe. Over the past few months massive amounts of money have been moved from troubled nations to "safe havens" such as Switzerland and Germany.

Investors are getting very nervous and yields on Italian and Spanish debt are spiking again.

Last week yields on Spanish debt hit their highest levels since the introduction of the euro. Without massive ECB intervention the yield on 10 year Spanish bonds will almost certainly blow well past the 7 percent danger mark.

The credit rating agencies are indicating that there is danger ahead. Moody's recently downgraded Spanish debt to just one notch above junk status. Spain is heading down the exact same road that Greece has gone.

The situation in Europe is very grim.

Greece is going to need bailouts for as far as the eye can see.

Spain is almost certainly going to need a huge bailout.

Italy is almost certainly going to need a huge bailout.

Ireland and Portugal look like they are going to need more money.

France is increasingly looking vulnerable, and Francois Hollande appears to have no real solutions up his sleeve.

As I have said so many times before, watch Europe.

Every few weeks there are headlines that declare that "Europe has been saved" but things just keep getting worse.

The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, said the following a few weeks ago....

"Our biggest trading partner is tearing itself apart with no obvious solution."

And that is the truth. There is no obvious solution to the problems in Europe. The politicians could kick the can down the road for a while longer, but in the end there will be no avoiding the pain that is coming.

The equation for what is happening in Europe that I have shared before still applies....

Brutal austerity + toxic levels of government debt + rising bond yields + a lack of confidence in the financial system + banks that are massively overleveraged + a massive credit crunch = A financial implosion of historic proportions

We are watching a slow-motion financial train wreck that is absolutely unprecedented happen right in front of our eyes and our politicians are powerless to stop it.

It is going to be a long, hot summer for the European financial system.

On election day in Greece, the mood was incredibly somber. Instead of celebrating, most Greeks seemed resigned to a very hard future. As an article in the Telegraph described, the entire nation seems to be grinding to a halt....

This is the election that is supposed to decide whether Greece stays in the euro. Yet as it, and Europe, face what could be their Katrina moment, the dominant sense here is not of panic, or fear, or even hope - but of a country in suspended animation, grinding to a halt.

The Athens Heart shopping centre, in the southern suburbs, is polished, full of big brands, and almost totally empty of customers. "We've had five sales all day," says Steryiani Vlachakou, the assistant in the Champion sportswear store. "It's been getting a lot, lot worse."

Sadly, it is not only Greece that is doomed.

The truth is that all of Europe is doomed, and when Europe falls the entire globe is going to feel it.

So get ready for the hard times that are coming. The pain is going to be immense and most people are not even going to see it coming.

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Comments (13 of 13)

Members of the Republic of Ireland Senate informed today

by W. Finnerty

Wed Jun 27, 2012 18:17

For details please see at:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/24thSeanadMembers/27J...l.htm

"Nobody told us"

Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:07

"And how could we take account of it when we didn't know?"

But, they (Group of Dáil Éireann TDs) have been told this morning about the treacherous problems of long standing with the "banksters":
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/Dail31TDs/Group1of2/2...l.htm

"Five months later, on November 23rd, President Kennedy was assassinated."

Mon Jun 25, 2012 08:28

"This last quote from President Kennedy could have referred to the then growing threat of Communism to the world, but some researchers claim he knew that the shadowy international banking families – especially the House of Rothschild – were really the ones ultimately responsible for the major upsets and terrible wars that have afflicted mankind since the French and American Revolutions of the eighteenth century, including, of course, the creation of Communism in Russia (as Churchill alluded to in his above quote). So sure was President Kennedy that something had to be done about the ‘banksters’ who were increasingly putting countries and people into terrible debt, that on June 4th, 1963, supported by his brother Bobby, he signed a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank (a privately run bank controlled by the House of Rothschild) of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest."

"This order called for the issuance of a new currency, the 'United States Note'. Distributed through the U.S. Treasury rather than the Federal Reserve, $4.3 billion of this new currency was actually placed into circulation. At the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy had effectively dismissed the Federal Reserve System and ordered the government of the United States to restore its Constitutional mandate of controlling the nation’s money supply. Five months later, on November 23rd, President Kennedy was assassinated. All the new currency was quickly and effectively taken out of circulation, leaving the Federal Reserve Bank to continue with its criminal activities right up to the present day when, once again, it is coming under the close scrutiny of those who know that the ‘Fed’ serves the interests of the international bankers and not the American people."

The above two excerpts are from: http://inquiringminds.cc/taking-back-our-country-peacefully

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/PrimeMinisterCowen/18...l.htm

" ... a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy ..."

Sun Jun 24, 2012 19:42

"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations (and educational operations!!). Its preparations are concealed, not published. It’s mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumour is printed, no secret is revealed."

The above excerpt is from a speech made on April 27th 1961 by former US President John F. Kennedy.

The full text of speech is available at: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-....aspx )

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/DrAnneJeffers/24June2...iracy

Former US President Abraham Lincoln's Battle With The Banks

Sat Jun 23, 2012 08:08

"The following is Lincoln’s speech on Dec. 26, 1839 to the bankers who were swindling our young country."

“[A debate opponent] confidently predicts, that every State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van Buren at the next Presidential election. Address that argument to cowards and to knaves; with the free and the brave it will effect nothing. It may be true; if it must, let it. Many free countries have lost their liberty; and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, belching forth the lava of political corruption, in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave no green spot or living thing, while on its bosom are riding like demons on the waves of Hell, the imps of that evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare resist its destroying course, with the hopelessness of their effort; and knowing this, I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will.

“The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and alone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before High heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty and my love. And who, that thinks with me, will not fearlessly adopt the oath I take. Let none falter, who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But, if after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country’s freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending.”

All three of the above excerpts are from the following location: http://aglobalpublicservant.net/tag/unity-of-mankind/

Related Link
http://www.europeancourtofhumanrightswilliamfinnerty.com/

"No president will stand up to this lot. And look what happened to Abe!!"

Fri Jun 22, 2012 13:53

Reply to serf at Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:57

You appear to me to be overlooking the fact that some people -- people of principle and of integrity -- are prepared to run the risk of being assassinated in the interests of supporting basic human rights: in the process of lawfully challenging all who would usurp basic human rights.

To the best of knowledge, former US President Abraham Lincoln (for example) was entirely, 100% aware of the fact that there was a very high he would be assassinated, and he was fully aware of this risk long before he actually took up the office of president.

However, he did not allow the assassination threat to deter him from doing the large amount of exceptionally high-quality work he completed (as President): before the cowardly assassin's bullet (in the back of the head from point blank range) ended his extremely productive and highly constructive life (as I view it).

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/DailEireannGroup/20Ma...l.htm

get real....

by serf

Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:57

william,
it only costs a few thousand dollars to have someone killed.
People can be shot from a mile away.
Get real.

No president will stand up to this lot. And look what happened to Abe!!

Rumour even has it that it was something to do with his views on banking!!
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/lincoln3.htm

The present US president is a puppet, but not all US presidents have been puppets ...

Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:35

Reply to serf at Fri Jun 22, 2012 02:24

"The only real solution is global defanging of corporations and the financial terrorists."

I believe the best way to do this "defanging" is to use existing constitutional law, and existing national and international legislation based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights set of principles: which was very skilfully created in 1948, but which the vast majority of the world's population have not yet even heard of: which in turn means that a lot of people have a lot of catching up to do (as I see things) relating to basic, existing human rights law.

Any new US president of the kind who is not a puppet (and history proves beyond all doubt as far as I'm concerned that there are such people, as in the case of former US President Abraham Lincoln to name but one), and who genuinely supports the ancient Athenian republican "government of the people, by the people, for the people" principle which is very deeply embedded in the Republic of the United States Constitution, has the supreme law of the United States on their side: which, if enforced in the manner it was designed to be enforced, is (I believe) already more than adequate for the purpose of "defanging" wrongdoers of all kinds who seriously threaten the basic "government of the people, by the people, for the people" principle: provided the non-puppet US president in question also has the support of US Supreme Court judges who are free (or very largely free) of corruption.

In other words, what the world desperately needs just now (I believe) is a US Constitutional "principles before personalities" approach, which is well know -- for thousands of years -- to produce almost infinitely more benign results for society than the present arse-backwards "personalities before principles" approach now in operation, and which is being unconstitutionally (and consequently unlawfully) mimicked by our own Republic of Ireland Government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) at the present time. ("One donkey pisses, all donkeys piss!!")

For a long as there are US puppet presidents, and corrupt US supreme court judges in the Republic of the United States of America Government to provide the puppet US presidents with the crucially important legal support that criminally inclined US puppet presidents need, it seems to me that there is no amount of new legislation that will stop the present global phenomenon of red-rotten-with-corruption-ridden government crime, and all the associated red-rotten-with-corruption-ridden government cover-ups: which, correctly or otherwise, appears to me to be now leading humanity as a whole in the direction of a thermonuclear WW3: and which will very likely be the last in the WW series?

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com

president is only a puppet.

Fri Jun 22, 2012 02:24

William

You're deluding yourself if you think a new president would make a whit of difference.

It's the system in America that needs changing. America is now a corporatocracy. The president is just a puppet. The corporations / financial terrorists fund both sides. And if a president goes rogue (i.e. does the right thing) then he's not long for this world.

The military industrial complex / corporate sector need perpetual war. the more protracted and unwinnable the better. This means a constant transfer of wealth from the public purse into their hands. Thats the game.

Controlling all the world's important resources is a great spinoff too. You can keep producing the toxic shit we don't need and selling it for longer.

Then the globalised financial sector kick in and fuck around with the price of food etc with their algorithmic trading and take their cut without producing anything real, so we can't afford to eat. Nice!

The only real solution is global defanging of corporations and the financial terrorists. A universal charter enforced across national boundaries. Corporations and Financial institutions are trans national so our response has to be too. But the many countries of the world will never agree on something sane like that. Not when half them have their balls in the corporate / financial vice.

Some additional realism ...

Thu Jun 21, 2012 21:14

Reply to opus diablos at Thu Jun 21, 2012 18:42:

I would agree to a very largely extent with what you have stated.

However, I believe there is something very important you may have overlooked.

The situation in the Republic of Ireland is VERY different to the situation in the Republic of the United States of America in at least one or two important ways, one of which is this: President Obama could easily (in my opinion) soon find himself going the way of former US President Nixon, if he is not very careful: especially in connection with the growing reports of evidence of cover-ups he is allegedly involved in (which is what really did for Nixon).

If the impeachment of President Obama was to occur, then the horrors you outline would, I believe, be very much less likely to ever happen.

Part of the reason that people in the Republic of Ireland appear not to care is (I suspect) because they know perfectly well -- deep down -- that the Republic of Ireland has no military clout whatsoever that is worth talking about.

That is most certainly not the case with the Republic of the United States of America though; and, if a new and more sensible US president was to appear on the scene, as a replacement for an impeached Obama, it could make a huge difference (as I see things): assuming of course that the replacement was "moulded" in ways similar to former US presidents such as John F Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and others like them. Deeply troubled times, of the kind we have now, do have a tendency to produce such leaders in the Republic of the United States of America: where the "government of the people, by the people, for the people" principle is deeply embedded in their written Constitution (as it is of course in Article 6.1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland). In other words, and as happened before, a good US president could bring to an end, once more, the wholly unconstitutional "government of the corrupt bankers, by the corrupt bankers, for the corrupt bankers" type of governance the peoples of both the republics in question at present find themselves saddled with.

“This week it was Secretary of Defence Panetta’s declaration before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he and President Obama look not to the Congress for authorization to bomb Syria but to NATO and the United Nations,” Tancredo writes. “This led to Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., introducing an official resolution calling for impeachment should Obama take offensive action based on Panetta’s policy statement, because it would violate the Constitution.” (From: http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/obama-impeachment-bill-now-i...ress/

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/DrAnneJeffers/20June2...l.htm

maybe no good reason...

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Thu Jun 21, 2012 18:42

..but several bad ones.

IBEC, US Chamber, Troika, sycophancy of incumbents, media aversion to anything resembling the slightest interest other than ye olde Ascendancy agenda's vested..inability of ideologised population analysing objectively its predicament due to withholding of information and rational debate..me feinism culture of competition uber alles...oh and the entrenched belief that the solution is 'jobs'(i.e. Arbeit Macht Frei).
Then we have NATO and the Pentagonian pandemonium express, already well out of the traps and eating its way towards Moscow and Bejing via Iran and environs...haven't you seen the arms-sales growth graphs?

Excuse my realism. The perfect storm will result in the recidivist historical catharsis of global imperial war for control of the resources of the planet.

The clock is wound...and the bells are already tolling. The 'great game' is a long time running, we can oppose it and defy it and despise it and lament it...but I don't think it is stopable this side of Blitzkreig III.

And if we were to have a collective part in attempting to even slow it..well we would have stopped Shanon Eirebase 1 some time back...its not even on the register with our footy-focused public.

Delude yourselves not..the 99% do not give a shite....we, who do give a damn, are the minority, by a long chalk.

" ... and our politicians are powerless to stop it ..." (from main Article text) ...

Tue Jun 19, 2012 08:44

Reply to Ben Jackson at Tuesday June 19, 2012 01:23 ...

With respect, I wish to point out that (in my opinion) our politicians are NOT powerless to stop it: anything but!!

The Republic of Ireland is a fully independent sovereign nation state with a written constitution which has -- at its heart -- the Article 6.1 piece of SUPREME LAW that VERY CLEARLY states:

"All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good."

"The ancient Greeks discovered (about 2,500 years ago) that a healthy nation's money-supply system needs to be a 'creature of the law'; that in turn the 'law needs to be a creature of government'; and, last but by no means least, that the 'government needs to be a creature of The People': as in FULLY under the control of 'The People'. ( From http://www.humanrightsireland.com/ChiefJusticeSusanDenh...l.htm )

There is, as far as I know, no good reason whatsoever why our Government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) cannot, in response to the growing set of extremely serious money-supply threats you describe, develop a new "national policy" for our national money-supply needs, which "the people" of the Republic of Ireland believe to be for the "common good".

Related Link:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com

Start the presses...let the "Quantitative Easing" for the people begin..

by Spender

Tue Jun 19, 2012 03:56

Just print a load of euros and give it to people to spend.
All this fake austerity is bullshit designed to weaken social supports and labour.
Start the presses now.

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Right now the ingredients for a "perfect storm" are developing in Europe.

Comments (13 of 13)