Latest OECD report: Europe is entering recession! Oh really? How on earth did that happen, I wonder? But don’t anybody worry. Mrs Merkel will put it right. Just all tighten up your belts even more with even more stringent austerity measures, and recession will go away. Won’t it Mrs Merkel? Well yes! Of course! It will be succeeded by outright Depression!

 

The dynamic duo, out to save Europe and the Eurozone single handedly strikes again! I say single handedly because Merkel only has one pair of hands, though Sarkozy has many tongues? Now before you all go misinterpreting that remark, I hasten to add that by ?many tongues? I mean the proverbial ?he speaks in many tongues?.

Okay, so what is the wizard wheeze this time? Much the same as the old one. Same old, same old, as they say. Tighten belts, squeeze the people, throw the Economy into greater recession, and when you?ve done all that we might let you in to our elite club of the AAA rated states, and THEN we might start talking about the infamous Eurobond!

Will it work? Though there is sense in unifying the Eurozone?s Finance Ministries and vetting the budgets (or even dictating them I suppose) by a central authority (presumably German of course?), is that really what should be done right away now in order to avoid the Eurozone bust up?

Because yet again, it smacks of too little too late. A two tier Euro? Maybe. It could work. As to the AAA rated countries? Well, the way she?s gone about things, Merkel may end up with a dwindling band of thieves for all her best efforts. (Sarkozy, for one is shaking).

But when the real problem is galloping recession throughout Europe, verging on outright depression, (which is primarily what is threatening all those triple and double A ratings and so on, rather than the debt/deficit arithmetic), is squeezing the Economy in a way that throws it into the vicious cycle of more and more recession, really the best and only option? I doubt it. But then who am I to know?

Fortunately we have been blessed with the Merkozy leadership that will sail the ship safely to calmer waters and then finally to the safety of shore! Now should we crash into the rocks on the way, that won?t be their fault will it? It will be ours. Anyway, whose ever fault it may or may not be, we know perfectly well who is going to pay for all this mess.

I sometimes feel a strange nostalgia for that humane contraption designed by Dr. Guillotine.