Ok, so the Summit Conference is finally over and hey! Surprise, surprise, an agreement has been reached. Sort of. Subject to ratification by the European Parliament. Whose President is making some grumbling noises. But still. This is the EU. It will end up all right in the end, won’t it? That is the way of Europe, isn’t it?

But how can this rabble, rag bag of uncoordinated, unprepared, slip shod bozos, be so thoroughly disorganised all the time? There they go again, squabbling, trying to patch deals together in twos and threes. The big three are supposed to meet in the little guy’s office. Hollande doesn’t show up. Some say he is snubbing, others that Cameron forgot to invite him.

Little Angie back at her old tactical tricks. This time being all sweet on David who is threatening to break up the EU, in a ploy to put Francois in his place, though Francois is firmly in favour of the EU. Well, he is the EU. That is together with Angie playing footsie with big bad David and…

And yes, more late nights, pointless talk into the wee hours. Everybody bleary eyed, edgy, snappy, uncomfortable and really just wasting what ought to be their precious time. Does it never occur to anyone that perhaps all the drudgery and haggling and whining and even name calling could be done at a lower level? Does no one realise that this is indeed what the lower level is for and that the Summit Conference should be nothing more than the official stamp?

As to the absolute ineptness and ineffectiveness of Rompuy and Barroso (who wasn’t even mentioned), what is the use of paying them at all? They make no contribution to the running of the European Mechanism. Neither are their proposals ever given the time of day, nor do the meetings they call ever solve anything. Fat paychecks for totally useless and redundant would be executives.

Nevertheless, these are the great ones who keep telling us we have to reform because we have to recover our competitiveness… Just how competitive has this unruly, inconclusive little show been? Just how many man and women hours have been completely wasted? Just how efficient and smooth is the whole decision making process?

Instead of putting on such an appalling spectacle every so on, perhaps they should spend just a little of their expendable time pondering the matter. And, perhaps, practicing a little of what they preach. And for a start they could cut their own costs by getting rid of all those overpaid ineffectual buffoons.

Not unlike Zarathustra, George Soros commands a prominent position in today’s world. Not for deep thinking philosophy, perhaps, but because he is “the man who broke the bank…” not of Monte Carlo, but of England. No less. And since in today’s world the only thing anyone reveres is money and making it, by fair means or by foul, that is irrelevant, George Soros is one of the very big men of today.

So perhaps we should pay heed to what he says after all. In an interview published today, he is quoted as having said, among other things, the following:

I am terribly concerned about the euro potentially destroying the EU. There is a real danger that the solution to the financial problem creates a really profound political problem.

Germany needs to realise that the policy it imposes on the euro area – the austerity programme – is counter-productive. It cannot actually succeed. At the moment they [the south] is being pushed – unwittingly, not with bad intentions, but the effect is that they are being pushed into a long lasting depression and that is what is happening to Europe. And it may last more than a decade, in fact it could become permanent, until the pain is so big that eventually there may be a rebellion, a rejection of the EU, and that would then be the destruction of the EU, which is a terribly heavy price to maintain to preserve the euro, which is meant to be just a servant of the EU.

The only thing I would like to humbly add, perhaps because I cannot bare it otherwise, is that “the pain” has already become for many and will become for many more “so big” that the rebellion will come, I believe, before the decade is out.

Now if we really want to get high on rosy optimistic thoughts, there is a smidgen of a hope that the leaders of Europe will be jolted into waking up. Not necessarily those in power today who are the most short sighted, misguided, pig headed lot to have been collectively about ever. Well, okay excluding the lot around in Europe circa 1914, maybe.

But for all The Frau’s and her side kicks’ efforts, we do still have a semblance of democracy in Europe. There still is the hope that leadership and fundamental policy can be changed without outright rebellion. Though a rebellion, of course, can take many forms, not all of which are violent and with blood.

And that is the hope. That the inevitable rebellion against this vicious, moralistic, sadistic and grossly ineffective Merkel led policy, will come to an end by fair means rather than foul. And BEFORE the decade is out!

It has been said that when the pressure is off, the EU reverts to its natural inertia. It is certainly true that The Frau has contrived to put the pressure off at least until her elections. But this has only been achieved by sweeping the rubbish under a rather bulging carpet.

Meanwhile the budget looms ahead, not to mention the inevitability of a grand write down of Greek debt. But Greece is doing everything she can to accommodate the plans of one politician, not even one country. To her own detriment. The more she lets the can to be kicked down the road to the benefit of others but not herself, the worse the situation becomes in Greece.

The inevitable results of this policy, or lack thereof, are beginning to manifest themselves dangerously. Social unrest is growing. The government is getting off on playing strong man by unleashing police violence and mobilising all strikers, thereby limiting, it thinks, the effects of strikes.

But though they appear to love their “no nonsense” image, it really is not doing the country any good. Already the unpunished rampant police brutality is showing Greece up and returning us to an image that was rife in the time of the junta. Not to mention that bottling up all dissent and protests through police might, is not solving the problem but exacerbating it.

As to the eternal obsession with taxing the country dry while pushing it further and further into recession, that is the result of making pleasing The Frau your sole priority and to hell with your people. All that matters is that you are the one called Prime Minister, or just Minister.

Back in Euroland is there any concern over the deep rooted and growing problems of a Europe falling deeper and deeper into recession? Is there any concern over what might happen if.. if the Italian elections do not go the way they want, if… if the scandals in the Spanish governing party to lead to the unraveling of all The Frau’s neat little plans, if…If things finally do blow up in Greece?

Oh well, never mind, we’ll deal with any of that if we get there. If not we won’t. Meanwhile who gives a damn about people going, hungry, mad suicidal, criminal, or even turning terrorist as a result of all this arrogant procrastinating?

Well hey ho and on it goes. After the inexplicable burst of euphoria on the markets, the rise in the value of the Euro, the conviction that Draghi* had done the trick with three words and no action, reality has smashed the rosy stoned image of what is really going on.

Not one of the serious problems and inherent imbalances of the Eurozone that are the root causes of the crises has been addressed. The banking union has been put on hold. The imbalances between the periphery and the centre are not even addressed. The Greek problem, which remains potentially explosive has been put on the back burner lest little Angie does not get her toy back.

But sweeping the rubbish under the carpet cannot work forever. Today the markets seem to have started waking up to the facts. The main one being that all this exclusive insistence on balancing budgets and slashing wages (alone) to achieve competitiveness has only resulted in one thing: the deepening and deterioration of the Eurocrisis.

Rampant, unacceptable and potentially destabilising  unemployment. Recession expanding throughout Europe. Debt rising as of course it is bound to under recessionary conditions and the like.

Greeks are being threatened with even more debilitating taxation which will only put the final nail in the coffin for the economy and may well lead to dangerous social unrest. Strikes everywhere from the farmers, to the seamen and the transport workers.

People who were complacent up to now, or who felt we might pull through, or preferred to look the other way until it was all over, are beginning to feel fear. The destructive, destabilising fear that that courageous man warned against. “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.” said Roosevelt.

Today’s midgets running the show do the exact opposite (as you would expect of them). They try to scare the wits out of the people to pass their idiotic, ineffective and indeed destructive policies.

And today we are told, the Minister was sent a bullet as a threat. This being Greece, the most likely explanation was not that he was being threatened by anyone, but simply another propaganda trick to arouse sympathy for him as he wields the hatchet destroying everything the Greeks worked hard to achieve. (While leaving in place the stuff nobody worked for but acquired by unfair to illegal means).

Quite frankly, I do not think anyone will give a brass farthing for this threat. The last thing it will arouse is sympathy. Possibly because the threat is hardly credible. Possibly because no one cares one way or another given the catastrophe looming ahead. After the German elections.

The Frau really should invite Samaras and Stournaras to her victory celebrations. It really will be mean minded of her if she does not.

*“Whatever it takes”

Who are these? Well who else! The brilliant technocrat economists! The ones setting the economy of the Eurozone right for instance. Those magnificent men… well, in their flying machines? You could describe them in such a way. After all they are completely up in the air.

They know what the problem is and they know how to solve it. The problem in Europe has too much debt and deficits that are far too large. What to do? Well, easy really. Reduce these two figures. Scale down the deficit and reduce debt. Those, after all are the problems of the economy.

So what do you do? Easy again. Well, only if you are a brilliant technocrat like Olli Rehn or Yannis Stournaras. The rest of us are too dim to really know what to do and how to do it. So we take out our big scissors and start cutting. The easy bits first. Pensions, salares, state expenses relating to welfare, you know hospitals, schools, universities or whatever else is really not necessary.

There now. If the state cuts its expenses like that, hey presto! No more deficits! But, hey wait a minute. That’s not enough. Well of course not. You have to tax far more to raise your revenue so that you can repay your debts, don’t you? Yes of course. Brilliant! Light bulb flashes in a cartoon cloud.

So you plunge into it viciously and start taxing everything, just about everything! And expect to raise revenue from those you have impoverished.

So why has none of this worked? Because our modern day wizards wear blinkers perhaps? Because they are too dim to realise that every action has a consequence? Because they are so far removed from reality that they do not realise public accounts amount to more than a cross word puzzle? Because people for them are nothing buts statistics?

Perhaps all of that and more. That they are blinded by a vicious inhuman economic dogma that forgets completely about the well being of the people because things like that do not matter to raw capitalist ideology.

In any case, for all their brilliance, the result of their policies has been an unmitigated disaster. Debt grows as a % of GDP and does not diminish when you plunge an economy into recession. When you savagely cut disposable income through cuts and too much taxation you destroy consumption, when you destroy consumption you send the economy into galloping recession.

Furthermore, you add problems to the economy in addition to making what you set out to achieve much worse. Problems such as an incredible rise in unemployment, unending recession, a rise in suicides, misery, hunger and much more.

In short, the achievements of our latter day wizards, aka Euro technocrats, can’t help reminding us of Phillip Larkin’s famous poem:

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don’t have any kids yourself.”

And the last line is perhaps the crowning achievement of the brilliant technocrats like Stournaras. He has absolutely convinced us “have no kids!” How could you under his cast iron hand?