This has gone way beyond neo liberal dogma, way beyond the vane belief that austerity alone will solve everything, way beyond Einstein’s definition of stupidity, that is keep doing the same thing and expect it will yield different results. No, not even any of the worse of all that. This has now revealed itself as being nothing other than raw obsession, mixed with sadistic vindictiveness.

Spain’s unemployment, competing with Greece’s has gone up to over 27%. Rajoy, bending to his Master’s Voice (i.e. Wolfgang Schauble) insists that there must be more cuts to the economy. Equally, the dynamic duo Samaras/Stoutnaras, just as fearful of the wrath of The Schauble, vigorously nod their heads in agreement, and vow never to relax the stranglehold over the population and keep pouring more and more taxes on a destitute people whose children are going hungry.

Meanwhile The Schauble and The Frau, totally removed from reality smirk with pleasure at their power and raise Germany’s growth forecast for the current year from 0.4% to 0.5%, with 1.6% expected in 2014.

It slipped their mind that they are going the different way. But they are so happy with the obsequious toadyiing of everyone from the EU Commission to the PMs of the condemned states, that they cannot see further than their image in the mirror.

Now look here! Just because some American Professors mucked up their excel (and had the idiocy to give their work to a student of all things!) and just because Europe is teetering on the brink of disintegration, and just because unemployment has soared while recession has broken records of longevity, and is close to breaking records on level, there is no excuse for blaming austerity!

Now poor old Manny Barroso, perhaps after a trip home? (Or does he even dare set foot there any more?) thought, well, um, perhaps this thing isn’t working out the way it should. Of course austerity is the only possible policy and the Germans are quite right to insist on it, but, um, well maybe it has just reached its limits?

As timid a statement at that got some heavy flak. From Berlin directly it is rumoured. How dare a minor appointee aparatchik hint at any doubt over austerity? President of the Commission? So? Who gives him the right to doubt the Schauble/Merkel dogma?

So what do we get?

“A row is brewing in Brussels after the European Commission denied that president Jos? Manuel Barroso pulled a u-turn yesterday when he said that Europe’s austerity programme had reached the limits of public acceptance.”

Good gracious me! No! Never! I never doubted the wisdom of the great Frau! No no.  Cringe, cringe, quiver, quiver, shake, shake!

Just when is somebody going to shout out that though Schauble may be in a wheelchair, it doesn’t mean he is infallible!

Word buzzed around that there had been a disagreeable confrontation between that Guru of Nonsense Economics aka Wofgang Schauble and the new US Secretary of the Treasury,  Joseph Lew over the effectiveness of austerity and the need to ease up and concentrate on growth. That was, of course, the US Secretary’s position.

Herr Schauble was reported, not to have expressed a different opinion, but to have arrogantly stated that Mr Lew was wrong and that instead of making stupid suggestions he should follow the shining, successful example of what Europe, that means Wolfgang Schauble single handedly, has achieved.

But the head of the IMF Mme Christine Lagarde apparently denied that anything of the kind had happened. Well… so what do we make of it? Believe Mme Lagarde? Or the ring of truth in the story?

Basically this is a case of what the Italians refer to as “Se non e vero e ben trovato”*.

We all know firstly, that Schauble is extremely arrogant and far too big for his boots; secondly, that he hasn’t a clue how real economics really work; thirdly that he considers having thrown the whole of the EU into a deepening recession and an alarming rate of unemployment which is growing, a great economic success.

We also know that he responded in such a way to the former secretary’s, Tim Geithner’s exhortation that he stop his nonsense and try some real economics instead, well over a year ago. Furthermore, it is also said that Schauble and Lagarde are great friends. Which would account for why she would try to cover for him if it were true.

Nevertheless, things have reached a sorry state of affairs when we do not believe what any official has to say any more. When Prime Ministers such as that pitiful example Samaras say that “these are the last measures. there will be no more.” we groan collectively because we know what’s coming. When EU officials like Barroso, Rompuy say things like “the worse of the Eurocrisis is over”, we know that it has hardly yet started and so much worse is to come.

We also know that if there is not a sea change in policy and an equal sea change in the self important nonentities running the show, the EU is probably set to collapse under the weight of all these collected light weights.

There are so many of them! Throughout the EU.

*If it isn’t true it is well founded.

Something quite dreadful and shocking happened in the Peloponese in Greece the day before yesterday. A strawberry farmer who employed illegal immigrants from Bangladesh housing them in plastic green houses had failed to pay them their pittance for six months. These workers demanded their back pay. Instead of some kind of negotiation or partial payment or anything like that, the farmer’s supervisors opened fire with shot guns wounding a large number. Fortunately at least there were no deaths.

This is appalling and totally unacceptable. Nevertheless it is totally in line with the current ideology that has gripped Europe in its devastating madness. Profits above all and Competitiveness! It is what Olli Rehn demands of others. It is what Christine Lagarde requires. Competitiveness.

And it is not something confined to places like Greece either. Belgium has already accused Germany of employing dirt cheap labour at one Euro an hour. So though the criminal behaviour of the Pelopenese farmer cannot be excused in any way, it is the direct result of Olli Rehn’s philosophy.

Though an extreme manifestation of this ideology, it is not that far removed from what Olli Rehn and Christine Lagarde and all the rest of that criminal bunch have been imposing on the countries of the South through cold blooded blackmail.

Either you slash wages to below subsistence levels, abolish all legislation safe guarding labour rights or else! We shall cut off your very life’s breath! You will default, you will starve, you will die of cold! (That has happened anyway, but still). The infamous and villainous troika have absolutely no regard for human life, which is why they are so hell bent on getting rid of healthcare, and none for labour or even human rights.

It took this extreme manifestation of violence against helpless desperate illegal immigrants to highlight the fact. And though crocodile tears may be being shed by all those busily abolishing human rights and reducing work to slave labour, none of them, not one batted an eyelid at this outrageous slave labour going on not only in Greece, but throughout Europe, Germany too.

Provided it slashed the cost of labour, that was all that mattered. Think about it. If you ask the troika, and they are honest (which of course they would not be), the only thing the despicable strawberry farmer did wrong, was getting caught in flagrante. When these hapless, desperate souls are intimidated, bullied and exploited under the cover of darkness, then not one of them gives a sh*t. And that is the truth.

Shame on you. Shame on Europe,

As the Eurozone edges closer and closer not only to disintegration but to complete and utter collapse, the IMF chirps up. Mme Lagarde has been quoted as saying:

“We believe, considering the situation of the country and the efforts that had been undertaken, the 25% unemployment rate at the moment, (that) it’s clearly needed to do fiscal consolidation but we don’t see the need to do upfront, heavy duty fiscal consolidation as was initially planned.

Spain needs more time and needs to be able to adjust into its fiscal consolidation efforts…”

She might like to spare a thought for little Greece whose unemployment is higher than that of Spain, as well.

Germany is stuck on a policy of “fiscal consolidation” and is blind to all else. How can you say an economic policy has been successful when one third of the working population is out of work? When recession has turned into a full blown Depression?

Yet no. Germany insists on greater and greater austerity which will at best lead to the disintegration of perhaps the whole European Union and at worst… well, we have seen what this dark continent can do when things get sticky. And it is not pretty. Particularly when Germany is the lead player in the disaster brought about.

‘Chief economist Olivier Blanchard of the IMF has told reporters that the risk that the eurozone might not stick together has “disappeared” due to measures from the European Central Bank and the European Union.’

Well now. That’s interesting. Of course it is only an IMF estimate and these are notorious for being completely wide of the mark. Nevertheless, it is an estimate that has filled everyone with joy. There will be dancing in the streets tomorrow! Well, there may well be in London…. but for reasons not directly related to the IMF’s positive diagnosis, that the risk that the eurozone might not stick together has “disappeared” .

And what’s more “due to measures from the European Central Bank and the European Union”.

Now what have the ECB and the EU actually done to make that risk completely “disappear”?

Well, they have ruined southern Europe, so perhaps moribund economies and nations are not expected to react. They have managed through great efforts to make unemployment shoot up to rates unprecedented in peace time. So that too probably contributes to upbeat reactions like that. The bulk of European youth will emigrate out of the dark continent sooner or later.

What else? Ah yes. they have chipped away at the very foundations of a healthy economy by confiscating bank deposits and now threatening to confiscate property as well.

Hmmm… Well, perhaps this diagnosis is a bit like giving the EU the Nobel peace prize. A joke or even comfort to the death row convict who is about to be led to his execution.

In any case, does anyone give a damn what the IMF says any more? Most of the times it has got its forecasts and prescriptions completely wrong. And on the rare occasion when they say something right, such as pointing out that the multiplier on which the Greek programme was based, was fatally wrong and ground the country down into the ground…

Well. Okay. They said that. But so what? Did anybody act on it? No! Just keep grounding the vermin deeper into the ground under a jackboot.

I wonder what the IMF will be saying next year? If there’s anyone left to say it to that is.

I was right! This is all some devious underhand conspiracy by the former East Germans who have infiltrated the European Union and taken over power. Communism shall not only be restored, but it shall be expanded to the whole of Europe (for starters) and in a new improved version.

That is none of your sissy welfare nonsense like health care and education. No. Those have to go first of all.

And that is indeed how the great European scam is proceeding. First bang the pretentious middle to lower class over the head hard rendering them senseless. You have to do this, because all that riff raff dream of is emulating the life style of the capitalist class with cars and washing machines and paid holidays. And since this new Communism is based on the protestant work ethic as well (it is a concoction by the former East Germans after all) we can have none of that.

The first stage of this devious war on capitalism has been quite successfully carried out in Europe where recession has set in, unemployment has soared and those greedy lower class scum aspiring to a materially better tomorrow have now been made destitute.

Second and more important stage. Deprive capitalist banking of all credibility. No more security anywhere any more. Savers are not savers! No! They are investors and should be punished for wallowing in all that capitalist decadence by having their investments confiscated. As for those with “guaranteed” deposits of under 100,000 Euro, don’t worry. When the banks collapse one by one, just who do you suppose will be in a position to honour such a hollow guarantee?

That’s right! You guessed it! The savers themselves! They will not lose their savings, it’s just that these will go down the black plughole which they themselves will be called upon to plug. In that brilliant East German (il)logic that has taken hold. Ha ha!

So since we are well on the way to ruining the banking system after having ruined what is known as the “real” economy, we must now make sure everything goes to plan.

The rich must pay! Yes! The rich are bad people and must be punished! So, says Peter Bofinger, advisor to Frau Merkel, after confiscating their deposits we must do something better, because now they have got wind of our plan they will spirit their savings out of Europe. So now we must go ahead and confiscate their very property through exorbitant taxation.

Sort of like Ceasescu did in Romania, and as we have seen, it has been working rather well in that dreadful guinea pig Greece.

There used to be Socialism with a human face, but now the Wast Germans have managed to impose their own brand of Communism with a totally dehumanised face.

Wake up somebody!!!

I once wrote in this blog that Angela Merkel is a secret Stasi agent whose mission is to bring Communism back not just to eastern Europe but to the whole of Europe this time. This conspiracy theory, as all conspiracy theories, was based on the result she would achieve, that could be blamed on sinister and devious plans.

Well though it was and remains a joke of course (sick or otherwise), it does seem even more appropriate now that she has struck at the very heart of capitalism. Savings. When is a saver not a saver? When s/he deposits money in a Eurozone bank. Then he is magically transformed into an “Investor”! And must pay the price for his greed!!!

And this is all very well and a beautiful expression of Schauble’s penchant for meeting out harsh punishment to those he dislikes, such as that swarthy lower species that lives in the south, but it is hardly very sensible policy to rebuild your economy along accepted capitalist lines, now is it?

The trouble is, decision makers in this godawful nightmare of a mess they have plunged Europe in,to have an extremely limited perception. For them an economy has only two facets. Debt and deficits. Nothing else! Nothing else at all! Neither growth (which you would have thought the number one concern of any economy), nor unemployment, nor even production.

And as to the wizard wheeze of deciding to turn savers into investors and tax their savings away… well this appears to have already led to a capital flight not from the south to the north, but the hell out of the Euro area altogether.

Now, for all the remarks that taxpayers should not be obliged to bail out failed banks, there is something very wrong here and indicative of limited small thinking. Are we to assume that savers are not tax payers? And what about bank failures? Are we to assume that the ordinary saver, with the minutest proportion of the bank’s assets is responsible for vetting the financial statements of an anyway deregulated devious bank?

The operative word here is “deregulated”. All this farce and pain being bandied about with such relish by the likes of Schauble, Rehn and Dijsselbloem are mere fig leaves for the real problem they would rather not touch.

BANKS NEED TO BE REGULATED! Had regulations been restored fully and properly  by everyone, Germany included, much of all this subsequent mess would have been avoided.

But oh no. Let the real speculators/investors keep running wild and just stick it to the ordinary saver, the back bone of the capitalist system, oh and turn him into the “evil investor” while you are at it.

How can one not start concocting conspiracy theories in the light of all this nonsense? It’s just that a conspiracy, however devious and criminal, somehow feels safer than the realisation that Europe is being run by a bunch of arrant, low minded, blinkered and bigotted incompetents.

The cost of labour has fallen drastically in Greece! And in fact she has been commended for achieving the greatest reduction in labour costs in the whole Union!

Now, why is it that he unemployment has now reached first place in Europe at 26% and growing?

Isn’t cheap labour supposed to lead to the opposite?

Hmmmm….

Imagine that! An upstart American (possibly of Jewish origin… hmmmm?) actually having the cheek to tell Herr Schauble, the mighty Herr Schauble, Master of Europe, that perhaps he may not have got it right? What can an upstart American know about Herr Schauble’s sublime plan for the European economy?

So he sent the Mr Jacob J. Lew, the U.S. Treasury secretary packing! In a very arrogant Teutonic way. Because Schauble is the only one who knows, really knows how to handle the European Economy. He knows he is doing the right thing and in a few years he will have set Europe right!

Well yes. As in he will have given a Final Solution to the European problem.

Now if that is not the definition of Hubris, I do not know what is.

Soon Herr Schauble will have to brush up his ancient Greek and find out all about how Nemesis works too.

Though I dare say that he will find out from painful experience.

Sounds fair. After all he is an expert at subject ing those weaker than he to very painful experiences under the pretence that punishment leads to reform.

For all the punishment he may or may not be subjected to sooner or later, I very much doubt whether he will ever become a reformed man. A jilted one, possibly. The Frau is notorious for petty tactics and about turns when it suits her own personal ambitions. Who knows? Herr Schauble may turn out to be the best scapegoat she could ever dream of.