I find the Peer Steinbr?ck episode extremely worrying. The SPD candidate for the German Chancellorship thinks nothing of being blatantly rude to Italian electors telling them they voted for clowns. This is unacceptable behaviour and the Italian President Napolitano was quite right to cancel his meeting with this person (I can hardly call him a gentleman) and demand respect from Germany.

But that is just it. Germany, or rather German politicians have grown too big for their boots. They do not feel obliged to respect anyone. They are the big guys on the block, the bullies and everybody else should just shut up and do as they are told.

Unfortunately for Europe and indeed Germany too, the rest of Europe has chosen to grovel at the boots of the big bully and in fact do as she says. The current Greek PM, Samaras actually went so far as to say before the German Chancellor “Mea Culpa” of his former anti austerity stand, behaving as the worst groveler of all!.

So, we must not just blame Germany for this appalling situation. It is the rest of the Europeans and perhaps above all the European Commission and Council (and their respective if not respectable heads) who are to blame. When all they can do is nod vigorously at whatever noises come out of German mouths, when they can be brushed aside as inconsequential, as the Chancellor has repeatedly done, and just accept this with an obsequious smile,then whose fault is it?

Thankfully the Italian people have cocked a snoot at this arrogance on the one hand and kicked the bully in the butt. It is a shame that the SPD candidate has assumed he has the right to call the Italian electorate names. But then it is also a shame that nobody, other than the Italian electorate, appears to have any guts left before the big bad bullies.

The way the Italian people voted has displeased their majesties and their excellencies all over Europe. Reaction has been from scathing to to scornful. German politicians in their “we know best” arrogance have dismissed it with a shrug and the assertion that even though Monti may have bombed out, Italy must continue to impose his reform programme! In other words, hang what the Italian people want. They must continue to do what we tell them.

The EC president Barroso, who may be excused for not really knowing what it is he said, was quoted as follows:

“The question we have to ask ourselves is the following: should we determine our policy, our economic policy, by short-term electoral considerations or by what has to be done to put Europe back on the path to sustainable growth? For me the answer is clear.”

And the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who always knows best when it comes to sticking it to the little guys:

“Italians must elect who they want to elect and must bear the consequences when they elect clowns.”.

Neglecting the fact that it’s one thing to bear the consequences of whom you elect and quite another to bear the unbearable consequences of a destructive policy imposed on you by a bunch of… clowns? whom you never elected.

To cut a long story short, the reaction to the Italian elections has made even more obvious the current EU leadership’s disdain for democracy, their arrogance in the belief that they are the only ones who know what to do and everybody else should just shut up an do as they are told. Or else!

But the obvious fact is that the current European leadership simply does not want democracy at all. So far they have made peoples vote on the same thing again and again till they get it right. Now they are resorting to outright interference in other people’s democratic processes, as happened in the Greek elections too.

So here we are. Possibly at a cross roads. And the peoples of Europe must decide. What is to be? A German dominated dictatorship (which happens to insist on economically unsound -to say the least- policies creating recession and unemployment) or a return to the core values and principles of Europe. The rights of man, liberte, egalite, fraternite, democracy.

We mustn’t let the pernicious economic dogma now dominating the European north, throw Europe into deep misery and catastrophe yet again, for the third time in a hundred years.

Good for them. And for all those getting their knickers in a twist over why oh why did the Italians not make the proper, sensible choice…

Well, what is the proper sensible choice? When you have the Nonsense Economics and destructive policies of The Frau being harshly rammed down your throat on one side, leading to the collapse of your economy and a comedian called Beppe Grillo on the other, or even a degenerate rogue like Berlusconi, which is worse?

At least with Grillo you are assured of a laugh, whereas with the proper sensible candidates the only thing you are assured of is misery, impoverishment and plenty of tears.

The Italians are neither stupid nor self destructive. Quite the contrary. And they have proved it in this first round.

Lets hope they are not forced into a second round, like Greece, where all the senior citizens took fright and voted the incompetent morons in, under the illusion they were protecting their pensions. Only to find out that they were cut even further and now risk losing them altogether.

The United Kingdom has been downgraded by Moody’s. France is teetering on falling into recession. The whole of the EU is  sinking into sluggishness. Unemployment is soaring to astronomical heights. And the unelected, irresponsible, highly dogmatic Olli Rehn is not only still in his place but lording it over everyone. It will be fun to watch him dressing down the French. I don’t really think they will stand for such nonsense. But we shall see.

Now why has the austerity dogma been pushed down our gullets here in Europe? Well, because Germany is top dog, or in other words the bully on the block and can do as she likes. And why does she like such a wrong headed ineffective policy? Because Frau Merkel and Wolfgang and so on are of a puritan protestant mind set whereby you must be punished and made an example of.

Take for instance the brilliant economics of: if you don’t manage to balance your budget you will be fined! Hmmm. Considering that one usually is unable to balance a budget because one has a lack of funds… Yes but what else? You can hardly expect her to publicly flog the Prime Minister of the deviant country can you? Why not? It would be fairer than screwing the people to dust. Yes, but not so much fun.

Anyhow, through the threat of being downgraded and incurring the wrath of the markets, austerity has been imposed. So why then is it that Britain has been downgraded? Poor old Osborne has been doing his damnedest to take austerity in Britain beyond its limits. Well yes. And that has led to a sluggish performance, fears of recession and so on and the markets don’t like that. Hence the downgrade.

So we put on the austerity screws because that’s what the markets want and then when the results of those screws appear, recession, unemployment etc, the markets don’t like that either and they slap on a downgrade. Does this make any sense?

It makes perfect sense to me. The world should not be ruled by “The Markets”. They are not there to shape economic policy, they merely react to the results.

However, the dogmatic hijack of economic policy only uses the threat of The Markets to do as it pleases, punish. And by punish we mean really stick it to the workers who should have no rights and no pay, if that were possible, or only subsistence pay. High unemployment is good because it keeps wages down and people cringing. Oh, and while we are at it we shall stick it to all those uppity middles class yobs who like to read bad books and think.

And hey presto! The Dogmatics rule the roost! They are having their way! I dare say they are rather enjoying it too! Only… only the global economy is going to crap.

Isn’t it about time we all woke up and called a spade a spade? And said out loud that not only is this cruel, inhuman, dastardly but also that it simply isn’t working! Even The Markets say so! (Thank you Moody’s).

Isn’t it about time the global leadership (however this might be defined) threw dogma straight out the door, sat down round a big table, dusted off “bad ideas” like those put forward by Keynes at Bretton Woods (the ones that got scotched by the Americans) and tried again?

Will they do that or will there have to be some terrible war before they realise that that is what they must do. Because do it they must. And soon. Otherwise it will be resolved by other means. Like diplomacy…. ?*

So Lets stick to diplomacy. But not in the way The Frau and little Olli practice it. Which is “Either you impose policies on your people that will throw them out of work and starve them to death, but you keep your perks, or I will se to it that you are starved and destroyed altogether by with holding funds from you!”

This idiocy really must come to an end. Diplomatically. But soon! There’s not much time left!

*Clausewitz is credited with the maxim “War is a continuation of diplomacy by other means”.

For all the back patting between the Euro leadership and the self congratulation that the crisis is over and that the Eurozone (at least the part of it that counts, the North) is all set for a bounce back and recovery, thing don’t look that rosy, now do they?

All of a sudden France is being told it risks becoming the new Greece! Horror of horrors! Recession does not look as if it is ready to change, the chief austerian par excellence Olli Rehn with his nonsense economics, papal infallibility and above all that he is not obliged to answer to anyone, is firmly in the saddle, applying more and more of his deadly arsenic in greater doses.

The Guardian tells us that:

Paul De Grauwe of the London School of Economics and Yuemei Ji of the University of Leuven argue that fear and panic led to excessive, and possibly self-defeating, austerity in the south while failing to induce offsetting stimulus in the north.

And are quoted as saying:

The intense austerity programs that have been dictated by financial markets create new risks for the eurozone. While the ECB 2012 decision to be a lender of last resort in the government bond markets eliminated the existential fears about the future of the eurozone, the new risks for the future of the eurozone now have shifted into the social and political sphere. As it becomes obvious that the austerity programmes produce unnecessary sufferings especially for the millions of people who have been thrown into unemployment and poverty, resistance against these programs is likely to increase. A resistance that may lead millions of people to wish to be liberated from what they perceive to be shackles imposed by the euro.

And the saddest thing of all perhaps, is that the fundamental problems of the real flaws in the Euro design, the ones that have created all the problems are not only not addressed by anyone, but not even mentioned.

In her great triumphant coup when The Frau got everyone to sign in blood that they would not let their deficits exceed 3% of GDP on pain of penalties (and even death?), she purposely omitted the much needed balance to that. That no country should be allowed to have a surplus of over a certain level either!

In other words, since the imbalances inherent in the design of the Euro, which are what have created all the problems, are, for the moment, in Germany’s favour, then nobody dares mention them.

However, if the Eurozone and perhaps even the EU itself is to survive, these problems must be addressed, they must be resolved quickly and all this pottering about with ideas and decisions and conferences and so on with the sole purpose of imposing stringent austerity and NOTHING MORE are not only counter productive because of the deep harm they actually do…

But also because they provide the excuse and the smoke screen for The Frau to hide behind and do nothing that could be beneficial to the EU as a whole and its ever more precarious future.

What does the Holy Inquisition have in common with the current European directorate imposing its fiat at will? Well, both were (and are) European phenomena? Hmm… yes, that too. But what really makes them different is that both of these had the loftiest of missions. To save through punishment. The original Inquisition had as its mission to save souls. The latter version has as its mission to save the banks… um, er sorry, no. To save profligate states.

And that is perhaps, the operative word”profligate” states. That is this is all about sin and redemption. These holy and unholy inquisitions have to really punish the deviants in order to save them. Excruciating punishment is integral to the process of salvation. Otherwise there is no point to it. Why? Well, they say, deterrence. If unbelievers or states know what they are in for by having witnessed the stark sadism others have been subjected to, they will be kept in line.

Of course the truth is that then as now, this is just pure hypocrisy. All that nonsense is just to mask the underlying sadism. They sheer enjoyment the big bullies get out of torturing the weak and of course putting all the blame for their inhuman behaviour on the victim him or herself, while couching it all in the lofty rhetoric of virtue and salvation.

Olli Rehn is no different to Tomas de Torquemada. Just as vicious, just as hypocritical, just as adept at blaming the victim and justifying his abhorrent inhumanity in hypocritical moral terms.

I think a joke doing the rounds in Greece is rather apt. After Olli Rehn decided that the IMF’s admission of getting the multipliers wrong was totally irrelevant, he announced (a bit like a Papal decree) that the progamme for Greece was perfect and just what it should be. The only one at fault for the state Greece has been reduced to is the Greek government itself and in no way at all the troika and the plan being implemented.

Hardly political, diplomatic, still less does it have any economic sense. Just the bloody mindedeness of the bully who always knows best and can bash you hard over the head to prove it. He is in fact, infallible!

Which is, says the joke, why the Pope resigned for the first time in over 600 years. How could he not when his infallibility has now been usurped by the European Commission?

Repeated noises from the EU and the real leaders of Europe keep saying things like, Europe has turned the corner, even that the crisis is over, recovery will start this year and a whole lot more stuff that is bad propaganda at best, signs of lunacy and living in wonderland at worse.

But while the Euro apparatchicks are complacently prophesying that the worst is over, things will pick up this year and other such, reality has a nasty little way of belying it all. Does this make any difference to the Euro leaders? Does it dent their view through rose coloured distortion glasses? Apparently not.

The Greek Finances Minister somehow plucked up the courage to mumble that, well, look the IMF did say they got the multiplier wrong for our programme, so perhaps, well, maybe a little rethink…? But no! The mighty Olli Rehn slapped him down. There is nothing wrong with the Greek programme! It is exactly what it should be! It is all the fault of the Greek government not implementing it properly!

So much for Antonis Samaras brilliant strategy of, we shall do everything exactly as the troika dictates and that will show them! That is when they will see the programme is wrong. So  they went about taking the most horrendous measures ever, measures that are planned to suck yet another 10 billion out of the Greek economy this year and reduce the country to complete collapse. Because that is what the troika wants.

Which is probably why Stournaras did pluck up the courage to murmur that perhaps something should be done. He has seen that the country is collapsing that no more blood can be drawn and that if this goes on all hell will literally break out. But Olli Rehn still can’t get it. Why should he? No skin off his nose. Why should he bother? It would mean he would have to do a bit of work. And anyway, it would mean doubting that he is the one who knows best.

Yet, if Greece is the bad boy in class, what of teachers’ pet, Portugal?

“The worst performer was Portugal, with output dropping by a staggering 1.8%. This is apparently the eurozone’s poster child for austerity; a country that has followed instructions from its international lenders to the letter, pushing its population to the very edge.”

The Guardian tells us today. 1.8% being the last quarter’s fall in GDP.

Yet still the EU Nomenclatura cannot see anything and insist of carrying on with this evil catastrophic policy.

At least until Angie wins her election!

When things will get even worse.

The House of Lords EU Committee has written to Greg Clark MP, Financial Secretary to The Treasury, about the threat of complacency from EU leaders.
Lord Harrison, Chairman of the Lords EU Sub-Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs, said:

“The biggest enemy facing the EU today is complacency: complacency that the euro area has turned the corner; complacency that we can take the foot off the pedal of the reforms that are so necessary to break the link between sovereign states and banks now that market pressures have eased; and complacency in the UK.

Both the UK Government and the City of London must beware the complacency trap of seeing the euro area?s woes as someone else?s problem. The implications for the UK are immense, not only economically but also in terms of the political ramifications.

The future direction of the EU is highly uncertain. In light of the Prime Minister?s recent speech, the UK must ensure that it remains able to shape events rather than be shaped by them.”

A wry smile from us all. At a time when the biggest concerted action to strangle democracy is being taken by the likes of The Frau and the Eurocrat nonentities in her thrall, it is quite amusing that the unelected Lords are the only ones who have got what it takes to call a spade a spade and not cringe before the mighty Frau who has put the whole of Europe on hold so she, personally, can cling onto power.

We should heed the words of the Lords if not the Lord.

We were told this morning that: Rajoy says Spain’s economy will return to growth in the latter part of 2013 and in 2014.

The Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, against all the odds, says exactly the same. Verbatim. The same was observed a while ago with Antonis Samaras’ statements of: Greece has regained confidence! Things will start picking up at the end of the year. Which was exactly what the disgraced and disgraceful Papaconstantinou had said in 2010 when he was Minister of Finances.

Why? To build up faith in the future? They have nothing better to say? Or because they simply do not know, they end up saying something, anything. But why are they all saying exactly the same things? Which, so far have never been vindicated.

Mind you, should any of these lovely predictions come true after all, and we are all praying (because that is all we can do) that they will, it will be out of fluke chance and not because anything any of these dignitaries have done, of course.

Still more and more one can’t help feeling that in its downgraded status, the Commission has finally found a job it thinks it can do! It cans all these bland statements and shares them around to those in dire need of something to say as they find themselves slamming against a blank wall to the future.

It is a bit sad though that they cannot even do this with any flare, with any imagination. But the Commission…. well, it has been completed castrated by The Frau and her side kick then Sarkozy who took it upon themselves to dictate EU policy and completely by pass the European Commission whose job it really was.

And the sad thing is that the Commission just grinned, kow towed and accepted it. Why? Well, for one, when you have nonentities in serious jobs do not expect them to take the job seriously. They would so much rather do nothing except, perhaps, can bland statements they can then pass around while pretending that they are actually there for something other than wielding the proverbial rubber stamp.

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.