Francois Hollande, the hero of the day for moribund Europe, geared up for the great confrontation with The Frau over GROWTH! It would be a struggle, a fight and in the end they would get her to grovel! Or so the narrative went.
The meeting of the 22nd of June to be held in Rome between the three largest economies of the Eurozone, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, would be the scene of the great confrontation and the humbling of Bismarck’s great grand daughter.
However, it didn’t quite work out like that. No. The Frau took the wind completely out of their sails. Growth? Why yes of course! I agree. I fully agree with everything everyone here has said. We will fund growth with 1% of GDP and, well, first of all, before we can do anything else we have to make sure our fiscal rectitude is in place, debt must go down and deficits too of course. Oh, and we do need greater unification.
In other words, yes growth. But only once we have more order and more unity in the Eurozone. In other words, we carry on with my policies and as I say, and then yes, indeed, growth. Now, please may I go to the football and give that pesky little upstart Greece the thrashing she deserves?
Mario Monti who comes out with dire warnings that the Euro only has one week in which to be saved! Who tells her we shall all be blown to Kingdom Come if we don’t do something about growth quick and… well yes. She says. No argument from me.
So the three stooges go dumb and gawk at her. Well yes, growth. But what is growth and how do you plan to achieve it? In detail. The Frau says No More Loans! Especially not for growth. And they just nod meekly. None of them, not even Rajoy, daring to suggest that perhaps it is not such a good idea piling all this extra debt on beleaguered countries NOT for growth, but to suck the life blood out of the economies and into the ailing banks.
And our hero of the day? Francois Hollande? Is he so delighted that the Formidable Invincible Frau has said yes to growth that none of the details matter? 1% of GDP. Okay, how will this actually materialise? 130 billion Euros. Is that nearly enough? And if so, why not just tell Greece to declare full bankruptcy officially and use the 130 billion destined for the banks via Greece, for this great growth project instead. It would benefit everybody far more, including Greece.
The Frau has done exactly as she wished. She has kicked the can down the road yet again. She has fought off the challenge to her policy with the greatest of ease and thumbed her nose to an exasperated world yet again. Now could it be that we really need real people rather than paper politicians to handle this?
Mario Monti, the successful Eurocrat, promoted to Senator for life, taking over from that despicable Berlusconi whom Merkozy chose to deride publicly even though he was the Italian Prime Minister, just what has he done? Austerity. The Italian Economy is entering recession. Civil unrest is growing. In short he has done everything The Frau demanded of him.
Francois Hollande, the career politician, the devoted Party Man, who has never done a real job in his life. The great hero riding to the rescue? And he has no idea how this magical concept ‘Growth’ could be implemented? He has no plan B to counter The Frau’s master plan. She says 1% of GDP and that’s that?
As for Rajoy… well never mind him. When he arrogantly told his Minister to hold firm in the ‘negotiations’ for the 100 billion “bailout” for his moribund banks that “We are not Uganda!”, he got his come uppance. The Ugandans answered, it is we who are not Spain. We have a healthy economy with 5% growth. And, we could add, take that!
So how will Europe ever get out of this death spiral when The Frau’s destructive Nonsense Economics can only be countered by the three stooges who appear to have no idea how to work out a real plan for real growth, with all the nitty gritty details.
And don’t anyone ever say again that all this is Greece’s fault! Even if we did lose the football match!