I’m off for about a week but will be back, I hope, before The Date. 12th September 2012. Unlike the Mayan Calendar this is not when the world ends. Though… well you never know one way or the other. Do you?
Anyhow, why is this date important? Firstly the German Constitutional Court will announce its ruling as to whether the EMS is constitutional for Germany. And all that that entails. Secondly General Elections are to be held in The Netherlands. It appears the Euroskeptic party is in the lead. And last but not least the Brains of the Eurozone (Barroso, Rompuy, Draghi, and Juncker, I believe) will announce the Great Euro Banking Fix-All they have been concocting!
All on one day! A kind of make or break Europe day? Well, no. Unlikely. Europe just isn’t like that, is it? In the worse case scenario for Europe: The German Court rules against the EMS. What happens? The whole bail out edifice crumbles? Well, no. A German Euro Fudge will be concocted one way or another. Either the EFSF is enhanced or else some wording is changed to satisfy the Court or some other such sneaky round about will be thought up.
The Elections in The Netherlands. Now this is interesting in that for all the great big fuss kicked up over the Greek elections, and the terror of what we would vote and oh Tsipras will take Greece out of the Euro! (Which is what Europe did not want. Hang the Greeks.) the Dutch elections are playing out to hardly any European coverage at all. And yet, there are strong voices in The Netherlands for a Nexit. So could there be a bang after their elections against the fizzle out after the Greek ones?
Could be. But unlikely. There may be grumbling and there may be some anti austerity rhetoric, but as likely as not the new Dutch government will go the way of Hollande. Fizzle out and obedience to The Frau. Albeit without the hugs and the smiles. And the great Banking Fix-All? Well now… There might be some improvements, there may be a way to reduce the spreads for peripheral countries (excluding Greece of course) but I very much fear it will not amount to much more than a stop gap.
For one reason alone. The whole of what passes for European leadership from Angela Merkel down to the insignificant Herman Van Rompuy, they, collectively, haven’t a clue how economies really work and/or are engineering a plot to impose a German Imperial Model, by establishing slave labour plants in the ruined periphery. Which again is an unrealistic project for political if not economic this time reasons. Or both actually. Because even if she does succeed in this dark satanic plot, where will Germany then sell?
Which brings me to my closing remarks. While The Frau is maneuvering and manipulating and plotting to enhance German Hegemony through her stringent austerity policy for all, things are happening in the world which she should do well to think about occasionally. First the American Elections and secondly the Iran-Israel confrontation.
So what happens if Romney wins and starts his own version of The Frau’s Nonsense Economics and worse (Gold Standard? Recessionary cuts in government spending?) culminating in closing the USA behind a wall of splendid isolation? And what happens if Israel makes good on its threats to attack Iran, perhaps in an attempt to force the hand of the US? There was an interview on BBC World last night when an Israeli official said their patience was running out. An Israeli attack, said the journalist, looked far more likelier than ever before.
Meanwhile The Frau is poring over her accounting books, seeing that these stupid vassal states of hers are simply not reducing their deficits as she has dictated. No matter that the strings she attaches are policies that ensure an inability to reduce deficits because they are all totally recessionary. But never mind. What Lola wants Lola has to get! Understood?
Wolfie trundles up to her office in a panic and screams that the US have closed their borders to all imports from Europe, that Israel has bombed Teheran and Teheran is retaliating. Oil supplies have been cut off from the area and the price of oil globally has shot up to the sky. Not to mention skirmishes in the eastern Mediterranean. “What do we do now?” He cries out in desperation!
“Stick it to the Greeks.” She answers. “It always works. That’s the only thing we’re keeping them on for, anyway.”
“But!!!!” Wolfie cries out, sweat trickling down his face, “Greece is not even on the map any longer!”
Whereupon The Frau turns and looks at him with a big smile.
“Why didn’t you say so? At last! Success! Our policies have just notched up their first success!”
Okay folks! I leave you all with that cheerful little story and the certainty that when I come back nothing will have happened at all. Well, I am returning before September 12th, and before the American Elections!
See You!