Oh no, no, no, no! The private sector is beginning to get shivers up and down its spine. That’s precisely the kind of detail The Frau never stopped to think about. But she does find it difficult, we are told, to think through all the consequences and dwell on details like this. No matter how important.
Well, we don’t know whether Portugal will also have her lovely locks shorn like we did in Greece, but rumour has it they need a new ‘bail out’! But why? Unlike these pesky, unruly, undisciplined Greeks, the Portuguese did everything they were told by the infamous troika! And yet!
The ‘program’ didn’t work there either! Come on now, even Triple A Holland has found a gaping hole in her budget and everyone is throwing their arms up in horror! How could such a thing be happening? Well for God’s sake, you might like to review the policies you have been imposing with an iron fist! Try forgetting your dogmatic ideology of ‘Save the Banks!!! Screw the people!” (Courtesy David Harvey that slogan). And perhaps, just perhaps, you might start admitting that well, er, um, that wasn’t supposed to play out like that exactly…
But oh no. It’s not just the Pope who claims infallibility (and after all he does communicate with God through a direct line to heaven) but also The Frau. She is not wrong! There is no way she will ever admit to being wrong! It’s a contradiction in terms! The Frau? Wrong? Never!
Nevertheless, she may never admit to being wrong but she does do her pirouettes and back stepping and volte faces when needed. Provided nobody points out she was wrong! But unfortunately it is usually too little too late when she does try to back peddle.
But back to Portugal. An article in today’s Guardian outlines the sheer misery Portugal has been plunged into, and how the brilliant policy of cutting down social welfare expenses has lead to an alarming rise in deaths. And a need for a new bail out in one way or another! Will this never end?
Probably not if policy is not changed radically. All The Frau’s brilliance has achieved throughout Europe is the vicious cycle of austerity -> recession -> more austerity to make up for the holes in the budget recession creates -> greater recession, and so on.
The European Economies are heading straight for perdition!
Was Alexis Tsipras (leader of the left wing SYRIZA party in Greece) wrong when he said in Parliament, “But if we wanted to ruin our economy, we really didn’t need to bring the IMF in! We could have ruined it perfectly well on our own!”?
Amen.