The cabal wants to pass the bill on the Germans and they are smartly saying "uck-fay ou-yay." The only way forward is forcing accountability within the sovereign governments for spending and that point has been raised again and again by the minority of people with any common sense. (oxymoron I know)

Maybe time to start an EU Dead Pool?

All these long term plans here and there, what a joke. It's the same story every election, the 6-10 year plan...4 years later, not only was the plan not followed, but things got way worse. Of course this will be excused because, "the recovery has been slower than we anticipated" Its all ****. Nothing will change for the better until we make real sacrifices, and since no politician has the balls to do anything, its never gonna change.

Actually the US government CAN spend more than it taxes so long as other governments are FORCED by "contract" to buy Treasuries. This is my second notice Karl. So long as "force" exists, spend spend spend and those foolish enough to contract with the US shall burn, burn burn when the US selectively defaults. Too much confidence in the all mighty dollar currently.

There is no such force; you're simply incorrect.

We know the circle jerk Karl. The debt can't be paid, so we need more debt so we can pay the debt which can't be paid. What can't be paid, won't be paid, but that doesn't stop the bankers and politicians from trying to buy time to peddle the crap on the public and get out with the loot. The real loot is a claim on economic rent on the land.

Instead of figuring out the haircut, they are trying to figure out how to scalp the people outside the contract. If this was as simple as Greece is too far in debt, Greece needs to balance their budget and the debt needs to be cut and losses put on those too stupid to not lend them the money, the problem would have been solved 3 years ago. Ditto Ireland, where bankers piled in with excessive credit and built way too many houses. The people of ireland shouldn't have to pay for the mistakes of foreign bankers any more than the people of Iceland. Ireland has 300,000 houses it doesn't need. Might as well be making cars without wheels and engines and dumping them in a field. Clearly these bankers knew they had henchmen who would force their mistakes onto others.

These idiots are playing Russian roulette with currencies. In that gold was the link to money and bank credit was made fiat as gold, then gold removed, so the currencies maintained their value through payment of debt. These currencies go up in flames, the majority of the world will have nothing to use as money. The dollar became the world standard of credit under Breton Woods, but Breton Woods fell apart when the US closed the gold window. What remained was a system of world debt, based on the dollar and the threat of exclusion in world trade if a country lost its solvency. Deejunk is kind of right, though I don't believe there is an implied contract. What there is out there is a collapse in the world economy of trade should the dollar collapse. Bernanke keeps spinning the chamber of the model 27 and pulling the trigger. But he is aiming at the rest of us.

This is a link to an article I posted here yesterday. Pater Tenebrarum at acting man made the article the subject of his post yesterday. Pater didn't totally agree with the article, but he supported my idea about currencies in the previous paragraph and at other times on this board, with a quote from Mises. I think the idea of flexible exchange rates has been a scourge on the world economy and clearly on the US. We have benefitted absolutely zero from devaluing our money.

http://mises.org/daily/6069/An-Austrian-....

quotes:

Let us now focus on two significant ways the euro is unique. We will contrast it both with the system of national currencies linked together by fixed exchange rates, and with the gold standard itself, beginning with the latter. We must note that abandoning the euro is much more difficult than going off the gold standard was in its day. In fact, the currencies linked with gold kept their local denomination (the franc, the pound, etc.), and thus it was relatively easy, throughout the 1930s, to unanchor them from gold, insofar as economic agents, as indicated in the monetary-regression theorem Mises formulated in 1912 (Mises 2009 [1912], pp. 111–123), continued without interruption to use the national currency, which was no longer exchangeable for gold, relying on the purchasing power of the currency right before the reform. Today this possibility does not exist for those countries that wish, or are obliged, to abandon the euro.

Inflation is essentially antidemocratic. Democratic control is budgetary control. The government has but one source of revenue — taxes. No taxation is legal without parliamentary consent. But if the government has other sources of income it can free itself from their control. (Mises 1969, pp. 251–253)

Merkel Says No European Shared Liability As Long As She Lives

Quote:

Why is Merkel doing all of this? Simply. We have said it n times before... We will say it again:

Quote:

Germany will continue pushing every peripheral country closer to the brink (which helps Germany courtesy of increasing pressure on the EURUSD, which benefits the only real net exporter and mercantilism beneficiary in the Eurozone - Germany - by now only absolute economic dilettantes don't seem to understand this) until such time as PIIGS (and then all the other formerly core - here's looking at you socialist "fairness doctrine" entrants) come begging for any scrap that whoever is in charge of Germany will be willing to hand them, in the form of a Debtor In Possession loan of course, and thus accretive to Bunds. If that means presenting their gold to the German Cash4Gold pawn shop under the guise of a Redemption Fund or whatever it is called, so be it. Unless of course, everyone keeps demanding that Germany bail them out. In which case Merkel will just unpack that brand spanking new shipment of DEMs and be done with it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/merkel-say....

Let'em get out those brand spanking new DEMs!

It'll be the best thing that ever happened to the rest of Europe. (Well, Spain anyway.)

I think this whole thing is closet communism, where the debts to pay for state largesse are run up by the regime to such a point as to suck up as much of the middle-class wealth and savings as possible until it comes to the point where these debts that can't be paid won't be paid.

It's all so much more modern and civilised than bloody revolution by the proletariat...

Yuri Bezmenov did have a point, perhaps?

Talking to some folk in Germany recently about the sad state of affairs, I blurted out, "I think Germany needs to leave the Euro."
Then,
<crickets>
A heartbeat later I am offered a comment about the large number of Deutschmarks that are known to be "out there" (i.e. never exchanged for Euros).

German's are very financially literate. I think the average 18 year old German will shred the average 25 yo American when discussing macroeconomics, finance, and geopolitics.

The hard-working Germans are sick of the PIIGS. Sure, Greece is a nice place to go for holiday, but...stop sucking my teets already.

Germany won't benefit from a low EUR/USD simply because they will have few left who can afford to buy their products. Good luck with that thinking.

Tesla wrote..

Germany won't benefit from a low EUR/USD simply because they will have few left who can afford to buy their products. Good luck with that thinking.

Their customers can't afford their products now. What they are doing now is like a store giving merchandise away for free because if they charge anything it will reduce their sales volume.

Nocents wrote..

I think this whole thing is closet communism, where the debts to pay for state largesse are run up by the regime to such a point as to suck up as much of the middle-class wealth and savings as possible until it comes to the point where these debts that can't be paid won't be paid.

What I can corroborate is that the Spanish Socialists who privately advocate unlimited deficit spending (while stealing what they can whenever they can), publicly say that public money belongs to no-one, and openly defend the Cuban political system seem indeed to long for Dr. Zhivago's "shared housing".