Greek “needed” a bailout from Germany and the Eurozone. And another, and another, ad nauseum. And now, it seems, Germany and the Eurozone “need” a bailout from us. Apparently a trillion $$ will do, at least for starters.
I think we can seriously consider this request, perhaps even grant it. As long as Merkel answers this question:
“Who bails U.S. out?”
If she has no satisfactory answer, she’s asking the President to commit treason. Hey Fräulein, we’re in more debt than anyone! Germany’s best bet would be to cut free of the Eurozone, not drag us into it.
And Greece is only the beginning. Wait till countries like Romania figure out how to do this.
We are fucked.
And the EU tells us that the Lisbon Treaty forbids leaving the Eurozone. Kind of cute that they are so following this sham of a treaty when it comes to the stillbirth called Euro, especially given that they didn’t really bother even sticking remotely to it when they forced it on us.
The “Hotel California” of partnerships.
I remember this song I heard back in high school “And we will all go down together”.
Guess I’ll be getting me some Cuban cigars after all. The Trinidad is now for sale, the former “only for friends of the Cuban government” Kotzbalken (German slang for cigar, literaly meaning “vomit bar”.) Before the PIIGS get it I rather give it to the Cubans for their tasty, oh so horribly unhealthy tobacco.
Hey, I have to die from something eventually. And I rather enjoy a good cigar now and then and grow to the average age of my family (around 90) than being all working out and health conscious like two of my ex-teachers who all died from cancer before they reached retirement.
This simply deserves…lol…
No doubt they’ll guilt us into at least billions, maybe tens of ’em. Everybody knows we’re an easy mark.
Can’t say I understand the whole thang … but they are already doing the currency swap thing.
“Even the Bank of International Settlements already noted last year that dollar swap lines between the U.S. and four other central banks — literally dollar printing by the Federal Reserve — “were very effective” in relieving “stresses in foreign exchange markets” during the financial crisis of 2008.”
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/09/12/breakup-united-states-europe/?intcmp=obnetwork
And the window is still open … So we print dollars and they swap euros for our inflated money. So we can all go down together I guess. The plan seems to be globalization of currency and ever other damn thing. Our dear leaders seem intent on sending us all to hell, where they will rule us.
One difference is, they haven’t disarmed Americans yet.
I’m sure the EC will pressure us by threatening to call the Clinton era backing due if things fall apart, while using slight of hand to claim nothing will be lost (which is, of course, a lie).
It sounds a lot like asking the US to do a QE for Europe since they’ve already effectively depleted their funds. More parlor tricks hoping it all works out in 3, 5, 10 years.
Politically, the Congress would have to find funds for that somewhere…and well…that’s not likely.
All this ignores that the ECB is trying to triage multiple countries’ issues by only addressing one country; and hoping no one looks behind the curtain and complains there are bigger fish to fry. Greece is the easy target because its shortfall is the least of the problem block countries in crisis. Of course, it’s a straw-man that can’t keep the weight of reality off the others for any duration. It’s obvious that something has to happen; Greek debt hit 108% for 1yr this week and 55% for 2yr. I’d guess that eurobonds will be part of the attempt to bribe us into a bailout, but they’re a terrible idea which will weaken the stronger members of the block by driving up their rates massively and undermine their ability to grow or pay their future debt.
Really in all this though, people aren’t realizing the weakness of the world’s governments. Italy looking at China was hilarious, the BRIC glances are also. China is over-indebted and buys their ‘investments’ with debt, they don’t have cash to bailout anyone, and they can’t risk their currency gaining value because of that anyway.
Brazil and all these other ’emerging powers’ aren’t; they don’t have the population, consumerism or industrial base to be real-world, first-world powers with cash to throw around. Sure, they’ll pretend (like they’re setting up to try to) for political points, pretending that verbose verbal declarations make up for completely lacking national power.
Merkel, like a lot of Europe, is locked into the Euro concept for power, plain and simple. It’s asking a lot of those politicians to have them give up their delusions of new-world-order Europe, commanding everyone like it’s the imperial era again! Of course, it was all an illusion in the first place, Europe doesn’t get along well enough for a union to be effective, it was always all smoke, mirrors and the seduction of narcissism.
One detail: As real currency we do have more debt, as a percent of GDP there are countries with more than us. That’s part of Germany’s problem; they’re getting stuck with a bill, due to their agreements with France over this (and the declining French debt position), that could exceed their GDP, easily.
Even as a percentage of debt, Obama’s been driving us to the head of the pack, fast. USA! USA!
Smart Power!
HAH!
Sh*t…
QE-E
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/global-liquidity-bailout-arrives-ecb-announces-emergency-liquidity-providing-operations-conjunc
The buck is being passed!
I see a money-printing competition on the near horizon.
RE China:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2011/09/18/how-can-china-save-europe-when-its-defaulting-on-its-own-debt/