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“You Can Lose Freedom Only Once”
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
Poor Angela Merkel. The beleaguered German Chancellor just can’t catch a break. She has already committed hundreds of billions of German taxpayer euros to bailing out collapsing Eurozone countries, or at least their bondholders, which would be the ECB, various German and French banks, and the other usual suspects. In return, she wants these countries to live within their means and restructure their economies so that the bailouts would not have to continue ad inifinitum. While the ECB’s printing press—though it’s not supposed to have one—could solve the debt crisis in one fell swoop after the model of the US, Japan, the UK, and Zimbabwe, it would create a host of problems that Germans would rather avoid. Hence bailouts in return for structural reforms and efforts to whittle budget deficits down to some “sustainable level.”
Sounds reasonable. And yet, these laudable efforts have landed her in the company of Axis-of-Evil perpetrators and other maligned characters, according to the British magazine New Statesman, and it doesn’t appear to be, though it reads like, British humor:
Which world leader poses the biggest threat to global order and prosperity? The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Wrong. Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu? Nope. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un? Wrong again. The answer is a mild-mannered opera fan and former chemist who has been in office for seven years. Yes, step forward, Chancellor Angela Merkel....
And it came with this awesome Terminator-inspired cover art, which does, however, have certain humorous aspects:
So, in this crazy world of ours, preaching the importance of living within one’s means, rather than consuming wildly and blowing borrowed money that can never be paid back, has been equated with state terrorism. And that within the harmonious community of nations of Europe!
No wonder that the Swiss are anxiously watching from their tiny enclave amid this mayhem. And people in power have started to speak up. There was Thomas Jordan, President of the Swiss National Bank, who admitted that “it’s conceivable that the entire European banking system gets into trouble.” For his clear tough words, read.... Bracing for a Euro Crash: The Swiss Caught in a Vice.
Now there is Ueli Maurer, Defense Minister, member of the Swiss Federal Council, and major figure in the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the largest party in the Federal Council. He warned in an interview that Switzerland was surrounded by many heavily wounded nations that might be “looking for success in foreign countries. And Switzerland is a sitting duck.”
Maurer lived the Swiss Dream: boy of a farmer, he served in the Swiss Army where he rose to the rank of major and commanded a bicycle infantry battalion (don’t laugh, war by bicycle was serious business). And so he has become an advocate of Swiss independence, even in a tightly interwoven world.
“Independence is the highest good we have,” he said. “We have to defend it everywhere we can.” Switzerland should not join any kind of union. Least of all the European Union, despite the government’s policy of rapprochement between Switzerland and the EU, which he dismissed: “Today, no one who isn’t completely crazy wants to join the EU.”
And he is worried. “We have to watch out that they don’t take away our wealth and our freedom.” If push came to shove, he’d choose freedom, of course. “You can lose wealth, and you can regain it,” he said, “but you can lose freedom only once.”
It wasn’t up to Switzerland to help these “tumbling giants,” he said; the country was too small and didn’t have a lot of options. “It’s a matter of monetary policy,” he said dryly. Instead, Switzerland would have to look for new allies. “We’re enjoying, for example, many sympathies in Asia. We have to profit from that,” he said. “Europe has crossed its peak.”
He raved about Switzerland’s economic and democratic model. “Handing responsibility to the people, that’s the future. Europe is in bad shape because it assumed that responsibility could be relinquished to a higher level. But in the end, no one is responsible.”
Which sums up the Eurozone bailout strategy. At the G-20 summit last November, bailing out Greece was the main topic, and it turned into a fiasco. At the G-20 summit this week, Greece was still front and center, but now it was escalated to bailing out the Eurozone, nay, the “world financial system.” Read.... The G-20 Farce: Saving The Eurozone From Collapse.
Doug Casey of Casey Research believes that we’re in the fourth year of “The Greater Depression,” that we’re not in a recovery but in “the eye of the hurricane” on our way to “the other side of the storm.” It would be “far more severe” than 2008 and 2009 and would last quite a while, “depending on how stupidly the government acts.” And yet, he sees reasons for optimism. Read his stunning predictions and strategies.... How to Save Your Money and Your Life.
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HAHAHA
Living within means?? Austerity??
If only the lower classes would work in sweatshops for minimalist “globally competitive” wages with no benefits in an unsafe and polluted environment,
there could be enough left over for bankster handouts, health racket extortion, homeland policing and prisons, and War inc.
Merkel’s problem is with her timing. She thinks now is the right time to tighten the screws with “austerity”.
But immediate draconian measures are a little too “East German” for the consensus of the globalist elite.
Their consensus is that more bankster handouts and corporate largesse are possible. So what if governments and economies falter. More “shock doctrine” is believed needed to gain public submission to more top-down controls and “belt tightening”.
I'm going to stick my neck out here:
"In return, she wants these countries to live within their means and restructure their economies so that the bailouts would not have to continue ad inifinitum."
"So, in this crazy world of ours, preaching the importance of living within one’s means, rather than consuming wildly and blowing borrowed money that can never be paid back, has been equated with state terrorism."
That is a blatant lie and typical obscuration. It implies that by living within ones means there would never have been a financial crisis and bailouts would never have been required. In a debt-based, fiat, fractional reserve banking model only the principal is ever printed. The interest is never printed. Therefore, in order that the interest can be paid back(using someone else's principal) ever more principal must be printed into existence. It can only be printed into existence through the emission of more debt. This process works on the compound interest principle and follows an exponential path. An exponential emission of debt cannot happen exponentially, indefinitely. That is a fact. This is the route casue of the financial "crisis". All that the the greed and fraud did to that model was to accelerate its already pre-defined mathematical outcome.
The fractional reserve 'rule' only covers retail deposits. It does not cover corporate or other deposits. For those there is no fractional reserve ratio at all. The emission of unbacked debt is a short on the currency and therefore prima facie fraud.
"Route" / "root" - take 100 lines
Pssst. Better re-think your thesis. Humanity has not been "living within its means" thermodynamically for over a hundred years.
Time to reap what has been sewn, bitchez.
Paper is bullshit, possession is the law now. Especially since there has not been any real consequences for bad behavior at all levels. Where is John Corzine?!?!?
What to fix the "markets" (there are no markets now, price discovery, what's that?)? Hang Corzine in times square and watch the dow rally 10,000 points in 24 hours.
I take it you can't figure out which of the reply buttons to hit when you decide to spout your rage at someone. You need to take some anger management lessons. Your eyesight will improve allowing you to at least locate the right reply button.
"In a debt-based, fiat, fractional reserve banking model only the principal is ever printed. The interest is never printed. Therefore, in order that the interest can be paid back(using someone else's principal) ever more principal must be printed into existence."
Thank you , that statement encapsulates what Bernanke and all the idiots in Europe don't want to admit.
It only takes a basic knowledge of Math and exponential functions to figure out this will end. The outcome is already baked into the cake. What is not clear is the time it will take for the collapse..............all the games being played are affecting that time......
I am a numbers guy and I will tell you it will not be years!!!
Damn Mayas ! they were pretty sharp I have to admit.....couldn't save themselves but they had their math right!!
You are correct sir. But hey, when paper money dies, at least we get to find out pretty damn quick exactly what the real value of everyone's labor really is, fucking bring it.
Obscuration, noted.
Chinese Citizenism offuscation and monolizing of speeching means, noted.
the same is happening here.
http://covert.ias3.com/expose/
We can lay the present mess at the human failing of living beyond our means, which is amplifed and made possible manyfold times over via defict spending, fiat money and Keynesian economic theory. Even worse, most people accept the political ideology that we all will be better off by living at the expense of others, which is the core idea of socialism.
Unless something changes rapidly, this will all end very badly.
Still don't know the difference between socialism and fascism do you? The latter is what we have now.
The bottom line is that in order for any monetary system to survive, there must be real consequences for bad behavior, period. History shows this over and over.
Where is John Corzine?
Even worse, most people accept the political ideology that we all will be better off by living at the expense of others, which is the core idea of socialism.
__________________
If so, socialists are only copy cats as the idea is anchored in US citizenism.
Maybe it is better to state it this way "as long as you are the one living at the expense of others, that is US citizenism. When you start to be one are living at the expense of, it is socialism"?
Cause US citizenism adopted the trick before socialism.
Perhaps it's best to put it this way.
"Socialist idiots would do well to objectively re-examine their premises and data before they open their mouths." The reasons that they don't are one, those data and guiding principles cannot be defended unless you are able to obscure the truth, so that the masses don't actually recognize what you are doing to them and two, control the means of obscuration and information management or more precisely, the media.
This way you can say whatever you want, build a story around it and truth become the lie and lies become the truth on an as needed basis. This of course is exactly what we have today, the left attempting to gain power and money and privilege through lies and fear. The left attempting to empower itself and it's ideologies through the appropriation of assets and liberties. They know this will collapse because they have done everything they could get away with to cause that end. When it does they will say that "capitalism has failed" and we need to "replace it" with their latest word for socialism/communism/Marxism, without actually saying the actual words. Why? A track record of 150 million or so dead people for starters
Kinda hard to defend that kind of thing and so they just ignore it altogether and pretend it never happened. Easy enough to do if your ideologies and people control the information and public discussion via propaganda and omission. Easy enough to do when your finger prints can be expunged from the record and fingers can be pointed at others. Easy enough to do when the legal and moral underpinnings of a society have been destroyed as a direct result of those actions and the precise placement of like minded persons has been accomplished. What they cannot ever hope to achieve is suddenly their's, as if by an act of God and not the labors of dedcated Marxists, worldwide.
I'm not saying before you point to it as an excuse, that there aren't people using government and laws to make money. Very clearly there are and it will continue until things grind to a halt, which they will. It is at that point that Marxists hope to sieze power and everything is in place to accomplish it, first without bloodsheld and second, by an other means they need to use.
So, in this crazy world of ours, preaching the importance of living within one’s means, rather than consuming wildly and blowing borrowed money that can never be paid back, has been equated with state terrorism.
I see the problems in Europe as being more about how the countries joined this monetary union that took away their sovereign currencies. They now have to borrow money at interest from banksters. They would have been much better off sticking with their own currencies. Better to print than to pay interest and print. That is the much bigger issue in my opinion than the discussion of living within onces means, which of course is the best way to live.
This article is too right v. left for me. Better to focus on the banksters taking over the world issues.
The Swiss are just as dumb as the rest of us.
They have been trying to lock the SwissFranc to the Euro, buying up as much of the trash currency as they can. Instead of doing that, they should have let the currency float and cut all taxes to their own citizens.
LOL do you know we the swiss are living on exportation? and WHO WOULD BUY SWISS PRODUCTS when 1 francs is 2 euros? comon be serious
Actually the best solution will be to sell 1 trillion of swiss franc in the market. This will really devalue the swiss franc, and help the export sector.
BUT
With the EUR/USD/CNY/CAD etc buyed, the swiss can buy and import young females from around the world, and assign 2-3 to every swiss male.
Whit the rest, import, gold, oil, commodities and technology.
this will really stage a boom in the swiss economy, and the population will increase from the actual 8 millions instantly to 24 millions, and after some years of reproductgion, to 100 millions.
In 20 years from now, Switzerland will annex the continental europe, and after that only sky will be the limit.
hahahhaahhahahahahah my cousin you're a genius!!!!!!!!!!!
As usual, starting from the postulate that Germany had been living within their means...
From it, many conclusions can be reached. Most of them false if not driven by luck.
What, the fu ?
No, Obama is the world most dangerous leader. And the solution to the European crisis is to invade Switzerland and take all the looted money and gold stored there in the banks ;-)
LOL do you know that OUR gold is not kept in Switzerland?
The SVP is quoted on this site often. Don't you guys know they are a bunch of morons? Haven't you seen the posters that regularly appear all over Zürich? They resemble the ones that the NSDAP had made to scare the people on the eve of WW2...
you sir are a fucking IDIOT, i live in switzerland and i am swiss. WE HAVE THE MOST FOREING CITIZIENS percentage in Europe and you tell us we are RACIST?????? mate wtf is wrong with your brain? go and look for some serious statistics
The swiss people are pissed off as the old method may not work any longer.
They used to say: " OK guys, give us your wallets and we 'll hold your money safely while you fight",it worked for them in WWI and WWII but the world has changed, The war the US has been fighting since the end of WWII has been mainly an economic war, sure they have the biggest military on the planet but their success during the 50's and 60's was primarily economic dominance and they did it well until the dollar went fiat and while the reserve status of the dollar has lept them afloat it has been deteriorating at a growing pace.
The ascent of Germany after the Berlin wall crumbled and that of China over the last 25 years has changed the game, but still is an economic war and the swiss approach that used to workso well, no longer works as well any more. They might say now, send me your gold and we'll hold it for you as your government might take it away from you. But their banks are equally at risk and the world knows what their game is.
Reminds me of the Town Hall meetings a couple of years ago when Pelosi called all the Seniors "Nazis" and "terrorists" for disagreeing with her.
You know what is the "Landsgemeinde" (swiss tradition)?
It's when in certain cantons people met in the city square and they vote by raising hands.
Only time i saw nazis raising hands for hailing hitler so your comment is really dumb
Until 1991, only Swiss males, voted in Glarus.... and everyone with his sword with him.
No secret ballot, everyone knows what everyone thinks, and nobody has fear to say what he thinks, and vote accordingly.
Now, thanks to the socialist policies implemented in Europe in the last 70 years, and because of the politically correcteness propaganda by the meain stream medias, this kind of traditions are disappearing.
How is it possible for countries to make the rapid transition of spending like there is no tomorrow to living within a portion of the revenues they enjoyed yesteryear without social unrest as someone is going to hurt big time?
Merkel and Germany are right and I for one do not think it fair for them to have to take on another country's liabilities.
However, imagine what Europe and the G20 would look like after all the government excess is trimmed, all that "printed" government coin paid to government employees and so on no longer flowing through the system. I do not believe with the technological, people replacing machines in existence the private sector can take up the slack by a long shot.
It is no longer within our control. The mind sets in the world are polarized. The human race is going to feel an event.
Let us hope for the best....
The short answer to your question is "it isn't".
The problem with "living beyond ones means" is more than financial, it is thermodynamic.
Time to reap what has been sewn. Hope all you want, chance favors the prepared mind, always has.
Well said Cherry Picker.
I doubt that is a bit of wry drollery from the Brits.
Those boys in the City take wringing out the last nickle pretty seriously.
The cash must flow. Forever.
It's hard to be a world leader these days. They all know what is coming down the pike and that they can't stop it. Yet they continue to try to "fix" the world's financial system. Can't blame them really. Would you want the crash to happen on your watch? Merkel loves power and is loathe to see it get swept away in the sunami that is heading our way. They all are addicted to the power and they will do anything to prolong the inevitable. We will start to see them all freaking, the leaders, the bankers and all their minions pretty soon. They know that they themselves are in real jeopardy when it all crashes. They can run but they can't hide.
"We’re enjoying, for example, many sympathies in Asia. We have to profit from that,” he said."
Of course they are. When the time comes, they'll help fund the slaughter of many innocents for trade with China. These fuckers don't change.
name 1 country that isn't in business in china. aaaaaaaaaah there is no country? SO STFU
Didn't know she was a chemist. Of course, she's avocating Le Chatelier's principle then.
This is getting really funny. This testosterone guy keeps telling us that the truth is only spoken by... central bankers! Yeah, like the one with As(s)mussen praising Latvia's "success", one truly for the ages (only to be shot down a few days later by ZH with that Latvia video). Or by the representatives of the interests of multinational corporations.
Welcome to the central banking megaphone, courtesy of guys with more testosterone than Chuck Norris! Some guys know where the money is, and act accordingly.
I'm just totally amazed when and if a central banker DOES speak the truth. Most of the time, what we get from them is calculated and manipulative BS. And scandals.
You might want to read some of my posts on the Fed, for example, or on the money laundering scandal at the Austrian National Bank http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/1/20/austrian-central-bank-brib...
The fact that these guys speak up like this tells me that there is harsh disagreement in the system, and that the cracks we're seeing are actually very deep.
I've been accused of being a central bank hater. So, now your comment means that I'm balanced?
TP,
The solution is simple and yet never even whispered. Prosecute the fucking fraud already, anything else is mental masterbation to simply make you feel better.
Want to restore a real fucking market and real price discovery (the only benefit to society of a real market)? Prosecute the god damn fraud, restore the rule of law and real consequences for bad behavior.
We can do this, or Nature will do it for us (in a very chaotic and messy way). The choice is collectively "ours".
Wolf : the axis of evil is any resistance to the Banksta ponzi in Europe. This Anglo financial model is the salt of the earth. Right???
Pot and kettle...and race to bottom. First world people now being kicked around like a football at the Euro comptetiion in Kiev.
How can perception get so distorted. Your presentation of this mad currency/financial war is totally out of focus.
The evil is the WS/CIty financial cabal; and they have no solution but to rob the people of EUrope. Scuttling other people's lifeboats does not get you off the Titanic!
So you double down on your post about Latvia and As(s)mussen speaking the truth?
Hey Chancellor, tell them to fuck off!
The elites have begun targeting each other as I look upon the statue of Ozymandias. Time to put your shorts back on.
Uroborus.
You can only lose freedom once.
As if anyone in this barbaric, state-dominated world has freedom?
have you ever visited CH? that's the last true democracy on earth mate. direct democracy if you know what that means
We know who is free they create what we all need and charge for it. Why we keep doing this is to keep them free.
Two examples of many
uk gives ,hands 56 million to the royals for WHAT? To keep them free?
Take their assets and let them go get a fucking job to pay back the people. Fuckin welfare for the wealthy.
Do the royals give anything back except their showing us there fugly faces and having to put up with their disfunctions?
What the fuck are people thinking giving these fucks 56 million dollars?
BANK BAILOUTS who did we free with that little hand-out?
Pepper spray for the whiners as they have not reached that level of freedom yet.
Mr. corizne ,seems to be free?
Level setting time and place.
Taking the last few days for a trip I come back with a good appreciation for data.
Wandering the wilds of the bluff country of my state alone in the wild fishing for trout and thinking about things that matter.
I appreciate the Swiss people and their history, their preparedness as well as my own as an American.
Stopping off for breakfast before an adventure I listened to the local farmers talk of how well this year’s crop was advancing,, among the best in memory of a 60+ crowd.
At dusk the brown trout hooked came to my lure and I released them.
Though the finance systems may be crashed asunder to the rocks, in my physical world and per the data I see for the next year there is lots of food and energy about.
What does this have to do with the price of potatoes, of the Swiss and Americans, of our situation and the financial system?
Connections to the physical and virtual world and the look on the face of the trout released the report of the farmers on the crop to come?
The data in my opinion supports a crash of the virtual not physical worlds.
The Swiss and Americans are well placed to handle it.
"The data in my opinion supports a crash of the virtual not physical worlds.
The Swiss and Americans are well placed to handle it."
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Nice post and some good reflections, but I'm not so sure about that. The maniacs at the controls may seem to be in some other world, virtual or otherwise, but they can make our lives a living hell as others before them have done to a peaceful and unsuspecting world.
The armies they control are certainly not virtual armies. The monetary system they're destroying might in a sense be considered a virtual one, but it most certainly has a decided impact upon our physical world. The nuclear reactors spewing deadly radioactive particles by the boatload into our oceans and atmosphere also affect our physical world.
Where we're headed is a great unknown.
"What does this have to do with the price of potatoes,"
Well, despite the record yields of recent years, the grain carryover is the shortest it's ever been. Around 20 days. And the supermarket supply chain is even shorter, about 3 days.