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Meanwhile, in Europe...
For years, since the onset of the euro crisis, we have heard that the crisis is over. Every year, politicians keep on telling us that the worst is over, but that next year will be so much better. Do you really think so? Here are some hard facts & figures instead of wishful thinking of lying politicians showing that the euro crisis is not over. On the contrary, things are getting worse.
Italy
La Dolce Vita, the good life, is no longer achievable for millions of Italians. Italy is the third largest Eurozone country and is in dire straits. Public debt has ballooned to well over 130 percent! Is this money ever going to be repaid? Who is going to do that? The country has one of the fastest aging populations in the world. Italian women, when having any children at all, prefer to have just one child. In order for a society to maintain a healthy demographic balance, they should have at least two. Nonetheless, unemployment, from a European perspective, is relatively low at 12 percent. But wait, youth unemployment is virtually at 40 percent. So there are no jobs in Italy, public debt is out of control and its aging population lays a heavy burden on both income taxes and Social Security payments.
Spain
Spain is one of the Eurozone’s largest countries. It is not in a recession, but in a downright depression. Do you need some figures? Unemployment stands at 26.3 percent?. That means more than one out of every four workers is idling and receiving benefits from government and waiting for better days. Even worse, youth unemployment is a staggering 57 percent. Indeed, more than one out of every two youngsters is out of work or is not expected to find one soon. Do you need more proof? Spanish government is spending billions on Social Security, money it simply does not have. Public debt has gone from a fairly modest 30 percent in 2007 to well over 90 percent this year and will soon move to 100 percent and beyond.
Portugal
Portugal is one of the smaller Eurozone countries in the Mediterranean Sea with an economy that is in shambles. The country had to be bailed out by the rest of the Eurozone to the tune of €78 billion. Public debt is around 128 percent, hardly lower than Italy’s. Unemployment hovers around 16.5 percent, which is unsustainable in the medium term. Youth unemployment stands at a depressing h 42 percent.
Although it seems that Portugal has lived up to its promises as part of the bail-out programme, the country will need a second bail-out coming 2014. Of course, it will be paid by other Eurozone members having a healthier economy.
Europe in shambles
Politicians babble about the worst of the crisis being behind us, or even ‘fixed.’ That is just cheap talk. The hard facts & figures prove them wrong. Europe is on the verge of a genuine collapse. On the one hand, this is because the Euro simply does not work, but makes things worse instead. On the other hand, Eurozone member states are simply unable to devaluate their currencies as they are part of the single currency bloc. As long as this flawed monetary currency, or rather political currency, is kept afloat, less well-off countries within the Eurozone will continue to suffer.
The ECB, the European equivalent of the Fed, will do ‘whatever it takes’ to keep the single currency alive. For now, markets have accepted this, but in the near term they will call their bluff. When, not if, that happens, the euro will be gone and with it billions worth of paper assets, wreaking havoc on an already damaged economy.
Does the graph below suggest the crisis has been solved?
Courtesy: Zerohedge… of course
Europe has run out of money
The Eurozone has close to 20 million unemployed. These are millions of people requiring need food, housing and medical care. This is simply unaffordable in the medium term. Youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb. It will not take long before young people will take to the streets, demanding jobs and a comfortable future.
Has the crisis been solved? Will the Eurozone recover any time soon? We would not bet on it. Europe is an ageing, moribund continent and the sh*t will hit the fan sooner rather than later. Europe has simply run out of money due to its overgenerous entitlements. What will it take for people to start noticing?
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Let's chip in and send them some marshmallows.
yeah, i was thinking i should have mentioned internet but to say it was invented only to get access to sheeple? well, who knows, it's working out great for them (whoever has access to nsa systems). internet is a two-edged sword. it brings great gifts, got me awake for example, but also conditions the sheeple to a new level of stupor.
for junkers, i'm not suggesting that kind of technological revolution will be the remedy as it would just postpone the inevitable collapse. i'm just saying that humanity has been taken hostage by the oligarchy instead of living up to its real potential which when flourished, could bring about new era of prosperity that could even shadow current debt. it's a shame that every creative mind is on the payroll of corporations and financial industry to perpetuate the status quo.
build out of the natural gas pipeline network. "that has now been completed." almost totally in the private sector i might add. at some point wind turbine power will have to be linked up to the grid as well "to scale"...it's already been done in Texas i'm told (at "enormous expense") and i expect more of the "new" going forward. this obviously takes Government help...but i think it will be done. net metering, far more powerful batteries, the solar revolution, etc...the job is getting done...just "slowly." some however are moving far more rapidly into the future than others. the economic numbers do not lie...
I'll say it:
Italian men are effectively neutered if they can't convince the robust, horny Italian women to have beautiful, energetic, and talented children with them. I also blame the Catholic Church for not standing up firmly and compellingly for family and life in Itally. Why won't they ask themslves "What would Jesus think?" about their sterile and corrupt hierarchy and infrastructure? The new pope seems to be asking.
If I lived in Itally, I would fill up a villa with awesome children and surround myself with friends that enjoy the same.
There;'s too many people in the world; and in Europe. The confusion arises from making comparisons to an eyebllink of time in which all the socialist nonsense appeared possible. Un-employment is a percentage; it can be cured by reducing the population. The Great Plague was the greatest single motivator that Europe ever had.
So you think full employment achieved by a smaller young generation changing bed pans is a viable economic solution? I suggest you go read a book by Pat Buchanan called "The Death of the West". In it, he predicts the current situation and discribes the inevitable end game.
The human race has become a Ponzi Scheme, in effect.
More people are needed to pay taxes to look after the previous generation.
Repeat.
Repeat......
Repeat............................
Collapse
Start over (if there isn't a species ending event)
Hang on to your hats, folks!
so are you suggesting its time to open up a couple of those level five biolabs and just let some germs run loose?
keynesian.....better than breaking windows i suppose
The Europeans just need more immigrants to cure their unemployment problems.
Swim together, drown together.
Too many people; too many robots. Not enough work - never will be again. The future is now.
Too much confiscation of wealth through taxes, in order to drive programs that nobody wants.
A Roman Senator observed over 2000 years ago, in their startingly modern society, that Democracy is an impossible form of government; because soon the people discover how to vote themselves funds from the public treasury. There has never been any refutation of this simple argument. Your idea that nobody wants free health care and thirty hour work weeks and reitrement at 55; is not borne out by the facts.
Nothing in this world is free. It's just a matter of how you pay. Unfortunately, most people are too stupid to realize this.
blu
to the contrary...MANY people like those programs...short work week, unemployment insurance, 'free' healthcare, maternity leave, social security and good pensions....the must love them in Europe as much as Americans love their benies...
They might think that they do, but their opinion is uninformed, since the governement does everything it can to hide the cost, in order to pretend that "free" exists.
Pay your bill bitchez
Great rehash, if not a bit warmed over.
Funny the name 'Sprout Money' for a Benelux-region ('Brussels sprouts') financial blog ... in Dutch the blog is 'Slim Beleggen' or 'Clever Investing', the author is investment adviser Nico Pantelis, blogging for a couple of years now, used to be with KBC bank Securities a while back.
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Some of what Nico says above is true - like the euro being totally dysfunctional, and how the southern countries need to leave the euro to be better off (probably including France among them) ...
But the article above is superficial ... the euro-zone issues have been covered more profoundly in other ZeroHedge articles and in pieces by, for example, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the UK Telegraph (who is a total idiot about the USA but often spot-on re the euro-zone).
On the one hand Nico says « second bail-out coming 2014. Of course, it will be paid by other Eurozone members having a healthier economy », and on the other hand « Europe has run out of money » and the extremist statement that Europeans « need food, housing and medical care. This is simply unaffordable in the medium term »
This is contradictory ... So Europe is rich enough to pay for bail-outs, but 'out of money' to supply food and housing ? Huh ?
Yes the euro-zone is a mess and banks are about to explode ... but in north-west Continental Europe especially, we are the richest quadrant on the planet. 1 out of every 140 Belgians is a millionaire, and there is essentially zero poverty among legal residents here.
We need to restructure, but we are not 'poor' ... and though there is genuine poverty in southern Europe now increasing under Troika brutality, Italy for example has very low household debt and quite high household assets, they are technically richer than Germans.
Nico asks « What will it take for people to start noticing? » Well people in Europe do notice damn well and there are plenty of demonstrations, riots, and changing voting patterns across Europe already ... Full-force revolutions, like the one that EU Commission President José Barroso took part in in the 1970s when he was a Communist Maoist student, have not yet happened ... but Greece very recently has shown how on the edge things are getting.
Stating "in north-west Continental Europe especially, we are the richest quadrant on the planet" reminds me of the reports about the suburbs of Washington, DC being among the wealthiest portions of the USA. How was Belgium doing before the European superstate came into being and was headquartered in Brussels?
Belgium? it's a bit complex. it's a federation of nations, and one of them was always very, very productive, going back to the Middle Ages, while the others aren't bad at all
on the other side it always had a gov debt and politics which remind you of Italy
but the "Brussels Effect", while existing, isn't even remotely comparable to the "DC Effect". that "manna from the heavens" is still to be seen in the national capitals, be them Berlin, Madrid, Paris, London, Rome, etc.
all in all the difference between federation and confederation
agree with you on the weakness of the article and many excellent points you bring
yet your main thrust against the EUR is still that the southern countries ought to leave and devalue, isn't it?
yet they aren't, even when subjected to "Troika brutality" care to explain why?
care to explain what the situation would have been and still be for countries like Belgium without the "disfunctional EUR"?
it's easy to target the EUR. you could say it's one of its purposes. among many others, including keeping our internal supply lines intact, which is then again one of the reasons why your "northern quadrant" is "doing well"
you still believe nearly every word of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard when it comes to the EUR, even though you have noticed that he can be "a total idiot when it comes to the USA"
think about why Greece et al are not willing to leave. think about consequences, in this financial war
agree with you totally about France. how about Switzerland? what the heck is going on there? in any case bank earnings here in the USA this Friday...should be interesting. nationalism is alive and well i think you would agree...and when it comes to that "you can never be too big." there are "qualitative" and "quantitative" differences in all these things of course. be nice to know where the people fit in...something i think the folks of Belgium know all too well.
You credit (rowdy) student meetings way too much....
Except they have a full hammer lock on power and their banks......move on