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Guest Post: The Best Thing Ever Written On Europe
Submitted by Tim Price of Sovereign Man
The Best Thing Ever Written On Europe
“We think we have an agreement, but we are not sure what it is.”
- Negotiator at the Euro Zone “crisis summit” last month, as reported in The Economist.
“You don’t have to be paranoid to be terrified.”
- Ditto.
If a ballistics expert were so poor at his job that his artillery routinely fired missiles into the sea or, worse still, at his own men, he would soon be removed from office. He might perhaps be purged more dramatically, pour encourager les autres. No such logic would seem to apply, however, in either politics or economics in the west, where discredited practitioners of failed theories are allowed to pontificate and spend into absurdity.
We cannot say with certainty what was spooking European investors prior to last week’s make-or-break summit (the 14th such “crisis summit” in 21 months), but it seems plausible to argue that they were concerned about an unsustainable build-up of credit, credit risk and leverage. Happily, those concerns have now been put to rest, because the Euro Zone’s leaders have pledged more credit, more credit risk, and more leverage.
To put it another way, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel have bought more time, albeit time paid for with yet more borrowed money. A three ring circus of blind, incontinent clowns would have more class.
The term ‘haircut’ seems somewhat redundant
Source: Financial Times
We know from previous climactic bailouts that money, being so debased by our central banks, doesn’t get you very far these days. We have now had a €1 trillion bailout whose benign market impact lasted all of a day.
By Friday last week, Italian 10 year bond yields were back up at 6% – the ”danger zone” – which does rather make one wonder just what the hell our monetary and political “leaders” think they are achieving with all this thinly disguised but very costly can-kicking. Evolution Securities’ fixed income research team called the bailout plan “a sugar rush” of stimulus.
A one-day wonder is neither here nor there; what matters is where Italian government bond yields are in 6 or 12 months’ time.
The Euro Zone’s leaders faced at least three specific objectives. Resolution to each would have been and remains necessary but not sufficient to ease the crisis:
1. Put Greece out of our misery.
2. Recapitalise the banks.
3. Do something magical and sexy with the EFSF.
What we actually have is a peculiar fudge even by the standards of eurofudge whereby a Greek default mysteriously doesn’t appear to trigger credit default swap protection, as Alen Mattich of the Wall Street Journal points out. Separately, and not for the first time, banks are being tasked with mutually exclusive objectives: keeping the lending taps open without compromising and indeed actively improving the quality of their balance sheets.
This is impossible. The Economist (whose coverage of the summit this week has been excellent) cites Morgan Stanley’s Huw van Steenis, who suggests that European banks might end up pursuing a “crash diet” that results in a shrinking of balance sheets by up to €2 trillion over the next year, which would be a disaster for SMEs and others.
And in the meantime, a credit bust that is the natural response to too much inherent leverage and financial engineering is being “solved” by… leverage and financial engineering. At least the acronym for the Special Purpose Investment Vehicle is a fair reflection of the intellectual bankruptcy being deployed. One summit attendee noted of the bailout plan that “the more zeroes the better.”
It is unclear whether he was referring to taxpayers’ further involuntary capital commitments, or to political non-entities.
One cannot really avoid the conclusion first reached by writer Adam Fergusson in his study of the Weimar era collapse and hyperinflation, When Money Dies:
“What really broke Germany [and which may end up breaking the Euro Zone] was the constant taking of the soft political option in respect of money.”
Talk of hyperinflation will, one trusts, ultimately be both premature and irrelevant, but wishful thinking is no sustainable basis for an investment approach when we have the current crop of political and economic no-talent ass clowns calling the shots.
Last week we hosted our external investment panel, an oversight committee in effect, and one of the panellists pointed out that the anticipation and preparation for acute inflation, like that for financial panic, cannot be finely timed.
One minute the system is deemed to be secure. The next minute, pensioners are queuing up outside Northern Rock.
Since we have mentioned the “W” word, we have an obligation to discuss what strategies best preserved the wealth of German investors during that dark period. (“Life was madness, nightmare, desperation, chaos,” writes Fergusson. We are not quite there yet – but we also note that sensible financial commentators have already begun to refer to Japan as our Weimar in waiting.)
Other, more valuable foreign currencies, for example. In 1923, that meant the US Dollar. This time round, since the Swiss National Bank has lost the plot, we would favour the Canadian and Singapore Dollars. Back then, the answer lay in gold, and we think it does this time, too, as the finest currency protection paper money can buy.
One can also consider gold and silver mining companies – John Hathaway of Tocqueville Asset Management has written very nicely about the “Golden Mulligan” being presented to investors who missed the gold bull on the way up.
Markets very rarely offer second chances; investors without any form of gold exposure would, we think, be well advised to step on board now.
Other forms of real assets will play their part (we note the substantial increase in the cost of British agricultural land). And since sins of omission can also be costly, investors looking for “safe havens” would be well advised to be highly selective in their choice of bonds (if they choose bonds at all), as well as common stocks.
Those who have studied the Weimar experience suggest that the point of no return in the inflationary process did not come about through currency depreciation alone, nor from the growing velocity of money in circulation (as German savers tried desperately to spend their fast-eroding paper wealth), nor from the balance of payments deficit.
In fact it came from a devaluation of political principles. Yale Economist Robert Shiller has suggested that one of the reasons for equity investors’ irrational exuberance in the 1990s (it was Shiller, and not Greenspan, who coined the phrase) was the fall of the Berlin Wall- which seemed to conclusively display the superiority of western free market capitalism over the discredited Soviet model.
Now the superiority of the western model is so apparent that we have cash-strapped eurocrats looking to raise money from the Communist leaders of a country, most of whose citizens live in abject poverty. This writer is proud to call himself British; he would be disgusted to be regarded as European.
Tim Price
Director of Investment
PFP Wealth Management
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It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted.
It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.
He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.
The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.
The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.
The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.
The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.
The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.
The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.
At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.
No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the governments of the world are doing business today.
Sorry BAC bashers: BAC announced major invesments in Australian gold miners this week.
Who fucking cares. Move on and just admit you bought too high.
Nobody but you cares that you are holding the bag on the top end of BAC/Squid/JPM. Next time do your due diligence, only person paying for it is you.
CPL, BAC finally "gets it" (gold is value) and I bought at $5.14--lower than Buffy. I think people care.
Nope. No one cares.
Your thesis that BAC 'gets it' because of some supposed miners investment is patently absurd.
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/11/24/jp-morgan-buys-more-sway-in-lme-takeover-battle/
If BAC bought into Australian Gold miners,it would ONLY be for reason of manipulating golds price.
Warren, could please stop spamming your book. BAC is dead meat swinging.
If only we owed the debt to one another. We owe it all to the money center banks, who get it for free from the Fed. The money only goes up.
Any commercial bank can create money under fractional reserve banking. See Modern Monetary Mechanics.
The Mystery of Banking page 94.
Constitutional money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6gMkKmQSW4&feature=player_embedded
Worth the hour.
Yes but one only has the cloak of authority and a military behind it
fucking CORRECT. why is this so hard to comprende, I will never entiendo
unfortunately, the current EU debt structure is not a snake swallowing its tail. It is more a line of debtors (the countries) and a line of creditors (the banks). The ECB can lay that 100 Euro note on the counter all it wants but when Greece gives it to its creditors, the buck stops there.
Kind of. There's a fee extracted with every transfer. That fee is why we always need 'liquidity' the all too fearsome 'liquidity crisis'. The moneychangers have taken over pure and simple.
There is no market. Need I repeat? There are, however, market makers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_...
our money has been turned into a fraud system by monopolists
internationally by the BIS and likes of Visa and Mastercard
nationally by central banks and the big retail banks
money is simply a means of exchange.. it has been turned into a means of defrauding society by monopolists having a legal right protected against the good forces of competition to produce counterfeit wealth (ie. worthless parasites living off the value produced by the productive)
it is this mushroom cloud of fraud money (see Greshams Law) that is going to implode. Hopefully as much as possible in the faces of the frauds (big bankers like Rothchild et al) that fabricated the system
And the Morale of the Story ?
That everybody provided their services for Free to The guy controling the money supply
Bingo
Socialism is a failed experiment, which Europe is the master and the USA was a small understudy. Abolish the New Deal.
But the Muslim wants American to have the New Deal....Mugabe's New Deal. The Muslim is Mugabe 2.
Actually, TPTB are Jerry Sandusky and we are all 11 year old boys before it.
Sounds like an argument for abolishing money. Actually it is delightful little vignette on money that encapsulates all the simple-minded arguments of the bourgeois economist. The money did not come from outside in the story; it was created when each individual extended credit to his customer. It's called credit money.
Excellent!
CPL, your little scenario is wrong. Think about it this way: If the hooker never paid her bill, the hotel proprietor would have to take 100 Euro from his savings to return the rich tourist's deposit. Also think of it this way: the hotel proprietor never accounted for the hooker's payment of her debt on his account books, so even though the rich tourist has his deposit back, the hotel proprietor still sees that his books are 100 Euro short. Bottom line: the hotel proprietor's balance is down 100 Euro, making your scenario clever, but false.
this is nonsense...the town would simply organize its own currency and everyone's debt would be extinguished via that.
See, nobody OWES anything in this town, moron. They all have $100 owed and $100 in receivables.
Yeah, it's all good until they all leverage their receivables to buy CDS on each other.
I believe another way to say it is that the town had a barter economy.
There is debt involved in every single transaction in any economy. The only difference is the time between when the service provider provides and when he receives payment. It might be half a second, it might be six months. The means of exchange---fiat, gold, another service---makes no difference. The imposition of interest is when one enters Mako World.
Cute tale, though, that can easily fool the unsuspecting.
Trav, try to teach instead of scold
These are wise words. Ones that I should follow more myself instead of just crying about the retardation of Americans and getting annoyed.
The hotel proprietor provided no services. He was a thief during the time the money was in circulation. He was a short seller, at very best, if you like. But no service was rendered by him to get the value into the system.
the only service was debt relief and that in itself is a blessing; it can be contagious as hookers can become free women. But it was the month of august and the heat was terrible, so it makes you believe the black sea is not black.
The money was never his to give. Kind of like fractional reserve lending, he stole it from a depositor, lent it out, and got it back before the depositor wanted his money back. Like a banker, he lucked out and profited and no one noticed the fraud.
As a side note, Price has apparently not escaped the British prejudice against the euro. Since its founding in 1999, the euro has been subjected to continuous and relentless criticism from British sources. One suspects that, not being willing to join the game, Britain must continuously heckle the players from the stands. Perhaps the snob factor should be made an economic parameter, since it is the only possible explanation for the high price of British real estate and rentals, and their failure to adjust to other economic realities. These other realities being the fact that the combined debt of the government, banks, corporations and households in the UK is the highest in the world.
My main point is that making credit default swaps inoperative in the Greek situation, along with expected similar action in relation to other borrowers, exposes the entire CDS structure as the enormous fraud it really is. IMO, the only way to avoid the total demolition of the world monetary system that this disclosure will cause, is to declare them fraudulant from the get-go and require the refund of premiums paid to the issuers. This is an insurance product that is not subject to regulation by anyone and does not require the establishment of reserves against losses. It even permits the issuance of the product to people who are not even holders of the bonds in question. Pure crap-shooting and fraud.
I gave you a -1 for your first paragraph ... then had to change it to a +1 for the second paragraph. On balance you should get a 0, but the +1 must stand since I can't withdraw my vote. (A good demonstration, in a microcosm, of the insanity of democratic voting].
i-agree.
No snob factor needed when a Ponzi is being run (or else snobbishness serves to support the Ponzi).
The rest of the post, as you say, is spot on.
On the other hand I would give you a -1 for your statement about democratic vote (if we gave everyone a real education vs. an indoctrination a democratic vote might work) but, in the whole I agree with how you ranked the post above you so on balance I mindfully gave you a +1 (I have no interest in withdrawing the vote, I was fully informed when I voted and decided you are basically right).
;-)
Good critique.
The UK has retained the ability to depreciate it's currency ad infinitum to the detriment of it's citizens, and has high RE values because it is the best place to launder money with few questions asked.
CDS's are something we will look back on in 20 years and laugh about.
Oops, forgot to mention the UK govt. has just outlined a policy to give more money the country doesn't have to large building firms, as well as putting a mortgage indemnity scheme in place.
You couldn't make it up.
its called debt jubilee; and the hooker gives a free round to all males in town to celebrate. Not all women appreciate such largesse. But the men do. We are hooked when its free.
Well, it's actually a little worse than that. It's an old story and an interesting one because at first glance it appears that you can get something for nothing. In the old days, in small towns where people did business directly with each other and traded goods and services for cash and/or for other goods and services (barter), and where banks played little or no role, things could sometimes work like that, to a degree.
Today, though, the story would be a lot different and the results much worse. You see, the hotel owner would rush out with the $100 or Euro bill allright - directly to the bank (or credit card company) - and that would be it. The circle would be broken. When the disgruntled tourist returned for his money, the hotel owner would need to borrow it somewhere else to repay him (maybe from the bank that now has that same $100 to lend out). So nobody would get out of debt. End of story!
Another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is that we have assumed interest-free loans/transactions.
Finally, it should be noted that only the hotel owner might really have been in debt, according to the story. The rest of the folks had $100 in receivables (promissory notes) and $100 in debt. Thus the imagined circle of transactions was merely permitting the amount owing to be neutralized by the receivable. Nobody was better off.
But you can get something for nothing. My proof? Everything since 1913.
It's a very nice story but it's a fairy tale actually. In our world the hooker won't have a chance of giving the money back to the hotel proprietor. The bill ends in the pocket of the pimp.
And probably he ends up controlling the town. We only wanted to eat and fuck but we ended up slaves...
...and never forget the interest!
I've never understood this story. What about the 35% in taxes that is removed from each transaction, and interest charged in many cases? This story doesn't play out the same in the real world.
euro communism again? more euro trash, either way.
http://expose2.wordpress.com
Velocity will fix everything.
Just wait until we figure how to apply the same logic to food.
Add the USA and the UK and Japan and you'll have all the usual suspects lined up.
I volunteer all the "politcal elite" of whatever stripe. May the rope hold.
'Talk of hyperinflation will, one trusts, ultimately be both premature and irrelevant, but wishful thinking is no sustainable basis for an investment approach when we have the current crop of political and economic no-talent ass clowns calling the shots.'
Firstly, hyperinflation is a process that can happen slowly or suddenly. The Germans don't want either.
Second, I'm pretty sure you can't point to more than like three people in the econo-political sphere internationally that aren't 'no-talent ass clowns'. Comes with the territory.
Nice one Tim
Good job officers...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065629/Police-killed-deaf-cycli...
Police 'killed deaf cyclist with stun gun after he failed to obey instructions to stop'A police officer killed an elderly, deaf and mentally disabled man riding his bicycle by shooting him with a Taser stun gun after he failed to obey instructions to stop.
Roger Anthony, 61, was killed as he made his way home in Scotland Neck, South Carolina, after officers responded to a 911 call about a man who had fallen off his bicycle in a car park.
The caller told dispatchers that the man appeared drunk and that it looked like he had hurt himself.
Officers said they repeatedly told Mr Anthony to get off his bike, but when he didn't respond, they shocked him.
Hey it's Darwinism at work, soon enough this will happen to society in general, it won't be an Asteroid, Super-bug or new Ice Age, our(generally speaking) stupidity will be there 1st
This is how the civilizations from ages past came and went, this civilization will be no different to be replaced and forgotten
New age is coming... Human being doen't recognize big changes until they are obvious...
Please do go on.
i presume he means humans are predilicted to only react to change after the event, they are not pro-active and take steps before a predicted change occurs
if so he's right
Really? I got the feel he was a new religionist. Something about the coming of the Cosmic Buddha to get us on the right track etc etc.
it looked like he was struggling with the language ...maybe using translation software but got the jist of it :)
"the 14th such “crisis summit” in 21 months"
14/21 = 2/3 = 666/1000
"A three ring circus of blind, incontinent clowns would have more class." LOL!
If its a three ring circle, i want to be behind angela
A three ring circus of blind, incontinent clowns would have more class.
They'd have a higher IQ too
..keeping the lending taps open without ...improving the ..balance sheets.
Spend, spend, spend... the only 'solution' politicians know
Yale Economist Robert Shiller has suggested ...equity investors’ irrational exuberance ..was the fall of the Berlin Wall
Another fuking academic dipshit. How do you connect a falling brick wall with the internet bubble???
The wall fell because Soviet Russia reached its assured end when politicos take over the productive (private) economy and destroy its productivity: bankruptcy
There is no connection (even on LSD) between one countries abject (socialist) bankruptcy and anothers banking and financial frauds pumping sugar coated shit (www.hyper-delusion.con) which has been happening for Centuries (see English South Sea bubble, see Dutch Tulip Bulb bubble, see property bubbles)
Academics like economists are two a penny and their brains are worth even less. Only the commercially hardened brain works
Shiller is a Keynesian who believes that gov't hasn't done ENOUGH.
How does Shiller feel about the Fed's capital stress test for banks WHERE INTEREST RATES ARE HELD CONSTANT???!!! What kind of crap is the Fed dishing out?
Upcoming Case-Shiller Report and The Fed Reserve Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com
Seriously, the Fed stress test is a joke to mask the vulnerability of banks and GSEs to interest rate shocks.
Shiller is yet another economist, like Krugman, whose academic brain has been pickled in socialist hopium (idealism) and is worthless (although both their material makes for excellent ridicule:)
You write:
The wall fell because Soviet Russia reached its assured end when politicos take over the productive (private) economy and destroy its productivity: bankruptcy
The wall fell because the Soviet elite i.e. politbiuro could no longer fund their socialist welfare state and foreign empire. As for the politicos taking over, since 1917 there was nothing but. That lay at the heart of the problem.
You write:
There is no connection (even on LSD) between one countries abject (socialist) bankruptcy and anothers banking and financial frauds pumping sugar coated shit (www.hyper-delusion.con) which has been happening for Centuries (see English South Sea bubble, see Dutch Tulip Bulb bubble, see property bubbles)
Actually, the connection is absolutely perfect. The root cause of the "banking and financial frauds pumping sugar coated shit" as you put it, is to prop up the abject socialist welfare state spending. Has it escaped you that we are in the middle of a soveriegn debt/insolvency crisis. And the banking crisis was percipitated by lending operations to the sovereign states?
PK - good points.
"The wall fell because the Soviet elite i.e. politbiuro could no longer fund their socialist.." etc
Yes that's the exact point i made. The Soviet Bloc was bankrupt. Gorbi had no choice, like bankrupt China. They'd painted themselves into a corner, no money in their pockets. Dead (economy) in the water. Not sure why you repeated my point!
"As for the politicos taking over, since 1917 there was nothing but.."
Yep nearly all countries have a bunch of unproductive parasites/crooks Lording it over (living off the backs of) productive society. The size of this bunch of shiesters (Govt) is equal to the countries stage of bankruptcy.
"The root cause of the "banking and financial frauds pumping sugar coated shit" as you put it, is to prop up the abject socialist welfare state spending."
Agree 100%. But the 2 dots I was not connecting (as Scheiller did) was there is no connection between the Berlin Wall coming down and the US stock market internet bubble going up.
"Has it escaped you that we are in the middle of a soveriegn debt/insolvency crisis. And the banking crisis was percipitated by lending operations to the sovereign states? "
Spot on and a very precise discription of this unholy mess
Soviet oil production peaked in 1987...they collapsed starting then.
the US peaked in 1970 and we collapsed as well, until we were able to make KSA the effective 51st State
Soviet oil production probably peaked in a desperate attempt to make extra volume to make iup the shortfall in the oil price bottoming around $20 a barrel.. the deflating oil price put the final knife in Gorbis side (stone cold bankrupt Russia)
Communist China was the same but had few natural resources or industry... it was the Chinese States shambolic (murderous) mess of Agriculture (dittio Soviet Russia) that bankrupt China and forced change their too
very good Tim call in again soon
I don't know what the author has against blind, incontinent clowns. They have more fun!
In what tense and person is this language so I can have google (attempt to) translate it?
Thanks, in (redundant) advance.
CPL -Unfortunately you provide the example of a productive society were each actor produces - today this is just the noise in so called "GDP". The real problem is the hotel proprietor invested his 100 on margin with MF -OPPS its gone - hence the circle cannot be closed. I wish your vision of the world was the reality we have.
Belgium is one of the worst cases in Europe. It's so interconnected into the rest of Europe and even America that our small country will cause one of the biggest shitstorms yet.
Now that our bonds have gone to 5.74% it's as good as over.
WHAT IS MORE TROUBLEING COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE PIGGS:
OUR TAXES OUR ONE OF THE HIGHEST IN THE WORLD ALREADY!!!!
WE CAN'T TAX MORE, THE BARREL IS EMPTY!
AUSTERITY WILL CAUSE A DEFAULT WITHIN 12 MONTHS!
And than goes France, Germany and England.
Belgium disintegrates in our lifetime. Let the French take one side the Dutch the other and get on with it.
Are you a Waloon SD?
No, I've got a job and I pay taxes.
LOL!
But but but Belgium got Sudden Debt! Or will you NOT bail out your country when the shitstorm gets ugly?
Belgium has been the 'bitch' experiment, first to NAto power, and then to Euro, now to tribal war between teutons and franco-latins; three bad trends...Europe in no longer continent of Enlightenment.
No, we've checked into that.
You have no government, thus no problems.
+1 for use of the term 'ass clown'
Class own ... Glass crown ... own ass ... ass clone ... own class ... known ass ...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aolQBjwcKsk/RvrNz-oiuYI/AAAAAAAAAI8/AvBjYff8uT...
I believe the term is "Ass Crown" as in ass-hat.
OK, so British citizens, if not leaders, distinguished themselves by staying out of the Euro. Have the British distinguished themselves in any other way so far as dealing with the banks, central banks, currency and debt are concerned?
The Euro seemed a worthwhile undertaking as a reduction in trade barriers among the countries of the EU. The U. S. international banks and their Fed have played the monster role in destabilizing the Euro with sharp dollar devaluation trade war and IED investment vehicles. By all indications, they have a similar fate in store for the U. S.
A friend says the middle class can and will smash the dominant elite when they are moved to do so. Most here seem to take the view that precious metals are better refuge than political reform. Isn't that too slender a thread when government power is left in oppressive hands?
"A friend says the middle class can and will smash the dominant elite.." show me 1 example in history that the 'middle class' stood up for it self ? I know of none, it always came from the very top or the very bottom, from people who had either nothing to lose or everything to lose, maybe the problem is that the West has such a big middle class, maybe that is/was the only reason for the relative stability here, I doubt we see any 'Arab Spring' type revolution here as long as the (borderline)poor are under 50%
When you say middle class, is your middleclass closer to the prolitariet or the kulaks? Just asking......
only one example in history : french revolution; and it ended in another statist elite taking over with a militarist at its head; so history doesn't show us the "prefect solution", only the "final soluton" which is worse. The American revolution was in an empty continent so it won't happen again, except on the moon.
Merkel stick in there, make these shills bring down the curtain on to their own heads. Don't give in to the GS mafia.
i think the middle class will not smash the elite.. and the elite will smash the elite... ie self destriuct.. it is the inevitable consequence of unbridled greed left unchecked... buying phys metals seriously accelerates this process taking their fiat burglars kit away from the bastards ... certainly campaign as much as you want for a new gold standard.. everyone who buys an ounce is seriously bringing us closer to honest money.. the changes needed are very small honest money.. and bankrupt banks being allowed to be bankrupt.. the stupid wank elite could have engineered a smaller level of theft for 1000's of years passing onto children of the elite etc etc.. but shit for brains elite cannot see past their noses and had to fuck up with turbo charged steroid rage greed...
the most anti free market gesture anyone can possibley make is keeping money in a TBTF bank the most pro free market gesture you can make is buy real physical money.. vote with your feet...
it is the lower and middle upper classes that rise up against the upper upper class.
Always the lawyers and doctors and professionals like that, the "intellectuals." This is why 401ks must be preserved by the banker elite...if they raid those, they shit on every one of the professional class and there are a lot more of them than the monied elite and they know how to pull levers.
The middle class has neither money nor power and the lower class is cattle
The Intellectuals are only the agitators it's the Proletariat that has to provide the muscle power with pitchforks and torches, so yes the spark might come from there but only the poorest have the manpower and willpower to pull this through, they are the 'plankton' of society that everybody else feeds on if they refuse to work or stage a revolution the system is done
And revolutions led by the middle class usually lead only to change of the men in power but not the structure of the system, except for a facelift and new names on public buildings
Don't overthink it.
1 out of 100 of the middle class, and 1 out of 10 of the lower class.
Then you're set. The world will change, although there's no guarantee you get it right.
This is truly just a physics problem. Within an order of magnitude and you've worked it out.
OT but Bush, Blair found guilty of war crimes
A War Crimes Tribunal in Malaysia has found former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of war crimes for their roles in the Iraq war, Press TV reports.
The five-panel Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against humanity by leading the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.
In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction allegedly stockpiled by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The Malaysian tribunal judges ruled that the decision to wage war against Iraq by the two former heads of government was a flagrant abuse of law and an act of aggression that led to large-scale massacres of the Iraqi people.
Bombings and other forms of violence became commonplace in Iraq shortly after the US-led invasion of the country.
In their ruling, the tribunal judges also stated that the US, under the leadership of Bush, fabricated documents to make it appear that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
However, the world later learned that the former Iraqi regime did not possess WMDs and that the US and British leaders knew this all along.
Over one million Iraqis were killed during the invasion, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.
The judges also said the court findings should be provided to signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, and added that the names of Bush and Blair should be listed on a war crimes register.
Now all I'd like is a rich Malaysian sugar daddy to invite Blair over to make a speech to his mates for a million bucks a night.
That greedy f**ker and his even greedier Mrs just couldn't resist.-
and so all these drone strikes into Pakistan are....? Nobel Peace?
Fuck these fuckers
http://www.callofduty.com/mw3
The Kids piloting those things no longer know the difference between what's happening for real and what's not
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynKVBgiaHjo&feature=player_detailpage
When does the SANTA RALLY start?
after the Hanukah Rally!
With all due respect Tim, a vicious inflation will ensue, but has been prepared for by certain offices of society.
http://deltafunctiontoronto.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/hyperinflation-and-a-balance-of-culture/
"Following a significant revaluation in the price of both monetary metals, gold in quantity will be made available to supplant Western Central Bank supplies in order to anchor currencies once again."
Please take this into consideration as well:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101101-0003.htm
from 10:42pm onward.
Read the first link, you agree with FOFOA then.. Interesting take on the political dynamic vis a vis the Asian bloc. Well done, post more.
Other, more valuable foreign currencies, for example. In 1923, that meant the US Dollar. This time round, since the Swiss National Bank has lost the plot, we would favour the Canadian and Singapore Dollars. Back then, the answer lay in gold, and we think it does this time, too, as the finest currency protection paper money can buy.
One can also consider gold and silver mining companies – John Hathaway of Tocqueville Asset Management has written very nicely about the “Golden Mulligan” being presented to investors who missed the gold bull on the way up.
INteresting stuff....
Nuke the debt and
do-nothing
else
We will sort it out from there
om
I'm proud to be British AND a European.
Xenophobia is for pin-heads
"xenophobia" lol. Buzzwords are for pinheads
Good article overall but this one is just priceless: " This writer is proud to call himself British; he would be disgusted to call himself European". What on earth are you so proud for at this time?!? Do you not realize that your "Empire" is only still halfway respectable because Mervin King has a printing press whereas "the Europeans" don't yet utilize that last resort option? Britain and the European circus simply represent 2 different forms of misguided policies, but by all means, best of luck to you and your countrymen. Greetings from a Norseman ;)
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:
The day prior to Thanksgiving also brought another extraordinary development–the failure of a German government bond auction, an unparalleled event.
Why would Germany, the only member of the EU with financial rectitude, not be able to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds? Germany has no debt problems, and its economy is expected by EU and US authorities to bear the lion’s share of the bailout of the EU member countries that do lack financial rectitude.
I suspect that the answer to this question is that the failure of the German government’s bond auction was orchestrated by the US, by EU authorities, especially the European Central Bank, and private banks in order to punish Germany for obstructing the purchase of EU member countries’ sovereign debt by the European Central Bank.
The German government has been trying to defend the terms on which Germany gave up control over its own currency and joined the EU. By insisting on the legality of the agreements, Germany has been standing in the way of the ECB behaving as the US Federal Reserve and monetizing the debt of member governments.
From the beginning the EU was a conspiracy against Germany. If Germany remains in the EU, Germany will be destroyed. It will lose its political and economic sovereignty, and its economy will be bled in behalf of the fiscally irresponsible members of the EU.
I thought the EU was a plot by Germany to take over Europe. Gosh, this gets confusing.
+100 Dr PCR is a true historical analyst. He should know, he helped create Reaganomics, and it became a run-away deregulated machine. He got burnt in the process, as he was no NWO shill. He could see the writing on the wall of that inevitable hubristic devastation.
In fact when I read the Wiki article on Dr PCR he sounds very much like our GW of ZH. Maybe distant cousins.
Paul Craig Roberts From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts
"This writer is proud to call himself British; he would be disgusted to be regarded as European."
Well how about that!
Total debt of the UK is 497% of GPD (including gov't, business, household and bank debt)..... lmao
cmon HCE let it all fall to ground but keep your hat on.
John Bulls' are a peculiar breed.
The title of this piece tells me the author is as much of an ass clown as the politicians he ridicules.
Unless I was Greek or maybe Portuguese, I wouldn't trade my being "European" for being a Brit anytime soon; and probably never ...
The man doesn't seem to understand in what situation his own country is in.
Alan @wsj isn't fully correct on the greek debt problem, if u had bought insurance via the cds mkt. there is a bid and ask so u just sell them...ty
“What really broke Germany [and which may end up breaking the Euro Zone] was the constant taking of the soft political option in respect of money.”
Actually, what really broke Germany was the French, British and American Rothschild bankers demanding, and getting, that Germany's 'war reparations' be settled in gold.
Ring any bells regarding certain conditions for "bail-outs" currently being proposed?
western civilization : when thieves fall out; its rinse and repeat as in 1914; then the thieves were the Euro colonials; today the western oligarchs drowning in their own debt. Who jumps first from Titanica into Atlantica?
Another chapter for the European village story:
Somewhere along the way, the hooker put the 100 in her bank account and blew the banker in order to obtain a 1000 line of credit. The banker had a really good week, repeating this trick with 4 more hookers. It's all good though, since the bank has deposits to cover their outstanding loans (fractionally and statistically speaking). What could go wrong?
Failed economic theories? Don't be such a rube. They've been quite successful. To ascribe rationality to a fraudulent scam is ignorant at best. The theories were never aimed at the people.
Hey, I'm British too, but since I have more than one brain cell, I understand that I am also European. The writer of this article appears not to understand even basic geography, history or culture: a complete and utter xenophobic douchebag.
Easy: Zeuro Hedge in the Euro Zone.
-1 for what you posted the first time.
the first syntax lent itself to an unintended interpretation ...
14th crisis summit in 21 months.....
"Cisis...
What Crisis."..?
We are just Super Tramps.
Germany fears inflation
Everyone but Germany fears Germany
That is all you need to know about Europe.
Yes, because Germany is apparently the only country in Europa that knows its ass from a hole in the ground and can save more than it spends. Fuck the evil Germans
Thanks for this Blog.I will imidiatly invest in the most indebted Nation of the World and just live with 5 % Inflation of the pound till all my money is gone.
Blah blah fucking blah. String up the politicians and their banker lackeys, or vice versa. and let"s all start over
Now the superiority of the western model is so apparent that we have cash-strapped eurocrats looking to raise money from the Communist leaders of a country, most of whose citizens live in abject poverty.
Commie. Heh.
While the article is interesting, and the writer seems sincere, why would he be proud to be british? Is it the stockholm syndrome?
Giving away your culture to muslims? We are, slowly.
Feeding off the government tit? about 47.8% here, right?
Horrible teeth, which is why your food sucks, too? Well, we have good dental, and food, for now.
C'mon. The U.S. has made the 'european' daliances in socialism and social programs possible since money wasn't spent on defending themselves.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving the problem.
We here in the US have a big problem, it's time Britain admitted as much.