Two main problems : 1. Germany screwed the Euro so it is stuck undervalued and exports to slave consumer PIGS. Plus Germany borrows at 2% and lends to the PIGS at 5% so they can buy more German goods. 15% Greek GDP on arms from Germany and France.
2. Eurovampire Barrosso ups his budget by 7% from EU states, to 100+Bn, while demanding austerity and PIGS cut State spending by 7%! Brutal hypocrisy by unelected beaurocrat dictators. Democracy is gone.
While Germany bleeds Europe dry via the Euro and conquers southern Europe more effectively than in WW2. Barroso sucks out the remaining blood through Eurocrats who do nothing but inflict painful laws, taxes and unemployment on Europe. Only when the main debtor countries become competitive by a 30% devaluation and start to grow their GDP will the Europe crisis begin to ease. Or Germany revalues and makes its goods more expensive. Or there is a Euro A (north) and a Euro B (south). Then both areas will become competitive and grow.
Until a revauation within Europe the crisis will get deeper, with more unemployment, and more civil unrest.
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Am I being far too pessimistic in believing that whatever measures we take the heady years of ever increasing prosperity and job certainty are never going to return, at least not in the way they were and that we will have to be prepared to accept that we are all going to have to adapt and change to very different lifestyles from now on?
The Euro is being kept alive to save creditor banks, not debtor countries. IMF 'loans' are to deal with 'the mess in the banking system' as Osborne told us last week. He had no answer for the likelihood of success with internal devaluation measures and now it is clear the French and others are hoping that German politicians will accede to their demands for a de facto Transfer Union, disguised as a 'growth and investment' strategy. Maybe German politicians are also in favour of this as they want their own banks to transfer risks to taxpayers, but getting it past the Karlsruhe Court and German voters...
It's time for politicians to openly ask their taxpayers if they are willing to pay the price of being in Euroland.
Marine Le Pen afirmă, într-un interviu acordat cotidianului Midi Libre ce va fi publicat în ediţia de luni, că Nicolas Sarkozy "nu mi-a respectat alegătorii" şi că "nu şi-a oferit mijloacele să câştige" alegerile, deşi poate că le-ar fi câştigat făcând acest lucru, notează Mediafax. Pentru a câştiga alegerile prezidenţiale din Franţa, pe 6 mai, Sarkozy are mare nevoie de voturile primite de Marine Le Pne în primul tur de scrutin.
"Nu îi putem îndemna pe alegătorii mei să voteze pentru el (Sarkozy), afirmând în acelaşi timp că, într-un duel Frontul Naţional (FN)-PS, vom lăsa să învingă PS (Partidul Socialist)", a declarat ea, subliniind că "alegătorii mei nu pot fi trataţi ca nişte copii sau ca nişte alegători inferiori, cetăţeni inferiori. Ei nu sunt doar nişte furnizori de voturi".
"Eu cred că nu este dificil ca alegătorilor să li se arate, de asemenea, că, în pofida marilor discursuri şi mângâierilor aplicate de unul şi de altul (Hollande şi Sarkozy), ei sunt pregătiţi să se aleagă unii pe alţii", a adăugat ea.
Întrebată despre interesul său de a vedea dreapta pierzând alegerile, preşedinta FN (extremă dreapta) a răspuns că nu este "interesată de nimic". Asta "deoarece eu consider că Hollande şi Sarkozy sunt două capete care pretind că se ceartă pe acelaşi corp. (Ei) sunt un fel de siamez în politică", a continuat ea.
Nicolas Sarkozy, care, cu 27,18% din voturi, s-a clasat după socialistul François Hollande (28,63%) în primul tur de scrutin, în urmă cu o săptămână, trebuie să atragă alegătorii lui Marine Le Pen, care a obţinut 17,9% din voturi, pentru a putea spera la câştigarea turului doi, programat pentru 6 mai.
Greece has been there for a while. We double dipped back in last week. Spain is set to join the club later today. Unless economists have got it horribly wrong, and never rule that out, Spain is set to fall back into recession when GDP figures are released later today.
The economic news out of Spain tees up what could be turbulent week for the European debt crisis. Spanish growth figures will be followed by elections in Greece and France. With French presidential hopeful Francios Hollande threatening to renegotiate key fiscal pacts the stakes are high.
: Even before Spain's double-dip recession was confirmed (at 8am BST today), prime minister Mariano Rajoy was insisting that his government would not relax the pace of its austerity drive.
As tens of thousands of Spanish people took to the streets, Rajoy told a gathering of his conservative People's Party that there was no alternative to his plans. He said:
We are implementing a series of reforms that are more positive, necessary and required than ever.....Spain needs deep structural change, not makeup.
Spain is aiming to cut its deficit to 5.3% of GDP this year -- a tougher target than the 5.8% which Rajoy initially felt was achievable, but less onorous than the 4.4% target which Brussels originally set.
8.30am: As regular reader meljomur points out in the comments below, Britain also slipped back into a double-dip recession last week.
By my reckoning, there are now eight eurozone countries in recession.
The other six are Belgium, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Slovenia -- whose economies all shrank in the third and fourth quarters of 2011.
Looking outside the eurozone, but within the EU, we can include the UK, Denmark and the Czech Republic.
Spain and the UK are among the first countries to report data for the first three months of 2012.
German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has offered the Spanish government some (much needed) support today.
Speaking at a meeting in Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, Schäuble said Spain was on the right track (hat-tip to Reuters, which is snapping his comments now).
Schäuble added that the next meeting of the European Council will look at ways to stimulate investment in Europe, but cautioned that talking about growth did not mean Europe was changing its focus on austerity.
Spanish economy minister Luis de Guindos is also attending the event in Santiago de Compostela. He remains on message, declaring that austerity is not incompatible with growth.
Fans of 'expansionary fiscal contractions' will nod at de Guindos's comments, but others may argue that Europe's slump into recession tells a different story.
French newspapers are reporting that Merkel is giving signs that she is serious about a growth agenda at the European level (interview given to Leipziger Volkszeitung this weekend).
In common with many Western countries, Spain saw a sharp rise in housing prices up to 2007. The Socialist government who took over after the Madrid bombings found themselves in the middle of this economic turmoil. The present government is made up from Conservative and Christian Democrat influences, and is trying the "extreme austerity" measures which others of this type are using. These measures will protect the rich, take away employment rights for the majority, and increase the gap between rich and poor. Spain at the moment has 24.4% unemployment, and it seems has reached a point of inertia, where the economy has ground to a halt.
I currently live and work in Spain and it feels very odd. It doesn't feel like a country in recession with 25% unemployment. I remember the UK recessions of the 80s and 90s and they felt a lot worse. I don't know if the spanish are in denial. The spaniards I work with still enjoy the 2 hr lunches, 2 coffee breaks and great social lives. The shops are full as are the bars and cafes. The spanish are not very productive and they don't seem to care. I have my colleagues what recessions usually feel like and they look horrified. It won't hit home until a large bank goes bust or one of the overspending regions goes cap in hand to Madrid, until then, the Spanish will not worry as it is only teenagers and young people who are out of work and most of the middle aged, middle class workers don't care.
Regarding spanish unemployment, I remember that, in the end of 80s, beginning of 90s, it was also around 20-25%. It doesn't seem possible to have so large numbers for long periods, so I suspect there is a significant number of workers that are undeclared (and officially unemployed.) Is there some study somewhere about this? What could be the effect of this on numbers? One percent - five percent - ten percent?
(I'm not saying that spanish unemployment is not high; I'm just wondering if taking into account undeclared workers would be significant.)
I'm not sure what glorious enclave of Spain you're in, but I'm in Barcelona and you can certainly "feel" the recession here, which is saying something, as Catalunya is one of the few regions actually bringing in some money.
The bars and cafes are full because they are one of the few places you can go that are cheap. A night on the piss with a few friends at a local cafe can cost less than 15 euro, depending on the cafe. Though I suppose the people should be afforded no break from the constant pressure of paying for a situation they had little part in to begin with.
You wouldn't be trading in stereotypes at all though.
Why don't governments invest massively in infrastructure projects? Give everyone a job that pays a living wage, they will then spend kick starting the economy. Why isn't it happening already? There is always money for war so why not invest in peace?
This is lifted from the National Socialist Party s mainfesto circa 1933 isn t it? Build an autobahn network etc etc? And in trhe current debate, if you replace the '1%' and 'greedy bankers' with 'rich Jews'' (hasn t Ken already done that by the way?) then you re virtually there - the 1930s redux. It s a convenient way of sidestepping the real issues: we have massive structural problems to address in the British economy and in the Western European economies as a whole. The BRIC challenge has meant that the Post War 'welfarist' regime is now unsustainable; as the Right has to adjust to the loss of Empire in the '50s and '60s now the Left will have to adjust to the loss of the NHS and the entitlement culture - or starve.
Do you really think western economies can find high growth levels in years to come? What do you make of the high price of energy? Can we increase the differences in standards of living between the west and the BRICS?
Our future looks like Japan's stagnation, and to be honest, they look like managing to live correctly.
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