“Europe’s Impossible Dream” proclaims the New York Times’ Paul Krugman. What dream is that? The dream that Europe needs another currency, besides the dollar. All right American supremacists do not say this in so many words… Instead they use convoluted, illogical reasoning, as I will presently demonstrate.
Good propaganda starts with correct facts. Krugman:
“Greece is experiencing a slump worse than the Great Depression, and nothing happening now offers hope of recovery. Spain has been hailed as a success story, because its economy is finally growing — but it still has 22 percent unemployment. And there is an arc of stagnation across the continent’s top: Finland is experiencing a depression comparable to that in southern Europe, and Denmark and the Netherlands are also doing very badly.
How did things go so wrong? The answer is that this is what happens when self-indulgent politicians ignore arithmetic and the lessons of history. And no, I’m not talking about leftists in Greece or elsewhere; I’m talking about ultra-respectable men in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels, who have spent a quarter-century trying to run Europe on the basis of fantasy economics.”
Then Krugman operates his bait and switch:
“To someone who didn’t know much economics, or chose to ignore awkward questions establishing a unified European currency sounded like a great idea. It would make doing business across national borders easier, while serving as a powerful symbol of unity. Who could have foreseen the huge problems the euro would eventually cause?”
Several remarks here: first, for people like Krugman, apparently society and economics is reduced to “doing business”. In truth, having multiple currencies was a major hindrance, I have said this many times. Try a currency in New Jersey, one in New York, one in Connecticut, one in Massachusetts. It’s not just business which will be inconvenienced. Europe has as many states as the USA. Krugman can’t understand this: not smart enough, or with an agenda? You judge.
Good propaganda accuses the scapegoat with wild abandon. According to Nazis, everything was the fault of the Jews, and the French. According to Krugman the ills of the economic world can all be traced to the Euro. Bankers who feed him, are beyond any suspicion. The bait is to enounce correct facts, the switch is to accuse the innocent, in this case “Europe’s Impossible Dream” and the common currency, thus causing unfathomable distraction, away from the real culprits. Krugman:
“Who could have foreseen the huge problems the euro would eventually cause?
Actually, lots of people.”
Who are Krugman’s heroes? Eurosceptics, naturally. Krugman:
“The only big mistake of the euroskeptics [sic] was underestimating just how much damage the single currency would do.
The point is that it wasn’t at all hard to see, right from the beginning, that currency union without political union was a very dubious project. So why did Europe go ahead with it?”
The problem with someone as Krugman, is that he has no idea about European history, whatsoever, except the pro-Nazi propaganda of Lord Keynes. Krugman affects to think Europeans are idiots anxious to please plutocrats, and their obsequious servants:
“Mainly, I’d say, because the idea of the euro sounded so good. That is, it sounded forward-looking, European-minded, exactly the kind of thing that appeals to the kind of people who give speeches at Davos.”
***
Krugman, Or The Pseudo-Left:
Who is Paul Krugman? Not only does he have a bully pulpit at the New York Times, and a Nobel, but he is, according to polls, the most trusted voice by the left… in Europe. Listening to him too uncritically can only lead to anti-Europeanism.
The domination of English is also the domination of the Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and the ever more sneaky New York Times. The Anglosphere’s tendrils are definitively plutocratic in their outreach.
In his very anti-European article, Krugman says that the case for devaluing the Greece currency is overwhelming: I agree with this, the Euro ought to be devalued.
If Greece had its own currency, and devalued massively, it would not profit much economically: Greece’s main import-export activity is to buy petrol and then sells it refined: all these transactions are priced in dollars. Leaving the Euro would make Greece ready to become a satellite of the USA again (complete with colonels).
***
Why are we submitted to so much anti-Europeanism?
Because the plutocrats and their obnoxious servants have interest to say that the problem is the Euro, not banksters, and banksterism, the situation where bankers create money (as credit) and give it to they friends.
Then said friends run away with the money, banks turn around, and ask treasuries and central banks to allow them to make money again. (One way to do this is Quantitative Easing, something Krugman love as it feeds the banksters, who feed him.)
None of this giant financialo-economic drama has to do with the Euro. To imply that Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland have problems because of the Euro is inaccurate (to put it mildly). Switzerland is also pegged to the Euro, and does great, because of its diversified knowledge economy (where pharmaceuticals dominate).
Krugman is aware, but disingenuously denies, that loving the dollar is hating the euro:
“if you were an American expressing doubts you were invariably accused of ulterior motives — of being hostile to Europe, or wanting to preserve the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege.”
And the euro came. For a decade after its introduction a huge financial bubble masked its underlying problems. But now, as I said, all of the skeptics’ fears have been vindicated.”
***
Because France and Germany have had enough to fight each other. The two countries are roughly comparable in all ways, economically and financially. They are converging demographically. They used to be the same country for five centuries, a time during which a unified Germany, and a German language was created.
The re-creation of a unified Germany, after 1,000 years, without, led to near continuous war between France and Germany, for, fundamentally, philosophical reasons.
France won, both sides are now sister republics, ready for total reunification. Thus they need a common currency. Then the in-betweens (truly pieces of France which were torn away from France, to make France weaker) cannot survive without using that same currency. Then one has to add contiguous areas with the same socioeconomic level (Austria, Northern Italy, Catalogne; the latter two long part of French territory, especially if one defines France as more than just the so-called “kingdom of France“, which was often a very small, relevant territory inasmuch as it was supposed to be the imperial seat). At this point one is well above 200 million people with the same currency, and a GDP only second to the USA.
This territory is the old Francia which founded Western Civilization. Western Civilization is not just Jerusalem, Athens plus Rome, as many have it. It’s also the Franks and the tolerant melting pot they imposed on the Germano-Gallo-Romans, with their home made, advanced, pseudo-Christian philosophy.
How can the rest of Europe be excluded?
The USA acquired its common currency during the Secession War. So far, the attempt to secede in Europe are rather meek. Let’s keep them this way.
Naturally, the USA’s patriots can only hate to have a second world reserve currency. The dollar as world currency was imposed on Keynes through the substitution of the crucial document for another one.
Paul Krugman never mentions the felony that gave rise, over Keynes’ obstinate resistance, to the dollar as world currency.
Europe is not an impossible dream. Should it become so, so will human civilization. Because Europe is a toy model of the global problem of nationalities.
More fundamentally, today’s civilization, all the way to China, Japan and Patagonia or South Africa, was invented mostly in Europe. Admitting it is impossible, is admitting a nice future is impossible.
Is all lost? Did American europhobic university professors win? Not sure. Hollande and Merkel are working on a Eurozone government, democratically anchored through a subset of the European Parliament. It’s high time. “Le nationalisme, c’est la guerre!” (nationalism is war) said French president Mitterrand in one of his last discourses. Ironically, Chancellor Kohl had proposed further political union when he signed on the Euro project, and Mitterrand, then hindered by a divided government, turned him down.
I am sure Frau Doktor Merkel remembers this, and will seize the opportunity.
Patrice Ayme’
Tags: Bankesters, Dollar, Euro, Eurosceptics, Krugman, plutocracy
July 21, 2015 at 4:10 am |
I have nearly finished reading Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain. Have you read it, Patrice? I have found a fascinating and learned explanation of American politics, and by implication European politics as well.
(Sorry I haven’t been around – editing my book is dominating my world at present.)
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July 21, 2015 at 8:27 am |
We have been missing you, Paul! (I am also culprit of not going to your site very much: too much to think about, from Dark Matter, to Dark Pools).
Never heard of the “Republican Brain”. USA politics, from the standpoint of Democrats “against” Republicans, at THIS point, is not very interesting: it’s plutocrats against plutocrats, and, generally, themselves, as they finance both sides. Local politics, or para-politics (education) is more interesting… and influential (especially potentially).
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July 21, 2015 at 11:36 am |
In the last war between France and Germany, France lost. The Anglo-Saxons and Russians won.
Cut out all the verbiage, Patrice.
A) There has never been a successful fiscal union without political union. All reputable economists predicted the euro could not work without the latter.
B) There was no mandate whatsoever for political union. NOBODY HAS EVER VOTED FOR IT
C) The EU elite and idiotic national leaders forced it in ANYWAY, knowing it would fail but hoping this would actually FORCE closer union. The moronic Hollande is now calling for ANOTHER EU bureaucracy, a euro parliament. Perhaps he hopes Germany will bail out France when France goes bankrupt.
D) All these people LIED to their electorates, who are paying the price. They should be locked up.
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July 21, 2015 at 5:21 pm |
The irracible Krugman of The Isle has spoken. Tell us Chris, where was the verbiage? Or do you call thinking verbiage?
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July 21, 2015 at 5:25 pm |
I thought monetary union was something all EU Parliaments voted on… Except for Britain
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July 21, 2015 at 7:45 pm |
It’s a bit more subtle than that, but Chris is just angry, and ill-informed…. Totally.
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July 21, 2015 at 5:46 pm |
Hey Chris. I checked EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION, and turns out GREAT BRITAIN is part of it! So looks like you don’t know what you are talking about, Chris!!
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July 21, 2015 at 7:44 pm |
Yes, UK belongs to the EMU. It was ejected of ERMII by Soros, a plutocrat
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July 23, 2015 at 7:04 pm |
No answer from Chris: he just erupts with counterfactual stuff, and disappear below the sea, Loch Ness monster. What do you think of Cameron’s discourse on EXTREMISM? HE JUST MADE it, it is on the PM site.
I was amazed that Britain is in the EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION. Who would have thought? So what’s up with them? Talk big one way, do the opposite?
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July 21, 2015 at 7:42 pm |
Verbiage without quoting it: just an insult.
You are confusing monetary union (to which the UK belongs, as the Vegas showgirl found out!), fiscal union, and political union. You should learn about the THALER, a currency that ruled much of Europe, for 5 centuries.
European Union was made following what’s considered “democratic” nowadays. Monetary Union was launched in 1970, although it got delayed by the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system of 1944 in 1971. Britain was required to sign on the EMU when it got in the UK. Nobody lied. Great Britain ought to get out of the kitchen, if it can’t stand the heat.
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July 22, 2015 at 11:29 am |
“In the last war between France and Germany, France lost. The Anglo-Saxons and Russians won.”
Whatever. That was the self-serving US line; Sir Winston knew better.
“There has never been a successful fiscal union without political union.”
The mantra of the know-nothing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/07/21/this-is-what-economists-dont-understand-about-the-euro-crisis-or-the-u-s-dollar/
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July 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm |
The last war between the French Republic and Germans was about Nazism. Anglo-Saxon plutocrats (much of them), and Soviets were allied to Nazism, for most of the years of Nazism. France, like Joan of Arc, sacrificed herself.
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July 22, 2015 at 12:14 pm |
As Lord Bertrand Russell (a “philosopher”) had it, the French should have become Nazi (in 1914, ahead of the times), surrender, and join in killing all Africans (?)
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July 21, 2015 at 5:17 pm |
Reasoning with a Krugman, whose salary depends upon undermining Europe, will prove difficult
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July 21, 2015 at 7:43 pm |
😉
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July 22, 2015 at 4:39 pm |
:))
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July 22, 2015 at 2:22 pm |
Surprisingly in all the articles i read about Greek catastrophe caused by its entering the Eurozone no one mentioned even with one word, that without the Eurozone, Greek’s GDP per capita and their standard of living would be about the level of Bulgari. (17,000 US$ in Bulgari as against 26,000 US$ in Greece after its fall of 30% since 2010). There is no real economic reasons for Greece to be economically better off, than a country, that its only industry is tourism.Yet during the 10 years of theft and deceit of the Greek political elites, with whom happily cooperated the private commercial banks, and channeled on account of rest of Europe finances, at least some of the stolen money went into Greek infrastructure and public services. As result of it, if the right decisions will be made, and the young highly educated Greeks will get jobs, and not chased out of the country by all the cartels, monopolies, oligopolies, professional unions of taxi drivers, etc. who close the labor market before them, i believe Greece will have chance to overcome its difficulties. By the way what kind of professional capacity is needed to become a taxi driver? If the labor markets will be closed to the young educated Greeks, maybe Greece is heading towards the standard of living of a typical tourist country, which is like some Caribbean island.
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July 22, 2015 at 3:56 pm |
That’s what Patrice has been saying: the Drachma was converted at twice its natural rate, and the Germans knew this, perfectly well.
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July 22, 2015 at 4:21 pm |
Viz my detailed explanations in;
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July 22, 2015 at 6:58 pm |
As De Brunet said, I mentioned the over-evaluation, forever. That’s what made them rich, the rest being over-investment by Northern Europe.
Now the other face is that of the banksters. There again northern Europeans, esp. French and German banks knew what they were doing. At this point all the banksters have only 54 billions in the game, whereas Greek STATE debt is somewhere around 300 billion (nobody knows exactly what it is).
In any case, the average Greek person has nothing to do with it, and it’s mass criminality to make them pay. The STATE debt was caused by plutocrats in command (Papandreou, Goldman, Franco-German banksters and their condotierri).
I do think Greece will come out with flying colors as long as: At least 50% of Greek STATE debt is written off, interest payment forgotten on the rest, plutocrats hounded, hunted and punished… The problem is that the head Plutos meet and conspire in Davos and the like, they are well organized.
Krugman is not dumb enough not to know that the real culprits are the banksters. So he is part of the plot (although he denies he belongs to the power circles, opinion is power).
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July 22, 2015 at 8:36 pm |
Agree, the banksters and their servants like the rating agencies, viz:
should carry most of the responsibilities for what happened to Greece. But as always, they are above the law and justice or moral judgement doesn’t apply to them.
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July 22, 2015 at 8:40 pm |
Right. I had momentarily forgotten the rating agencies. I cannot believe those were not in cahoots with hedge funds and the like (banksters have their own hedge fund like funds). The point I that Greek story is mostly a giant conspiracy among plutocrats, but just like Internet fiends don’t want us to mention the word Nazi, ever, the establishment does not want us to mention Greece was mostly a plutocratic situation, with the puppet masters outside of Greece.
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July 22, 2015 at 8:42 pm |
Bulgaria is now the number one lavender exporter (it’s worth ten times wheat per mass unit). Ahead of France (which imports Bulgarian lavender!)
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July 22, 2015 at 8:54 pm |
Lavender? Will it help to poor Bulgarians. Wonderful people the poorest in Europe. Since Bernard Shaw nobody ever mentioned them.
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July 23, 2015 at 6:10 am |
In 1918, the fascist racist German empire lost control of the Balkans because of a long war local armies headed by the French, was won by the anti-fascists. That condemned the fascists to starvation, as they extracted much food from there… And that is why they were so anxious for a cease-fire in October 1918. The mistake of course was not to exterminate Prussian fascism and racism thoroughly.
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July 23, 2015 at 6:00 am |
From EugenR, in 2012:
4 billion US$!!! for Rating Agencies
03/03/2012
Rating agencies collect annually 4 billion US$
The interest rates countries pay on sovereign debts are determined largely by the credit rating agencies (CRA). Three major rating agencies are; S & P, Moody’s, and Fitch, and in 2011 their income came to 4.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Apparently this amount of 4.3 billion US$ was worth to be paid, for the information analysis they provided.
Oddly enough if we look at the following chart representing Greek debt rating by S&P and Moody we can see, that until end of 2009 both agencies ranked Greece very highly. Moody’s even rated Greece until November 2009 as A+, meaning “High level of feasibility to honor its obligations”. Is it possible that at the beginning of 2010 something fundamental has changed, which suddenly reduced the evaluation value of Greece?
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July 25, 2015 at 5:41 am |
Dear Patrice, since you side in our argumentation about Grecexit to a different point of view to that of mine, which i respect of course, i would like to ask you to read the full conversation between me and Hubert, which i published on the following link;
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July 25, 2015 at 9:38 am |
I did read it. He seems to agree with me. Namely, basically, Germany is in violation, of Euro rules, and, at this point, Greece is not. Germany runs a MASSIVE PRIMARY IMBALANCE of 7,5%, Greece is forced to run a primary surplus, around 1.5%.
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