ESTONIA JOINS EUROPE, AMERICAN LEFT COMPLAINS.
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Wonderful news for Europeans: the Baltic republic of Estonia is joining the Eurozone. The Eurozone is the set of 17 countries, where the Euro is officially authorized by the European Central Bank as currency (other countries have been using the Euro without official authorization). Many American economists, even some who are considered left wing, are enraged.
One could only expect Americans of the monetary type, to be exasperated. American monetarism is intrinsically nationalistic, just as European monetarism is intrinsically transnational.
The invasion of Estonia by the Euro is a further encroachment of Europe into Europe. This undermining of the American empire by the European imperialists invading Europe has got to stop! If American easy money (easy for American bankers that is: hard for others) cannot reign in Estonia anymore, what’s next? A European crack down on bank bonuses? Who is going to pay for American politicians’ souls?
The fascist hydra has many heads, and some in unexpected places, on the left. It is true that, as long as Estonia is in Euros, Americans can forget about buying there. And if the dollar eases further into nothingness, it will be only more so, thus undermining a cheap trick the USA has used a lot.
“Social Europe” journal readers found Paul Krugman the most influential left wing thinker. This is really pathetic. What is next? Will “socialist” Hitler’s nationalistic conceptions for Europe be celebrated?
Let me explain. I respect and appreciate Krugman. He is good to me personally, and I am grateful.
However, Krugman wants European countries to devaluate when they are in trouble, so that they can take advantage of other European countries, a stone’s throw away. Don’t ask on which neighbor the stone falls, it falls for thee, says Krugman, and he smirks, claiming to be unaware of the double meaning. Europeans fighting each other with competitive devaluations has been done hundreds of times before. Europeans know where it leads, because they have studied history.
Just ask the Germans. They can be lyrical on devaluation, since they saw it brought by Dr. Schacht, a friend of JP Morgan, the American super banker, who later brought that other gift of the cheap type, Hitler.
Krugman’s love for Europe is fundamentally not that much different from Stalin’s. The more independent little European countries there were, fighting each other, the happier Stalin was. And the happier Paul Krugman advocates one should be. This new trade theory Krugman is famous for is strangely reminiscent of the Nazis’ “New Order”. Let the strongest win over the jungle, by eating others.
To help Ireland, the way Krugman sees it, it would be best that Ireland devaluate its currency and declare war on Europe, economically speaking (and economic war is a preliminary for the real thing). Same for Spain, Portugal, Greece, Belgium… Let them all leave the Eurozone and cheapen their currencies, and soon the USA will come and tell them which leaders they should have, as in the old times. American order will have been re-established. Uncle Barack will be reigning again, and Krugman, his prophet, may become just as rich.
It is sad that Paul does not seem to understand why the terrible wars of the twentieth century happened, and killed about 100 million Europeans. That holocaust was caused by this exact same desire to find specious nationalistic solutions with the neighbors all around, to their detriment. Instead of finding the solutions inside, war outside was the way. The way to hell. And make no mistake: devaluation is war.
Krugman himself argues frantically that China is making war on the USA with its undervalued currency, but then he advocates that Spain ought to make war on France by devaluating its currency. War across the Pacific becomes salvation across the Pyrenees. Incoherence can be funny, but brings a question: who is Krugman really working for? The Comedy Channel or the War Department?
I am not making this up: many times Paul Krugman explained that it was easier and faster to stick it to the neighbors, through a devaluation. What about just nuking the neighbor, and taking over its territory? Would not that be even faster?
Krugman explained that the problem with internal re-adjustment (by opposition to an instantaneous devaluation) was the duration of the pain. By that obsessive krude-man measure, nothing would beat a French strategic nuclear submarine unleashing 50 thermonuclear warheads on Spain, and then there would be no more Spain, hence no more Spanish pain.
Would that devaluation make Spain more worthy? Or would it make Spain more worthy for American plutocrats, and then they could pay uncle Barack and professor Krugman even more? Worthy for whom, that is the question…
Contrarily to the Spain of Krugman’s competitive nightmares, the real Spain just inaugurated still another very high speed (400km/h, 250 mph) train line, this one between Madrid and Valencia. Should Spain devaluate so that American plutocrats can buy that very high speed train line for pennies on the dollar? Is that what Krugman really wants? Is it not what was done in Argentina, buying a big part of Patagonia with dollars, when the natives’ currency had conveniently collapsed?
I know, I know, the busy Barack makes all his money writing children books while president, because he has time on his hands, since everybody attends on him, and he just has to read that teleprompter which was obligingly put in his line of sight. It’s not like the plutocrats give him money directly for all to see. He is just gifted, very smart, and if he gets the Nobel Prize in physics, and lots of money from lots of patents, that would prove my point even more.
All of us who do not support plutocracy can appreciate the errors of our ways, every day that Pluto makes, giving us a harder time, and we brought this on us, because we did not navigate well.
Krugman always insist upon the expediency of devaluations: it’s the economic equivalent of a bullet in the head, so it’s good. Once upon a time, Hitler was fond to explain that, thanks to the monarchy he had established (“Drittes Reich”), instantaneous decisions could be taken, including breaking contracts and reversing alliances. Hitler had just to decide what he wanted that day. And it could be done that day. The way Krugman claims to like it. Just like a devaluation.
Example: after running an electoral campaign foaming at the mouth about Poland occupying Germany, within a year Hitler had concluded a non aggression pact with Poland. Hitler’s Germany, in total violation of the spirit of his electoral campaigning recognized Poland’s borders and ended a decade old economically damaging customs war.
Having Hitler as “Guide” was very expedient. For a while. Fundamentally this is what Krugman also proposes, as he puts expediency above all and any other political principle.
Speaking of expediency, since the nationalistic spirit of Hitler is extolled once again in these political matters, let’s remember that Adolf found expedient to steal from the Jews, to create a Nazi economical miracle for his supporters.
This is not an obsolete example. Reaganomics is another example of Hitleronomics, just a bit more subtle, and much more patient. Reaganomics creates an economic miracle for its most ardent supporters, in the USA, and abroad, by redistributing riches to the hyper rich who then mesmerize the population into following them, thanks to their ownership of all and any media. In other words, Reagan do to most what Hitler did to the Jews… but Reagan and his followers, do it in all legality. (The extermination of civilians in the “Third Kingdom” was not legal, according to the laws of said kingdom: the Nazi leadership hid what they were doing… even to most Nazis.)
To given even more to their hyper rich supporters, the Reaganosaurs just borrow, in the name of the American People to their accomplices the Chinese. (Dangerous accomplices, sure, just as Hitler was, but it turned out well, for the American century.) They don’t have one very high speed train lines to show for it. They use the money strictly to make more billionaires (see note).
Krugman’s little proposal that every little tribe ought to go its little way is a long story gone stale. In May 1945, the perfidious Irish regime, still full of hatred for the Anglo-Saxons, sent condolences to the Third Reich for the death of its esteemed Chancellor and President, Adolf Hitler. Is this what Krugman wants to go back to? Should Auschwitz have its own currency, as we are at it? The free slave, as managed by Prescott Bush? Just asking.
The way to do modern politics in Europe was, instead to welcome Ireland. As it is to welcome Estonia.
After joining the European Union in 1973, Ireland (Éire), then a very poor country, transformed itself from a largely agricultural society into a modern, technologically advanced “Celtic Tiger” economy. But European Union help, direct or indirect, was the foremost factor in this transformation, as it was for Greece, Portugal, or Spain. Europe is an Union, and it is strong because it is an Union. It helps, but then it should be helped too.
Unsurprisingly the word “Union”, long proud and mighty, is not far from becoming a dirty word in the unfolding USA. Krugman says it would be better if Europe was a disunion. That is what the plutocrats say. Their banksters don’t like that Europe is now preventing them to get bonuses, the way they used to have them. You know, by ruining the companies they then ordered the states to pay for, so they can do it again. And again. That is what is ruining Ireland. Paying for the plutocrats. Ireland’s problems are not about the Euro, as Paul Krugman would like us to believe. As the plutocrats would like us to believe. That’s a red herring.
Since we now all know that Paul Krugman is revered in Europe, it is time for him to understand that somebody in the position of mental authority that he enjoys presently should not encourage the sort of nationalism, especially when combined with pop socialism, which brought such a terrible outcome as the war of 1914-1945.
What mood carried a lot of Europe from bad to worse, from 1918 to 1933? Nationalism. The thing Krugman wants more of, because it is so expedient.
In the post 1918 era, the deepest divide between nationalists and genuine internationalist Europeans. It was not between fascism and communism, as those two liked us to think. Even the French communists, as they sang the “Internationale” abided by it, since they took their orders from hyper nationalist Moscow. Their fellow fascists from Italy and Germany were even worse, as nationalism, they claimed, was their guiding light.
In truth, Western European fascists were taking their orders from plutocrats, the richest bankers and industrialists, many of them American. Those who think that Benito Mussolini was hung from an ESSO (= EXXON) gas station in Milan, for no good reason, should study history a bit more. The Italians knew well who owned that puppet, that Mussolini, and it was duly returned to its master. Uncle Barack will cry us a river about “Anti-Americanism“. Look: that river is so big, it can be sailed on.
Estonia is pulling away from its oppressor to the east. In the early onset of World War Two, the USSR, then allied with German national-socialists, invaded the Baltic republics. The Finns fought back, and very hard, mauling the Russian bear. That is why Finland is in the Eurozone. It is not about the context Krugman worries about.
Little known by those who remade history in a way that suits them, in 1940, the democracies, France and Britain, intended to crush the perfidious Nazi collaborating state, Sweden. Sweden, hiding behind “neutrality”, was busy arming Hitler in more ways than one.
Sweden is not presently in the Eurozone, although it is bound by law to integrate it at some point. After occupying Hitler’s loving and caring Sweden, France and Britain planned to cross the Baltic sea, and rescue Finland from Stalin’s monstrous USSR, Hitler’s ally. The war was going according to plans, when France suddenly fell (and the dispersion of the French Air Force was a factor in that fall, since only half of the French Air Force was in metropolitan France at the time).
Europeans have had enough of big powers manipulating small states, because they have small armies, small populations, small currencies. So now they are grouping together, overcoming their little differences, to resist the likes of the USA and the USSR (well, OK, maybe Uncle Vladimir will make nice now that he is confronted with irresistible force).
Giant banks which have harnessed the fractional reserve system to create as much money as they need to invest in derivatives, are the proximal problem the West is having at this point. We don’t hear too much on that subject from the esteemed Paul Krugman. Actually we don’t hear him at all on this subject. He prefers GDP, and stimulating by de-taxing..
The common currency of the common European People is not the problem of the west, at this point. It is just made to look so, by relentless propaganda. Time to grow up out of subjugation. At the same moment when the European Union cracked down on bank bonuses, all what Paul Krugman could do was to address condolences to poor Estonia, which he presents as a victim of those lying Europeans.
Although Krugman’s economic blog is number one in the USA, he has forgotten the big picture… except if one considers that the big picture is the USA, and everything else is a small and nasty critter.
It is actually telling that the European Union has cracked down on banks bonuses, whereas the USA has not. Even though the Congress, the Senate, and the presidency of the USA were controlled by supposedly progressive democrats. Clearly, they did not want to progress. Why? Because the truth is that they have a vested interest in the abusive financial system, as it is. So they made it so, that it would keep on going, same as it ever was.
This persistence in financially abusive behavior does not just say that the USA is subjugated to banksters. It also say that the American and international banking system as it presently exists, is an instrument of subjugation of American plutocracy on the rest of the world, and, in particular, Europe. And American leaders know that well. (But don’t wait with bated breath that they will tell you so: it is not on Barack’s teleprompter.)
Paul’s object of admiration, the British citizen known as Keynes, objected strongly to the dollar as world currency. Keynes was head of the relevant commission at Bretton Woods, in 1944, charged with setting up a world currency (first by pegging all currencies together within 1%, a system later used for construction of the Euro).
The Americans insisted that the US dollar ought to be the world reserve currency. Keynes blocked the world dollar take-over. But the Americans cheated on the documents to be signed, substituting what they wanted at the last moment, without Keynes knowing. Paul Krugman talks about Keynes all the times, in glowing terms. But he never mentions that story. That’s steering the context to calmer and misleading waters.
It may be time to stop cheating on the logic. Expediency in economics, apparently Krugman’s preferred tactic, is only advantageous to the plutocrats, because they can run away from the law, let alone ethics, and People’s economics. By the time stupor has been replaced by regulations and laws, the plutocrats have already move to greener pastures. This will go on, until no pastures are left, and they have stolen the entire world. This sort of things has happened before, that is how so called aristocracies arise.
Paul would say: no, it’s not like that, I am looking at GDP. Well, look, instead at what a devaluation does to GDP, in, well, dollars. And, as I said already with buying Spain on the cheap, that is the whole point. Just as Americans can still buy oil cheap, because of their world reserve currency, each time a new country joins the Eurozone, the time of reckoning comes closer, and American supremacists tremble ever more. Hence the rage about Estonia.
And what does GDP measure anyway? It should be called Gross Demonic Product, for all I know. GDP measures whatever American plutocracy thinks is important, because it makes a lot of money with it. Then it tries to persuade American sheep that they ought to buy more of whatever makes GDP shine.
With tremendous traffic jams and tremendously expensive health care, GDP can go to the moon in the USA, while common people go down to hell. GDP has just become an instrument to indoctrinate Americans. Seriously, if a doctor’s visit and the prescribed drugs cost nada in Europe, how much is contributed to European GDP? Nada. But the same purchases could easily contribute thousands of dollars to the USA’s GDP, before people crawl into a hole and die (USA life expectancy went down significantly in 2009).
Europeans don’t need to be as obsessed by GDP as American economists are: they have other, much higher values, and their societies and lack of noxious GDP shows it.
Estonian austerity is no fallacy, as many American left wing economists would like us to believe. The hydra of cheap imperial fascism shall be defeated by proper thinking, and gravitas, independently applied.
Congratulations Estonia, and welcome!
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Patrice Ayme
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Note on welfare for the rich, Reagan style: Obama taxes the hyper richest 400 incomes at a rate of (no more than) 17%. They make an average of 340 million dollars income. A normal European taxation rate on these critters would be 50%. Thus each critter saves 120 million dollars relative to its European equivalent. Cost: 50 billion dollars, borrowed directly to foreigners (who get paid in return by American jobs). And this is only part of the support for the hyper rich. The self serving belief of American leadership in serving the rich has sucked the economy of the USA dry of much profitable investments: the money is created inside the USA by borrowing from abroad, and then sent back abroad.