High Eurozone Official Attacks German Policy of non-Solidarity with Euro Brethren -- Juncker Is First

Since last October, we have been criticizing the Eurozone's handling of its debt crisis, and more recently, especially the German role. The crisis started two years ago in Greece, and then spread to other eurozone countries because the Greek problem was not handled rightly. Some prominent Euros now recognize that German policy, which other Eurozone states have been acquiescing in, is the wrong way to a solution. Germany insists on austerity and rejects any debt-sharing [mutualization of debt]. Germany doesn't want to give up a single pfennig of its own money, forgetting that after all the destruction of WW2 --in Germany and the rest of Europe, in a war started by Germans-- Germany was enabled to rebuild and recover only thanks to the approx. $ 15 billion that America gave to Germany through the Marshall Plan [some of the money was given as loans but the loans were forgiven and all the money was kept in Germany]. The extreme austerity forced on Greece is ruining the Greek economy but Germany --with the acquiescence of its Eurozone partners-- insisted on more austerity, on a solution that doesn't work. The Euros are like a drunkard with a hangover who drinks more in order to relieve the discomfort of his hangover. The euro addiction to austerity is like a craving for the hair of the dog that bit ye. But most of the discomfort is being suffered in the countries with a high state debt, and is not yet felt in Germany.

Eurozone policy, dominated by Germany, that is by German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, is leading the world into a worldwide recession, if not a deep depression. That may have motivated the new criticism of Germany that hasn't been publicly heard at high levels before. Now the chairman of the Eurozone, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, states that "there is no more time to lose" [«non c'è più tempo da perdere»] to stabilize the monetary union and adds the accusation of Germany being at fault. Juncker may foresee the possible collapse of the Euro if no major steps are taken and views Germany as an obstacle to needed measures. Collapse of the euro currency and the Eurozone states would have major world wide repercussions greater than the incoming world recession. Here is Juncker:

JUNCKER ATTACKS BERLIN IN THE SZ [suddeutsche zeitung] -- A very harsh Jean-Claude Juncker accused Berlin, meanwhile, of bending EU interests to internal political motives: "Why does Germany allow itself the luxury of constantly doing internal politics on questions that have to do with Europe [= the whole EU]? Why does it treat the Eurozone like its subsidiary?, the chairman of the Eurogroup [eurozone countries] asked in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. [qui]

JUNKER ATTACCA BERLINO SULLA SZ - Un durissimo Jean-Claude Juncker ha accusato intanto Berlino di piegare gli interessi dell'Ue a ragioni di politica interna: «Perchè la Germania si permette il lusso di fare continuamente politica interna su questioni che riguardano l'Europa? Perchè tratta l'eurozona come una sua filiale?», si è chiesto il presidente dell'Eurogruppo in un'intervista alla Süddeutsche Zeitung. [qui]

But maybe Juncker didn't wise up enough. In the same interview he proposes that German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble should be made finance minister for the whole Eurozone --or maybe the whole EU. "Schäuble has all the characteristics." [«Schäuble ha tutte le caratteristiche»]. But would other Euro states, other Eurozone members want their economies to be dominated even more closely than before by one the chief architects of the failures since the first mistaken Greek "rescue"? In any case, do they want to be more tightly controlled by German policy? On the other hand, maybe by proposing Schäuble as a super Eurozone finance minister, Juncker means just to throw a bone to the Germans in order to soften the blow of his criticism. Maybe. But it would be best to put Schäuble in retirement or let him criticize from a seat in the German parliament where he would not directly make policy.

Lastly, although there is little enough solidarity among Eurozone and EU member states, the EU continues to fund the PA/PLO as well as all sorts of lying, anti-Israel so-called "human rights" & "peace" NGOs, even as the EU's own funds run low, let's bear in mind that we must not allow the Euros to decide Israel's future. They are fools at best, if not consciously hostile.

[Altri servizi su Il Sole-24 Ore e Il Giornale]
[data on EU funding of fake "human rights" and "peace" NGOs can be found in abundance on the site of NGO Monitor --see link on our blog roll]
[If they're funded by the EU, can they really be considered "non-governmental organizations"?]

Begging Merkel to Save the Euro, the EU economies & maybe the world economy

UPDATINGs at bottom 6-15&7-9-2012

Some Europeans are feeling desperate. Their great project, the European Union, that was supposed to represent an advance of civilization and bring peace to Europe, and help bring peace to the rest of the world, is threatened by the tight German hand on its purse. Adriana Cerretelli begs Merkel --although Schaeuble has to be kept in mind just as much or more so-- to consider saving the euro, both the currency and the economies of the EU states and maybe most of the major world economies. But Germany doesn't seem to care --and it took most of the financial and political leadership of the EU more than two years to realize that their plan to "rescue" Greece was only making things worse for Greece [see our previous post]. Let's remember that Europe is not Israel's reliable friend and cannot be. The EU is made up --at best-- of self-righteous fools who feed their own Euro brethren to the sharks or behave as cannibals themselves. The EU does not stand for decency or morality in international affairs despite its expensive efforts to pretend. As far as Jews are concerned, Europe has on the whole been hostile to us for nearly 2000 years. Here is an Italian view on the EU and Germany:

Dear Chancellor, the House Is Burning by Adriana Cerretelli

While the euro house is burning and the fire is expanding to Greece and Spain, there aren’t any eager nor trustworthy firefighers in sight. There are, however, plenty of extremely efficient sharks ready to take advantage of someone else’s troubles. “Disperse this fog,” ECB President Mario Draghi said before the EU Parliament yesterday. Draghi warned that the structure of the EU’s monetary union has become “unbearable.” So were Draghi’s words powerful but nonetheless ignored? Certainly, since for now they are bouncing off the fog under which the markets are still attacking the countries in the most distress, while powerful governments are too busy worrying about internal politics and elections to focus on the problems of the EU. The truth is that well-respected technocrats can do very little when politics proves immature bordering on blatant irresponsibility. . .

. . . the euro zone countries grew further apart due to 11 percent unemployment (the highest rate since 1999), a 10-month-long drop in manufacturing production and decreasing economic confidence. The reason is that the markets seem to be betting against the survival of the euro, doubting that the common currency will survive this unending storm. How are Europe—and Germany, in particular, with its oversized role in EU politics—reacting to the increasing widening of government-bond yields? They talk idly and don’t do too much as German bond yields fell to a record low and their Italian and Spanish equivalents rose to 5.9 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively—dangerously close to the 7 percent mark that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to ask for bailouts from the EU and the IMF. The game is becoming extremely unstable for several reasons.

First, if the euro fails, no one would be safe from a disaster of incalculable proportions: according to some estimates, the cost would be at least 1 trillion euros; others say it would twice as much. Another point to keep in mind is that the failure of the euro would not only hit Europe in a time of recession but would also negatively affect the U.S. and several emerging economies, a clear indication that globalization is an all-encompassing phenomenon in today’s world. If Europe cries, nobody can really afford to laugh. In short, it would be a global disaster. It’s therefore no surprise that Barack Obama is extremely concerned about the events unfolding in Europe.

Germany, though not completely calm, is controlling its anxiety and pondering its reaction. For Berlin, it’s business as usual. In a way, that’s understandable, given that Germany is profiting from the crisis by funding itself at record low interest rates and shopping around for cheap resources and investments in countries in distress. Until when? “Berlin must reflect about the fact that if bond yields keep widening, Europeans won’t have enough resources to buy German products,” warned Martin Schultz, German president of the European Parliament, at the last EU meeting.

While the house is burning and the roof is about to collapse, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s minister of finance don’t seem to care: yesterday they rejected a Draghi-backed EU proposal [Mario Draghi is the ECB (european central bank) governor] for the creation of a banking union that would include a common bank-resolution framework, a joint-deposit guarantee and direct access to ESM loans. “This isn’t the right short-term solution for the crisis,” they said. Other proposals, such as euro bonds and the mutualization of euro-zone sovereign debt were also rejected by Germany because they similarly implied the Europeanization of risk among EU partners. Not a surprise, since Berlin seems to be better off the less it has to do with southern European countries. While that’s perfectly understandable, we should then tell the Irish, who yesterday passed the EU fiscal compact, that their sacrifices won’t be enough to keep them in the euro zone. Once that’s clear, they would at least be free to decide what they want to give up, instead of being forced to adopt austerity measures imposed by other countries. We should also explain that to the Greeks, who will vote on June 17 whether to stay or not in the euro zone (and perhaps they will decide not to leave), and to all those unemployment-ridden countries trapped in the grip of austerity with no growth. “We must find a European solution, if we want to prevent the Greek crisis from spiraling into the crisis of the euro.” It wasn't Draghi nor José Barroso who said that but Alexis Tsipras. How come even the leader of Greece’s far-left Syriza party understands that, while Angela Merkel doesn’t? More troubling for Europe, perhaps she doesn’t want to.[here in English, Il Sole-24 Ore, 2 June 2012]

After reading what an Italian explains about Germany, we learn some lessons. Adriana Cerretelli's article implies that for more than two years the other Euro states and political leaders have been going along with Germany, whether happily/willingly or acquiescing reluctantly, in their wrong-headed Greek "rescue" policy. This teaches us Israelis, us Jews, that the EU is unfit to give any advice to Israel about "peace." their advice is either hostile or stupid and that could include disingenuous. Meanwhile, despite its own shortage of money, the EU keeps on showering funds on genocidal terrorists in the palestinian authority, on Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies in Fatah. Shame on those in Israel who take EU funds for ostensibly humanitarian, pro-peace, pro-human rights purposes, whereas the funds are meant to use these useful Israeli idiots to undermine our state, Israel, and our very lives.

- - - More by Adriana Cerretelli on the European financial crisis- - -
Merkel ignores the growth emergency [here in English]

Saving Greece is worth the cost [here in English]

La UE tecnocratica soffoca la Grecia [qui in Italiano]

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Iwan Morgan says that the Euro currency was a "mistake"| from the start [here]. And I agree. This implies that the EU doesn't know what's good for itself, let alone for Israel [or does not want Israel's well-being].

The EU scolds and disciplines Greece while showering funds on the "palestinian authority" [here]
Schaeuble's punitive attitude towards the Greeks, his fellow Europeans [here]

Caroline Glick sees the EU as fundamentally anti-Israel as personified by the ugly & evil Catherine Ashton [here]. She points out that the EU is not the only problematic power for Israel. There is the US Obama administration. She adds that "Turkey's bellicosity towards Israel as well as Greece and Cyprus has caused it no harm in Washington." Of course, the EU too does little for its European brethren, Greece & Cyprus. Maybe if the military alliance joining the US and most of western & southern Europe, NATO, warned Turkey not to interfere with Greek development of its offshore oil and gas resources, Greece might be in better economic shape and would also help its fellow Euros with a dependable oil & gas supply. But they don't for whatever reason. They don't stand up for Greece & Cyprus' rights to develop resources in their own maritime economic zones. To be sure, Turkey belongs to NATO but then both Cyprus & Greece are in the EU.
7-9-2012 Paul Taylor, writing for Reuters, sees the eurozone breaking up into creditor and debtor blocs of states. All of the eurozone measures so far to end the crisis, to solve the sovereign debt & related problems, have either failed to achieve their goal or have made things worse [Exhibit A is Greece]. Eurozone finance are meeting today but will surely fail again. The Germans & their closest allies in the eurozone are still calling for greater economic-cum-financial integration for the eurozone with greater centralized control. But agreement on a treaty for that purpose would take months at least. Meanwhile, Greece is sinking, while Spanish borrowing rates are rising. And the immediate problems are not taken care of.
CAN WE JEWS TRUST THESE EURO FOOLS & MANIACS?

Cash Short EU Gives Greece Ultimatum, While Donating Liberally to the PLO/PA

REVISED, LINKs ADDED 2-20&3-19&20-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

On February 7, this year, the EU announced a grant of funds to the Palestinian Authority, as reported by the PLO/PA's press agency, WAFA:

The European Union and Sweden Tuesday contributed €24.7 million to the payment of the January salaries and pensions of around 84,300 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to an EU press release.

The European Commission made €22.5 million contribution and Sweden made €2.2 million. [here]

The next day Luxembourg, an EU member state, announced a donation of 15 million euros to the UNRWA, also for the benefit of Palestinian Arabs:

". . . in order to bring aid to the Palestinian people. . . The UNRWA which carries out remarkable and still indispensable work on behalf of 5 million [sic!] Palestinian refugees, is Luxembourg's principal partner in matters of aid to the Palestinian people,"

quoth the Luxembourg development minister.

A significant point about this aid was made by UNRWA's commissioner-general, Filippo Grandi:

In these times of political and economic uncertainty, both in this region [the ME] and worldwide, Luxembourg's increasing commitment in favor of our work is welcome. [original below]

Le Luxembourg donne 15 millions d'euros à l'UNRWA pour "porter assistance au peuple palestinien" Le Luxembourg a annoncé mercredi qu'il faisait un don de 15 millions d'euros à l'Office de secours et de travaux des Nations Unies pour les "réfugiés de Palestine" au Proche-Orient (UNRWA). L'accord a été signé par la ministre luxembourgeoise du Développement Marie-Josée Jacobs et le commissaire général de l'UNRWA, Filippo Grandi. "En ces temps d'incertitude politique et économique tant dans cette région que globalement, l'engagement croissant du Luxembourg en faveur de notre travail est le bienvenu", a déclaré Grandi. "L'UNRWA, qui poursuit son travail remarquable et encore indispensable au service de 5 millions de Palestiniens réfugiés, est le principal partenaire du Luxembourg lorsqu'il s'agit deporter assistance au peuple palestinien", a affirmé la ministre Jacobs. [Guysen News, 2-8-2012]

These are times of political and economic uncertainty indeed. Greece, a fellow member of the EU, is on the verge of bankruptcy, partly of its own doing and partly due to very mistaken policies of the EU [led by Germany] since 2010 and of the International Monetary Fund [since Christine Lagarde took over] to force a severe austerity program on Greece as a supposed remedy for its economic ills, while not providing Greece with a facility for borrowing funds at reasonable rates of interest, particularly without implementing the eurobonds idea, and thereby ensuring that Greece would not be able to pay off its ever increasing sovereign debt. That is, without growth and without a way to borrow at reasonable rates Greece could neither grow economically nor pay its debts. Failure of the "rescue plan" was foreseen by some economists back in 2010.

Nevertheless, all the while, economic experts from the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF [since Lagarde's takeover] have been making all sorts of demands on Greece. Among them Greece must cut the minimum wage by 22% [according to Natalie Savaricas, France24], cut 150,000 public sector jobs by 2015 [in a country of ca. 9 million pop.], accept a commissioner from abroad for the tax administration, and reduce public health service reimbursements for purchases of medicine, etc. Germany moreover, wanted an outside commissioner to veto Greek government policies, which the EU Commission has not yet agreed to.

Meanwhile, the PA is faring much differently.

The European Commission's contribution comes from the €155 million package of financial assistance to the recurrent expenditures of the Palestinian Authority committed for 2012, said the release.

The European Commission agreed to a request by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to frontload €116.2 million of this package in the first five months of 2012 in order to help the Palestinian Authority meet its urgent financial needs.

The €2.2 million contribution by the Swedish Government is part of its continuous support to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people.

Most of the European Union's assistance to the Palestinian Authority is channeled through PEGASE, the financial mechanism launched in 2008 to support the PA Reform and Development Plan (2008-2010) and the subsequent PA Palestinian National Plan (2011-2013).

Since February 2008, €1.23 billion have been disbursed through the PEGASE Direct Financial Support programs. [here]

No mention here of austerity. No demands to reduce expenditures, let's say, on the PA's print & broadcast media which regularly spread genocidal hatred of Jews. No talk of a special commissioner to oversee tax collection. No demand by Germany for a commissioner with power to veto Palestinian Authority policies. If there is accountability to the EU for funds spent or if there is EU supervision of fund disbursement, then why are there Nazi-like propaganda and genocide incitement in Palestinian Authority institutions: TV, radio, official PA newspapers, schools, mosques, etc.?? Yet, the Greeks are held to standards and demands are made of them. But no ultimatums for Arabs. It doesn't bother anybody at the EU that many if not most of the PA's civil servants are superfluous and indeed some of them are involved in creating and spreading hate propaganda against Jews or in terrorism now or in the past. Yet Greece is to fire 150,000 civil servants.

Furthermore, after the Greek parliament followed the government in accepting the demands of the EU, ECB, and IMF, new obstacles were raised to Greece getting the needed and promised funds. And one of those holding up the funds was very conspicuously Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Euro Zone, the EuroGroup, who also just so happens to be prime minister of Luxembourg, which was so happy to be helpful and accommodating with the Palestinian Authority by supplying additional funds to UNRWA.

Indeed, helping the PA/PLO seems to be a paramount, supreme policy of the EU. It may also be EU policy to make propaganda against Israel, considering the many millions in subsidies by the EU and member states to Arab and pro-Arab/pro-PLO/anti-Israel NGOs that carry out propaganda and agitate against Israel. We don't hear of reductions in funds for the PA and the pro-PA NGOs despite the Euro debt crisis.

Meanwhile, Greece is treated differently. Moreover, it is not the only EU country in financial trouble. Ireland and Portugal too have received EU bail out funds, while Spain and Italy are under watch for fear of financial collapse, while Belgium, France and even Germany are seen as not entirely healthy financially, as under potential threat. The EU & its member states need money. Lots of it. But there is room for funding for the Palestinian Authority --cheerfully and helpfully with few or no questions asked.

So what explains the differential treatment of the Palestinian Authority and of Greece by the EU? The PA produces little, its economy is mainly based on donations from the EU, USA, wealthy Arab states and Japan. Much of its employed work force works for the PA administration and "security" services. Its corruption is notorious. It spreads hatred and incites war and genocide through its press, TV, radio, schools, and govt-supervised mosques. Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs commissioner, is eager to see a PLO/PA state created, whether or not it makes peace with Israel. Why are the PA and Greece treated differently?

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Bernard-Henri Levy BHL on the Greek debt crisis.
Executive of the German firm Bosch wants Greece out of the EU [or only out of the eurozone?]
Paul Krugman thinks the EU failed to solve the crisis, partly due to their arrogance.
Charles Wyplosz points out six mistakes of Germany's finance minister.
Sarkozy & Merkel make demands on Greece [here--see video]

Qui links are in Italian, Ici links in French:
Wolfgang Schaeuble, German finance minister, speaks out against Athens [qui]
Jacques Attali on the Eurocrisis & Germany's role [ici]
The Troika's demands on Greece as of 30 January 2012 [qui]
Athens accepts cuts [qui]
Krugman's solution, print money, among other things [qui]
Economist Charles Wyplosz criticizes German dictates to the EU & Greece [qui]
The EU wants guarantees from Greece[qui]
Economist Jose Antonio Ocampo finds fault with Schaeuble and German policy [qui]
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3-19-2012 Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, displays --in her shallow & pedestrian manner-- her warm sympathies for the Arab cause and for the notion of an Arab state in the Land of Israel, while drawing an absurd parallel between youth in Gaza and the Jewish victims of the massacre today in Toulouse, France.
The EU & Catherine Ashton unblock another 35 million euros for the palestinian authority in an agreement with PA prime minister Salem Fayyad.
3-20-2012 Jonathan Tobin comments on Catherine Ashton's fatuous comparison of children deliberately murdered in Toulouse & Norway [by Breivik last year] with Belgian children killed in a bus accident and with Gazan children who may have died as a byproduct of wars and battles started by the Islamists in Gaza in their endeavors to murder Israeli civilians, including children.
Jonathan Neumann sees Ashton's fatuousness as allowing us a peek at the EU's real anti-Israel agenda and proving once again that the EU cannot be an "honest broker" between Jews and Arabs.
Elliott Abrams points out that despite Ashton's claim to have been misunderstood, "her remarks quite obviously drew a parallel." She did not explicitly deny --in her response to criticism-- that she sees a parallel between the accidental deaths of the Belgian children, unquestionably tragic, with the deliberate murder of Jewish children in Toulouse and Arab children in Gaza who are often used as human shields. For Abrams, this failure to explicitly deny a parallel confirms that she indeed wanted to draw a parallel, however false it may have been. She may be too stupid to understand this.
Walter Z Laqueur demonstrates the foolish illusions of the admirers of the EU and the "Arab Spring."

Euro Fools Can't Solve Their Own Problems but Tell Israel What to Do

UPDATED 11-21-2011 See at bottom.

The Eurozone countries, the 17 that use the common euro currency, have failed to solve their own economic problems and their solution for Greece's debt crisis in 2010 only made the situation worse. This has been obvious for a long time. Some economists even foresaw that the solution put into practice in the Spring of 2010 would only make the situation worse. The mistakes were so obvious that even the usually rock-headed Obama supporter, Paul Krugman, sumarizes the mistakes in his column in the Int'l Herald Tribune & The New York Times.

If it weren’t so tragic, the current European crisis would be funny, in a gallows-humor sort of way. For as one rescue plan after another falls flat, Europe’s Very Serious People — who are, if such a thing is possible, even more pompous and self-regarding than their American counterparts — just keep looking more and more ridiculous.

. . . . . . . . .
at this point, Greece, where the crisis began, is no more than a grim sideshow. The clear and present danger comes instead from a sort of bank run on Italy, the euro area’s third-largest economy. Investors, fearing a possible default, are demanding high interest rates on Italian debt. And these high interest rates, by raising the burden of debt service, make default more likely.It’s a vicious circle, with fears of default threatening to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. To save the euro, this threat must be contained. But how? The answer has to involve creating a fund that can, if necessary, lend Italy (and Spain, which is also under threat) enough money that it doesn’t need to borrow at those high rates. Such a fund probably wouldn’t have to be used, since its mere existence should put an end to the cycle of fear. But the potential for really large-scale lending, certainly more than a trillion euros’ worth, has to be there. And here’s the problem: All the various proposals for creating such a fund ultimately require backing from major European governments, whose promises to investors must be credible for the plan to work. Yet Italy is one of those major governments; it can’t achieve a rescue by lending money to itself. And France, the euro area’s second-biggest economy, has been looking shaky lately, raising fears that creation of a large rescue fund, by in effect adding to French debt, could simply have the effect of adding France to the list of crisis countries. . . . You see what I mean about the situation being funny in a gallows-humor fashion? What makes the story really painful is the fact that none of this had to happen.

Think about countries like Britain, Japan and the United States, which have large debts and deficits yet remain able to borrow at low interest rates. What’s their secret? The answer, in large part, is that they retain their own currencies, and investors know that in a pinch they could finance their deficits by printing more of those currencies.

If the European Central Bank were to similarly stand behind European debts, the crisis would ease dramatically. Wouldn’t that cause inflation? Probably not: whatever the likes of Ron Paul may believe, money creation isn’t inflationary in a depressed economy. . . . . But such action, we keep being told, is off the table. The statutes under which the central bank was established supposedly prohibit this kind of thing, although one suspects that clever lawyers could find a way to make it happen. The broader problem, however, is that the whole euro system was designed to fight the last economic war. It’s a Maginot Line built to prevent a replay of the 1970s, which is worse than useless when the real danger is a replay of the 1930s.

And this turn of events is, as I said, tragic. . . . .

Yet that achievement is under threat because the European elite, in its arrogance, locked the Continent into a monetary system that recreated the rigidities of the gold standard, and — like the gold standard in the 1930s — has turned into a deadly trap. Now maybe European leaders will come up with a truly credible rescue plan. I hope so, but I don’t expect it. The bitter truth is that it’s looking more and more as if the euro system is doomed. And the even more bitter truth is that given the way that system has been performing, Europe might be better off if it collapses sooner rather than later.

[ A version of this op-ed appeared in print on October 24, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Hole In Europe’s Bucket.]

Those oh so clever Europeans who have solutions for everybody else's problems, can't solve their own. In Greece's case, they gave the country billions in bailout funding but left Greece to borrow money in the open market without a guarantee from the European Central Bank [ECB] or any other institution, like the IMF, that it would back up the loan repayments on Greek state bonds. Hence, the interest rate that Greece had to pay went up and up and Greece obviously could not pay back loans at 40% or higher. Moreover, the solution that the wealthier or more fiscally sound Eurozone states forced on Greece just happened to kill growth in the Greek economy. That too made it impossible for Greece to pay off debt at high interest rates on its own. How come nobody in Euroland foresaw this outcome 18 months ago? If somebody did foresee it, it was not part of the "rescue" plan for Greece. As Krugman says, the Euros took a problem and made it worse. The solution was itself a problem. The remedy made the illness worse. And the foolish Euro physicians who made the disease worse may end up by killing the patient. In light of all this, how can we trust the Euros' proposals for "solving" Israel's problems?? Are the Euro solutions for Israel meant to kill the patient?? Of course, the US State Dept's cures for Israel's problems might be just as deadly as those of the Euros.
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11-21-2011 Barry Rubin wonders why the EU, in the midst of its own dire economic crisis, has just increased its financial aid to the palestinian authority, headed by the corrupt Mahmoud Abbas & Salem Fayyad.
Bat Yeor offers a philosophical explanation of the European Union's Judeophobia & Arabophilia/Islamophilia [here]

Bipartisan Economic Collapse -- Obama's Guys & Bush's Administration Both Guilty

UPDATING 12-9-2008 at bottom

We have earlier talked about the responsibility of Obama's associates, such as Franklin Raines and James Johnson, in the subprime mortgage collapse which led to the general, worldwide economic crisis that we are now experiencing. It is curious that good capitalist bankers had adopted the thinking of ACORN --a community organizing body close to Obama that had campaigned for easy mortgage access for people who were poor credit risks. As long as most of those borrowers who obtained subprime mortgages could make their monthly payments, a lot of bankers were making big money. Indeed, these mortgages were being divided into separate pieces [such as interest separate from principal] called derivatives. These derivatives were considered creative financial instruments that could be packaged and resold, often to banks outside the US. There was big money to be made in this racket as long as the borrowers kept making payments.

But many of the mortgages were subject to varying interest rates. When rates went up, poor folk were less able to pay. When the price of gasoline [subject to the world market price of crude oil] went up, poor folk were less able to pay. When people lost their jobs, they were less able to pay. When they couldn't pay, the houses were foreclosed by the banks and these people lost their homes. With so many houses on the market --at a time of various and sundry economic problems-- the market for buying houses was weak. Housing prices came down. This reduced the value of houses as assets owned by individuals, banks, and other institutions. And so on. So we moved into a real financial crisis that wiped out values of corporate stocks, the assets of many many people throughout the world. Non-cash savings fell far down in value. Asset values collapsed.

And one of the causes was community organizers' [ACORN, etc] ostensible sympathy for the poor, who in many cases lost the equity that they had in their homes when they were foreclosed. Meanwhile, some of Obama's guys made many millions out of this racket. And some of Bush's guys probably did too.

The Bush Administration listened to lobbyists for mortgage lenders and to "creative" bankers dealing in derivatives. Here is one account of Bush Administration conduct when warned of possible consequences of the easy lending policy:

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way. [Associated Press, 11-1-2008]

Now, if you have cash to spare around the house, now would be the time to buy stocks in companies whose products or services are likely to be needed under any economic conditions, such as high tek. If you're cautious, stay with fixed income securities. In either case, remember that the Apostle of Change about to enter the White House also is tainted with the crisis through both his former "community organizing" comrades and his present buddies in the financial industry. Think Jim Jones and Franklin Raines and so many others.

Ain't Change wonderful!!!

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UPDATING 12-9-2008 More on Obama's consultant Franklin Raines and the whole Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac gang [here], and their contribution to bringing down the economy.
More on young, straight-as-an-arrow Rahm Emanuel, a former director of Freddie Mac [here].
Meet James Johnson, who was on Obama's search committee for a vice-presidential candidate [html here], [pdf here]. The bio sketch of Johnson was issued officially by the US Treasury.
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Coming: More on Zbig's schemes, Obama's dishonesty, the "Left's" lies, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, archeology, propaganda analysis, peace follies, etc.

Obama's kind of folks take the lion's share of blame for the subprime and the general, worldwide economic collarpse

UPDATING 11-24-2008 see at bottom

Obama's friends among "liberal" politicians, directors at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Clinton Administration, bear the lion's share of guilt for the subprime mortgage collapse that led to the general worldwide economic collapse. Nevertheless, let's not exonerate Bush Jr and Hank Paulson, his Treasury secretary, for their neglect of problems that were evident two years ago. But Obama consulted with Franklin Raines and got big contributions from Raines' Fannie Mae, while Rahm ["Kapo"] Emanuel was a director at one of the two Federal-govt sponsored lenders and dealers in subprime mortgages, not to mention Jim Johnson, formerly of Lehman Bros who was asked by Obama to sit on his vice-presidential candidate selection committee, along with Caroline Kennedy of the super-rich Kennedy family.

John Steele Gordon explains how the crisis developed, going back to the Franklin Roosevelt administration of the 1930s, with a historical parallel from the 19th century:

. . . . Modern standards preclude government officials and members of Congress from the sort of speculation that was rife in the 1830’s. But today’s affinities between Congressmen and lobbyists, affinities fueled by the largess of political-action committees, have produced many of the same consequences.

Consider the savings-and-loan (S&L) debacle of the 1980’s. The crisis, which erupted only two decades ago but seems all but forgotten, was almost entirely the result of a failure of government to regulate effectively. And that was by design. Members of Congress put the protection of their political friends ahead of the interests of the financial system as a whole.
. . . .
Why was the integrity of the banking system not the first priority? Part of the reason lay in the highly fragmented nature of the federal regulatory bureaucracy. A host of agencies—including the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the FSLIC, state banking authorities, and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB)—oversaw the various forms of banks. Each of these agencies was more dedicated to protecting its own turf than to protecting the banking system as a whole.
. . . .
For good measure, the Bank Board changed its accounting rules, allowing the thrifts to show handsome profits when they were, in fact, going bust. It was a case of regulators authorizing the banks they regulated to cook the books. Far worse, the rule that only locals could own an S&L was eliminated. Now anyone could buy a thrift. High-rollers began to move in, delighted to be able to assume the honorific title of “banker.”
. . . .
A mortgage used to stay on the books of the issuing bank until it was paid off, often twenty or thirty years later. This greatly limited the number of mortgages a bank could initiate. In 1938, as part of the New Deal, the federal government established the Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, to help provide liquidity to the mortgage market.
Fannie Mae purchased mortgages from initiating banks and either held them in its own portfolio or packaged them as mortgage-backed securities to sell to investors. By taking these mortgages off the books of the issuing banks . . . .

. . . in 1995, regulations adopted by the Clinton administration took the Community Reinvestment Act to a new level. Instead of forbidding banks to discriminate against blacks and black neighborhoods, the new regulations positively forced banks to seek out such customers and areas. Without saying so, the revised law established quotas for loans to specific neighborhoods, specific income classes, and specific races. It also encouraged community groups to monitor compliance and allowed them to receive fees for marketing loans to target groups.

. . . Fannie and Freddie were now permitted to invest up to 40 times their capital in mortgages; banks, by contrast, were limited to only ten times their capital. Put briefly, in order to increase the number of mortgages Fannie and Freddie could underwrite, the federal government allowed them to become grossly undercapitalized—that is, grossly to reduce their one source of insurance against failure. The risk of a mammoth failure was then greatly augmented by the sheer number of mortgages given out in the country.
. . . .
That was bad enough; then came politics to make it much worse. Fannie and Freddie quickly evolved into two of the largest financial institutions on the planet, with assets and liabilities in the trillions. But unlike other large, profit-seeking financial institutions, they were headquartered in Washington, D.C., and were political to their fingertips. Their management and boards tended to come from the political world, not the business world. And some were corrupt: the management of Fannie Mae manipulated the books in order to trigger executive bonuses worth tens of millions of dollars, and Freddie Mac was found in 2003 to have understated earnings by almost $5 billion.

Both companies, moreover, made generous political contributions, especially to those members of Congress who sat on oversight committees. Their charitable foundations could be counted on to kick in to causes that Congressmen and Senators deemed worthy. Many of the political contributions were illegal: in 2006, Freddie was fined $3.8 million—a record amount—for improper election activity.
. . . .
Since banks knew they could offload these sub-prime mortgages to Fannie and Freddie, they had no reason to be careful about issuing them. As for the firms that bought the mortgage-based securities issued by Fannie and Freddie, they thought they could rely on the government’s implicit guarantee. AIG, the world’s largest insurance firm, was happy to insure vast quantities of these securities against default; it must have seemed like insuring against the sun rising in the West.
. . . . .
Many people, especially liberal politicians, have blamed the disaster on the deregulation of the last 30 years. But they do so in order to avoid the blame’s falling where it should—squarely on their own shoulders. For the same politicians now loudly proclaiming that deregulation caused the problem are the ones who fought tooth and nail to prevent increased regulation of Fannie and Freddie—the source of so much political money, their mother’s milk.
[John Steele Gordon, Commentary, November 2008]

The rest is history, as they say. Read more here. Obama and Hilary's people were deeply involved in creating the conditions that produced the crisis. Obama's supporters and appointees were deeply involved and made a profit out of the situation while times were good. Think of R Emanuel, Raines, J Johnson. Think of the large contributions that Obama got from these Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, more money than most other members of Congress got.
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NOTE: By "Obama's kind of folks" I am referring to Democratic Party politicians and bankers and businessmen connected to Obama's party. I don't blame poor people, black or otherwise, who received the subprime mortgages. These people lost their equity in their homes when they could no longer make mortgage payments and the houses were foreclosed, especially in cases where the interest rate had gone up. Further, it is a bank's responsibility to examine a borrower's credit worthiness, not the borrower's. When govt regulations ordering banks to avoid poor credit risks were removed, the banks recklessly gave out mortgage loans and bankers made big profits. Think of Obama's friends and associates named above, among others. Then came the crash. Thanks, BHO and friends.
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UPDATING 11-24-2008 Judith Klinghoffer argues that the steep rise in oil prices brought down the economy.
Coming: More on Zbig's schemes, Obama's dishonesty, the "Left's" lies, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, archeology, propaganda analysis, peace follies, etc.