This past week was action packed and the smoke signals have come at us in a fast and furious manner. The biggest headline came from the EU parliamentary elections where a good portion of the disenfranchised sent an unambiguous message of protest of central governments and their socialist masters. The people are WAKING UP to the creeping loss of freedom and destruction of the economic future by Brussels and their handmaidens in capitols throughout the Eurozone. Let's take a look at the growing march against CREEPING socialism and totalitarianism on the continent:
Keep in mind that the left leaning groups have the something for nothings firmly in their camp, encouraging public servants to up the looting of the public in the interest of FAIRNESS. The groups on the right believe in more traditional small government and economic growth. The only country where voters remained supporters of the party in power was no surprise: Germany, where capitalism and competition have kept them fully employed and an oasis of economic growth in a socialist desert.
"The nearest thing to eternal life that we'll ever see on this Earth is a government program."
- Ronald Reagan
Just as in the United States, those that support less central government and smaller government are being labeled extremist by the main stream media. Jean Claude Juncker and Brussels refuse to acknowledge the message by crowing they still control the majority, purely contemptuous of the man in the street. Ms. Marine Le pen of France had this to say:
"The people have spoken; our people demand one type of politics: they want French politics by the French, for the French and with the French. They don't want to be led any more from outside, to submit to laws [by outsiders]... The sovereign people have proclaimed loud and clear that they want to take back their destiny into their own hands... We must build another Europe; a Europe of free and sovereign nations and freely decided cooperation. Tonight is a massive rejection of European Union. If Germany has become the economic heart of Europe, through the incompetence and weakness of our leaders, then France has been and will be the political heart of Europe. What has happened in France signals what will happen in all Europe countries: the return of the nation. To all those French who voted for us, I say that the battle for the greatness of France should unite in the rediscovered love of our country..."
Well said and only the beginning of this. Nigel Farage of the UKIP (UK independence party) is one of my favorites as people everywhere are demanding an end to unaccountable government by and for socialists and bureaucrats. Check out these two CNBS interviews with Nigel:
Ms. Le Pen of France and Bippo Grillo of Italy is the tip of the spear of a larger movement of the disenfranchised in the Eurozone. The group is large and growing. The elites in Brussels and European capitals have totally dissed the results of the election and are proceeding with business as usual: unaccountable bureaucrats, government officials, and Crony capitalists removing freedom and self-determination from the European populace as quickly as possible. I will close this summary with a quote that sums it up rather well:
"The EU has come to symbolize authoritarianism, anonymity and undisguised condescension."
- Dominique Moïsi
...Of course you can say this about Washington DC as well.
The second major event was the Jackson Hole of the Eurozone. For those of you who aren't aware of Jackson Hole, it is a meeting of the foremost central bankers and monetary academics annually in August. It is strictly a KEYNESIAN AFFAIR and spotlights the latest trial balloons of the banksters and their academic intelligencia. Europe is having their version of it in Portugal. They all are dedicated to one thing: separating you from the wealth you have stored in their fiat currency and credit systems and transferring your wealth to themselves from any one of thousands of ways they have devised to do so. Fredric Bastiat described it exquisitely:
This quote summarizes the symbiotic and predatory nature of LEVIATHAN GOVERNMENT AND CENTRAL BANKING SYSTEMS. Both have slipped their bridles and their depredations are aimed directly at the people they claim to serve. They are robbing and enslaving us all in myriad ways. They are literally carving up yours and their futures to benefit those in charge today. Draghi emerged from Last weekend's meetings to announce a "pernicious negative spiral"... nice that he finally noticed after years of negative credit and economic growth to the private sector. But that actually was the idea of the euro, bring the governments and private sectors who gave up the printing press to their knees in exchange for nothingness.
In my last TedBits, I covered the Eurozone and its sorry state of affairs outlining how the private sector has been starved of credit for over two years. I just got the numbers for sovereign credit growth provided by several of the domestic banking sectors and it is stunning. In Spain, banks are holding $384 billion dollars' worth of sovereign debt, up 290% from pre-crisis levels. In Italy, banks have increased holdings by 240% to $563 Billion, and cross border lending to non-financial companies has basically stopped. To the banks, sovereign lending to their home countries is RISK FREE by law and regulators make sure domestic institutions must SALUTE. Of course it's worse than advertised as Governments slipped worthless IOUs into many pension accounts during the crisis just as the US does with Social Security, transportation and Medicare trust funds. The looting of the public's future knows no bounds for fiscally and morally bankrupt PUBLIC SERVANTS. These socialists have and are running out of other people's money, so more looting of the private sector looms.
In respect to the private sector, lending it is similarly bifurcated. As German bank lending to the private sector is alive and well while lending in the PIIGS has virtually ground to a halt. Why? Because over 10 years ago, the German economy was known as the sick man of Europe and German leaders swallowed hard and undertook wholesale labor and non-financial corporate market reform. They abolished the minimum wage, allowed hiring and firing according to economic conditions, restrained the Unions, and took on entrenched special interests to fix the economy for ALL GERMANS, not just the CONNECTED ones. Now there are good risks for banks and the availability of credit, and the rates they pay reflect it.
It is exactly what the public servants of the Eurozone at large refuses to do and thus the long road to economic growth is much farther away than when the crisis began. Look for an LTRO directed only at small and medium enterprises to emerge but be of limited effect without the CRITICAL policy changes similar to Germany's.
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My third and final subject is the Inclusive Capitalism conference in London. Thomas Picketty has set the progressive movements a twitter with his book about the destructiveness and unfairness of capitalism. It is widely hailed as the basis and justification of further confiscation of wealth and redistribution from the private sector. It was headlined by people such as Larry Summers, Christine Legarde of the IMF, Bill Clinton, Mark Carney of the Bank of England, Banksters, Main stream media, progressive academics, pundits and numerous high profile crony capitalists. In other words, the predators and socialists who game the system for themselves and against your interests and anyone who is not as connected as they are. Who is the sponsor of the conference you ask? None other than the Rothschilds! It is the group that Bastiat speaks of in his previous quote.
Well, it is clear they have run out of other people's money and are all patting themselves on the back and justifying the next round of takings for the good of the people and in the name of Fairness. The definition of fairness in the modern world is what the definition of SLAVERY used to be.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anyone who is familiar with SERFDOM in the Middle Ages knows today's version freedom of democracy is far worse. Serfs paid 25% of their income as taxes; in the developed world welfare states it is now approaching 50 to 80% (all types of taxes, fees, etc.) depending on the country. These people are not serving you; they are preying on you as a group. Please wake up. Keep voting them out whether they are from the left or the right. Think of them as the organized crime families: Gotti's and the Gambino's who fight turf wars known as elections to see whose special interests get the front row carving up the private sectors in their respective fiefdoms known as countries.
In closing, did you enjoy these brief vignettes? I could have written a dozen vignettes on other subjects about the events of this past week in my Daily Exercises section, and will include several over each week going forward on my new Blog: www.TedBits.com . They include: Unfolding late stage Currency and financial system extinction event in Venezuela and Argentina, The new Cap and Trade bill decreed by the EPA and executive branch BYPASSING congress, A constitutional crisis is in full roar in the US and NO ONE is reporting or noticing it, and The turning tides of Eurozone periphery debt markets and more.
Insanity reigns supreme throughout the developed world as elites scramble to preserve their systems which are malignant and unreformable. Unreformable because they REFUSE to consider reform of the welfare state and LEVIATHAN government with themselves at the wheels of power over others. In fact, the inclusive capitalism conference is just the SMOKE signal of the next leg of confiscation of freedom and property by the elites. Disguising and presenting their actions as virtuous to the useful idiots that their public school systems have created. Each day, I recommend readings to sharpen your understanding at Over Ty's Shoulder on the blog that you won't want to miss.
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