Europe's Fine Line of Deep Debt

Merkel's day of reckoning as taxpayer haircut on Greece looms ... Germany, Holland, and the creditor states of northern Europe have not lost a single cent on eurozone rescue packages, so far. Greece needs €100bn of debt forgiveness to get back on its feet, and a lot of this is coming Germany's way ... We are at last nearing the awful moment when the curtain is ripped away. Greece's economy has contracted 7pc over the last year. Public debt will spiral to 190pc of GDP in 2013. Leaving aside the Gothic horror of youth unemployment at 58pc, Greece's debt trajectory is simply out of control. The International Monetary Fund says the country cannot claw its way back to viability unless EU governments and bodies take their punishment. The Fund's Board and the powers behind it - the US, China, Japan, Brazil - will withdraw if the current farce goes on. Greece needs €100bn of debt forgiveness to get back on its feet, according to Barclays Capital. A lot of this is coming Germany's way. The creditor states can mask the damage for a while - siphoning off "frontloaded profits" on the ECB's holding off Greek bonds, and so on - but the overall sums are too large to cover up altogether. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: Europe's breakup is a challenge to the powers-that-be.

Free-Market Analysis: One of our favorite reporters, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, has written about the tenuous situation in which Germany's Angela Merkel finds herself. This article tends to support our larger analysis of Europe and the elites' "directed history" regarding the crisis now facing Europe.

What we have speculated is that in a sense the current "sovereign" crisis is a phony one – generated via what we call directed history. We didn't come to this conclusion lightly but by closely studying how economic crises unfold.

In the developing world, we noticed funds were regularly handed out (via the World Bank) to various corrupt government officials. These officials would then utilize the funds for their own purposes, eventually leaving their countries broke and in debt.

This same pattern holds true for Europe and its PIGS. In this case the World Bank was not specifically involved but hundreds of billions were lent to Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc. In retrospect, these seem like bribes to us. At the time, the money was justified as necessary because it would allow the PIGS to pay down debts and enter the EU as healthy countries from a financial point of view.

The political class was targeted. Having received vast amounts of money – and seemingly misappropriated it – PIGS politicians ensured that their countries would enter the Union nonetheless. The money that was wasted is not to be found now (not that anyone has made a determined effort to find it).

But those in the affected countries have a pretty good idea. The money that was supposed to be used to ensure fiscal solvency has evaporated, leaving behind only endless repercussions featuring sovereign bankruptcy and austerity.

It is a very cynical exercise, in our view, and one that threatens to backfire on the EU elites and their masters who are trying to create global governance and have intended for the EU to be a valuable steppingstone.

The larger issue, we've tended to believe, has to do with an intention not just to install a kind of regional empire ruling over Europe but to do so by making Europeans thoroughly miserable so that they won't put up a lot of resistance.

It is this latter point that Evans-Pritchard addresses in his article, as follows:

They have lent money, at a theoretical profit. They have issued a fistful of guarantees to Europe's twin bail-out funds, covering Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and soon Cyprus. They have taken on opaque and potentially huge liabilities through the European Central Bank.

Yet little has disturbed the illusion that the euro is a free lunch for the surplus powers. An assumption persists that the creditors will - and should - be spared the consequences of flooding Southern Europe with excess capital.

All the losses in Greece until now have been concentrated on those pension funds, insurers, and banks that stayed to the bitter end, rewarded with 75pc haircuts for their loyalty.

... Der Spiegel says the looming cost for Germany is over €17bn, enough to leave a big hole in the country's 2014 budget. A line item would have to be written into the finance bill.

Chancellor Angela Merkel would have to explain to critics on Left and Right in the Bundestag why her past assurances had come to nought, and why anybody should believe fresh assurances that Portugal is a safer bet. German taxpayers would at last discern - as some already suspect - that their elites have led them into a monetary Stalingrad.

Mrs Merkel was still trying to duck the ghastly implications of this last week. There will be no taxpayer losses, she insisted after a meeting with the French. "Of course we did not talk about debt haircuts: our view has not changed and nor should it."

This is the nub of the matter. We would suggest that the pushback to "austerity" and other misery inducing mechanisms is perhaps more sustained and focused than the top EU officials anticipated.

They expected these IMF-style measures would work as well in developed countries as developing ones. And it's true, they did expect pushback and ... chaos. (Out of chaos, order). But our working hypothesis is that what is occuring currently is providing even top elites with a lot of uncertainty. They want a crisis; they just don't want it to spin out of control.

We've pointed out in the past that one reason for placing the monetary union ahead of the political union was to ensure an economic crisis would drive a political solution. We didn't make up this devious strategy. EU officials from years ago are on record as suggesting this would be a necessary evolution. And yes, it has come to pass.

But if you read between the lines of the article by Evans-Pritchard, you'll see how little top EU officials want to reveal to the larger public. They are hoping, it seems (certainly Merkel is), that no one notices the full extent of what it is going to cost to ensure the EU and its banks stay solvent.

Merkel is trying not to give the game away, according to Evans-Pritchard. This only confirms what we have proposed many times – that what we call the Internet Reformation is making elite plans much more difficult to pursue.

Elites had counted on continued secrecy and confusion but easily available 'Net-based information has revealed their plans. The angrier people get, the more they likely go online to seek out information regarding their plight.

So when one talks of "sheeple" and their supposed lack of investigatory competence, one is making the assumption that such individuals will not attempt to further their understanding. We would tend to disagree. We think the plan to destabilize Europe and then to build an even stronger union that can support a global currency was developed during an era when no one visualized the Internet.

Conclusion: We think the ramifications of this unexpected development are far from played out ...