Tag Archives: The Financial Crisis

This Still Doesn’t Beat Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

October 13, 2012 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

But it comes close.

Many euroskeptics clearly just don’t get it. Of course the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union is “beyond parody,” “laughable” and an “April Fool’s Joke.” That’s been the whole point of the thing for years now.

Hasn’t it?

In Britain, Friday’s award has been the subject of particularly heated commentary. Iain Martin, a columnist with the conservative Daily Telegraph dismissed the prize as “beyond parody.” He writes that the prize has been awarded prematurely because “we have no idea how the experiment to create an anti-democratic federation will end.” Besides, he writes, “daftest of all is the notion that the EU itself has kept the peace.” Instead, he writes, it was the Brits and the Americans who brought peace to the Continent.

Even the EU-friendly Economist columnist Charlemagne writes, “Hmmm,” questioning the timing of the award, given that the EU is currently threatened with a break-up.

Friedman’s Prophecy

August 13, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I don’t believe in prophets. I’m very skeptical when it comes to economists of all flavors, too.

But when looking around at what’s going on here in Europe these days and considering how even the Spiegel itself now warns us about investors preparing for the euro collapse, I can’t help but wonder if Milton Friedman didn’t have a functioning crystal ball after all.

“There is no historical precedent for such an arrangement (the euro). It involves each country’s giving up power over its internal monetary policy to an entity not under its political control. Such a system has economic advantages and disadvantages, but I believe that its real Achilles heel will prove to be political; that a system under which the political and currency boundaries do not match is bound to prove unstable.”

I Know, I’ll Blame The Banks!

July 22, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In a brilliant and risky move never yet attempted by a left-wing politician ever before, SPD boss Sigmar Gabriel has boldly proposed to improve his parties chances at next year’s federal election by “blaming the banks” for everything that has gone wrong in the financial sector and elsewhere.

“Mind-blowing,” one German political commentator said. “No one has been able to put these complex puzzle pieces together like this up until now. But by calling the banks extortionists, accomplices to tax evasion, hustlers and manipulators, Gabriel develops a subtle analysis of a highly complicated theme, thus making it easily accessible to the man on the street.”

“Die versammelte Linke in Deutschland betrügt sich selbst und betrügt die Bürger, wenn sie einerseits die Krise mit immer neuen Schulden bekämpfen will – und dadurch die Abhängigkeit von den Banken und Finanzinstituten erhöht, die man andererseits blindwütig an den Pranger stellt.”

“The entire left tricks itself and the citizens when, on the one hand, it calls to fight the crisis with ever more debt – thus making us even more dependent upon the banks and financial institutions – and then, on the other, mindlessly blaming them for everything.”

Are We Having A European Lifestyle Yet?

June 26, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Is this the end of “the European way of life” as we know it?

European leaders have been muddling through instead of properly tackling the debt crisis. Now it threatens the very foundations of the European Union and could destroy a lifestyle that millions of Europeans take for granted.

Funny. I thought taking things for granted was what the European lifestyle was all about.

“We need fiscal discipline because we have a debt problem… No euro bonds as long as I live.”

Our Debt Still Doesn’t Stink

June 25, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

German government debt keeps climbing relentlessly higher and reached an all-time high during the first three months of this year. The federal, state and local governments then reached a debt to the tune of 2 trillion euros.

That was 2.1 percent or 42.3 billion euros higher (deeper?) than  in the previous year’s quarter, reported the Federal Office of Statistics in Wiesbaden on Monday.

Now if only Greece and Co. could learn to control their government spending like the Germans do. Oh, wait. They already have. Or do. Or whatever.

Deutschlands Staatsschulden auf Rekordhoch gestiegen

German Tourists Avoiding Greece This Year For Some Reason

April 25, 2012 By in Hate, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

German tourists may gladly zip off to some of the most dangerous places on earth you can imagine, but not even they are crazy enough to be heading down to Greece any time soon.

“The Germans aren’t coming here this year but there’s no reason for them to be afraid,” one Greek guy said. “Honest,” he should have added.

“We don’t have a problem with the German people, only their government,” another guy added, who forgot to say “Really.”

“That’s just the way Germans are: if there’s trouble in some country, then Germans just don’t go there on their holidays.”

Thanks But No Thanks

February 29, 2012 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Undank ist der Welten Lohn (nothing is so hard as man’s ingratitude).

What were you expecting, Germany? The Greeks have politely but firmly said no to a recent offer made by 160 German tax collectors who were ready, willing and able to fly down to Greece and help their Greek tax collector buddies gather Greek taxes in a more efficient and Teutonic-like manner.

The Greeks may be broke, but they’re not crazy. Not even Germans can stand German tax collectors

Als Begründung müssen die “hart arbeitenden griechischen Beamten” herhalten.

Colonization From Outer Space Denied

November 8, 2011 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Although the Obama administration has taken the time and effort to officially announce that the US government currently has no credible evidence backing up the claim that aliens have secretly colonized our planet, other sources point to a secret economic colonization of Europe now taking place by Germans, like currently already, as we speak so to speak.

These sources say: What we are witnessing is the economic colonisation of Europe by stealth by the Germans.

Once, it would have taken an invading military force to topple the leadership of a European nation. Today, it can be done through sheer economic pressure: it might be that within a few days the Germans — along with their French allies — will have secured regime change in the two most tiresome countries in the eurozone (Greece and Italy).

Perhaps the Germans, as the new masters of Europe, have been lulled into a false sense of security by Ireland’s response to the savage austerity measures imposed upon it in return for its bailout.

But there’s more: “Opinion polls now indicate more than 50% of the American people believe there is an alien-like German presence secretly taking over Europe and more than 80% believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can handle the truth.”

So stay tuned or something.

American Dream Dying In German Publication For 4387th Time

October 30, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

This just in from Hamburg: The US has entered a second Gilded Age, but one in which hedge fund managers have replaced oil barons — and it is killing the American Dream.

And not even the 99 percent (nor Triumph, their Insult Comic Dog) can do anything about it.

Here are a few of the article’s more fascinating, never-yet-revealed-before mysteries behind America’s unsolved perpetual decline and fall:

“We are the 99 percent” is a development that has shaken the world’s most powerful nation to its core (and here I thought it had been the subway line underneath our street).

Inequality in America is greater than it has been in almost a century (wow, I had no idea that inequality was that much worse now than it had been back in 1911, had you?).

Wealth disparity is greater in the US than in Tunisia or Egypt (but our disparity has a much longer democratic tradition or something).

The major economic expansion under President Ronald Reagan benefited only a few, and the problem only grew worse under George W. Bush (but those Clinton and Obama years really rocked though/still rock, don’t they?).

Although the productivity of the US economy has increased considerably since the beginning of the millennium (despite everything having grown worse under George W. Bush?) , most Americans haven’t benefited from it.

The United States has developed into a winner-take-all economy (can they take all our debts with them while they’re at it?).

The extreme deregulation of today’s financial and economic system makes it impossible for individuals’ self-serving behavior to ultimately contribute to the prosperity of society as a whole (that Adam Smith was like such a dolt).

Differences between rich and poor are tolerated as long as the rags-to-riches story of the dishwasher-turned-millionaire remains theoretically possible (so if it stays practically possible toleration time is over or what?).

“In the first Gilded Age, the streets were flooded with protest movements.” Manhattan hasn’t yet quite reached that point.

Has America become an oligarchy!?!