'Spain Is Not Greece'...Broke Is Broke Is Broke Is Broke

Ian Martin of the Sunday Telegraph shares the contents of an email now circulating amongst traders.

We hear reassurances from ThePeopleInChargeOfSuchThings they have everything under control, that Spain and Greece, each with unemployment rates approaching twenty-five percent, are just fine nothing to see here move on and watch your football matches.

Italy? No Problem! We just installed our own guy there to run things for us.

Ireland? No Problem! We just stripped the country of its political and economic freedoms.

Portugal? Who Cares? It's just Portugal!

Just as a reminder of how these assurances ring increasingly hollow, the email offers this litany.

1. “Spain is not Greece.” (Elena Salgado, Spanish Finance minister, Feb. 2010.)
2. “Portugal is not Greece.” (The Economist, 22nd April 2010.)
3. “Ireland is not in ‘Greek territory.’” (Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.)
4. “Greece is not Ireland.” (George Papaconstantinou, Greek Finance minister, 8th November, 2010.)
5. “Spain is neither Ireland nor Portugal.” (Elena Salgado, Spanish Finance minister, 16 November 2010.)
6. “Neither Spain nor Portugal is Ireland.” (Angel Gurria, Secretary-general OECD, 18th November, 2010.)
7. "Spain is not Uganda" (Spanish PM, Rajoy to Luis de Guindos, economy minister… last weekend.)
8. "Italy is not Spain" (Ed Parker, Fitch MD, 12 June 2012.)

Hmmmm.....but they are allllll broke, because they alllll decided to run welfare states on borrowed money, and supported housing bubbles, and bail out the bankers when it all goes sour.

It really doesn't matter who they aren't. It does matter who they are, and whether the United States plans to follow in their footsteps.

Bill Bonner On The Federal Government's Active Role In Shrinking The Wealth Of The American Family

Complete with the Quote of the Week:

Haven't they done enough already?

There's a sort of cold comfort in this article for OS, because for the past twenty years or so, he has felt like he and his family have had to run at full tilt just to tread slowly into a semi-comfortable and dignified existence. It is a modest life, for which he is deeply grateful, so please--this is not a whine or a pity party. But at times, he thought, 'What's wrong with me? I'm working so hard and making so little progress.' Maybe, OS sez to himself, it wasn't all about you after all.

At the same time, OS always has had the sneaking suspicion that things were not, well, exactly healthy, even as the suburbs and shopping malls sprang up around the every major city in the heartland. Actually, we're at the point that it is hard to tell if one is in the suburbs of Dayton, Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham....it's all depressingly the same, with different weather in each location.

It was smoke and mirrors, and when things hit the wall, the Gubbermint came to the rescue of the people who had created TheGreatBubble, and stuck the rest of us with the bill. It may take decades to repair the damage, assuming we begin acting sanely this week.

The choice between Obama and Romney is quite disheartening. A vote for Obama is not possible. So, OS plans to vote for Romney, and donate to and work for state house and Congressional candidates that make Paul Ryan look like a girly-man. Someone has got to stand up a loud 'Hell-No', and it that Someone needs to be a comfortable majority of both House and Senate, and in every state and county legislative body in the country.

In the meantime, OS is tending his garden...

 

Pastor Peters Propounds Positively Pursuant To That Old Precious Word: 'NO'

One of Mel Brooks' more inspired films was 'Silent Movie'--not one of his blockbuster pics, by any means, but inspired. One of the great scenes involves the great French mime Marcel Marceau, who, bless him, broke out of his mime role for one magical moment and intoned the word 'NO'. It's the one word spoken in the movie, and it was a moment of genius. Completely unexpected, shocking even, to emerge from the lips of that most famous of all mimes. Brooks, as always, was jabbing the culture in the ribs. We never expect to hear that word, assuming always that whatever we desire should be met with 'YES' instead.

Fast forward almost forty years, to a Lutheran pastor in a Tennessee parish, who takes up the subject again. As always, erudite and reasoned, Pastor Peter shares with us all why 'NO' is such a crucial word, one the culture desperately needs to hear:

It seems that the Church is the lone voice speaking to the culture that "no" is not only within our vocabulary but it is the wisest and most positive path you can take in so many instances. Saying "no" is not all the Church says but it is the beginning of the conversation. You cannot begin to speak of the benefits or morality of self-denial until first you admit that saying no to self is itself a virtue. The Church begins with the proposition that saying no is not only possible but it is beneficial to us and to our culture. Indeed, the rule of desire is not freedom at all but the worst of all possible prisons.

That last line is especially pithy, is it not? 'The rule of desire is not freedom at all...' This idea stands in direct contravention to the entire present culture, which in OS's humble opinion, has turned openly pagan. It worships what it creates, consumes, manipulates, and assumes that this is all the life there is to live--so let's go for the gusto, ya'll!

Pastor Peter's citations of St. Paul ring loudly these days, words written to people living in another pagan culture, long ago and far away.

Now, if some enterprising publisher could only coax a book out of Pastor Peters...

Now, If We Could Manage To Extradite Jon Corzine To Iceland

Damn!  These Icelanders actually sent two banksters to prison!  Man-bites-dog-alert!

Really, ya'll, think it over. The United States has seen its wealth and culture decimated by a series of massive bank frauds. Apart from Bernie Madoff, who turned himself in, no one has been indicted, or prosecuted, or seen a day of jail time. Most of the perpetrators of the crime are still in their jobs, or jobs similar, in both finance and government.

So, OS, ever the innovator, has a proposal:

Let's lease Iceland. 

 
Not the real estate, mind you, but its prosecutors and courts, economists and political leadership. They told Europe and its death-dealing Euro to stick it where the sun don't shine, returned to their own currency, and began prosecuting the fraudsters (after kicking the previous regime of politicians to the curb for their complicity in turning their country into a giant hedge fund). Their economy is recovering, because they made a decision to save their cultural soul and make the economy the servant of the culture, not the master.

So, knowing that, let's make a deal: We grant the Icelandic courts and prosecutors jurisdiction to prosecute financial fraud in the United States, wherever they find it. A bounty system, if you would. The more they recover, the more they get to keep. They indict, we extradite. They convict and house the banksters (for loooong sentences) in cold and uncomfortable cells up on the eastern shore, where the cold winds blow from the Baltic. The banksters get to learn how to grow their own food, fish for their protein from small open boats with limited fuel and no life jackets, and are not allowed in the vicinity of any electronic device apart from a transistor radio tuned to the local station. We pay Iceland handsomely for their services, so they can make a tidy profit for doing what our own systems of justice and politics seem incapable of. Think of it as a frozen version of Club Gitmo, only the inmates have verifiable identities and are serving defined sentences for actual convictions.

After Corzine and about one hundred others are actually seen serving sentences in the Icelandic pokey, OS predicts a new sobriety may overtake both bankers and politicians. A chill new wind would blow down both Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Think about it, ya'll. It would cost a lot less than the price we've paid to date, and help Iceland as they poke a stick in the eye of EuroLand.