Green Shoots Nominee: Timo Soini And True Finns Party

Dan Hannan waxes eloquent about friend Timo Soini, leader of the True Finns, who recently told Europe to take a hike, refusing to bail out its reckless bankers with their taxes.


DanHan refers to Soini's WSJ editorial, which is a cheerful explanation of the pernicious practices that occur when bankers and politicians get together to perform a gang-rape on the citizenry.

When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the bailouts of euro-zone member states. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. Unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body.

To understand the real nature and purpose of the bailouts, we first have to understand who really benefits from them.

At the risk of being accused of populism, we'll begin with the obvious: It is not the little guy who benefits. He is being milked and lied to in order to keep the insolvent system running. He is paid less and taxed more to provide the money needed to keep this Ponzi scheme going. Meanwhile, a symbiosis has developed between politicians and banks: Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.

In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Instead of accepting losses on unsound investments—which would have led to the probable collapse of some banks—it was decided to transfer the losses to taxpayers via loans, guarantees and opaque constructs such as the European Financial Stability Fund.

In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Soini understands, and states, the obvious. Why won't our politicians do likewise?

Further, he notes:

This is not just about economics. People feel betrayed. In Ireland, the incoming parties to the new government promised to hold senior bondholders responsible, but under pressure they succumbed, leaving their voters with a sense of disenfranchisement. The elites in Brussels have said that Finland must honor its commitments to its European partners, but Brussels is silent on whether national politicians should honor their commitments to their own voters.

This is not just about economics.

Green Shoots nomination for Timo, ya'll. He gets it. Here's hoping Finland ends up being the real-life Mouse That Roared. All it take for a Ponzi scheme to collapse is for one of the victims to scream bloody murder and refuse to play. After that, it's just a matter of time.