2012-02-26

The Rise of the Fascist European Union

Since the markets topped back in 2007-2008, democracy has been losing ground everywhere in the Western world, but in Europe it's been probably worse than anywhere else.

Don't get me wrong, the most fascist country for now is the US, and they have been on the track since the late 1990s. But the US fascists have followed the the rule of law: law makers and government officials have embraced those ideas, and voted them through, and the Supreme Court has been basically shut down. In Europe, it's lawlessness and lies that are bringing the fascist ideas and actions, in complete disregard of the rule of law and democracy.

Here's a short list of the illegal and anti-democratic actions so far:
  • Ireland: Irish people forced to bailout the European banks
  • Greece: Prime Minister, democratically elected replaced by a non-elected Prime Minister
  • Italy: Mario Monti, non-elected technocrat replaced the democratically elected Berlusconi as Prime Minister.
  • ECB: buying sovereign bonds in complete illegality
Well, things have made another nasty and dangerous turn with the new "Greek Bailout" plan, which is nothing but a bailout of the French and German banks who are creditors to Greece, and a complete pillage of Greece:

Eurogroup Statement of conditions placed on Greece:
The Eurogroup also welcomes Greece's intention to put in place a mechanism that allows better tracing and monitoring of the official borrowing and internally-generated funds destined to service Greece's debt by, under monitoring of the troika, paying an amount corresponding to the coming quarter's debt service directly to a segregated account of Greece's paying agent.

Finally, the Eurogroup in this context welcomes the intention of the Greek authorities to introduce over the next two months in the Greek legal framework a provision ensuring that priority is granted to debt servicing payments. This provision will be introduced in the Greek constitution as soon as possible. ....

 And
In the fine print of the 400-plus-page document — which Parliament members had a weekend to read and sign — Greece relinquished fundamental parts of its sovereignty to its foreign lenders, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

This is the first time ever that a European and probably an O.E.C.D. state abdicates its rights of immunity over all its assets to its lenders,” said Louka Katseli, an independent member of Parliament who previously represented the Socialist Party, using the abbreviation for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She was one of several independents who joined 43 lawmakers from the two largest parties in voting against the loan agreement.

Ms. Katseli, an economist who was labor minister in the government of George Papandreou until she left in a cabinet reshuffle last June, was also upset that Greece’s lenders will have the right to seize the gold reserves in the Bank of Greece under the terms of the new deal, and that future bonds issued will be governed by English law and in Luxembourg courts, conditions more favorable to creditors.
In the meantime, the UE officials are still asking for more lawlessness:
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank should participate in efforts to reduce Greece’s debt, said Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro- area finance ministers.

“The ECB must look, within the framework of its independence, what sort of contribution it can make to the debt reduction of Greece,” Juncker told reporters in Brussels today. “I hope it will find something.”
And the ECB is obliging — see also Japan and the Myth of Independent Central Banks:
Draghi’s $158 Billion Free Lunch to Boost EU Bank Profits 
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Banks are benefiting from a European Central Bank subsidy that could reach 120 billion euros ($158 billion), enough to pay every bonus at financial firms in London for the next 24 years at today’s levels
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA are among more than 500 banks that took 489 billion euros of three-year loans from the Frankfurt-based ECB at a December auction. The loans currently carry a 1 percent annual interest rate, less than a quarter of the 4.3 percent average yield on euro-denominated senior unsecured bank debt of all maturities in the past year, according to Commerzbank AG. 
With borrowing estimated to hit a record 1.2 trillion euros after a second auction later this month, banks may save 120 billion euros over three years. That could boost 2012 profit by about 10 percent for lenders in Italy and Spain, according to estimates by Morgan Stanley.  
This is very much a free lunch,” said Arnd Schaefer, an economist at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf, Germany. “Banks can get money for just 1 percent and then lend it on for much more. That’s pretty good.”          
There's much more in the report, so you can read it in it's entirety if you're interested in what the ECB is doing.

And also, this other report about the ECB changing the rules of bond, creating subordinate versus senior level bonds on the very same instrument, depending on who is holding it:
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank’s plan to shield its Greek bond holdings from a restructuring may hurt private investors while paving the way for debt insurance contracts to be triggered.

The ECB will exchange its Greek debt for new bonds with an identical structure and nominal value, though they’ll be exempt from so-called collective action clauses the government is reportedly planning. That implies senior status for the ECB over other investors, according to UBS AG, and the use of CACs may lead to credit-default swaps protecting $3.2 billion of Greek bonds being tripped.

“It may appear that the ECB is receiving preferential treatment, raising questions about whether the ECB is senior to private-sector bondholders,” according to Chris Walker, a foreign exchange strategist at UBS, the world’s third-biggest currency trader. “If a coercive default does indeed eventually take place then a CDS event seems very likely with all the negative consequences for risk appetite that may bring.” 

2 comments:

theyenguy said...

Many steps towards a One Euro Government have already be taken, ie the August 2011 Merkel Sarkozy Comminique for a true European Economic Government, the Fiscal Compact with its Golden Rule of Debt Brakes, the subordination of sovereign debt to the ECB by executive fiat, and the regionalization of European Fianancial Institutions into the ECB via LTRO 1 and 2.

Insolvent financial institutions, and insolvent nations cannot sustain growth or profitable investing. By God’s Sovereign Will, Ephesians, 3:1-11, a United States of Europe, that is a Federal Europe, will emerge out of financial armageddon, that is a credit bust and global financial collapse, to provide security, stability and ongoing regional economic sustainability. The Eurozone region will be one of ten such regions foretold in bible prophecy of Daniel 2:31-33.

This truth is discernable only to those who have heard the Morpheus Proposal and have taken the red pill. Or pehaps better said have been force fed the Red Pill and by fate's design have come to know the truth.

pej said...

Nice one theyenguy. As you've seen on the top of my blog, we're precisely talking about that red pill :-)