Unless there is a major political shift. which will require a bigger crisis. Which is basically what I've said for the past 2 years, sadly. Which is also why I've been writing so little lately (beyond the fact that I'm quite busy at work): there's little we can do but wait for the next crisis. And the longer we have deflationist policies, the more I think the only think that will make a difference is that the pain is bad enough that you have riots big enough to scare the elites.
We're still quite far from that, thankfully or unfortunately (depending on your point of view and your preference for the short/medium term and the (very) long term). Wind power
there's little we can do but wait for the next crisis. And the longer we have deflationist policies, the more I think the only think that will make a difference is that the pain is bad enough that you have riots big enough to scare the elites.
I shudder to realize we've (once again?) entered a time where one would write a sentence like that. Would even need to write so. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
'68-type is very possible in Europe: protest, mass demos, vandalism against wealth, even casualties. But we don't have the guns for a '79. We do, however, have video-equipped phones.
I've just been checking out some concepts where any event can be cubist-recorded by pre-registering mobile phones and then providing multiple streaming feeds to a web aggregator. i.e. 'if you are watching us, we'll watch you'. SMS can be used to communicate between 'cameras' and 'directors'. You can't be me, I'm taken
We do, however, have video-equipped phones.
but they can shut down cell towers if they dare, didn't they in burma?
i guess you can still shoot pix and use the web to disseminate. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
perhaps we will imitate the behaviour of teenagers who run out of credit on their mobiles : take a photo of a hand-written message and send it across the room by bluetooth. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
I'll settle for inflation, thank you very much. By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
but it's too late now, isn't it?
The poor is the default answer right now, and it's certainly the one pushed by markets (for which people and society are a cost and nothing else).
Germany does not ask that the cost be borne by the poor, it only asks that it be borne. Wind power
It's called strategic sovereign default.
But that's not what Germany is calling for.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I think the Spanish and French are more worried about what a sovereign default would mean for the cost of their own debt... Wind power
And the longer we have deflationist policies, the more I think the only think that will make a difference is that the pain is bad enough that you have riots big enough to scare the elites.
The last time that happened, Europe engaged in a quite spectacular act of human and industrial self-immolation, resulting in between one and two hundred million dead people and wiping most of our industrial capacity from the face of the planet.
Of course, it did result in a debt restructuring, because most European countries had to change, devalue or inflate their currency afterwards...
Can we please skip directly to the debt restructuring this time and bypass the part where we kill two hundred million people?
What am I missing? Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
But we know what led to WWII and the Holocaust: the Treaty of Versailles. And the german hyperinflation was the only way to try to contain the deflationary pressure from all the mechanisms set up to suck wealth out of Germany. By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
But the German hyper-inflation happened nearly a decade before the end of Weimar, and was over well before the rise of the Nazi party. Not so simple as that.
Anyhow, I hardly see how any people can blame a monstrosity such as the Shoah on inflation they suffered 15 years before they starting gassing their victims. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
So the Weimar Republic collapsed because it would not torture. Ho hum. Wikipedia: Paul von HindenburgIt was Schleicher who came up with the idea of "Presidential government" based on the so-called "25/48/53 formula". "Presidential governments" were governments in which the Chancellor owed his office to the confidence solely of the President rather the Reichstag. The "25/48/53 formula" referred to the three articles of the Constitution that made "Presidential government" possible. Article 25 allowed the President to dissolve the Reichstag. Article 48 allowed the President to sign into law emergency bills without the consent of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag could cancel any law passed by Article 48 by an simple majority within sixty days of its passage. Article 53 allowed the President to appoint the Chancellor. Schleicher's idea was to have Hindenburg appoint an man of Schleicher's choosing as Chancellor, have him rule via Article 48 and to have Hindenburg threaten to use Article 25 should the Reichstag vote to annul any laws passed under Article 48. Schleicher's intention was to gradually undermine democracy legally via "Presidential government" and ultimately create an authoritarian government. "Presidential governments" were legal within an strictly legalistic interpretation of the Constitution, but clearly violated its spirit. Hindenburg was not enthusiastic about these plans, but was pressured into going along with them by his son, Meissner, Groener and Schleicher. The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in 1926-1927, but had foundered by the unwillingness of any of the leading German politicians to go along with the scheme. During the winter of 1929-1930, Schleicher had more success. The legalistic subversion of the constitutional system of the Weimar republic started in 1926, got well under way after 1929, and culminated in the Gleichschaltung of 1933-34. It is one of those historical ironies that Scheleicher was outmanoeuvered by von Pappen and Hitler in 1932, and assasinated during the night of long knives of 1934. By contrast with the violent elimination of political opposition as early as 1934, the antisemitic pogrom of Kristallnacht happened only in 1938, and the "final solution" was hammered out in 1942 at Wannsee. All this was possible because, at each stage, ordinary Germans could convince themselves that it wouldn't get any worse.
Wikipedia: Paul von Hindenburg
It was Schleicher who came up with the idea of "Presidential government" based on the so-called "25/48/53 formula". "Presidential governments" were governments in which the Chancellor owed his office to the confidence solely of the President rather the Reichstag. The "25/48/53 formula" referred to the three articles of the Constitution that made "Presidential government" possible. Article 25 allowed the President to dissolve the Reichstag. Article 48 allowed the President to sign into law emergency bills without the consent of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag could cancel any law passed by Article 48 by an simple majority within sixty days of its passage. Article 53 allowed the President to appoint the Chancellor. Schleicher's idea was to have Hindenburg appoint an man of Schleicher's choosing as Chancellor, have him rule via Article 48 and to have Hindenburg threaten to use Article 25 should the Reichstag vote to annul any laws passed under Article 48. Schleicher's intention was to gradually undermine democracy legally via "Presidential government" and ultimately create an authoritarian government. "Presidential governments" were legal within an strictly legalistic interpretation of the Constitution, but clearly violated its spirit. Hindenburg was not enthusiastic about these plans, but was pressured into going along with them by his son, Meissner, Groener and Schleicher. The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in 1926-1927, but had foundered by the unwillingness of any of the leading German politicians to go along with the scheme. During the winter of 1929-1930, Schleicher had more success.
The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in 1926-1927, but had foundered by the unwillingness of any of the leading German politicians to go along with the scheme. During the winter of 1929-1930, Schleicher had more success.
By contrast with the violent elimination of political opposition as early as 1934, the antisemitic pogrom of Kristallnacht happened only in 1938, and the "final solution" was hammered out in 1942 at Wannsee.
All this was possible because, at each stage, ordinary Germans could convince themselves that it wouldn't get any worse.
Anyhow, I hardly see how any people can blame a monstrosity such as the Shoah on inflation they suffered 15 years before they starting gassing their victims.
That's a very incendiary statement, not to mention false. it's one thing to surmise that hyper-inflation was a pre-condition of WWII, quite another to think any Germans think inflation caused "gassing their victims."
I can't point to a modern society who has done more to atone for their transgressions than Germany. (Leaving out discussing the role of most citizens in causing the holocaust.) I walk out the door of my house and there are brass markers embedded in the sidewalks with the name of the Jews who lived there before before being carted off to the gashouse. A reminder for repentant people?
Care to discuss unrepentant Euro-amurkan genocide? The difference between gassing and passing out smallpox blankets? The almost total decimation of the buffalo herd so there was nothing to eat and make life's essentials from, or your beloved Minnesotans attacks on villages not at war.
What a cheap frickin' shot, chief redstar.
I sentence you to 10 days without food, walking blindfolded through the Shoah memorial stones in Berlin. Then you can eat for three days, before you embark on just a few retraces of the various Trail of Tears marches.
Bring me even 5% of Germans who are not unrepentant of their grandparents and great grandparents actions, and even 1% who blame inflation, and i'll simply rip up your house owning treaty and throw you onto a reserve. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Anyhow, I hardly see how any people can blame a monstrosity such as the Shoah on inflation they suffered 15 years before they starting gassing their victims. That's a very incendiary statement, not to mention false. it's one thing to surmise that hyper-inflation was a pre-condition of WWII, quite another to think any Germans think inflation caused "gassing their victims."
Jerome a Paris:
Germans think that inflation led to WW2 and the holocaust.
And i don't wish to hijack this amazing thread. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Germany is definitely calling the shots.
As the Eurozone economy underperforms the rest of the world yet again (as in the first half of the '90's when the Bundesbank imposed high interest rates on the rest of us to finance ost-mark parity and re-building of the East- as well as politically corrupt and illegal funding of centrist politicians in France) we'll know, yet again, who is responsible. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
European Tribune - Spiegel's Euro Delirium Tremens
Article 123 (ex Article 101 TEC) Overdraft facilities or any other type of credit facility with the European Central Bank or with the central banks of the Member States (hereinafter referred to as "national central banks") in favour of Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies, central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of Member States shall be prohibited, as shall the purchase directly from them by the European Central Bank or national central banks of debt instruments. Paragraph 1 shall not apply to publicly owned credit institutions which, in the context of the supply of reserves by central banks, shall be given the same treatment by national central banks and the European Central Bank as private credit institutions.
Any complete explanation for European fascism has to account for Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Petain, Ford and the assorted nasty creeps that slithered out of the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Versailles and Trianon treaties were part of that, of course, but unlikely to be the whole story.
Which is not to say that the Versailles treaty may not have been the cause of the German hyperinflation...
Do please ignore the systematic demonisation of Muslims, please.
