Since you mention it, I can't resist quoting Dean Baker again:

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been working hard to convince the world that it is not competent to act as central bank. One of the main responsibilities of a central bank is to act as the lender of last resort in a crisis. The ECB is insisting that it will not fill this role. It is arguing instead that it would sooner see the eurozone collapse than risk inflation exceeding its 2.0 percent target.

...

Of course this sort of intervention will look horrible from the standpoint of the eurozone countries. It will appear as though they cannot be trusted to manage their own central bank and deal with their own economic affairs.

Unfortunately, this is the case. They have entrusted the continent's most important economic institution to a group of ideological zealots who are infatuated by the sight of low inflation rates even as whole economies collapse in ruins and tens of millions of people needlessly go unemployed.

Fingers crossed, such short-term palliatives will prevent an explosion until Germany implements Plan A and figures out that it isn't working. But even in the best case, such an approach probably won't be enough to prevent a nasty recession. Meanwhile, there's the ever-present risk that a panic could trigger a chain reaction which even a Plan B would be unable to contain.

they are pushing for their optimum case scenario, where people are too intimidated to complain, and just suck it up, 'our leaders know more than we do, so must trust them'.

the riot cops will keep the hotheads either jailed or working for them to infiltrate peoples' legitimately peaceful movements for radical social change towards a more equitable society.

similar to a junkie with his thumb on the syringe plunger, they cannot see further than their immediate gratification and continued denial.

that, my bloggy friends, is the delusion they would have us all worship, on bended knees, grateful for their largesse in allowing us to exist at all, and daily daring us to do anything about it.

ultimately, their bad faith will doom them, just a question of time... they will have to reveal how democracy means zero to them, how force is all they know, if not effectively covertLy, then overtly, how retrogressive their ideas are, for the mass of people to fully understand what has happened to them, and quit extending the benefit of doubt to the pack of popinjays the PTB use to front their operations.

noting the contrast between the polite removal of the nuketrain protestors in fran-germany, and the casual pepperspraying in the USA is still remarkable. after fini's genova, and the growing discontent and violence around the continuation of the val de susa rail project, i hope it lasts. the unions in italy will not take the coming austerity lying down, and we know how the french mean business when they hit the streets.

what we have to go through to get to that day....gulp. it boggles the imagination. new territory, even if some contours of the geography seem shockingly familiar.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

Either their balance sheets, already ruined by Wall Street's fraudulent derivatives, cannot stand further losses or they fear the drop in their share prices from lowered earnings due to write-downs of bad sovereign debts.  In other words, for these banks big money is involved, which provides an enormous incentive to get the German government out of the way of their profit statements.

not to mention the run on the banks by the people! this impasse is the result of an immovable object (resisting inflation, a prussian honour hangover, ancient superiority complex, we know best, absolutely?) and an irresistible force, of constant yinyang flux, a water of dodgy capital ever seeking channels of profit, thoroughly self-referential, and as we see, even dementedly so.

i see petulant children upending the monopoly board, because they can't have it both ways, transparent democracy is in direct 180 degree opposition to the cloaked cabalism of the finance sector, just as open spirituality is pulling in the reverse direction than the similarly occluded machinations of purple eminences behind the vatican gates.

their reign of unreality is unwinding too as only the most backward countries are subscribing to their homophobia and judgmental intolerance of birth control.

old, rotten institutions crumbling under the weight of their own conniving ways, and a public eager to awaken from the gloomy worlds offered by the religion of money with its eminences grises, or the obscurely superstitious hocus pocus of the remnants of catholicism, scourge of europe for centuries, suppressing knowledge and denying women their due.

bad religion, or no religion? the world is waking up to the subterfuges used by the 1% to keep the rest keeping on keeping on, while they live in the lap of luxury.

all politics seems disingenuous, if ingenious distraction, unless and until it serves to accentuate and improve our pact of existence with our habitat, where presently it is divided at best, frankly suicidal at worst.

/rant


'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty