Austerity

Youth Without Hope: 60% Unemployment

"Greece has a 60% unemployment rate for people in the 18-25 age bracket. Think of this. This is a generation that is unlikely ever to save their career plans out of the recession that has overtaken Greece and is getting worse. It will mar them for the rest of their lives. The experts said this was impossible in 2007. The bankers in northern Europe believed the hype. They lent money to Greece’s government and businesses. Now they need bailouts from the European Union — the government — and the central bank, and the IMF. They care nothing about Greece. They just want someone to pay interest on their loans. They are getting what they ask for. Greece isn’t." Continue reading →

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Editorial-Page Fiction at the New York Times

"They want us to believe that 'slashed' budgets and inadequate spending have caused 'worse health outcomes' in nations such as Greece, Italy, and Spain, particularly when compared to Germany, Iceland, and Spain. But if government spending is the key to good health, how do they explain away this OECD data, which shows that government is actually bigger in the three supposed 'austerity' nations than it is in the three so-called 'stimulus' countries." Continue reading →

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Stodgy Netherlands is nation that’ll blow up euro

"Consumer debt in the Netherlands has hit 250% of available income, one of the highest levels in the world. In Spain, by comparison, it has never gone above 125%. The Netherlands has turned into one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world. It has slumped into recession and shows very little sign of coming out of it. The euro crisis has been dragging on for three years now but so far has only infected the peripheral nations within the single currency. But the Netherlands is a core member of both the euro and the European Union. If it can’t survive in the euro zone, then the game really will be up." Continue reading →

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Draghi Says ECB Ready For Negative Interest Rates If Needed

"European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policy makers are ready to cut interest rates again if needed after reducing them to a record low last week. The euro fell half a cent on the comment to $1.3057 and European stocks pared losses. The Frankfurt-based ECB on May 2 cut its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 0.5 percent, and Draghi said then that officials have an 'open mind' about taking the deposit rate, currently at zero, into negative territory." Continue reading →

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Gold to play major role in Italy economic recovery

"According to a WGC survey, only 4% of citizens and business leaders would support the sale of Italy's gold reserves, while 52% of citizens and 61% of business leaders would endorse using, but not selling, national gold reserves. The study revealed that Italian business leaders (92%) and citizens (85%) overwhelmingly agree that the nation's gold reserves have an important and positive role to play in the country's economic recovery." Continue reading →

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Globalist Euro Disaster: Euro Founder Endorses Bust-Up

"Lafontaine like other Eurocrats knew full well what he was doing when he helped inflict this monstrous mess. The result has been of late bloodshed, massive unemployment, the ruin of whole families, the disruption of the hopes and dreams of literally hundreds of millions. Europe lies in ruins with no near-term hope of recovery and European cultures and prosperity are being flattened by this damnable Euro dreadnaught. Only one thing is 'up' in Europe these days it sometimes seems. And that is suicides. And Lafontaine is sorry. And he has changed his mind." Continue reading →

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Spain: This Is What A Permanent Underclass Looks Like

"Spain is in a great depression, and it is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. Five years after its housing boom turned to bust, Spanish unemployment hit a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. It's almost too horrible to comprehend, but 19.5 percent of the total workforce has not had a job in the past six months; 15.3 percent have not in the past year; and 9.2 percent have not in the past two years. You can see this 1930s-style catastrophe in the chart below from the National Statistics Institute." Continue reading →

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The Cyprus Depositor Haircut

"The manager told him not to worry, saying the deposit insurance was per account, not per person. She added: ‘We just put your name on the account so your wife wouldn’t take money out without your consent.’ Remembering that in the 1980s his British building society had played down the risks of taking out an endowment mortgage, Demetriou asked if they were 100 per cent sure. He was told they were. The advice was 100 per cent wrong. The deposit insurance is per person, not per account. Soon afterwards, the banks closed for more than a week, and when they reopened, he’d been stripped of 44 per cent of his savings." Continue reading →

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Expat exodus from Spain as new tax law takes effect

"New Spanish tax laws affecting an estimated 200,000 British expats, have sparked panic, prompting some to leave the country or hand in their residence cards at town halls before today's deadline (30 April), fearing a Cyprus-style money grab. Opponents, including Spanish politicians, have branded the new asset declaration law discriminatory, and fear an exodus of EU residents from the fragile economies of the coastal towns. The Spanish government requires that any resident with an overseas asset worth more than €50,000 and who lives in Spain at least six months (183 days) of the year is affected – and must declare what they own abroad." Continue reading →

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