” . . . Other fields of activities for the group [Nazi government in exile–fuehringsring] were. . . . the initiation of conspiracies in foreign countries on behalf of German industrial cartels. . . .” ( “Nazi Circular Letter of 1950 [Madrid], quoted in The New Germany and the Old Nazis [1] by T.H. Tetens.)
“Imagine for a moment that two decades ago, a newly unified Germany set out to take over the European Continent, as the previous unified Germany had tried and failed to do half a century earlier. This time it would use money, not guns, to accomplish the goal. . . ” (“As Europe’s Currency Union Frays, Conspiracy Theories Fly [2]” by Floyd Norris; The New York Times; 06/15/2011.)
“ ‘Germany is our fatherland; Europe is our future,’ [German Chancellor Helmut] Mr. Kohl told the German Parliament. . . .” (“Kohl Says Monetary Line Aids Unity [3]” by Craig R. Whitney; The New York Times; 9/26/1992.)
“. . . The Germans have a clear plan of what they intend to do in case of victory. . . . Germany’s plan is to make a customs union of Europe, with complete financial and economic control centered in Berlin. This will create at once the largest free trade area and the largest planned economy in the world. . . . . . . As far as the United States is concerned, the planners of the World Germanica laugh off the idea of any armed invasion. They say that it will be completely unnecessary to take military action against the United States to force it to play ball with this system. . . . Here, as in every other country, they have established relations with numerous industries and commercial organizations, to whom they will offer advantages in co-operation with Germany. . . .” (Dorothy Thompson, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, 5/31/1940; quoted in Germany Plots with the Kremlin [4] by T.H. Tetens,; p. 92.)
“. . . The [FBI] file [on Martin Bormann] revealed that he had been banking under his own name from his office in Germany in Deutsche Bank of Buenos Aires since 1941; that he held one joint account with the Argentinian dictator Juan Peron, and on August 4, 5 and 14, 1967, had written checks on demand accounts in first National City Bank (Overseas Division) of New York, The Chase Manhattan Bank, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., all cleared through Deutsche Bank of Buenos Aires. . . . ” (Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile [5] by Paul Manning, p. 205.)
COMMENT: In the first part of this analysis [6], we looked at the Nazified Reagan/Bush I administrations, whose “austere” policies increased the U.S. national debt five-fold in twelve years, creating the foundation of the fiscal straits that engendered the propaganda line of the current GOP. The budgetary profligacy of Reagan/Bush I created the problem the Republicans claim they can, and should, solve. Before examining what the effects of GOP “austerity” might be, we would do well to consider to what extent the Third Reich alumni staffing Reagan/Bush I may have been consciously involved in one of the “. . . conspiracies in foreign countries on behalf of German cartels” described by T.H. Tetens above. With the Bormann organization maintaining Nazi Party command continuity and the Gehlen org maintaining a degree of German military command and control in the postwar period, the actions of the Reagan/Bush administrations may well have been just such a conspiracy. Bush II engaged in budgetary suicide as well, targeting social programs of the New Deal as “unaffordable.” This fiscal profligacy was a deliberate targeting of those programs [7] and the New Deal.
The budgetary proposals of GOP Representative Ryan, endorsed by “The VerMITTler,” (Romney) will pull the trigger on those targeted programs. (“Vermittler” is the German word for “agent.”) The VerMITTler’s prospects for election may well hinge on the fate of the Euro, to be determined in considerable measure by a Germany that has steadfastly adhered to “austerity” as the [final] solution to economic difficulty. With the economy being the central consideration in this election and with the possibility that a Eurozone collapse could cause sufficient economic difficulty in the U.S. to bring about a Romney victory, a number of things should be taken into account:
- In his oblique column on conspiracy theories about Germany [8] and the Euro, Floyd Norris notes that German banks provided the loans that enabled the bubble which preceded and caused the fiscal crisis in the peripheral Eurozone countries. EXCERPT: . . . German banks helped to finance housing bubbles in the periphery — usually not directly, but through loans to other banks. . . .
- In that same column, Norris posits a possible German gambit, that may have been aided by the loans from German banks: EXCERPT: . . . Conceivably, Germany learned three things from the 1992 experience, and mapped out a course with those lessons in mind. First, absent fixed exchange rates, its export-oriented companies faced the risk of periodic competitive devaluations from the rest of Europe. . . . Second, a currency union could help German exports if the euro’s value were held down by less competitive economies. . . .
Finally, if Germany adopted a low-interest-rate policy, and superlow rates arrived in European nations accustomed to high rates, banks could open the credit spigot and create a debt-financed boom in much of Europe. That would invite a mushrooming of imbalances. Ultimately, deeply indebted countries would face a crisis, one that they could solve only if they acquiesced to German policies and surrendered a large part of national sovereignty. . . . - With the large German banks under control of the Bormann capital network, the exigency hypothesized by Norris may well have been realized.
- If Germany continues to insist on “austerity,” instead of rescuing the Euro countries, the resulting collapse could torpedo the U.S. economy and Obama. [9] EXCERPT OF LINKED ARTICLE: . . . Look at it this way: When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, sending the global financial system into a tailspin, its debts amounted to about $600 billion. Government debt alone in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland — the most vulnerable European countries — adds up to about $1.9 trillion. And the economies and government finances of most developed countries are in worse shape than they were four years ago. . . .
- Paul Krugman has highlighted the continuity between the GOP and the Germans [10], noting that one of VerMITTler’s top economic advisers penned a piece in a leading German paper encouraging Merkel to “stay the course,” ignoring Obama’s advice and heading for catastrophe. EXCERPT OF LINKED COLUMN: . . . Actually, it’s kind of ironic. While Republicans love to engage in Europe-bashing, they’re actually the ones who want us to emulate European-style austerity and experience a European-style depression.And that’s not just an inference. Last week R. Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University, a top Romney adviser, published an article in a German newspaper urging the Germans to ignore advice from Mr. Obama and continue pushing their hard-line policies. In so doing, Mr. Hubbard was deliberately undercutting a sitting president’s foreign policy. More important, however, he was throwing his support behind a policy that is collapsing as you read this.
In fact, almost everyone following the situation now realizes that Germany’s austerity obsession has brought Europe to the edge of catastrophe — almost everyone, that is, except the Germans themselves and, it turns out, the Romney economic team.
Needless to say, this bodes ill if Mr. Romney wins in November. For all indications are that his idea of smart policy is to double down on the very spending cuts that have hobbled recovery here and sent Europe into an economic and political tailspin. . . . - The Federal Reserve has publicly expressed reticence to take to steps to stimulate the economy so as to avoid appearing to be helping the Obama campaign. Aside from the overt political pollution of the Fed’s position (it has been under fire from the Congressional GOP [11]attack machine), this indicates how far afield we’ve gotten. The idea is to help the economy, the country and its citizens.
- The GOP has been nakedly working to undermine Obama’s administration, rather like the CIA worked to undermine the Allende regime [12] in Chile in the 1970’s. They do not hesitate to use [13] deadly force, either.
- If, for the sake of argument, Romney gets elected with a GOP majority in both houses of Congress–a distinct possibility with 23 Democratic and 10 Republican seats up for grabs in the Senate–what can we expect?
- Paul Krugman informs us [10]: EXCERPT: The really decisive evidence on government cuts, however, comes from Europe. Consider the case of Ireland, which has reduced public employment by 28,000 since 2008 — the equivalent, as a share of population, of laying off 1.9 million workers here. These cuts were hailed by conservatives, who predicted great results. “The Irish economy is showing encouraging signs of recovery,” declared Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute in June 2010. But recovery never came; Irish unemployment is currently more than 14 percent. Ireland’s experience shows that austerity in the face of a depressed economy is a terrible mistake to be avoided if possible. . . .
- With a passage of the GOP/Ryan budget proposals favored by The VerMITTler, an open assault on the New Deal, Social Security and Medicare is to be expected. If, for example the voucher system proposed by Ryan, et al is made law, many elderly and poor people will not be able to afford the medical care they need to survive. People will die. Poor folks, sick folks, old folks, weak folks. And that is just exactly the idea. People like that, when they vote at all, usually vote for the Democrats. GOP is brilliantly cynical in its approach to such matters.
- When he became President in 1989, the elder Bush promised a “kinder, gentler” approach to government. In that same vein, we might view the GOP program as a “kinder, gentler” euthanasia program [14], rather like the T‑4 program undertaken [15] by the Third Reich. That “War Against the Weak [16]” was itself an outgrowth of eugenics ideology [17] and practices that occupied a very important place [18] in the hierarchy of Western political [19]and sociological thinking [20].
- Underlying “austerity” is a Social Darwinism that is part of a continuum of social thought that produced the horrors of the camps. “Death instead of Taxes” [21] might be one way of thinking about the situation.
- Von Clausewitz would recognize [22] the GOP/German-driven austerity as “war” by other means–in this case an annihilating “Postwar” that will accomplish what the T‑4 program was intended to do–week out “the unfit.”
- The effects of “austerity” on the United States will be similar to those in other places that embraced the “Irish doctrine” highlighted by Krugman above. We will experience the downward spiral stemming from job loss, cancelation of orders engendering further slowdown and other highly unpleasant symptoms of “austerity” disease.
- This will dramatically weaken the United States.
- One can but wonder to what extent The VerMITTler will be given the task of implementing and overseeing America’s final collapse.
- It is doubtful that the master cynics of the GOP will sit back and allow the howls of outrage from unemployed, newly-poor and politically-jilted workers and voters derail their agenda at the midterm elections of 2014. Rather, I suspect we may see some “event”–a monster terrorist incident or manufactured disaster [23] of some kind that would conveniently take the blame for economic problems. That disastrous event will also eclipse the disastrous social policies of Romney/Ryan that will have thrown people off the payrolls and unto unemployment lines. In this regard, the “event” will serve to distract, much as 9/11 served to obscure much of what the Bush administration was actually doing, as well as justifying “emergency measures.”