Reflections on S & P’s Downgrade of European Debt (Except for Germany’s): Pushing “Austerereich”

COMMENT: Stan­dard & Poor’s recent down­grade of euro­zone coun­tries’ credit rat­ings leaves us with much to ponder:

Germany’s credit rat­ing remained at triple-A.
The McGraw family–owners of S & P–are decades-long power elite asso­ciates of the Bush fam­ily.
As noted by Paul Krug­man (and the vig­i­lant “ter­rafractyl”)  S & P’s own analy­sis warns that the “con­tin­ued austerity” [...]

Eurozone Debt Crisis, Balkanization and the Growth of Greater Germany

COMMENT: The invalu­able german-foreign-policy.com newslet­ter (which feeds along the bot­tom of the front page of this web­site) sheds inter­est­ing light on how the indebt­ed­ness of fail­ing Euro­pean economies plays into the hands of those who aspire to the geo­graph­i­cal expan­sion of Ger­many.
Wealth­ier areas of strug­gling nations are mov­ing toward seces­sion, in some cases looking [...]

Strange Brew in L.A.: Massage Parlors, German Nazis, Arson, Chechnyan Refugees

COMMENT: A case that raises more ques­tions than it answers con­tin­ues to unfold in Los Ange­les.  A Ger­man cit­i­zen of Chech­nyan extrac­tion was arrested for set­ting numer­ous fires in the L.A. area.
He allegedly per­formed the acts to protest his mother’s impend­ing extra­di­tion to Ger­many. Fol­low­ing the arrest, his mother had some inter­est­ing things to say. (His [...]

Fascism and the Dangers of Economic Concentration

A 1980 broad­cast high­lights eco­nomic con­cen­tra­tion and its his­tor­i­cal rela­tion­ship to fas­cism. The issue of the “1%” ver­sus the “99%” is not new.

Daily Mail [UK]: Will 2012 Be the New 1932?

COMMENT: As things dete­ri­o­rate, a grow­ing num­ber of voices are echo­ing a warn­ing I’ve sounded for decades.
In the arti­cle below, Dominic Sand­brook notes that the col­lapse of the global econ­omy dur­ing the Great Depres­sion drove the des­per­ate into the arms of polit­i­cal extrem­ism.
Not­ing the inabil­ity of the feck­less coali­tion gov­ern­ment in Britain to [...]

Depression and Fascism: Krugman’s Analysis

COMMENT: Although he insists on refrain­ing from using the “F” word for what is tran­spir­ing in Europe, Nobel Prize-winning econ­o­mist Paul Krug­man has noted in a New York Times col­umn that the “aus­ter­ity” mea­sures cham­pi­oned by Ger­many (and also the GOP in the U.S.) and being cur­rently imple­mented, are dri­ving for­ward extreme right pol­i­tics in [...]

Behind the “Merkozy” Phenomenon: German Domination of Corporate France

COMMENT: Dur­ing the euro­zone debt cri­sis, France and Ger­many have jointly announced/proposed var­i­ous ele­ments of solu­tion, with state­ments care­fully crafted to shape the actions as best for all par­ties involved and deriv­ing from mutual inter­ests.
Yet, the media have rec­og­nized that the solu­tion will be a “Europa Ger­man­ica,” with Ger­man polit­i­cal and eco­nomic will [...]

“Now, Europe Will Speak German!” Germany to UK: Adopt the Euro, or Else!

COMMENT: As Ger­many cements its con­trol over the Euro­pean econ­omy and the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank, the Ger­man power elite are openly and deri­sively call­ing for Britain to join the EMU.
(Note that the ECB could solve much of the euro­zone debt cri­sis by lend­ing money, but has been blocked by Ger­many from doing so. The only [...]

Au Revoir to European Democracy: “A Calm Judgement of Business Necessity”

COMMENT: View­ing events in Europe brings to mind the clos­ing words of James Stew­art Martin’s All Hon­or­able Men. Qui­etly, the Euro­zone debt cri­sis has brought about an orderly tran­si­tion to the “calm judge­ment of busi­ness neces­sity” with which Mar­tin closed his book.
As Greece and Italy have seen gov­ern­ments appointed by the Ger­man dom­i­nated “tech­noc­racy” with [...]

Putting the “Hammer” Down in Greece: More about Fascists in the New Government

COMMENT: From Mark Ames comes an impor­tant new post, sup­ple­ment­ing infor­ma­tion about fas­cists in the new Greek gov­ern­ment. Recall that Greece was under the rule of a fas­cist junta that came to power in 1967. Makis “Ham­mer” Voridis, the cur­rent min­is­ter of  “Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Net­works” in the Greek Gov­ern­ment, is a doc­tri­naire fas­cist and [...]