Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

News & Supplemental  

← Supplement to Getting in Dutch: The Third Reich and the Royal Family of the Netherlands (“A Prince Too Far”)   |   Snowden’s Ride, Part 8: Papa Snowden and The Paulistinian Libertarian Organization →

Telling It like It Is: VERY Powerful, Accurate Words from Former Moody’s Vice-Chairman about German “Clausewitzian” Economic Policy toward Europe

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ July 27, 2013Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
Tags  , , , , , , , , , ,

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: In so many posts and pro­grams, we have dis­cussed and ana­lyzed the EMU/EU as the embod­i­ment and real­iza­tion of Ger­man plans for Euro­pean and world con­quest. It is beyond the scope of this arti­cle to sum up such an impor­tant, detailed analy­sis. Seri­ous users of this web­site should under­take to exam­ine the argu­ments at length and detail.

Suf­fice it to say for our pur­pos­es here, that Ger­many is real­iz­ing a pre­de­ter­mined, delib­er­ate pol­i­cy of pur­su­ing von Clause­witz’s dic­tum of “war by oth­er means.” It is sim­ply being done by eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal pol­i­cy, rather than by force of arms.

In our most recent post about “Clause­witz­ian health care” in Greece, we under­scored the fun­da­men­tal con­ti­nu­ity between the results of con­tem­po­rary Ger­man fis­cal pol­i­cy and Hitler’s mil­i­tary adven­tur­ism.

For those who con­sid­er our analy­sis to be extreme and man­i­fest­ing hyper­bole, we present a dev­as­tat­ing cri­tique of Ger­man EMU pol­i­cy vis a vis the periph­er­al economies of the euro­zone. Dis­cussing Cyprus as exem­plary of Ger­man method­ol­o­gy and intent, Christo­pher T. Mahoney couch­es his cri­tique in alto­geth­er unam­bigu­ous lan­guage.

Mahoney is a for­mer Vice Chair­man of Moody’s! In the arti­cle below, he sounds very much like–well–Dave Emory!

“Cyprus: Vic­tim Of Ger­man Colo­nial­ism” by Christo­pher T. Mahoney; Project Syn­di­cate; 7/26/2013.

ENTIRE TEXT: “We antic­i­pate the bank­ing res­o­lu­tion mech­a­nism for the Cypri­ot bank­ing sec­tor to result in a sig­nif­i­cant down­siz­ing of banks’ activ­i­ties and there­fore to severe­ly affect the eco­nom­ic per­for­mance of the island from 2013 onwards. We expect an accel­er­a­tion in the con­trac­tion of the Cypri­ot econ­o­my in 2013, with a neg­a­tive real growth rate in the low dou­ble-dig­its and no return to pos­i­tive growth before 2016. Our view is fur­ther sup­port­ed by the neg­a­tive feed­back loop that expen­di­ture cuts may have on the econ­o­my giv­en the impor­tance of pub­lic ser­vices, hence poten­tial­ly chal­leng­ing future con­sen­sus on fis­cal strat­e­gy. We note that large uncer­tain­ties remain regard­ing the mag­ni­tude of fur­ther recap­i­tal­iza­tion needs for the finan­cial sec­tor giv­en the expect­ed sharp dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment which will erode asset qual­i­ty, as well as the behav­iour­al respons­es of all eco­nom­ic actors to the shocks expe­ri­enced by the finan­cial sec­tor (includ­ing risks of finan­cial dis­rup­tion relat­ed to the tim­ing and approach for lift­ing of cap­i­tal con­trols). In light of all the down­side risks and the lim­it­ed num­ber of upsides, we view Cyprus as like­ly to default again in the com­ing years, as reflect­ed by the rat­ing lev­el and neg­a­tive out­look. Although it is not its cen­tral sce­nario, Moody’s also sees a mate­r­i­al risk of a Cypri­ot exit from the euro area which is cap­tured in the Caa2 coun­try ceil­ing. As a result of the imme­di­ate down­siz­ing of the bank­ing sec­tor and the expect­ed spillovers to rest of the econ­o­my, espe­cial­ly in terms of weak­ened con­sumer and investor con­fi­dence, we fore­cast that the econ­o­my will con­tract by 12% this year and anoth­er 6.4% next year.”

–Moody’s, 15 July 2013

The pur­pose of EMU is to reduce the occu­pied states to penury in order to make them more like Ger­many, or Ethiopia. Ulti­mate­ly the ques­tion is is: how low can per capi­ta income decline until “Europe” becomes a dirty word, and “lib­er­ty” becomes the pop­u­lar desider­a­tum. Cyprus is the lab­o­ra­to­ry of this exper­i­ment, along with Greece and Por­tu­gal. Here is the exper­i­ment: How many peo­ple must eat out of garbage cans before the euro elites under­stand that EMU is destroy­ing lives?

It must be pleas­ing to be ingest­ing a nice Brus­sels din­ner while dis­cussing how sub­hu­man the Cypri­ots are, and how they must be “taught a valu­able les­son”. That was how Stal­in felt about the “rich peas­ants” of the Ukraine: sur­plus emp­ty mouths to feed. Wouldn’t the world be a bet­ter place with­out so many peas­ants?

Per­haps, in a per­fect world, Cypri­ots wouldn’t exist, like the kulaks and the Crimean Tatars. All Cypri­ots do is enable Russ­ian plu­to­crats. Why should they exist? Liq­ui­date them. Indeed, liq­ui­date all of the par­a­site states of the Euro­zone.

So we now know that the pur­pose of EMU is not to enrich the vas­sal states, but to occu­py them and to make them penu­ri­ous colonies of the hege­mon. Periph­er­al Europe is Germany’s Latin Amer­i­ca. But there is a cru­cial dif­fer­ence: the US has not forced its Latin Amer­i­can colonies to join the dol­lar zone. Latin Amer­i­ca, despite its colo­nial sta­tus, retains mon­e­tary sov­er­eign­ty. Aside from the Bol­she­vik lab­o­ra­to­ries of Argenti­na and Venezuela, Latin Amer­i­ca is out­per­form­ing its colo­nial par­ents. Por­tu­gal and Spain should have mon­e­tary union with Brazil and Mex­i­co, instead of Fin­land and Ger­many.

What Ger­many is doing to Cyprus is a crime.

 

Discussion

4 comments for “Telling It like It Is: VERY Powerful, Accurate Words from Former Moody’s Vice-Chairman about German “Clausewitzian” Economic Policy toward Europe”

  1. You’re absolute­ly right! It is a crime and it would be in Spain and Por­tu­gal’s best inter­est to ally them­selves with Latin Amer­i­ca instead of Ger­many or oth­er Euro­pean nations. So, why don’t they? Juan Luis Guer­ra, a protest singer from the Domini­can Repub­lic, said it well in his song: “The Cost of Life”:

    “We’re a hole between heav­en and sea
    500 years lat­er
    a vibrant new race
    black, white and indi­an but:
    Who was dis­cov­ered by whom?

    The cost of life keeps ris­ing
    and unem­ploy­ment has bit­ten me too
    yet nobody cares what we think,
    Is it because we don’t speak Eng­lish or French?

    Nobody cares…
    Not Mit­subishi, not Chevro­let….”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zLpacr1DlU

    Of course, things have changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the region since he wrote this song in the ear­ly 90’s but it’s not easy going against 500 years of colo­nial her­itage. Spain and Por­tu­gal do not see Latin Amer­i­can nations as their equals even if we sur­pass them eco­nom­i­cal­ly with­in the next decade. Nations like indi­vid­u­als have a dif­fi­cult time rec­og­niz­ing their sons or daugh­ters have grown up and are no longer their chil­dren. How­ev­er, as Her­a­cli­tus once said: “There is noth­ing per­ma­nent except change”.

    Posted by Shibusa | July 29, 2013, 7:32 am

  2. “Ger­man hege­mo­ny of the Eurogroup has been grow­ing over the last two years and is increas­ing almost by the day now,” says the anony­mous Eurogroup offi­cial:

    Ger­many’s Schaeu­ble set to stay cen­tre stage in euro cri­sis
    Reuters – Sun, Jul 28, 2013 4:29 AM EDT

    By Anni­ka Brei­dthardt

    BERLIN (Reuters) — Two years ago, Ger­man Finance Min­is­ter Wolf­gang Schaeu­ble was on the point of giv­ing up his role as iron fist in the euro zone debt cri­sis, but the 70-year-old cham­pi­on of clos­er Euro­pean inte­gra­tion now seems like­ly to remain on Europe’s cen­tre stage.

    Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel, who made her inde­pen­dent-mind­ed and famous­ly irri­ta­ble for­mer rival finance min­is­ter in 2009, is expect­ed to reap­point him if, as wide­ly fore­cast, she wins a third term in the Sep­tem­ber 22 par­lia­men­tary poll.

    Dif­fer­ences in their visions of Europe may cur­tail some of his plans, but the enor­mous clout he wields among Euro­pean pol­i­cy­mak­ers deal­ing with the four-year-old euro zone debt cri­sis shows no sign of wan­ing.

    “Ger­man hege­mo­ny of the Eurogroup has been grow­ing over the last two years and is increas­ing almost by the day now,” said an offi­cial who sits with Schaeu­ble in the 17-mem­ber group.

    Such is his impor­tance that the head of the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, Chris­tine Largarde, broke off from marathon talks to agree a bailout for Cyprus in March to make a late night vis­it to his office her­self.

    “Nobody want­ed to imag­ine what would hap­pen if he had left the build­ing in a huff,” a source close to the nego­ti­a­tions told Reuters. “The vol­cano was not allowed to erupt.”

    Merkel needs Schaeu­ble not only for his sharp intel­lect and as a con­trast to her pow­er pol­i­tics, but to woo the par­ty’s con­ser­v­a­tive south-west­ern pow­er base.

    Wheel-chair bound since a men­tal­ly ill man shot him in 1990, he is one of Ger­many’s most pop­u­lar politi­cians and has hint­ed strong­ly that he wants to stay on.

    COMPROMISES

    Just two years ago, the man who nego­ti­at­ed Ger­man uni­fi­ca­tion offered to resign when recov­ery from an oper­a­tion was longer and tougher than expect­ed. He was also bad­ly shak­en by the deaths of his two broth­ers, in 2011 and ear­ly this year.

    But he has returned to full health and works often gru­elling hours. “I still enjoy pol­i­tics oth­er­wise I would not stand as a can­di­date again,” he told Reuters.

    Schaeu­ble is unlike­ly to alter his insis­tence on tough bud­get cuts and reforms for indebt­ed Euro­pean states after the vote bear­ing in mind he also plans to cut debt for Ger­many, which fore­casts growth of just 0.4 per­cent this year after 4.2 per­cent in 2010.

    “Schaeu­ble makes com­pro­mis­es, but it’s his ini­tial posi­tion that forms the bench­mark of the debate with the small mar­gins for manoeu­vre he indi­cates he is will­ing to accept,” said an offi­cial with close knowl­edge of the work­ings of the Eurogroup.

    With the elec­tion out of the way, how­ev­er, he may be will­ing to com­pro­mise on some hot top­ics on hold until after Sep­tem­ber 22.

    One of those is the estab­lish­ment of a sin­gle author­i­ty to shut or repair trou­bled euro­zone banks, a part of bank­ing union that has stalled because of Ger­man oppo­si­tion on legal grounds.

    See­ing the euro zone cri­sis as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther polit­i­cal inte­gra­tion in Europe, he has got his par­ty to back the idea of a direct­ly elect­ed Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent to give such inte­gra­tion a face.

    “Europe is close to my heart,” says the man who grew up near the French bor­der, an area where the post-war divi­sions were more tan­gi­ble than else­where in Ger­many.

    Merkel dis­tanced her­self from the par­ty posi­tion in June, telling Der Spiegel mag­a­zine a direct­ly elect­ed EC pres­i­dent “would throw the entire struc­ture of the EU out of bal­ance”.

    It was one of many blows the chan­cel­lor has dealt to Schaeu­ble, Ger­many’s longest-serv­ing mem­ber of par­lia­ment and the eter­nal num­ber two in con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­tics, ini­tial­ly as heir-appar­ent to Hel­mut Kohl, then loy­al to Merkel.

    In 1999, she pushed her career at his expense and lat­er passed him over when he had ambi­tions to become pres­i­dent. But she often lets him devi­ate from her line, so much so that some Brus­sels offi­cials won­der if he speaks for him­self or Berlin.

    FEARED BUT RESPECTED

    His Euro­pean col­leagues fear him, beyond the unpop­u­lar­i­ty any Ger­man finance min­is­ter might attract for rep­re­sent­ing the con­ti­nen­t’s largest econ­o­my.

    “If you are on his side of the argu­ment, you feel very good. But if you are the one with whom he is argu­ing, you wish you had nev­er spo­ken,” said one euro zone offi­cial, adding Schaeu­ble might bang the table or tap his fin­ger next to the micro­phone when he gets angry.

    Behind closed doors, some also say Paris was out­raged when Schaeu­ble, con­cerned about the health of the zone’s sec­ond biggest econ­o­my, asked a pan­el of Ger­man eco­nom­ic advi­sors to look into reforms France need­ed.

    But days after the news broke of the affront against Ger­many’s clos­est ally, he showed his polit­i­cal skill by hold­ing a joint news con­fer­ence with his coun­ter­part Pierre Moscovi­ci to soothe any sus­pi­cion of dis­cord.

    A for­mer senior French offi­cial who worked with Schaeu­ble in the Eurogroup, called him a “rare min­is­ter with a gen­uine long-term vision of what Europe could be: strict rules based on unwa­ver­ing dis­ci­pline, but with real sol­i­dar­i­ty”.

    ...

    Schaeuble’s vision: strict rules based on unwa­ver­ing dis­ci­pline, but with real sol­i­dar­i­ty. What’s not to love?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 29, 2013, 11:44 am

  3. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/germany-profiting-from-euro-crisis-through-low-interest-rates-a-917296.html

    Prof­i­teer­ing: Cri­sis Has Saved Ger­many 40 Bil­lion Euros
    August 19, 2013 – 11:38 AM

    Ger­many has prof­it­ed from the euro cri­sis to the tune of 41 bil­lion euros in reduced inter­est pay­ments. Strong demand for its debt has cut yields and made it cheap­er for Ger­many to bor­row. Mean­while, the cri­sis has only cost Ger­many a mere 599 mil­lion euros thus far.

    Ger­many is prof­it­ing from the debt cri­sis by sav­ing bil­lions of euros in inter­est on its gov­ern­ment debt, which has enjoyed a steep drop in yields due to strong demand from investors seek­ing a safe haven.

    ANZEIGE
    Accord­ing to fig­ures made avail­able by the Finance Min­istry, Ger­many will save a total of €40.9 bil­lion ($55 bil­lion) in inter­est pay­ments in the years 2010 to 2014. The num­ber results from the dif­fer­ence between actu­al and bud­get­ed inter­est pay­ments.

    The infor­ma­tion was released in response to a par­lia­men­tary inquiry from Social Demo­c­rat law­mak­er Joachim Poss.

    On aver­age, the inter­est rate on all new fed­er­al gov­ern­ment bond issues fell by almost a full per­cent­age point in the 2010 to 2014 peri­od. Finan­cial investors regard Ger­many as a par­tic­u­lar­ly safe cred­i­tor because of its sol­id state finances.

    The inter­est rate sav­ings com­bined with unex­pect­ed­ly high tax rev­enues gen­er­at­ed by the strong econ­o­my have also led to a decline in new bor­row­ing. Between 2010 and 2012, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment issued €73 bil­lion less in new debt than planned.

    The Finance Min­istry is try­ing to max­i­mize the ben­e­fits of the low inter­est rates by plac­ing more longer-term bonds at favor­able rates. Between 2009 and 2012, the pro­por­tion of short-term debt issues with matu­ri­ties of less than three years fell to 51 per­cent from 71 per­cent.

    Accord­ing to the Finance Min­istry, the costs of the euro cri­sis for Ger­many have so far added up to €599 mil­lion.

    Posted by Vanfield | August 20, 2013, 9:54 am

  4. Won­der if this lim­it­ed hang­out sig­nals a change?
    Sor­ry about the Google trans­la­tion, Eng­lish can be read between the Ger­man text below, or go to this link for the full Eng­lish text:

    http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF‑8&u=http://www.mmnews.de/index.php/wirtschaft/14429-schaeuble-berater-euro-bricht-auseinander

    Schäu­ble advi­sor expects breakup of the euro zone. Top advis­er to the Min­istry of Finance Kai Kon­rad says: “Ger­many can not save the euro zone.” Max Planck econ­o­mist advis­es: “If, then Ger­many must get out of the euro”.

    Schäu­ble-agent: euro falls apart
    17.08.2013 17.08.2013
    Schäu­ble-Berater rech­net mit Auseinan­der­brechen der Euro-Zone. Schäu­ble advi­sor expects breakup of the euro zone. Top-Berater des Bun­des­fi­nanzmin­is­teri­ums Kai Kon­rad sagt: “Deutsch­land kann die Euro­zone nicht ret­ten”. Top advis­er to the Min­istry of Finance Kai Kon­rad says: “Ger­many can not save the euro zone.” Max-Planck-Ökonom rät: “Wenn, dann muss Deutsch­land aus dem Euro raus”. Max Planck econ­o­mist advis­es: “If, then Ger­many must get out of the euro”.

    Der führende wis­senschaftliche Berater des Bun­des­fi­nanzmin­is­teri­ums erwartet wegen der wach­senden wirtschaftlichen Ungle­ichgewichte ein Auseinan­der­brechen der Euro-Zone. The lead­ing sci­en­tif­ic advis­er to the Min­istry of Finance expects a breakup of the euro zone because of the grow­ing eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties. “Deutsch­land kann die Euro­zone nicht ret­ten. Wer das glaubt, ver­weigert sich der Real­ität”, sagt Kai Kon­rad im “Welt”-Interview, er ist der Direk­tor des Max-Planck-Insti­tut für Steuer­recht und Öffentliche Finanzen in München ist und Vor­sitzen­der des Wis­senschafts­beirats bei Finanzmin­is­ter Wolf­gang Schäu­ble (CDU). “Ger­many can not save the euro zone. Who­ev­er believes that refus­es to accept the real­i­ty,” Kai Kon­rad says in the “world” inter­view, he is the direc­tor of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Tax Law and Pub­lic Finance in Munich and Chair­man of the Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board with Finance Min­is­ter Wolf­gang Schäu­ble (CDU).

    Deutsch­land könne zwar aus poli­tis­chen Grün­den aus dem Euro nicht selb­st aussteigen. Although Ger­many could not get off for polit­i­cal rea­sons from the euro itself. “Die anderen Län­der kön­nten Deutsch­land aber dazu drän­gen. Dazu kann es kom­men”, meint Ökonom Kon­rad und rät im Gespräch mit der “Welt”: “Wenn man die Währung­sunion auf­brechen will, sollte man dies an der Nord­gren­ze tun. Wenn, dann muss Deutsch­land aus dem Euro raus.” . “Oth­er coun­tries could Ger­many but urge this can hap­pen,” says econ­o­mist Kon­rad and advis­es talk­ing to the “world”. “When you want to leave the mon­e­tary union, this should be done on the north­ern bor­der If, then Ger­many must out of the euro. ”

    Kon­rad hält das Auf­brechen der Währung­sunion für ein ökonomisch aus­sicht­sre­ich­es Manöver: “Und wenn Deutsch­land und ein paar andere starke Län­der die Währung­sunion ver­lassen, wird der Euro abw­erten und die südeu­ropäis­chen Län­der kämen wirtschaftlich wieder auf die Beine.” Con­rad main­tains the breakup of the mon­e­tary union for an eco­nom­i­cal­ly promis­ing maneu­ver: “And if Ger­many and a few oth­er strong coun­tries leav­ing the mon­e­tary union, the euro will depre­ci­ate and the south­ern Euro­pean coun­tries would come back on its feet eco­nom­i­cal­ly.”

    Der Furcht vor einem anschließen­den Ruin der deutschen Wirtschaft durch Aufw­er­tung der dann wieder­belebten D‑Mark tritt der Münch­n­er Ökonom ent­ge­gen. The fear of a sub­se­quent ruin of the Ger­man econ­o­my by upgrad­ing the then revived D‑mark dis­putes the Munich econ­o­mist. “Sie kön­nte sog­ar gestärkt daraus her­vorge­hen. Sie hat die regelmäßi­gen Aufw­er­tun­gen der DM in früheren Jahrzehn­ten immer wieder gemeis­tert und wurde so fit für den Wet­tbe­werb. Heute haben sie es da bess­er. Aber die Fähigkeit, auf Her­aus­forderun­gen zu reagieren, geht dabei ver­loren. Und das ist gefährlich”, sagt Kon­rad. “You could even emerge stronger., You have mas­tered the reg­u­lar reval­u­a­tions of DM in ear­li­er decades and over again and was as fit for the com­pe­ti­tion. Now they have it bet­ter there., But the abil­i­ty to respond to chal­lenges, is lost. And this is dan­ger­ous, “says Kon­rad.

    Posted by Swamp | August 30, 2013, 9:53 am

Post a comment

FROM THE LECTURE SERIES

Asimo - RobotThe Future: Technology, Theocracy and the Thousand Year Reich The shape of things to come. Read more »