The New World Ordoliberalism, Part 8: A New MIC Becomes the EU’s New Austerity Loophole. Maybe.

Life on earth real­ly can’t afford anoth­er major mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex (MIC). But that’s what’s com­ing. Or at least the financ­ing is get­ting worked out as Europe deals reels from the dam­age already inflict­ed on the Transat­lantic alliance in the open months of the sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion. It’s urgent. A new era of secu­ri­ty inde­pen­dence has begun for the Euro­pean com­mu­ni­ty and there’s no time to spare in get­ting start­ed on build­ing it. Plans are already tak­ing shape. Plans to dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase EU-wide defense spend­ing by effec­tive­ly forc­ing each EU mem­ber to achieve at least 3% of GDP on defense spend­ing, well about the 2% NATO min­i­mum. Rough­ly 650 bil­lion euros in extra defense spend­ing over the next four years. But what about the EU’s strict debt and aus­ter­i­ty rules? There’s a plan for that too: extra defense spend­ing will not count towards the EU’s debt and deficit rules. At least for the next four years. And per­haps longer. And yet, all signs indi­cate that this extra debt will have be repaid even­tu­al­ly. So are we look­ing at the begin­ning of a new MIC? Or the largest aus­ter­i­ty trap in EU his­to­ry? Time will tell.

Oth­er plans include 150 bil­lion euros in direct loans from the EU to mem­ber states for approved mil­i­tary hard­ware pur­chas­es. Loans that, again, will have to be repaid. But the loans will also be pro­vid­ed at low­er-than-mar­ket inter­est rates from funds raised direct­ly by the EU Com­mis­sion. In oth­er words, joint­ly-backed bonds, some­thing pre­vi­ous­ly anath­e­ma to Ger­many and the rest of the EU’s wealth­i­er mem­bers. Remark­ably, Ger­many isn’t just strong­ly behind the loan plan but wants it expand­ed to poten­tial­ly include loans to non-EU mem­bers like Nor­way, Switzer­land, or Turkey. These big spend­ing plans keep get­ting big­ger, with Ger­man back­ing. It’s an his­toric shift. Beyond that, Ger­many is already plan­ning an 800 bil­lion euro defense spend­ing splurge of its own over the next decade and call­ing for the EU’s plan to be extend­ed well beyond the four year pro­pos­al. Yes, Ger­many is back­ing much high­er EU-wide debt lev­els for the indef­i­nite future. As long as that debt is spent on the mil­i­tary, of course. That’s the incred­i­ble sto­ry cur­rent unfold­ing. The kind of sto­ry that points towards a big new EU MIC, much high­er EU debt lev­els, and, per­haps, the biggest aus­ter­i­ty trap in EU his­to­ry. The dev­il in the details. Details yet t be ham­mered out, and pos­si­bly not ever ham­mered out until long after the EU has com­mit­ted itself to this path and the trap has already been set.

Henry Kissinger, BND Elements and Third Reich Veterans Contemplated the Overthrow Willy Brandt’s Government

Over the years, we’ve pre­sent­ed the pro­found, decades-long net­work­ing of both Richard Nixon and Hen­ry Kissinger with Third Reich alum­ni, many of them war crim­i­nals of the first order. Nixon helped to ini­ti­ate and sus­tain the Nazi ele­ment of the GOP. Now we learn that Kissinger active­ly con­spired with Third Reich vet­er­ans and Ger­man aris­to­crats to estab­lish the ground­work for the over­throw of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment of for­mer chan­cel­lor Willy Brandt. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Kissinger was recruit­ed by Allen Dulles to help incor­po­rate Nazis into the CIA’s fledg­ling para­mil­i­tary cadre to be used against the USSR. One of Kissinger’s co-con­spir­a­tors was Hans Globke, author of the Nurem­berg laws, which pro­vid­ed the basis for the Nazi exter­mi­na­tion pro­grams.

“Austerity” Equals Fascism, Part 2: A Kindler, Gentler T‑4 Program

Oba­ma’s polit­i­cal fate may well be deter­mined in Europe by Ger­many. In Ger­man press, Rom­ney cam­paign pro­mot­ing Merkel’s eco­nom­ic doc­trine in oppo­si­tion to Oba­ma. Will Rom­ney be empow­ered to do the U.S. what “aus­ter­i­ty” has done to much of Europe?

German Joins Inner-Most Mormon Circle

Deutsche WelleFol­low­ing the recent death of the Mor­mon’s spir­i­tu­al leader, a Ger­man pilot has joined the high­est lead­er­ship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints by becom­ing one of two coun­selors to the new Mor­mon head. Dieter Ucht­dor­f’s appear­ance does­n’t imme­di­ate­ly hint at any­thing unusu­al. This 64-year old, who worked as chief pilot […]

German arms dealer extends scope of favor charges

OTTAWA (REUTERS) — An arms deal­er want­ed on fraud charges in Ger­many Thurs­day sought to draw the gov­ern­ment into a polit­i­cal storm over cash pay­ments to a for­mer prime min­is­ter, say­ing a request to Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er to help him avoid extra­di­tion was “well received.” Ger­­man-Cana­di­an busi­ness­man Karl­heinz Schreiber told a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee that […]

Strategies of Attrition (II)

GermanForeignPolicy.com [See also Strate­gies of Attri­tion (I) and Strate­gies of Attri­tion (III).] BEIJING/LHASA/BERLIN(Own report) — Ger­man politi­cians have announced an esca­la­tion of the chan­cel­lor’s Tibet offen­sive. Accord­ing to com­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter of Hesse, Roland Koch (CDU), Angela Merkel’s meet­ing with the Dalai Lama is only the begin­ning of large scale inter­fer­ence into […]

Strategies of Attrition (I)

GermanForeignPolicy.com[See also Strate­gies of Attri­tion (II) and Strate­gies of Attri­tion (III).] BEIJING/LHASA/BERLIN(Own report) — The Ger­man chan­cel­lor is rein­forc­ing Berlin’s spe­cial rela­tion­ships to Chi­nese sep­a­ratists, in spite of Bei­jing’s mas­sive protests. The Dalai Lama had talks in the Ger­man Chan­cellery, for the first time, Sun­day, Sept. 23. He is the leader of a self-pro­­claimed Tibetan […]

The Ordering of a Superstate

GermanForeignPolicy.com BERLIN/MAGDEBURG(Own report) — The medieval, Europe-wide Ger­man Reich is a valid mod­el for the union of Euro­pean coun­tries today. So says the Berlin State Min­is­ter for Cul­ture, Bernd Neu­mann. Accord­ing to him, the mem­o­ry of the Holy Roman Empire of the Ger­man Nation reveals “an inner his­tor­i­cal con­sis­ten­cy” with the found­ing and steady expan­sion […]

How Bush’s Berlin Ambassador Pick Profited from Protective Tariffs against German Companies

by Georg Mas­co­lo and Juer­gen Dahlkam­pDer Spiegel Wash­ing­ton’s choice for future US ambas­sador to Ger­many has all the mak­ings of a polit­i­cal bomb­shell. For years, a com­pa­ny owned by the mul­ti­mil­lion­aire and new­­ly-appoint­ed diplo­mat William Timken, Jr. has been prof­it­ing from anti­com­pet­i­tive tar­iffs — at the direct expense of Ger­man com­pa­nies. As Wash­ing­ton’s new ambas­sador […]

FTR #469 The Schmitzes: Republican Family Values

The life, times, and off­spring of for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John G. Schmitz.