RANT: Cuidado Portugal y España, Careful Ireland

My rant for today is essentially three words: Portugal, Ireland, Spain.

It's very simple - if the European Union saw fit to literally throw Greece to the proverbial wolves (i.e. the detestable IMF), then what is stopping it happening to these three countries?

The cartoon here by the brilliant Brazilian Latuff says it all...

The plates to be broken here are those of Portugal, Spain and Italy. However, although Italy was cited as being 'in trouble' a few weeks back, to my understanding it really is Ireland that is the actual 'I' in 'PIGS'...at least for now.

'PIGS' is the frankly disgusting acronym given to these four Eurozone countries, all in apparent trouble with their so-called 'sovereign debt'. Greece was in the worst trouble, hence it being sold down the river last week. But the public coffers in Portugal look pretty bad too, as is the case for Ireland. And Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the Eurozone, is said to be in very bad shape too.

So, will the EU allow three more countries to go the way of Greece? Certainly, Portugal and Ireland look quite expendable, for want of a better word. Portugal never seemed to ride very well on the EU bandwagon (must be that 'Club Med-southern European thing', methinks). But it's quite ironic that Ireland is in the 'PIGS club' given that it was a shining beacon of free market, neo-liberal economics until just recently. Ireland was the place to be in the EU, a true 'success story' it seemed - especially for those in IT, direct marketing, business or anyone with a bit of cash or an entrepreneurial streak.

How the tables have turned. Now Ireland is just another basket case. Hmmmm, yet another strike for neo-liberal Friedmanite economics.

And what of Spain? Can the EU really afford to let a country of that size and importance falter and possibly even be in danger of defaulting on its debt obligations? What then? And what will be of the Euro?

How much longer can this madness go on? Are Germany and France going to snub these countries too? Will the IMF simply become the de facto bank for the Eurozone?

For now, I am very worried for these three countries - not to mention all of the European Union.

I am half-Portuguese, a heritage of which I am proud, and I lived in Lisbon for a few years, a city in which I finished my schooling and which I visited every opportunity I had during my university vacations, it being a city I love and know so well. I do not want to see that beautiful country thrown to the dogs.

When will this European club ever finally come together and be united and there for all its members?

After all, is the second word in the letters 'EU' not union? Where is the union in this band of misfits?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Sovereign Debt - the UK 'Slide' Show

Sovereign Debt - ah yes, my pet economic issue of the day. Here comes another rant on this issue, scant days after my first one on it.

The big talk this past week was about how now it was not only Portugal or Ireland or Greece or Italy or Spain or (the infamous 'PIGIS' group of European countries) that may be in danger of default on their sovereign debt but...nay, wait for it...

the United Kingdom.

Oh, how that particular news filled me with a delicious sense of irony. I did get a big kick out of hearing that the UK's budget deficit could very soon balloon to even larger than that of the much-maligned Greece.

Don't get me wrong: this is not some anti-British tirade on my part. I lived in England for five years, got an excellent degree at a respected English university and made some truly wonderful friends of whom I care about to this very day. My love of British music, cinema, humour and much beside, years and years in the making, know no bounds.

No, this is not some childish tirade against the English, the British or anything Anglo. Rather, it is an all-out assault on that mother of all centres for global financial markets and, therefore, economic terrorism, namely 'The City', as London's financial district is pedantically referred to by many.



And throw in that appalling British government for good measure.

London is, along with Wall Street in New York City, the most important centre for global finance. Much is said and ranted about regarding the obscene bonuses and stock option payouts, etc, being paid in this economic recession to corporate America and, in particular, on Wall Street. However, the City of London and all its British banks, investment banks and financiers are not doing too shabbily either.

The levels of cynical gorging by these 'City' financial rogues at the trough, much of it with the help of billions of pounds in taxpayer money by the British government, are plain S-I-C-K-E-N-I-N-G.

And all of this has been done with the full blessing and collusion of the Gordon Brown government.

Hence, my being tickled pink at hearing that the UK may soon join the likes of Spain or Ireland or even...gasp...Greece as yet another example of a government that is simply too much in debt to pay all of its creditors and domestic obligations.

I snicker at the news because turns out that having the 'financial epicentre' of the global financial scene in your own back garden is no guarantee against having an economy as up to pawpaws as that of Greece. Delicious.

I snicker at the news because that's what you get for racking up billions and billions of pounds for fighting wars that you had no rhyme or reason to get involved in. Yes, Britain, what the hell are you doing having been part of the illegal Iraq war and still stuck in the morass that is Afghanistan?

And I think I'll puke from here all the way to Buckingham Palace if I hear any of that 'our brave men in uniform fighting for our freedom' crap on faux-news stations like Sky News or even the BBC one more time. Your brave men in uniform are tragically losing their lives for nothing. That's tragic. And stop all that patriotic chest-thumping. You lost your empire ages ago. Get over it.

And I snicker hardest because the UK recently tried to bully Iceland into bailing out British investors over the collapse of Icesave, an Icelandic investment fund (this along with those other bullies, the Netherlands). Gordon Brown invoked anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland in late 2008 because of the threat of Iceland defaulting on payments to the UK. Yes, anti-terrorism laws! Iceland was understandably outraged at being considered a 'terrorist state'. Diplomatic relations between the two countries, centuries-long allies, plummeted to all-time lows. All over money.

Even worse, it has even been alleged in some media that Gordon Brown himself is said to have made the OUTRAGEOUS statement that, if need be, the UK would be willing to invade Iceland because of their 'terrorist-like activities' in not paying up. What the hell is going on here?!!

And all of this by Brown with the full-blown pressure and constant braying of and by the 'City of London'. Not to mention that it is those pompous twats in their pinstripe suits and driving their Jaguars and Bentleys to their Home Counties weekend homes that will benefit most if Iceland capitulates and pays out the UK. That is, pays for what was the result of the 'financial shenanigans' (read: economic terrorist activities) of a few Icelandic investment bankers in full cohorts with a whole bunch of 'City' bankers and the like.

The Icelandic President refused to sign the law that would beholden Iceland to 'honour' those debts (all power to him for that) and a referendum on that issue yet awaits the Icelandic people in March. More on that very soon.

So, let's recap:

We have a country's government that has seen fit to terrorize another sovereign European country over a few billion pounds that was largely caused by the badly regulated financial mechanisms and market in its own country.

We have two successive governments that have ensnared a country and its soldiers in immoral and illegal wars that are only strengthening terrorism, not weakening it.

And we have a financial heartland that is at the very heart of what has been and continues to be so horrendously wrong with world economics and financial systems.

And now the warmongering bully that genuflects to 'the City' at every given moment has an economy that is tanking quicker and worse than most others.

Talk about karma.

So, yes, that's why I get a mischievous thrill out of seeing the UK's economy slip-sliding even further down as it rides on the coattails of those City bastards.

I don't wish unemployment or hard times on any of my friends or the people that I love and care about in the UK. Of course I don't. The British people deserve so much better than the corrupt financial masters and their government puppets that they currently have. In fact, the rest of the world deserves and needs better than that, so inflated is the financial clout that the City of London exerts in the world's economy.

What I do wish is for more sanity in British politics - highly unlikely given New Labour's track record to date, not to mention that the slimy David Cameron and his creepy Tories will be even more in the pocket of the City of London. The Tories and the City have been best buddies for ages. Conservatives and fat cat financiers, like really ugly, decrepit birds, always flock together.

Even more importantly, I can only hope that the ongoing economic crisis will somehow metamorphose into a significant and meaningful overhaul of the current capitalism-out-of-control that currently plagues the world.

Uber-capitalism and its equally demented side-kick, globalized finance, must be stopped once and for all and a more rational, equitable and sustainable system of capitalism (or something even better of the ilk) evolve in its place.

The likes of the City of London and Wall Street need to be relegated to nothing more than a sideshow in global economics. If that's at all possible. They've been the Ringmasters of this Three-Ring Circus from Hell for long enough.

For now, the UK economy gets everything it deserves.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Scam that is 'Sovereign Debt'

'Sovereign debt.' The latest chapter in the mess that is the ongoing financial and economic crisis hitting most of the Western world, and many other countries aside. In short, sovereign debt is supposedly what a country's treasury (i.e. government coffers) has in terms of debt.

And, oh boy, are many countries now on the verge of sovereign debt default, i.e. the inability to pay national debt, whether it to be foreign creditors, pay for social programs at home, raise sufficient capital through treasury bonds issuance, etc. The effect on local economies, not to mention the global economy, if countries start to default on their own national debt, could be quite catastrophic.

Greece is first up.

Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its debt payments. The European Union is freaking out. The Eurozone is freaking out. I mean, countries in Europe don't default on their payments, do they? That's something the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Nigeria did back in the 1980s. Not an EU and euro-based country. Right? Well...no. Greece is on the verge of default. That is fact.

The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, has blamed his country's economic crisis on international speculators (i.e. the likes of Goldman Sachs and their fellow blood-sucking brethren in the international financial world) with their buying up of Greek treasury bonds and, now, dumping of them. Some pooh-pooh that notion (always international financiers or Wall Street apologists, by the way), but don't get analysts like my man, Max Keiser, started on that notion. For him, and many others, the imminent collapse of Greece is entirely the fault of international speculators that are playing havoc with entire national economies.

I, for one, totally believe what Papandreou accuses Wall Street of doing to Greece.

And there are others too who may almost be on the verge of national debt default...

Spain





Ireland





Italy - beautiful land of my ancestors...





Portugal - the other land of my ancestors and a beautiful country I know so well...what a shame...




And don't let's forget about a country that has already defaulted on it's so-called 'debt'...

Yes, Iceland




The land of geysers and volcanoes, the fabled Blue Lagoon, green energy - and, now, the highest debt per capita load on the planet...

Poor Iceland. A canary in the coalmine of what is fundamentally sick - nay, perverted and twisted - about the current global uber-capitalist model.

Sovereign debt is a scam because how can national treasuries be in control of their economies when they are at the mercy of international financial and currency speculators? There's nothing sovereign about this debt any more, hence the total and utter scam thereof.

It's a farce and just the latest chapter, writ HUGE, that demonstrates just how fundamentally flawed, corrupt and outrageously amoral the current neo-liberal, profit-at-all-costs, unregulated financial markets a la Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys that is world capitalism. It's sick to the core. Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes must be turning in their graves with just how sick the system has become.

Yet, national governments in Europe must also take the blame (not to mention that of the United States, now in debt to the tune of 14 TRILLION dollars, although that endless warmongering is hardly cheap, now is it?). This is what you get when you bail out banks and financial institutions that were reckless and perverse in how they played the stock markets and economies of the world.

Using public money (i.e. the money of citizens) to bail out, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars and euros, the very crooks and scheisters that got us into the mess, was not only madness, but MORALLY BANKRUPT of all those politicians who allowed this to happen. You bloody bastards, all of you.

So what would I like to see? I would like to see the likes of Greece, Spain, Portgal and Ireland DEFAULT on their so-called sovereign debts. And, better still, give the IMF the biggest middle finger ever seen in financial history by saying 'NO! We will not take your loans!' Because these countries should know these IMF 'loans' will come laden with Friedmanite and Chicagoesque preconditions to 'liberalize' economies, slash public spending, 'open up markets even more', and all the other Friedmanite bullshit that got us into this horrific and amoral mess in the first place.

But, of course, I have better chances of seeing pink elephants having a full-scale Grand Prix in the sky than I do of those countries having the courage and the foresight to do just that.

THIS is the perfect time for a complete review and even overhaul of capitalism as we know it. It has never been more perfect - or more needed. I'm certainly not advocating communism or any other 'ism' for that matter. What I am advocating is that we stop this madness where 0.01% of the richest people in the richest economies can hold entire countries to ransom. And, in the process, destroy the very fabric and social and human rights within those countries. I don't want to see European countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain collapse or relegated to economic basketcase status. I'm funny that way.

Stop this obsession with Friedmanite uber-capitalism and the 'Stock Market is King' economic mentality, like some demented mantra. It is NOT working.

Enough is enough. Basta!

Do you get my point?