The headlines say it all: the politicians - like George Osborne - in funk mode at the prospect of a tiny country reneging on its debt.

Like some latter-day captain of some latter day Titanic, Osborne lectures all and sundry - from Britain's free market train wreck - on what needs to be done to stop the crisis: cut, cut, and cut again, (like we are so successfully doing in the UK! - [Ind]).    Gdn

"Let them eat cake" as Marie Antoinette is alleged to have said when confronted with an earlier meltdown.    LTEC

True, or not, it summarises the contempt in which the likes of Osborne & co hold the humble taxpayers who get no say in the bailing out of the banks.

Further more, the suffering inflicted on ordinary people in Greece gets a deplorable - third meltdown - lack of publicity.

Did you see it on ITN News, or on Sky, or even on the zionist BBC?

No, only the Guardian reported on it.    Gdn

Bailouts (for banks) are - like capitalism - the only show in town.

£1.7 trn of "firepower"

To 'solve' the Euro debt crisis, we are now told that the EFSF will need £1.7 trn of "firepower" ...

... almost five times its current size, to convince markets that it could contain the destabilising impact of a Greek default ... Gdn

So, where is a sum like £1.7 trn of "firepower" coming from?

Does the ECB have gold to the value of £1.7 trn languishing in the vaults?

Or even £1.7 trn in euro notes?

Perhaps the IMF has £1.7 trn of "firepower" in its vaults?

All vanishingly unlikely ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned it may not have enough money to bail out larger eurozone countries if the debt crisis were to spread.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde says the global lender can meet its current obligations but this could change if the crisis worsens ...     BBC

In effect, what is being proposed is QE on a massive scale - in other words fiat money is being created electronically - rather than at the printing press - to recapitalise the banks and postpone further bailouts ...

... the plan could also enable the European Central Bank to buy more Italian and Spanish bonds to prevent those two countries needing a full bailout ...     BBC

Behind all this dodgy cash is the real agenda: the banks must not be allowed to fail.

But it's OK if people in Greece top themselves.

That's the sordid reality of the new social Darwinism in which the Lagardes, the Osbornes and the Merkels of this world are now trapped.

If you can afford it, please send a donation to the Trussell Trust; growing numbers of our fellow citizens are going to need it's foodbanks while the current social Darwinism continues.

What should be done?

1. Debt Jubilee: all debts to be cancelled;
2. Nationalise the retail banks, leave 'casino' banks in the private sector;
3. Set up a state investment bank, with 'green economy' priorities;
4. Creation of money to be to the sole responsibility of the state;
5. Creation of money solely for investment purposes [constitutional imperative];
6. Work towards the return to the gold standard, or an effective substitute, via the UN.

Herr Draghi or Signor Draghi, and the ECB's Santa Rally

The ECB’s back-door bail-out for Italy, Spain, Belgium, and… France? ... is €489bn.

Roughly €300bn of today’s eagerly awaited LTRO tender is recycled old money from earlier support operations.

The new money is €200bn. This alone is not going to shore up the sovereign states of southern Europe as they grind deeper into recession/depression.

Enjoy Mario Draghi's Santa Rally while it lasts. The euphoria is likely to dissipate once markets remember the sheer scale of the task at hand.

The banks are under massive pressure to raise their core Tier 1 capital ratios to 9pc by next June.

This requires a €2.5 trillion adjustment according to the BIS’s Global Stability Board.

Most of that is going to be done by slashing loan books – deleveraging in the jargon – since they cannot raise fresh capital at a viable cost and don’t wish to be nationalised ...

It always come down to the same question.

Can the ECB doves engineer enough stimulus to head off disaster in Club Med, without causing a disgusted Germany to pick up its marbles and walk out.

Probably not.

And can any level of stimulus ever close the 30pc structural gap in labour competitiveness between North and South, still growing wider by the day?

Tel  21 Dec 2011

ECB's rescue of eurozone banks is temporary

... the dependence of some eurozone banks on loans from these central banks can be seen as evidence that these banks have already failed, in that they would be bust if it weren't for massive loans from these taxpayer-backed institutions ...

BBC NEWS  21 Dec 2011    A Two Speed Europe    Global Risks 2012

Argentina's Lessons for a Crisis-Ridden Europe

European banks borrow record €489bn from ECB

Changes do not take banking errors into account

Ben Chu
Economics Editor

The big day was supposed to be Friday.

But the euro-zone's Big Two seem to have decided that the Brussels meeting at the end of the week will be nothing more than a rubber-stamping exercise.

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy announced yesterday that they had reached an agreement on how to stabilise the eurozone.

It would seem that the job for the rest of Europe's leaders is simply to turn up and approve it.

The deal seems to bear a deeper German, rather than French stamp.

There will be treaty change for the 17 nations of the eurozone and a new regime to limit borrowing by member states-both central demands of Ms Merkel's.

There will be automatic fines for fiscally lax states and the European Court of Justice will verify national budgets.

But there remains doubt about the extent to which the fiscal enforcement regime will be beefed up.

The European Court will not, we were told yesterday, be able to veto budgets.

Yet there is an absurdity about this whole exercise.

This is not a crisis driven by over-borrowing by states.

Yes, the former Greek government spent too much and deceived its eurozone partners about its finances.

But the governments of Ireland and Spain were running budget surpluses right up to the moment the roof fell in on them in 2008.

It was the banking sectors of those countries - facilitated by profligate financial institutions in France and Germany - that were out of control and effectively destroyed their public finances.

Ms Merkel's treaty changes will not address that fundamental flaw - and they will not help to alleviate the present crisis.

As such, the German Chancellor is engaged in elaborate displacement activity.

i  06 Dec 2011    Bankocracy Log    Global Risks 2012    Government by Corporate Technocracy

'The Greatest Threat to Europe Is the Bailout Fund'

If you get it wrong, Mr Sulik, Brussels will expect Slovakia to vote again, and again, until you get it right.

Only two countries, Malta and Slovakia, have yet to ratify the expansion of the euro bailout fund.

Its fate may be in the hands of a minor Slovak party headed by Richard Sulik.

In an interview, the politician explains why he hopes the fund will fail and what he sees as the only way to save the euro ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Slovakia has yet to approve the expansion of the euro backstop fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), because your Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party is blocking the reform.

If a majority of Slovak parliamentarians don't support the EFSF expansion, it could ultimately mean the end of the common currency.

Sulik: The opposite is actually the case. The greatest threat to the euro is the bailout fund itself.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How so?

Sulik: It's an attempt to use fresh debt to solve the debt crisis. That will never work.

But, for me, the main issue is protecting the money of Slovak taxpayers.

We're supposed to contribute the largest share of the bailout fund measured in terms of economic strength. That's unacceptable ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which ground rules should we be following?

Sulik: We have to observe three points:

First, we have to strictly adhere to the existing rules, such as not being liable for others' debts, just as it's spelled out in Article 125 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Second, we have to let Greece go bankrupt and have the banks involved in the debt-restructuring. The creditors will have to relinquish 50 to perhaps 70 percent of their claims. So far, the agreements on that have been a joke.

Third, we have to be adamant about cost-cutting and manage budgets in a responsible way ...

Der Spiegel  07 Oct 2011    EU Log

What Options Are Left for the Common Currency?

Europe Begins Working on Plan B for the Euro

Time to unleash financial firepower or face euro breakup

Euro Backstop to Be Leveraged to One Trillion Euros

Reform the euro or bin it

Greece faces devaluation, default or deflation

The euro debt crisis must force a re-evaluation of capitalism

Jürgen Kocka: “Capitalism and crisis”

Protectionism beckons as leaders push world into Depression

Eurozone crisis: Democracy in the balance

IMF warns on funding levels if crisis worsens

The Greek tragedy: no money, no hope

Greek despair over further cuts sees suicide and crime rates on the rise

European debt crisis

European debt crisis

Biblical debt jubilee may be the only answer