DISTURBER FLIES WHICH DERECTION TO FLY WITHOUT DISTRUBING
April 19, 2011
Realities of True Finns astounding advance begin to sink in.
As I quoted around this time yesterday morning, "human beings have an infinite capacity for self-delusion", but yesterday's collective burying of heads in the sands was truly remarkable as EU federalists strove to pretend all was well and that the Portuguese bail out would continue as originally planned.
A bit similar to the fact that it took almost two weeks for the EU mainstream media to pick up on this blog's pointing out that the Finnish parliamentary approval for further bailouts was a looming executioner for the deranged plans of the EU's self-serving political leadership that is bringing untold misery to hundreds of millions of Europeans.
Articles bringing home the facts are from Mary Ellen Sinon in the Daily Mail, linked here and EurActivfrom here.
It is too close to call on the policies of the resultant Government, read here, with the True Finns slipping back into third place, since my last post yesterday evening, but only by the slimmest margin as may be seen in this chart:
Final Results:
National Coalition Party: 20.4% Social Democratic Party: 19.1% True Finns: 19.0% Centre Party: 15.8% Left Alliance: 8.1% Green League: 7.2% Swedish People’s Party: 4.3% Christian Democrats: 4.0% Pirate Party: 0.4% Others: 1.6%
The Portugal Bail Out (Normal EU skullduggery aside) must surely be sunk, with the Social Democrats and True Finns opposing any cash or debt transfers holding a combined 38.1% and huge support in the country, with the first and fourth bigger parties having 36.2%.
Any smaller party supporting more Bail Outs and making them possible will surely be committing eventual electoral suicide, whatever incentives may be offered from Brussels!
Forexyard confirms this blogs prediction that Finland will block Portuguese bail out!
The posting from Forexyard is linked here and contains the suggestion that the Finnish Social Democrat party may come out against any rescue for Portugal before polling day on Sunday, in view of growing opposition to the earlier rescues for Greece and Ireland in the country at large.
Some commentators have even suggested that there would have been no parliamentary majority for a rescue package for Portugal even within the previous parliament.
As pointed out on this blog last weekend, Finland has the right to stop new bail outs under the EFSF in its Parliament. One small hope for some relief for Britain's taxpayers, see my post below! (Strange is it not that Finland has such a right while Britain, not even within the Eurozone, has no such right, are our politicians bought, blackmailed or just plain incompetent?)
The EU is heading towards the nightmare society envisioned by Ayn Rand in 'Atlas Shrugged'
Many thanks to Muffled Vociferations Blog for alerting me to Vaclav Klaus's recent speech in South America, linked here, from which comes this quote:
The second reason for the European economic problem is the quality, productiveness and efficiency of its economic and social system. A seemingly friendly and non-demanding, excessively paternalistic and, as a consequence, not sufficiently productive economic and social system, called “die soziale Markwirtschaft” (or social-democratism), dominates in Europe. This system with its generous social benefits weakened motivation, shortened working hours and life employment, prolonged years of studying, diminished the supply of labour (both at macrolevel and structurally), created bottlenecks and shortages.
Europeans prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism (group entitlements) to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans but the difference continues to grow. Also freedom seems to have a very low priority there. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and that they do not understand that their today’s behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to very intensively defend their non-economic freedoms, or better to say the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern, or perhaps post-modern European society, but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.
The inefficiency and unsustainability of this system was later “reinforced” by the gradual acceptance of green ideology, of environmentalism. This process started in the 1970s, but reached its peak, and its economic devastating effects now, in the era of global warming (or climate change) alarmism.
Another good discussion of the problems in Portugal and Spain comes from Michael Jennings on Samizdata, linked here, with a very pertinent closing sentence. Or as Ayn Rand said in her book:
This blog has previously pointed out the risks to the EU rescue funds from the rise of the True Finns party in the opinion polls prior to the General Election in Finland which concludes this Sunday.
The latest opinion poll shows this 'Anti-EU Bail Out' party falling to fourth place 16.9% versus the top placed National Coalition Party holding 20.2%. Note the narrow gap between these returns, particularly in the light of the following proviso provided by the newspaper publishing the poll, linked here, as follows:
The reliability of the HS Gallup, like that of other polls, is weaker now than in previous Parliamentary elections, and uncertainty is greatest in the numbers of the True Finns – at least four percentage points in either direction. The reason for the uncertainty is that with the recent sharp increase in support for the True Finns, the final decision that the voters make on Election Day could easily change.
In addition to their party preference, respondents to the poll were also asked about the certainty of their choice. Of all of those who have not yet voted, 32 per cent said that they might reconsider. Supporters of the Green League were the most uncertain, with 48 per cent saying that they might vote for another party in the end. Supporters of the Social Democrats and the Centre Party were found to be the most certain of their choice.
Given the fact that the EU, since the Gödöllö (Hungary) Declaration of 8 April 2011, has clearly turned from being merely non-democratic to being actively anti-democratic, is it not possible to discern clear polling manipulation where the True Finns, in fourth place, are merely 3.3% behind the leaders while they themselves are the ones chosen as subject to an accuracy margin of 4% either way. It seems that for the EU it is the headlines that count!
On these figures it appears obvious that there will be no Parliamentary majority for the imposed Portuguese bail out following Sunday's election. The Finnish Parliament will then be the next in line to be steam-rollered by the EU, following on from Britain (in signing on to the EFSF when no parliament was sitting) Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Note the constant references to 'Portuguese Authorities' - a country presently between democratic governements, pending a General Election!!!!
A reprint from the pdf file
Gödöllö (Hungary), 8 April 2011 Statement by the Eurogroup and ECOFIN Ministers Ministers acknowledged the Portuguese authorities' request for financial assistance. Ministers invited the Commission, the ECB, the IMF and Portugal to set up a programme and take appropriate action to safeguard financial stability. In the context of a joint EU/IMF programme, the financial assistance package to Portugal should be financed on the European side within the framework provided by the European financial stabilisation mechanism (EFSM) and the European financial stability facility (EFSF). Euro-area and EU financial support will be provided on the basis of a policy programme which will be supported by strict conditionality and negotiated with the Portuguese authorities, duly involving the main political parties, by the Commission, in liaison with the ECB, and the IMF. The preparations will start immediately to reach a cross-party agreement ensuring that an adjustment programme can be adopted by mid-May and implemented swiftly after the formation of a new government. The programme will be based on three pillars: - An ambitious fiscal adjustment to restore fiscal sustainability. - Growth and competitiveness enhancing reforms by removing rigidities in the product and labour markets and by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, allowing for a sustainable and balanced growth and unwinding internal and external macroeconomic imbalances, while safeguarding the economic and social position of its citizens. This should include an ambitious privatisation programme. - Measures to maintain the liquidity and solvency of the financial sector. The set of measures announced by the Portuguese authorities on 11 March is a starting point in this regard. We call on all political parties in Portugal to swiftly conclude an agreement on the adjustment programme and form a new government after the upcoming elections with the ability to fully adopt and implement the agreed fiscal consolidation and structural reform measures. After an agreement has been reached with the Portuguese authorities and supported by the main political parties, the programme will be endorsed by the ECOFIN Council and the Eurogroup, in line with national procedures, on the basis of a Commission and ECB assessment. The Ministers of the Eurogroup and ECOFIN, the Commission and the ECB are looking forward to ambitious fiscal adjustment, comprehensive structural reforms and measures to safeguard financial stability, that will address the fiscal and structural challenges of the Portuguese economy in a decisive manner. It will thereby also help restore confidence and safeguard financial stability in the euro area. ___________________
A Helsinki paper gives some clarity to the chaos that next Sunday's elections in Finland seem likely to add to the now clearly crippled EU! The report may be read in full in English from this link, the crucial points appear in the paragraphs quoted here:
Katainen and Kiviniemi emphasised that the support of a majority in the Portuguese parliament would be a necessary prerequisite of the economic package. “This problem will be considered already when the package is put together”, Kiviniemi said. “Otherwise it will not be put forward”, Katainen insisted. The structure of the financial package is expected to be similar to that provided to Ireland. In it, the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the eurozone countries take part in the financing according to the terms of the temporary stability mechanism, each with a one-third share.
Granting the guarantees to the stability mechanism requires the approval of the Finnish Parliament. Kiviniemi said that it is practically certain that the decision will be made by the new Parliament that is elected just over a week from now. The motion might have to be put forward by the government that is currently in office, as it is unlikely that a new government can be formed before Finland has to take a stand on the Portuguese bailout package. Kiviniemi said that she hopes to get “as wide support as possible” for the guarantees, if the present government has to deal with the matter as a caretaker government, which might not even have a Parliamentary majority behind it.
The Observer newspaper, from Britain, presents itsef as a serious journal, enter Portugal in the search box facility of its headline page this morning and you get this, one joint letter signed by a Professor from the University of Porto!
The Sunday Telegraph does little better with one short item under 'Gilts' and another similar under 'Economics', both posted early on yesterday. None care what the Sunday Times reports, cowering as it is behind the Murdoch pay wall, the political influence of which man (in our now fully corrupted democracy) is the subject of the Observer's main story, linked here.
Britain, it appears has ceased to be interested in democracy.
We must therefore rely on other news sources to discern the detail of the disaster for pan-European democracy that is rapidly gathering momentum across the EU. RTT News, linked here reports as follows:
EU ministers agreed to prepare the financial assistance package to Portugal immediately and to reach an agreement by mid-May.
The package will be provided on the basis of a policy programme which will be supported by strict conditionality and negotiated with the Portuguese authorities, duly involving the main political parties, according to a statement released after the European Union finance ministers meeting on Friday.
In considering the full nonsense contained in this statement, the following facts are crucial:
1. There are no Portuguese authorities with any constitutional legitimacy with whom to negotiate until after the General Election in June.
2. The Portuguese political parties who might be coerced into negotiations, as a result of such negotiations will be unlikely to be elected in the General Election, given the collapse of the previous government following its failure to push a similar austerity package through Parliament.
The General Election to be held in Finland on 17th April, will be the first hurdle in the evolving situation. Jyrki Katainen, the Finnish Finance Minister, who leads the party presently leading the polls, is walking a tightrope as can be seen from this video:
Click here, to see the details of the nine parties in contention in the Finnish elections to guage the impossibility of predicting whether, following the results, there will be a necessary majority in the Finnish Parliament to approve the Portugal package, let alone the earlier reforms to the EFSF and EFSM already supposedly agreed, read here.
Should Finland prove a stumbling block, following their election, then their parliament will likely prove the next victim of the bullying, anti-democratic actions of Ecofin. Portugal will then most likely gain a reprieve and temporary support pending a new Government taking power, which must surely have been all nation's expectation when signing up to the common currency?
As it is a Sunday morning, I cannot leave my weekend readers on such a gloomy note, so here is the new anthem I propose for the poor Finn (but like all EU Commissioners, thoroughly greedy and therefore fully deserving of his fate) in the middle, Olli Rehn, and the pathetic bunch of Finance Ministers from across the EU, who form the horror that is Ecofin:
EU Commissioner Rehn interferes in Finland's General Election
Godollo, Hungary should perhaps be renamed Ohmygodolli as the EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Olli Rehn (along the lines of another Laurel and Hardy catchphrase - another fine mess you got us into) speaking from that location of the Ecofin meeting, effectively warned his fellow countrymen and women against exercising their own judgements in the coming poll, according to Reuters, linked here. Note this particularly from the linked report:
Finland has the right to put requests to use the European Financial Stability Fund to a majority parliamentary vote.
How much must Greece and Ireland pay towards Portugal?
After whatever sordid deal is cobbled together in Budapest today, the question in this post's heading will be that to first consider. As the crisis moves to Spain, how much will Portugal then have to contribute to save the Spanish, continue the sequence and the absurdity of present events will be obvious, surely, to all.
Consider another aspect of the Euro crisis, from the headline in the Irish Times this morning:
ECB interest rate hike to affect over 75% of Irish homeowners
The article itself may be read from here. Remember Irish taxpayers are already having all their pips squeezed to satisfy the EU and IMF (Ireland's real rulers) who are presently in Dublin to ensure that the new Irish Government does nothing outside the terms of the rescue fund, now disclosed as never having been approved by the former cabinet!
Surprise, surprise, this morning some good news, a mainstream media journalist in the UK has awoken to the dangers from the Euro, read Peter Oborne in the Telegraphfrom here, finally twigging what this blog and its forerunner have been almost daily stating for eight long years.
Portuguese Caretaker Government crumbles under EU Coercion
The Government of Portugal, which initially resigned, in order to avoid the humiliation of applying to the EFSF (which event is incidentally estimated to cost Britain £4.4 Billion according to a Daily Telegraph report, linked here, this morning), has now been forced to comply with the formality of requesting assistance from the EU and IMF.
This procedure satisfies the requirements of the autocratic, non-democratic and totalitarian EU, but drives a coach and horses through the constitution of the Portuguese nation state and any remaining pretence that democracy now survives in any corner of the once fully democratic 27 member nation states.
As the Portuguese caretaker government buckled, and did not allow default for the EU's discredited and ill-investing banks, the EU debt crisis must presumably now roll on towards Spain, with Italy and France on the ever nearer horizon.
Portugal has had its ups and downs in recent years, but in the past the rest of Europe could calmly ignore the problems. Not so in the nightmare world of the European Union and the euro currency it brought with it. The following from Wikipedia, nicely illustrates this point:
In 1960, at the initiation of Salazar's more outward-looking economic policy, Portugal's per capita GDP was only 38 percent of the EC-12 average; by the end of the Salazar period, in 1968, it had risen to 48 percent; and in 1973, on the eve of the revolution, Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 percent of the EC-12 average (though the figure is necessarily dampened by the 40% of the budget that went to African wars). In 1975, the year of maximum revolutionary turmoil, Portugal's per capita GDP declined to 52.3 percent of the EC-12 average. Due to the new revolutionary economic policies, oil shocks, recession in Europe, the return of hundreds of thousands of overseas Portuguese from the former overseas provinces, Portugal underwent an economic crisis starting in 1974–75.[26] Convergence of real GDP growth toward the EC average occurred as a result of Portugal's economic resurgence since 1985. In 1991 Portugal's GDP per capita climbed to 54.9 percent of the EC average, exceeding by a fraction the level attained during the worst revolutionary period.[27] After the revolution Portugal's economy would collapse and it took 16 years for the GDP as percentage of the EC-12 average to climb to 54.9 percent again. Portugal had been one of the founding members of EFTA (European Free Trade Association) in 1960. After the fall of the Estado Novo regime and the loss of its overseas territories in 1974 and 1975, Portugal left EFTA and entered into the European Economic Community in 1986.
This crisis this time, however, may be the last that the EU can face, according to this report from the Wall Street Journal! The ECB, of course, knows no restraints, resuming its bond purchase programme today, according to Reuters. Whose money with value are they using to acquire worthless and soon to be unsupported bonds, one must once again wonder?
Any individual believing in national sef-determination and democracy must answer NO to the question in this postings headline.
Anybody wishing for the continuation of the EU in its present form is compelled to answer YES!
That, in a nutshell, is why the EU has become a tyranny! The terms of the EFSF require that the government of a Euro Group country wishing for money from the EFSF requests the funding assistance. Rather than do that, the Government of Portugal resigned, and under its constitution a new government apparently cannot be voted in and formed in less than two months. The President has limited powers so it appears a likely outcome will be a default when funds due to foreign banks next fall due, or that outside governments (presumably the home countries of such foreign banks) make the payments on Portugals behalf to avoid default. This would be outside the EFSF and the IMF and would be an acceptance of default in all but name!
The following paragraphs from a report in the Sunday Telegraph this morning, linked here, seem to sum things up very neatly:
Nobody in the country wants the EU-IMF intervention, but it now seems certain to be imposed, just as with Ireland last year, to protect the euro – not to mention the economies of France and Germany– from the contagion of the financial crisis.
“Portugal doesn’t need any help,” Mr Sócrates pleaded with other European leaders at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.
“I know what it would mean. I know what it meant for the Greeks and the Irish and I don’t want that for my country.”
Even the centre-Right opposition Social Democratic party that torpedoed the socialist government opposes the terms of a bailout, which is expected to bring even tighter austerity policies and lower living standards for years.
Popular anger at measures aimed at averting a bailout has sent Portugal into an economic tailspin.
Portugal’s government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up.
What do these events have in common? They’re all evidence that slashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.
It’s too bad, then, that these days you’re not considered serious in Washington unless you profess allegiance to the same doctrine that’s failing so dismally in Europe.
It was not always thus. Two years ago, faced with soaring unemployment and large budget deficits — both the consequences of a severe financial crisis — most advanced-country leaders seemingly understood that the problems had to be tackled in sequence, with an immediate focus on creating jobs combined with a long-run strategy of deficit reduction.
Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.
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This is the same policy being recommended for California by the Republicans.
Read the entire column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html
Read the entire column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html
Trevorsden - So as a thinking person, do you believe that it is our national interest for our government to sign us up to a "Save the Euro" campaign? I remember when Hague was more interested in "Save the Pound". Under present treaty arrangements the two are incompatible in the long term, because THE EUROZONE CAN ONLY GROW. There should be a treaty mechanism for a country which has joined the euro to make an orderly withdrawal, but there isn't. There should NOT be a treaty obligation on all EU countries to eventually join the euro, but apart from the UK and Denmark there is that legal obligation and it is automatically imposed on all new member states. Cameron had it in his power to insist on those two treaty changes to cut the eurozone down to size and limit the long term threat it would pose to our national interests, and to demand other concessions such as an end to the EU Parliament sitting in more than one place and permanent exemption from the WTD, as the quid pro quo for the treaty change wanted by Germany and France in particular. Instead he is prepared to give them whatever they want and demand nothing in return, and Matthew Hancock and 309 other MPs, including all the Tory MPs bar about 20, have just voted in favour of that policy of appeasement.
The bumbling explanation of the EU leadership's views on the Portugal crisis, as offered by the blathering dimwit Robert Peston, the BBC's Business Correspondent, on their Radio Four Today prgramme this morning at 0713, is a classic of its gendre and will be linked here for your listening amusment when the audio link is up. Listen now!
Meantime, having agreed a future package which will come into effect in 2013, blithely assuming that the entire structure is not actually collapsing around their ears and eyes, while hearing and seeing nothing, agreement on present arrangements was deferred until June to satisfy the Finns and leave them to elect a Government that will accept no further financial obligations, and the Germans to continue their support for Chancellor Merkel's party for the rest of this month's local elections. Fat chance!
According to potty Peston the ECB will have to handle the bankruptcy of Portugal in negotiations with a non-existing government during the next two months. Commission President Barroso meanwhile can see through the fog, smoke mist and double speak to stoutly declare the following, as reported by EU Observer, linked here:
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, himself a former centre-right leader in the debt-ridden southern state, insisted the country would push ahead with plans to get its budget on track.
"He [Socrates] made it clear that ... whatever will be the next government, all the commitments in terms of the fiscal targets will be respected," Barroso told journalists.
"We expressed confidence in the capacity of Portugal to overcome the current situation and also its capacity to find the funding it may need in the months to come."
So that's all right then! But one question does remain, who will eventually pay off all the bad debts the ECB is accruing?
Watch out Portugal, when interest rates hit 7.5 (tomorrow perhaps) then EU dependency awaits you. The following extract, from Mary Ellen Synon's blog, linked here, reveals the real agenda!
It is important to remember that these bailout conditions for Greece, just like the bailout conditions for Ireland, were designed by the EU and not by the IMF. The IMF technique for bailout is first to devalue the currency and oversee spending cuts, then negotiate with bondholders. The reason the EU insisted on being leader in the bailout was to stop that very sensible IMF technique being used anywhere in the EU.
Reason? It would have meant a member state becoming independent of Brussels. The IMF could have helped the member state drop out of the euro. Staying in the euro and paying off all the bondholders, as the EU insists, means recovery has to come the more slow and painful way – by the anti-growth austerity Greece and Ireland are both suffering now.
Of course, this means leaving the people of both countries burdened with loans they can never pay off, and with spending cuts and unemployment levels from which they will not recover for a generation. The bailouts are designed in this way for just one reason, to forge the final link in the chain that will shackle Greece and Ireland, and in turn other eurozone countries, to a centralised European government.
The following later paragraph from the same article seems worth highlighting with red:
The unelected technocratic elite of Brussels see government as being too important, too complicated for the little people to control. Sending in inspectors named Klaus to direct the fiscal and economic movements of the government of a member state is more what the euro-elite have in mind -- what they have in mind now, and have always had in mind.
The destructive nature of the EU which advances by eviscerating the institutions of its member states is about to claim another victim, this time in Portugal, a quote from the linked report:
"We have never been as close to a political crisis in terms of having a budget rejected," said Marina Costa Lobo, a political analyst at the University of Lisbon.
Prime Minister José Socrates has said he would resign if the budget is not passed - a step which would almost certainly trigger sharp selling of Portuguese bonds as investors doubt the country's ability to fix its deepening sovereign debt crisis.
