Angela in the footsteps of Hitler

                                         1938

                                2015

Hard to see what makes Frau Merkel "Person of the Year." Maybe it's her unstinting willingness to put the interests of Washington's power elite before the interests of Germany. Yes, it's very nice that she has a big heart and takes in the refugees, but it would have been more important, more humane, and more courageous to stand up from her first day as Chancellor against the reckless US foreign policy that creates these refugees in the first place.

In 1938 Hitler had plenty of friends in Washington too.

Merkel to Greeks; no relief from austerity enema

One can only marvel at the myopic arrogance Frau Merkel demonstrates in her proclamations to the people of Greece. We hope the new government in Greece will stay the course in governing, finally, for the people of Greece instead of for German banks and foreign bondholders.

Let's not forget that much of Greece's accumulated debt is the result of extravagant military spending over the past thirty years, spending always applauded by the same suspects who now expect the Greek people to endure generations of making do with less to atone for the profligacy of the NATO acolytes who ran up the debt.

There are other problems of course. The Greek elite have been world leaders in the art and science of tax evasion ever since taxes were first invented. (by the Greeks, if I'm not mistaken!) PM Tsipras and his finance minister have let it be known they intend to change that, and hopefully they will not be cowed by the threats of the tycoons to move abroad. Since they're not paying their taxes anyway, that's not exactly much of a loss.

The main reason for Merkel's dire warning and Schaeuble's patronizing tone, as if scolding an errant child, is that these champions of the decaying old order realize history has arrived at a moment where too many are seeing that the emperor is stark naked.

"There's no arguing with us about this..."

Let's not argue then. The truth is, the EU and NATO need Greece far more than Greece needs them.

World leaders converge on Paris in search of photo-ops

Charlie Hebdo is obviously much more loved in death than in life. In life, they were consistently harassed by the French state. In death, they are lionized by the French state.

And far beyond! These champions of freedom of expression have inspired a solidarity march in Paris tomorrow, that has virtually every leader in the free world clamouring to climb aboard the bandwagon!
Merkel, Cameron, Poroshenko... yes, ALL the leaders of the free world, and apparently every member of the Israeli Knesset to boot!

Thus far Canada has missed the boat on this one, designating Public Safety Minister Steve Blaney, a non-entity, to represent the country. But that was before news came out that all the top-echelon Likud crowd would be in attendance, which may yet cause a change of plans in Ottawa.

This is truly a heart-warming rally in support of freedom of speech!

But while our hearts are warm and our eyes are misty, let's not forget that as recently as last summer, the nation that now parades itself as the very womb of "freedom of expression," criminalized protest against Israel's invasion of Gaza.

Ah, but life is awash with ironies, is it not?

With voter turnout at almost 40%, Ukraine election seen as great success!

You always know your "democracy" is in trouble when over half the eligible voters can't be bothered to vote. That seems to be the case with today's election in Ukraine.

That dismal turn-out comes in spite of the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird having issued an inspirational paean to the virtues of freedom and democracy mere hours before the polls opened. Ya gotta love that bit about "resiliency and determination for a better future."

We'll see how the Ukrainians feel about freedom and democracy when they get the full course treatment of Frau Merkel's austerity enema!

Goodbye dreams of European integration!

You'll note that Baird boasts of Canada's generous complement of Ukrainian-Canadian election observers on the ground. That observer mission breaks the cardinal rule of election observer missions; don't empower partisans to determine the fairness of elections.

While that might look beyond sketchy in the rest of the world, the Harper gang is counting on big numbers from the Ukrainian-Canadian community in the next Canadian Federal Election.

Last time round, Big Steve won a majority on the strength of 25% of eligible voters.

Since then, there's been a lot of Canadians shaking their heads at the multiplicity of anti-democratic initiatives emanating from Harper's government.

If those grateful hyphenated Ukrainians turn up to vote, they could make all the difference in the next Canadian federal election.

The Harper gang's Ukraine policy is absolutely brazen self-serving political opportunism and little else.

Putin Growls; the crass stupidity of Western media on Ukraine

There could be an almost infinite number of ways to portray the Russian government's disappointment over the fact that Petro Poroshenko has chosen to abrogate the cease-fire and ramp up the violence in Ukraine.

Putin disappointed.

Putin saddened.

Putin disturbed... etc.

Instead, we get Putin growls.

That's journalism with an agenda, and the agenda is obviously to demonize Putin, whose crime was to call for an extension of the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, a crime in which his co-conspirators were Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel.

Poroshenko was obviously open to the idea of extending the cease-fire as recently as yesterday. Who prevailed upon him to change his mind?

D-day hijinx shows Putin anything but "isolated"

If anything, today's to-ing and fro-ing in France suggests that the NATO leaders are tripping over themselves trying to get face-time with Putin.

CNN tries to put a pro-NATO spin on things by making it sound like Putin is worried about avoiding another round of sanctions.

Meanwhile, Canadian media, who have been wallowing in adoration for PM Harper for being the most "hawkish" G-7 leader in his over-the-top anti-Russian proclamations, got a sharp slap when Obama abandoned the freeze-out-Putin camp by having a cozy chat with the evil Russian dictator at lunch today.

The isolated Putin also met briefly with the guy western media like to portray as his arch-nemesis,
Petro Poroshenko, president elect of Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and dined yesterday with President Hollande of France.

I'd say the only world leader "isolated" is that most hawkish doofuss from Canada.

The rise of poverty in Frau Merkel's Germany

The never-ending applause for the "economic miracle" that is Germany needs a reality check.

True enough, the relatively robust German economy may be "the strong man of Europe," but relative to what?

Relative to Greece and Spain?

Even a dwarf can be the tall man of Europe, provided he stands next to a fellow of even more diminutive stature.

Here's a story about the rapid growth of food banks in Germany. You will note in the graph that the number of food banks in Germany when Frau Merkel became Chancellor in 2005 stood at 480.

By 2012 that number had surpassed 900.

Selke's argument is actually far more interesting than the simple rise in the number of food banks would indicate. He claims that food banks allow us to ignore the structural problems that create poverty by applying band-aid solutions to treat the symptoms.

He may be right, but at least people get to eat.

Changing times...

It's much too soon to gloat, but there are hopeful signs all across the horizon.

The intellectual back-stops of austerity have been revealed as frauds.

That will be good news for the many millions who are more than tired of the Merkel-induced and Reinhart and Rogoff inspired "austerity enema" from Greece to Spain to Cyprus to Italy and beyond.

Little people across the board are less inclined to give the free pass to the banksters who have weaseled multiple billions out of the public purse over the past few years.

Ultra-conservative Alberta has a major labour uprising on its hands.

And Jason Collins just made it OK to be gay.

The shape of a new world is coming into focus.

Top Harvard economists get caught making stuff up and nobody cares

Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff are the Crosby and Ovechkin of economics.

A few years ago they wrote a book that provided the indisputable proof that the likes of Angela Merkel et al need to justify the austerity enema.

Economies just can't grow if they have too much debt.

That's music to the ears of slash and burn right-wing politicians everywhere.

"See! Your pension and your wage and your benefits are crippling the economy! We gotta cut back now!!!!... "

So along comes an economics student a few years later and tries to replicate their theoretic models. He tries and he tries with no success.

Finally he respectfully requests their original data. They oblige.

And their model still doesn't work!

In other words, the link between their research and their conclusion is mostly imaginary.

One would like to think that the revelation of such nefarious hijinx would result in outrage, opprobrium, loss of tenure... something.

Instead, it has resulted in next to nothing. Krugman writes about it in his blog and that's about the extent of the outrage and opprobrium.

There are of course very sound reasons why mainstream media are happy to let this story float by.

Mainstream media is owned by the same folks who think your pension and your wages are way too generous.

More austerity please!

Oh-oh... now you're REALLY f@cked; Cameron and Merkel vow to keep up Thatcher's great work!

Here's a headline that's guaranteed to set a hundred million sphincters into involuntary spasms;

"Cameron and Merkel call for urgent action to make EU flexible and competitive."

That's British PM David Cameron, the unctuous twat who truly believes Thatcher saved his country, and Angela Merkel, she of the "austerity enema" that has been setting the EU economy right for several years now.

Flexible and competitive. Indeed! Maggie could have written that headline herself. We all need to be flexible and competitive of course, because there's a less fortunate, more hungry person somewhere willing to do our job for less.

Posing for a photo-op at Merkel's Alpine retreat, the "Berghof," the leaders agreed that it is up to them to show "global leadership."

Be afraid...

Preacher caught with pants down

Gwyn Morgan is a very successful top drawer exec who is now the Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, Canada's biggest international construction conglomerate. Sort of a "Bechtel  North" outfit that's famous for landing the big deals in the shadier realms of the global economy.

When he's not busy in the Chairman's chair or out on the lecture circuit, where he likes to spread the gospel of "corporate ethics," Gwyn pens a column for Canada's newspaper of record. It's a somewhat preachy column, all things considered, and I found today's effort typically stinky.

He's tossing turds at the Euro-zone dumpster-divers, those benighted citizens who have been reduced to finding their next meal in the dumpsters of Europe, from Athens to Barcelona to Lisbon to Madrid. The reason they're in those dumpsters scrounging for their next meal is because Angela Merkel's "austerity enema" has made that dumpster their last best hope.

Gwyn takes exception to the fact that these folks are blaming the lenders or the politicians for their plight. They are "blaming others," when it is so patently obvious that it's their fault. After all, they are the ones who were living large off  all those " extravagant programs that drove debt to astronomical levels."

That's right! It wasn't those guys with the 100 foot boats in the ubiquitous Mediterranean yacht basins and the Bentleys and the Manhattan and Belgravia apartments. It was the grubby-fisted school teacher who thought he was entitled to retire at 62 WITH A PENSION!!!

Now that they've hit the debt wall of course, these coddled malcontents are looking for someone to blame, and their first instinct is always, you know it, blame the Bentleys-in-Belgravia crowd! And if those guys have hoisted anchor and sailed for the Caymans, well, blame the bankers!

Gwyn does a sterling job of setting the record straight. Debts are debts and if they're not repaid, well, God Himself fears what could happen next. So stop your whining, starving children of Spain and Greece. Suck it up! In two or three generations, if you keep your noses to the grindstone, the bond-holders should be paid in full and we'll let you out of the dumpster.

This is in stunning contrast to how excess debt is dealt with in the private sector. First of all, once you're deemed "too big to fail" you get a bail-out courtesy of those folks now rummaging through the trash.

If you weren't quite too big to fail, if you were an Enron or a Worldcom or an Olympia and York or a Lehman Brothers, hell, you just pulled the plug and moved on! Hundreds of billions of dollars of debt just go away!

It's magic! And neither Dick Fuld or Paul Reichman  has ever been spotted climbing out of a dumpster.