I cannot think of any situation such as the Greek bailout, where the informed condemnation is so clear and unequivocal. You will be extremely hard put to find anyone outside the bubble who thinks the deal will work, and most think it will not hold more than a few months.

Perhaps the most entertaining, if not definitive piece comes from The Washington Post which has asked a group of experts and economists to pronounce on it.

View full article here

Perhaps it's as simple as... offering the Greek people direct government by Brussels, calling it a way to end the pain and bypass the perfidious Germans and their torturing of the Greek people. "Your government no longer works. We can give you everything you want. We'll protect you from German demands for money. We'll stop the pain. We'll bring you safety and prosperity."

Could they?

Normally when all the people in the bubble agree, they are wrong.
Maybe the deal will hold, the dollar collapse, the euro become the reserve currency.
Maybe China's bubble bursts. It is interesting they just refuse to pay the Russians for oil delivered, and then insist the price is reduced. This hardball tactics can backfire if Iran causes oil to be scarce.

It is certainly a key question: What have we missed ?

What have we missed?

http://climategate.nl/2011/11/21/goldma ... ordrukken/
Please use Google Translate Dutch - English to have the details

.........Could they, Graham? They could certainly try and, if that is the only option...or the bit that we've been missing, they will certainly do it.
I was going to suggest that the Greeks, hungry & homeless, would rather stay that way than lose every vestige of pride by acquiescing but, when I consider the British complaisance in being subsumed by the EU I have my doubts...although the Greeks may well be made of sterner stuff.
I imagine that, at this moment, there are serious covert discussions taking place among the 'Nordics'
They could withdraw without much self-inflicted pain & precipitate the end of, at least, the Euro....a giant leap for Mankind.

Greek deficit with 6.4 already higher than the 5.4% anticipated with in the latest budget that was underlying the bail out.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/dft/11568166/__ ... ast__.html

From N24 this morning:

IMF Lagarde, Only money for Greece in return for savings

Bund Der Deutsche Steuerzahler say's every member of the German "Bundestag" should vote against the Greek bailout.

Nothing. The EU gravy train is running out of coal so the eurofanatics have started ripping up the carriages and burning the fixtures and fittings. Rear ones first. Next it'll be the floorboards and then each other.

Gotta keep that romper stomper train running on schedule. Leadership - that's what it's all about. Sieg heil, or something.

Last resort - a detour to the Führer Coal Bunker for refuelling and to stock up on cyanide pills to throw at the peasants?

Alles in Wunderland. Macht schnell.

The Bundestag will roll over, as it always does the party hacks will do as they are told. But how the bailout affects the electoral dynamics in Germany is the one to watch. So far, Merkel is riding high. But this could so easily change.

The missing ingredient is surely POLITICS - as France and Germany have forthcoming elections!!

As for the rest of the EU political elite they are so blinkered and brainwasher by the supposed brilliance of the 'Great Project' and of course have their heads so far up their own backsides I'm surprised they don't all become asphyxiated!!

On second thoughts perhaps that will eventually be their fate!!!

Why aren't we hearing from Geert Wilders and that True Finn bloke?
Both Holland and Finland are quite capable of scuppering the deal, and it would get Merkel off the hook.

The elections are undoubtedly an issue ... possibly even THE issue. Have you noticed that, publicly, at least, Sarkozy is very quiet? What happened to the Merkozy?

I don't have a clue.

1. Perhaps you've answered your own question though - why would they help the Merkel; is she on their side?

2. What's their stance on the zero? So-called right wing politicians and pundits are a constant and major disappointment to me. They never hold any line firmly, and the line is always too soft anyway. But especially so on chucking out turd-world immigrants (and their progeny) ALL of whom are out-and-out illegal, or rather illegitimate.

3. Maybe they have spoken but, as is their practice, the universally leftard MSM has studiously refused to put it out.

4. Maybe their take is that the colleagues are busy nicely shooting themselves in the foot all on their own so why interrupt? Besides, maybe they calculate that they risk having the blame dumped on them when the shit finally hits the fan. Better to remain silent then knife the surviving eu scum in the aftermath.

5. Then again perhaps, like me, they're just savouring the coming train wreck. You know, foreplay style.

Nothing has been missed. The mkts smell blood ie: money, consequently the analysts have at long last started looking into the Zero construct and what they find is what sceptics knew all along, what the Aussie's call a crock of shite.

All that is happening now, is that the colleagues still wont acknowledge it's all over. There is no plan B, as they never imagined this would ever happen and I'm sorry they are not that smart, if they were they would never have set up the Zero on such lousy foundations, or even thought they could.

They're just doing what they always do, fuck everything up.

As a political construct, the purpose of the single currency was to create conditions for further political integration ... the euro is not the end, but a means to an end. Central to the mechanism is the beneficial crisis. In this, the euro was always destined to fail but, in so doing, would pave the way for the next level of integration.

However, I don't think they banked on the crisis being this intractable, or the resistance to further integration being that staunch, which has created serious stresses.

But you would have to be stupid beyond stupidity if you believed that the smoke and mirrors currently masquerading as a bailout was going to hold the position beyond a few weeks. It is questionable now as to whether it will even get them past 20 March.

Thus, it seems reasonable to ask whether the "colleagues" have anything in reserve. Even if you believe them to be stupid, they cannot actually be that stupid ... can they?