Germans have no choice but to 'help Greece'

There have been plenty of Slog articles (hat4uk) about how
Merkel and Shauble are twisting reality every which way,
in order to keep the German war, er, scuze me
manufacturing miracle going.
The slogger hasn't been clear on where Merkel and Hot Wheels
stand on Eurobonds. The German constitution certainly doesn't
think Eurobonds are kosher. However, they are the only thing
that will keep this sick financial nightmare going, for those
who want that to happen, like Merkel.

Rocking this boat with something like, let's say....justice, fairness
for the people of the EU (if not the world), like
-putting guilty bankers in jail
-allowing banks to go bankrupt, or nationalising them and their laws
-stop starving innocent citizens
-stop allowing Brussels to cancel constitutions and democracy through
the troika

would mean that every Euro bank would go into a
bankruptcy spiral that would make a  
black hole look as harmless as a cat's ass.

So, Merkel and Hunch are in favour of Eurobonds, even if they
profess the opposite. The ECB and the US are also in favour of
those bouncy-bouncy bonds. It keeps the bounce in the bankers'
step.
And remember, this whole planet is merely doing all these
mathematical backflips in order to 'help little ol' Greece'.

Now, officially, the German people have no chance of escaping
Eurobonds. The SPD opposition has come out in favour of
Eurobonds, because Merkel says 'nein'. The SPD must have been
Greeked really bad in order to agree to agree to this position.
They were probably told "that idea will win you the election".
Let's forget the fact that the German people don't want
Eurobonds. So, the SPD have been cornholed.
In the coming elections, Merkel has to only muddle along and say
'no Eurobonds' and she's back in office. Then, and only then,
will the Eurobonds truly start flying off the presses.

I'm not sure who it was, but some commentator said that
Germany 'will ignore the ECB and Eurobonds'. Sorry folks,
but the ECB will create Eurobonds by hook or by crook, and
they already have, but without the label

'Eurojunkbond' 

on it.

Really sneaky. They've also bailed out Spain and Italy without
calling it a bailout. Orwellian, but successful.

[Draghi dealer. Weimar Mario]

So, the ECB is ignoring Germany. As long as Germany doesn't
raise a fuss, then nobody will ask Germany. The German
constitutional court will probably say 'nein' on 12 September
on the issue of EUbonds.
But, like I said, nobody outside Germany is asking for Germany's
opinion. It's a done deal. Draghi's your Goldman Sachs man.
Don't sweat the small sh*t. and , it's all small sh*t.

No fiscal union. 

More EU direct rule from Brussels. 

Merkel is probably trying to Weimar (i.e. screw)
the German people to save the banks.

Read all about it: the Slog. 2 texts (hat4uk.wordpress.com)

THE SATURDAY ESSAY: Forget the debate…Germany will have no choice but to leave the eurozone

Merkel and Schäuble have the will to create a stronger eurozone – but not the means.

At the end of the last Slogpost about Germany, I closed with these words:

‘My source [the 'Bankfurt Maulwurf'] has always maintained that other forces in Germany will steer Merkel away from the rocks. He may well be proved right again. And the only way for her to go would be out of the euro….or a drastic reformulation of its membership. We should all watch out for the signals from Angela Merkel next week.’

...

Over at Zero Hedge, Tyler Durden yesterday said the referendum idea could be Germany ‘preparing the nuclear option’; but he was also sharp enough to deduce that it’s much more likely she and Schäuble would simply use the referendum to show that “the People have spoken – sod the Karlsruhe Court, a new Europe is born!”

...

While this is exactly what global bondholders want (they not giving a toss about liberty, democracy and other pointless obstacles to globalist money-accrual) it would effectively deliver Europe into the hands of two people, Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble, who have shown themselves to be devious, secretive, no respecters of anyone’s constitution, and Big Stateists. And if you think this anti-Germanism, I suggest you ask a cross-section of intelligent Germans (especially Bundestag MPs) what they think about that opinion.

There is a final piece of evidence about motive for getting ‘popular approval’ of their plans. Very quietly – at least as far as the MSM goes – Schäuble has, with Merkel’s even quieter shuttle-diplomacy help, had him installed as the man who will run the FiskalUnion, should it ever come to pass. Wolfie enjoys the power trip. He wants the job. Angela herself, meanwhile, has a past that screams power-megalo: “never mind which direction we’re headed, I want to be at the wheel”.

It’s important for open-minded readers to weigh these facts carefully. They’re not sensationalist scare tactics, but very serious considerations for anyone still aware enough to care about freedom: Schäuble used to run German Intelligence (as Interior Minister) and Merkel was a hardline Youth leader in East Germany. These folks are not democrats. If it waddles, flies, quacks and swims like a duck, the chances are it’s a duck.

So there you have it: a done deal, German isn’t leaving the euro, and come what may, things will push on towards a Berlin-dominated EU Superstate.

Er, no. In fact, my money is on both these German leaders running out of road sooner rather than later. They may not lose power in Germany, but the big question is, will they get their way in Europe? I think the answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Ultimately, several obstacles will prove insurmountable.

To many Ausländer, the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe is a bit of a joke. (To Merkel, it certainly is: she simply doesn’t care to grasp its role in protecting the BundesRepublik from people like her). But to a wide cross-section of intelligent Germans, it is anything but.

Criticism of Germany’s highest court is generally viewed as inappropriate in political circles, for example. And while one sentence attributed to the late Social Democratic Party politician Herbert Wehner – “We won’t allow the assholes in Karlsruhe to destroy our policies” – raises many a smile when menioned, German politicians must tread carefully: because, as polls have shown over and over again, the court’s judges generally enjoy a level of popularity many politicians would remove at least one limb to have.

Three sources (excluding Bankfurt Man) have expressed the view to me in recent weeks that Karlsruhe will deem the ESM to be unconstitutional. And for the Merkeschäuble, that obstacle has the potential to become an unscaleable cliff-face if President Glauck gets involved.

Another tradition of the German constitution is that the Presidency is a titular position only, but Glauck has already splattered that one by formally giving Karlsruhe the green light to hold the ESM up until at least September 12th. While Merkel’s pastor father was in bed with the Stasi in East Germany, Joachim Glauck was an actively dissident Osti. The President doesn’t trust the Chancellor: he knows she’s a power-freak, and she knows that he knows. He may yet choose to set off his own nuclear option if she decides to ignore the Court.

Whatever Glauck and Karlsruhe do or don’t do, the power-battle between Berlin and Frankfurt first examined by The Slog two years ago is still alive and well. For the Bankfurters in general (and Jens Weidmann in particular) the fiscal probity of Germany overrides everything. To them, democracy is a nice-to-have for unscrupulous politicians, but at best it is peripheral to the point…and at worst, a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. In this, they would have a lot in common with Wolfgang Schäuble: where they differ is what to do about it. Wolfie thinks ‘let’s take over Europe and control these idiots ourselves’. Jens thinks ‘lets GTF out of there before it all goes pear-shaped’.

The odds in this one are, most of the time, stacked against Frankfurt and its fiscal angst. Ordinary citizens rarely listen to medium-term warnings when the short-term looks rosy. But this is where Harold MacMillan’s favourite factor – “Events dear boy, events” – could very easily change everything.[BLACK SWAN]

Although Mario Draghi’s Brussels-inspired spin about Spain and Italy not facing bailouts is keeping the markets’ most superficial knuckle-draggers happy for the time being, everyone – without exception – I speak to on a regular basis in various european financial and fiscal roles says eurozone funding simply cannot muddle through this time: there is no economic recovery coming through, and no more costs that can be cut without causing severe damage to the economic infrastructure. Printing money is now the only way ClubMed debt can be cured….except forgiveness of it, which is off every radar on the planet – even though it is the only sensible solution.

The right influential Germans at the right time finding a way to dramatise the certainty of hyperinflation might yet swing the country’s  public opinion there in an entirely different direction. Not only that, were some of the more Bild-like tabloids, at the same time, busy depicting Spain and Italy as money-pits on a scale to make Greece look like a local council budget overspend in Thuringia, the swing would be both huge and rapid. Ironically, the most powerful emotion available for the Merkel opposition to use is the one inbuilt into the German psyche: that latins generally are lazy, disorganised and spendthrift.

Connected to this – and perhaps the biggest single reason why I think the Merkeschäuble’s tank-tread will fall off – is that the real-life balance of power in the EU has now shifted once and for all.  In fact, the emergence of the Hollande-Draghi-Monti-Rajoy axis in my view makes a Cold Civil War in the EU inevitable.

...

The one thing they all have in common is a willingness to compromise, and a recognition that Teutonic inflexibility is getting in the way of that. For reasons ranging from history (France) via local politics (Spain, Italy) to geopolitics (the ECB), they will vote down anything Berlin tries to do, within the confines of the EU Brussels and ECB Frankfurt eurozone structure, to continue imposing draconian discipline on the Clubmeds.

...

When that reality eventually dawns on a broad enough consensus among Germans of all classes and professions, they will pull out of the eurozone. Once they do that, the EU project is doomed. And once the markets get wind of it, all outcomes will be equally horrific.

There simply is no other possible eventuality. I still think it likely that what I said three months ago will prove to be true: Germany will leave the eurozone before Greece does. As to that exact timing, events could still prove me wrong. But a eurozone with Germany in it cannot, and will not, survive.

In the next few days, I hope to bring even harder evidence to support this thesis: some of it from very surprising sources.

2

BANKFURT MOLE: Merkel ‘in a prison of her own making’

Merkel: “she can’t control Draghi now”

“Germany must desert the eurozone, and the Chancellor must engineer that”

…“The ordinary German has no idea what we are taking on,” The Slog’s long-serving Frankfurt Mole ‘Maulwurf’ told me this lunchtime, “They see a grand project and Germany at the centre of a strong Europe eventually. Of all the European nations, they are perhaps the worst informed about the realities of the euro disaster”.

In many ways, the Bankfurt Maulwurf is right. German public opinion is strongly opposed to Greece staying in the eurozone and getting “yet more” help as they see it, but comprehension of why Greece is in the mess it is (and, for example, the role of Franco-German arms sales in the collapse) doesn’t figure highly – if at all.

... Angela Merkel returns from holiday next Monday, but the pressure she faces then will be from the very pro-EU SPD Opposition to ‘get off the pot’. Her Government grudgingly backs Mario Draghi’s proposal to help lower borrowing costs in Spain and Italy with more direct bond-buying, but the SPD wants her to be more pro-active, and assume greater risks, to avert a breakup of the single currency.

... An Infratest dimap poll for ARD television last week showed that 76% of Germans think a breakup of the euro would be bad for Germany, but 64% were confident the euro would survive. And 56% said the government should “do everything” to save the euro. Replace ‘everything’ with ‘nothing’, and you’d have the UK sentiment spot on.

“Their confidence is based on ignorance,” says the Maulwurf, “that, and Merkel’s easy facility with the smoke and mirrors”.