Some
rambling thoughts from Ambrose E-P. Including the idea that the EU is not
benign. (Shurely not – Ed). And some thought it was essentially a French-German
post WWII construct to establish joint Hegemonie throughout Europe (and beyond)
without the need for another Franco-Prussian War. If Serbia (or was it
Austria-Hungary) can start a really big war that outflanked La Ligne Maginot in
a heartbeat; think what mighty Slovenia might wreak.
The
haircut to Cypriot bank depositors – at least those plutocrats whose balance
exceeds €100,000 in the
two big Cyprus Banks - is definitely not going to be a careful trim around the
ears, even a short back ‘n sides. It’s going to be the full Monty and a shining
bald pate. Not least because “capital controls” still apply to the remaindered
balances. Which means that “we’ve taken a big chunk of your money; and the rest
we just may let you have back, sometime, maybe, but only when Angela, Christine
and one of the Mario’s says it’s OK”. The silence from Moscow is deafening. The
Troika gallops on, corpses to left of it, corpses to right of it, all the way
to the Russian artillery. Mi’Lords Raglan and Cardigan would be proud.
According
to officialdom, all is as well as can be in Euro-Fantasyland, post Cyprus. (It is
a template, it is not a template – we’ll keep you guessing). The Russian dodgy
depositor/crooks are serendipitous collateral damage. However, Francois the
sauce Hollandaise is screaming about too much austerity (and his corrupt,
mendacious Minister of Anti-Corruption), the Dutch are dumping on the
Luxemburgers as no better than Cyprus with European dodgy-money, and the rest
of Club Med is in a total funk; waiting for the Cyprus style other Jill-boot to
drop on their weakest banks. The Cyprus FinMin has wisely ex-fenestrated
himself, on the advice of the Archbish of Nicosia or on his own recognizance
that he has beggared his people on an unprecedented scale at the diktat of the
terrible Troika, after comprehensively failing to get his Uncle Vanya to double
down. Mr. Anastasiades obviously now has the half-life of a Gerald Rattner
prawn sandwich. Life in Cyprus is going to become very, very unpleasant, as the
privations and recriminations build. The witch hunts against those wise enough
to try to get over the moat before the drawbridge was raised with their folding
Euro’s and reach the sanctuary of a Swiss bank will rise to a crescendo that
will rend the polity along wholly new non-Ottoman fault lines. Misery will be
relentless, pending an ignominious Eurexit as the terms of all the Troika’s new
hard money are serially breached and the infamous debt ratio tends to the
infinite as the denominator approaches zero. In the meantime there is stunned
silence from the people of Cyprus as the wasteland is surveyed. There’s no
doubt now that Metropolitan Chrisostomos should emulate Makarios and combine
church and state, and help the poor souls who live in the Cyprus sun. Maybe
even make nice with the Ottomans to the north.
We confess we were totally wrong about the fragrant Christine at the IMF being a shill for the French FinMin. Clearly she has become the Bu-Bank’s fifth columnist and resident in DC. Another poke aux yeux for M. Trierweiler. (Hell hath no fury like a Ségolène dédaignée). She’s signed up for the full-on austerity cheveux-chemise à l’allemande. Looks beautiful aux crinière d’acier et un foulard d’Hermès. Maybe because, like her former boss, shorty Psychozy, she’s having her collar felt by M. Clouseau of the Deuxième over some dodgy financial dealings back in the halcyon gay Paree days of hanging out at L’Elysée with the lovely Carla. Safer in Berlin with new bff Frau Angela and her Bu-Bank chorus line; all singing about bail-in’s to the strains of the Horst Wessel Lied (at least when viewed from a Nicosia point of view).
The
other fragrant, lovely Cristina de la Casa Rosada continues to bang on about
Las Malvinas Argentinas, (while busily trying to stiff her few remaining
foreign creditors in New York). Not nice for the President of friendly,
neighbouring Uruguay to have called her "an ugly hag" and the late, lamented and
adulated Nestor "the one-eyed one". With her buddy Chavez having metaphorically
left Caracas in a box, she and her other friends in Havana, Castro Bros. are
looking a trifle isolated. Next stop Pyonyang to ask the Callow Leader how it’s
done.
I’m
not sure Frau Tante Angela doing some lederhosen slapping with Vlad, Vlad and
inspecting Ukrainian lady protesters naked to the waist is good for her image
as Machiavelli mit Schaftstiefeln. Die Prinzessin weiß zum Besten, ich schätze.
Well,
I guess it was only a matter of time. After all the Nazi name calling and
Hitler effigy burning nach Athen, it had to be expected that the Greeks would
put their finger on a new way to embarrass the Teutonic Goths. One wonders why
it took them so long. Is there an example here for France? Back rent from the
Gestapo for four years in the Ritz a la Place Vendôme. Perhaps the USA should
call in the Marshall Plan advances too. Sorry Italy, Il Duce probably messed up
jumping on this band-wagon. In fact the Cypriots have a claim for some bombing
by Rome and the Abyssinians have run out of abacus beads totting up their
invoice. The Greeks might also want to charge Italy (Rome branch) for the sack
of Syracusa and the assassination of Archimedes. Mighty little Malta MC is
staying below the parapet for the moment, waiting for the bank run shoe to fall
once Slovenia goes down in flames and should be totting up the bill for
Berlin’s 1940’s ministrations. What a lot of Euro-accounts to be settled. And
the mighty €
was
designed by Dictator Kohl to ensure war never returned to fractious Europe.
Democracy at work Prussian style.
This
Euro-Farce is set to run and run.
Simon
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