According to Ambrose E-P in The Telegraph, on Thursday the band will stop playing and the European leaders will be forced to quit dancing around and around and instead sit down and take a final decision for good or ill. The markets have had enough shilly-shallying and the experts are now convinced that both Spain and Italy will require emergency rescues either in weeks or certainly by the end of the year. Their minimum requirements will amount to at least e1.2 trillion over three years and if they try to raise that sort of dosh in the markets they will be laughed out of town.
There was, there is and there will forever be, only two possible solutions to the problem. Either the euro zone breaks up into Northern and Southern groupings (using those terms elastically), or, the Germans agree to allow the European Central Bank (ECB) to stand full square behind the national debts of the member countries - but with Germany, in turn, agreeing to stand full square behind it! One senses that the markets have reached what is known colloquially as their 'fuck 'em threshold'. Any more attempts by European leaders to pile words on the table instead of German financial pledges will simply bring on the deluge.
Mind you, there is a political price to pay whatever they do. According to Ambrose E-P, there is already a fierce, not to say threatening, dispute between Catalonia and Madrid arising from the peculiarities of the internal arrangements within Spain. He refers, in a particularly apt phrase to "political revulsion", and that is likely to rear its ugly head all over Europe if this imbroglio continues.
Thursday is Der Tag!
Got to thinking David (yeah I know but hear me out) --- you got Mitt over there dashing about Europe. We all recognize the Mittster's expertise on stuff Olympiana. But he's not accepting my calls for some reason - I figure there's a solar flare or something interfering with the satellite thingamajig connecting me to the Eurozone Internet.
Anyways. Might you act as an intermediary of sorts? Just tell whoever's answering Mitt's phone your acting at the behest of JK but in the wider interests of rescuing not only Great Britain's Olympics but since he's wandering around Europe anyway...
You know what to say David. And, bonus of bonus, together me'n you can help burnish Mitt's foreign policy bona fides and maybe change the name on the mailbox of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Posted by: JK | Tuesday, 31 July 2012 at 16:21
Sorry, Jk, I draw the line at polishing anything of Mitt's, thanks all the same!
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 31 July 2012 at 18:32