Here's an interesting viewpoint The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15 2011. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.
THIS WAS IN A SPANISH NEWSPAPER: "EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ"
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
"I walked down the street in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz ... We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world.
These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe .
A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves. Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it.
It is now more than sixty years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, twenty million Russians, ten million Christians, and nineteen-hundred Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated.' Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ? If our Judeo-Christian heritage is offensive to Muslims, they should pack up and move to Iran , Iraq or some other Muslim country.
And the depths of chaos beckon while the financial sands beneath our feet shift into oblivion. Today, we offer you a metaphor salad to describe the current progress of the financial apocalypse. Yep, more happy news from the economic war front.
To say we are skating on thin ice globally as well as here in the US is an understatement of epic proportions. It’s the new and improved walking dead economies – it’s the end of the economic banking world and I feel fine. In fact, it should leave all of us breathless.
While Wall Street manipulates the hell out of the markets and bankers play games with our future (and they have butter fingers by the way), we are told to chill… everything is under control and we are in a slow recovery. Black is white; up is down. And by the way, I have a bridge that is to die for — just sign here. Never mind the second Great Depression taking place. Pardon moi if confidence is in the toilet these days and if we don’t believe the powers that be any more. We’re fickle that way.
It was claimed that MF Global was a freak – that it would never happen again. That is until PFGBest came along and made lightning strike twice in the same spot. What? Nothing to see here sheeple… Quick, invest, invest, invest! From The Economic Collapse:
PFGBest is a brokerage firm in Cedar Falls, Iowa that mostly handles agricultural futures.
All hell broke loose when the National Futures Association discovered that a bank account that was supposed to be holding 225 million dollars of customer funds was only holding about 5 million dollars instead.
So where is the other 220 million dollars?
That is a very good question.
Of course it is not a promising sign that the head of PFGBest tried to commit suicide when this news came out.
Next, we were told a wave of city bankruptcies would NEVER occur in the US, we nodded and smiled like idiots and said that we believed the weasel politicians. California is turning into Greece at an alarming rate with three cities in the last 2 weeks going toes up and many more to follow — first came Stockton, then Mammoth Lakes and now San Bernardino. Just nod some more if you get it now. From The Los Angeles Times:
The city’s fiscal crisis has been years in the making, compounded by the nation’s crushing recession and exacerbated by escalating pension costs, lucrative labor agreements, Sacramento’s raid on redevelopment funds and a city reserve that is tapped out, officials said.
And this is not unique to California. It’s happening all over the US, you just don’t see it in the press because it makes Obama look bad. Take a long, hard look at Scranton, Pennsylvania where all city employees were just put on minimum wage. They wouldn’t raise taxes (who would want to?), so the mayor reduced wages. He had to do something because they are BROKE.
We were told to have faith in global interest rates, that they couldn’t possibly be manipulated by insiders — that is until the LIBOR scandal. Whoops! In fact, watch this scandal… it will literally rock the world and bring economies to their knees. Count on it. If financial dreamers dream, then it’s nightmares all around. Welcome to global collusion. More from The Economic Collapse:
It turns out that banksters have been colluding to fix global interest rates for years.
At stake is both the integrity of the world’s financial system and the credibility of the U.K. authorities to police it. Long before the current scandal, many European policy makers had concluded that London during the boom was the Wild West, whose loose standards are a threat to European financial stability. The Libor scandal suggests U.S. regulators have reached similar conclusions. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. regulatory body that first started investigating rate-fixing, left little doubt how seriously it regards the abuses it uncovered.
Get the hell out of the system, right now. Don’t stubbornly stand on the deck of a fiscal Titanic as it sinks. Head for the lifeboats and nix the suicide folks.
We were also told that Greece was an anomaly. Just another twist of fate — couldn’t happen again. Until Spain that is, who looks an awful like a repeat of Greece only worse. And as has been foretold on this blog over and over, it’s a chain reaction and more catastrophe to follow and soon. It’s summertime in Fiscal Hell, don’tcha know.
Don’t let the austerity they are pushing in Greece fool you. It consists of taxes that no one can pay if they want to continue eating. It does reduce spending and government bennies, but it is too little too late. Europe is on the way down, big time. Spain will make Greece look like a walk in the fricking park. Again from The Economic Collapse:
Can anyone still possibly deny that Spain is going down the exact same road that Greece has gone?
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is proposing a huge slate of tough austerity measures including a 3 point increase in the Value Added Tax on goods and services. If that 3 point hike is implemented, the Value Added Tax will rise to 21 percent.
Could you imagine going to the store and paying a 21 percent sales tax?
Ouch.
Rajoy is promising that these measures will get Spain back on the right track.
Of course we have already seen how well such austerity measures have worked in Greece.
The unemployment rate in Spain is already up to 24.4 percent, and now these austerity measures will slow the economy down even more.
No wonder there is rioting in the streets. You can see high quality footage of the rioting that has been going on in Spain this week right here. At one point police were seen firing rubber bullets at the protesters.
But of course the citizens of Spain could not live way above their means forever. At some point every debt bubble ends, and when that happens the results are often incredibly painful.
You are looking into America’s not-too-distant future. Truth be told, if the Obama administration was honest about our unemployment rate, it would read over 15% and personally, I think it is closer to 23 or 24%.
So, as we gleefully dance ever closer to the global fiscal cliff — and a crumbling cliff at that — maybe just maybe we should actually look at what is going on around us globally and locally here in the US. It’s not just finances, it’s morality, ethics, our culture — the whole ball of wax and we are coming undone quickly. As a nation, we need to fall to our knees and declare a covenant with God and fast or we will realize a reckoning few can envision. Thus endeth the lesson.
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On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 214 points on better than expected housing reports.
Phew! Looks like we are starting to turn things around.
But here's the one thing: We are rebuilding our economy as another house of cards on a new pile of sand.
China is now the real Bank of America, but unfortunately the only thing worse than China buying our debt, is China notbuying our debt. And that's what is happening. China has drastically cut their purchase of our bonds, which is a lot like your bank cutting up your credit card.
Yet instead of us sitting back and saying, '"Maybe this is a sign that I should start managing my finances a little better," we lie to ourselves that we just go out and find another card.
Our government has sold us the lie that spending is the same as investing and they're leading by example. A hundred billion here, 500 billion there — what's the difference? The average American now has five credit cards and the average American household has over $10,000 in credit card debt.
Even the media plays along. A recent Forbes.com article titled "10 Things to Buy Before the Economy Improves" talks about buying a house, a car, toys, diamonds, furniture, televisions and women's clothing all while prices are allegedly so low.
Yet whenever I ask the experts — economists, professors, even politicians — how we pay for all of this, I'm met with either silence or an expression that roughly translates into: "Oh silly Glenn, don't you worry, there are very smart people figuring all of that out right now."
In other words: No one has an answer. And if you think you have the answer send me an e-mail and I will give you national TV time to explain it. But man, it better make sense!
I know that people seem to think conservatives want government spending to be zero, but that's a lie. I believe in investing in America, but it has to be in projects that can reshape us back into world leaders. You want to spend a trillion on a Manhattan Project to develop a new clean, cheap source of energy? So long as that money stays here in America — sign me up.
Rupert Murdoch, the head of the company that owns FOX News Channel, recently said that we are in a time when, "nations will be redefined." I completely agree, but instead of redefining ourselves the way we did after World War II, we're running right back to the pile of sand.
The Obama administration says we are going to rebuild our economy on "green" jobs and it's not just talk. The stimulus bill has more than $20 billion for investment in a "cleaner, greener economy" and another $500 million for "green" job training. And the Obama administration is predicting it will create or save 5 million green jobs in 10 years.
Sounds terrific, until you start to look at those pesky things called "facts."
Durango, Colorado has bought all of their electricity for their government buildings from wind farms for the past two years. Problem is that it costs so much they'd have to lay someone off to stay "green." They've now gone back to coal.
Instead of blindly pouring cement into this new pile of sand, maybe we should take notice of what's happened to other countries that have tried the things we're suddenly so excited about:
"Cap and trade"? A failure in Europe.
The Kyoto Treaty? A failure almost everywhere around the world.
And "green jobs"? Well, for how that's worked out in real life, just look to Spain.
President Barack Obama exits Air Force One. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) - Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a new study released this month. The study draws parallels with the green jobs programs of the Obama administration.
President Obama, in fact, has used Spain’s green initiative as a blueprint for how the United States should use federal funds to stimulate the economy. Obama's economic stimulus package,which Congress passed in February, allocates billions of dollars to the green jobs industry.
But the author of the study, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, said the United States should expect results similar to those in Spain:
"Spain’s experience (cited by President Obama as a model) reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created,” wrote Calzada in his report: Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources.
Obama repeatedly has said that the United States should look to Spain as an example of a country that has successfully applied federal money to green initiatives in order to stimulate its economy.
“Think of what’s happening in countries like Spain, Germany and Japan, where they’re making real investments in renewable energy,” said Obama while lobbying Congress, in January to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. “They’re surging ahead of us, poised to take the lead in these new industries.”
“Their governments have harnessed their people’s hard work and ingenuity with bold investments — investments that are paying off in good, high-wage jobs — jobs they won’t lose to other countries,” said Obama. “There is no reason we can’t do the same thing right here in America. … In the process, we’ll put nearly half a million people to work building wind turbines and solar panels; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to new jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.”
Included in the stimulus package, for example, was $4.5 billion to convert government buildings into high-performance green buildings.
According to the Calzada’s study, Spain is a strong example of the government spending money on green ideas to stimulate its economy.
“No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources,” says the report. “The arguments for Spain’s and Europe’s ‘green jobs’ schemes are the same arguments now made in the U.S., principally that massive public support would produce large numbers of green jobs.”
But in the study’s introduction Calzada argues that the renewable jobs program hindered, rather than helped, Spain’s attempts to emerge from its recession.
“The study’s results show how such ‘green jobs’ policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil,” says Calzada. “This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made."
Pat Michaels, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a free market group, told CNSNews.com that the study’s conclusions do not surprise him. He added that the United States should expect similar results with the stimulus money it spends on green initiatives.
“There is no reason to think things will be any different here,” Michaels said. “In the short run you have to ask who is doing the hiring, and in the long run how efficient is it to have people serving technology such as windmills. We are creating inefficiencies.”
Michaels also said he was not surprised by the study’s finding that only one out of 10 jobs were permanent.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Michaels. “When we see how imperfect wind energy is and how expensive it is to maintain -- I think many of those jobs will become impermanent here in the U.S. as well.”
