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With the kind of aplomb characteristic
of a waiter lifting the silver serving dome to expose a roasted goose, Europe
has looked deep into its organs of finance and produced 100 billion E-bucks
for the ailing banks of sad-sack nephew Spain. Where did all that money come
from? Out of Europe's ass. That is where all new money comes from these days:
an international diarrhea of money. Maybe that is why the great nations of
the West feel like shit.
They are not likely to feel better if
they keep shitting money all over themselves. Rather, they will end up
sitting in the gutter in Chinatown being laughed at by Chinese businessmen
passing by on the sidewalk. The Chinese businessmen will glance down and say,
"Look, here are the clowns we used to see at Davos, Switzerland, every
year eating foie gras.
Now they are pathetic crack-heads beshitting
themselves. And, hark, the lice crawling all over them are shouting and
banging on pots!"
We are those lice.
This is what comes of pulling money out
of your ass. Sorry to be so graphic but it is not a pretty story.
The Spanish government now turns around
and lends money to Spanish banks choking on bad debt. The Spanish banks will
instantly vomit up bonds in return. The bonds will be of an unsecured
subordinated kind as to be perceived as functionally worthless, and
(according to financial flaneur Bruce Krasting) will inspire a subordinating of bond-holders all over Europe and
hence either a massive dumping of bank bonds or an orgy of credit default
swap bets between counterparties absolutely unable to cover their side of the
wager.
We're at the point where money has been
asked to perform like a trained monkey in the street, doing all kinds of
tricks to distract the public from the sad spectacle of the monkey's owner
dying in the gutter. When the owner expires, the talented monkey will not
know what to do with the coins that passersby tossed to it.
These street scenes of late spring,
2012, represent what they call "unhealthy life choices" in the
rehab business. All the once-great western economic powers have decided to
become crack-heads, winos, and beggars with amusing monkeys. They are all
dying of their addictions. They are all dark stories with unhappy endings. They
all ended that way because the addicts refused to make different decisions
that would have drawn them through a frightful passage out of their addiction
into a new place with a different psychology.
The frightful passage at issue is the
reality-mandated economic contraction that the planet and its very various
inhabitants require for a necessary re-set to health. The human race can
either get with the program or expire in the gutter of its septic industrial
slum. To fully understand the meaning of contraction, you have to at least
first entertain the possibility of no further expansion. The doctors in
charge of the case can't stretch their minds to imagine that possibility, so
their ministrations are at odds with the requirements of reality. Rehab is
not going so well.
Of course, we lice on this body politic
will not be so happy when the body slumps against the curb and exhales its
final rattle of breath. So, bang those pots and yell as loud as you can as we
move into a summer of criticality. Crawl down to Charlotte, NC, or Tampa, Fla, to the political conventions, and be heard. Fellow
lice: America was once a great body to live on, six-foot-three, mounted on a
white steed, a sword on the hip, resolute and brave. Look at
us now! See how we are!
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