The G-20 Summit Ends In An Ermph
U.S. President Obama and French President Sarkozy were overheard making disparaging remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the G-20 summit in Cannes, France last week, and it sadly seems those insults were the biggest news of the two-day event. What’s worse, the comments made headlines, but nobody was particularly shocked. Since when is it news that Obama and Sarkozy have little love for Israel’s PM?
The reality is that too little was accomplished in Cannes. Greece is still in big trouble after last week’s conference, and the rest of Europe is not far behind. China has the cash to purchase euro bonds and help Europe climb out of its hole of debt, but only with major strings attached – like “don’t bug us about human rights abuses.” Yet, the eurozone’s high government debt, slow growth, leading to a potential “euroquake” threaten the financial stability of the world. Japan is struggling with an aging population and the expense of rebuilding after the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear reactor disaster in March. The United States is still facing high unemployment and inflation, and the environment is still too uncertain for investors to take confidence.
Greece:
Greece is a huge ball and chain around the neck of the eurozone, and the Greek people are not pleased with the series of serious austerity measures required for the rest of Europe to bail it out. Greece has long been spending more than its income, and cutting back has not been easy, but there’s no other choice. Investors have demanded higher interest rates on Greek bonds, knowing that some version of a default would take place eventually. Even after the banks holding the Greek debt agreed to “voluntarily” accept a 50 percent “haircut” at the end of October, the plan will currently bring the Greek debt down to only 120 percent of its gross domestic product by 2020.
A temporary administration to oversee debt reduction is being formed, Prime Minister George Papandreou has agreed to resign, and early elections will be held February 19, 2012.
Italy:
The situation is not much better in Italy, where the 1.9 trillion euro debt is threatening to pull the country under. Last week, the interest on 10-year bonds rose above 6 percent, which adds an estimated 3 billion euros of interest per year to Italy’s debt, according to estimates by Tobias Blattner, a former economist at the European Central Bank and current economist at Daiwa Securities in London.
“That is a lot of money for someone trying to cut their debt,” said Blattner, according to The New York Times. “Each day the situation deteriorates and you have to go back for more austerity measures to match them.” The European Central Bank has been buying up Italian bonds, trying to keep the interest rates down, trying to give confidence to the bond market, but the amount has been insufficient. Italy has the third largest economy in the eurozone and the eighth in the world; if it defaults, the resulting Hiroshima will make the Lehman Brothers disaster look like a cherry bomb.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has also agreed to resign – as soon as Parliament passes new legislation filled with austerity measures and economic growth steps, as promised to the European Union and European Central Bank.
Bonds And Bail-Outs:
Economist Liam Halligan described the importance of the bond markets in Europe, writing in The Telegraph October 29, “Let’s be clear – if global bond markets stop lending to a number of large Western economies, we are in the realms of unpaid state wages and pensions, transport chaos and closures of schools and hospitals – sparking the prospect of serious civil unrest. Forgive my intemperate tone, but these are the dangers we face.”
Europe is in huge trouble, and as good as Germany’s finances are, it cannot bail out the rest of the continent. If the people in Greece are bitter about Germany and France’s effort to control the situation, they need to remember that Germany hasn’t been spending a bunch of money it doesn’t have. There’s apparently a different sort of financial ethic in Europe’s cold north than in the languid Mediterranean south.
The G-20 summit in Cannes last week did little to fix things. Ultimately, the United States told Europe it has to fix itself, rescue its own euro, and push out of this with economic self sufficiency. Whether or not that’s the American way, it’s the best way America has to offer at the moment, and really, the most likely the only thing that will lead to a long term resolution. Europe has a, “Get the plank out of your own eye,” attitude about the United State’s financial advice, anyway, and rightly so.
As much as France’s President Sarkozy went on about the dedication of Germany and France to holding the eurozone together, the European Union’s current state of affairs is not “sustainable.” Proud Europe is having to turn to developing countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil to request funds.
The European Superstate is not operating very well on freedom and the rights of its individual states to run themselves. We will wait to see whether the stronger powers will cut the weaker ones loose, allowing floundering countries like Greece to return to their own currencies. Otherwise, this struggle may simply offer the stronger powers in Europe, or the financiers in developing nations, a just cause to take greater control.
Related Links:
- G-20 Summit Ends With Uncertainty
- The Washington Post - Mccain Blasts ‘Hot Mic’ On Netanyahu
- Politico - G20 Clanging Chaos In Cannes
- Khaleej Times - G-20 Disappointment? Not When It Comes To Tax Report
- The Wall Street Journal - Italy Austerity Law That Must Pass Before Berlusconi Quits Not Yet Written
- Bloomberg - Why The Latest Eurozone Bail-Out Is Destined To Fail Within Weeks
- The Telegraph - Greece
- The New York Times - Italy
- The New York Times - Market Anxiety Grows Over Italy
- The New York Times - Euro Crisis Shifts Mood for G-20
- The New York Times
3:00 am
To us who monitor such things, the fact that the EU, is spiraling toward ruin, and that a summit is unlikely to save things, is pretty predictable news. But most people are not watching, we should do our best to see that those we care about are aware of what is really going on.
9:14 pm
Tim,
agreed. It seems the only thing that is important anymore is sharing the news about Jesus with everyone we can.
I know not everyone is a fan, but Tim Tebow, Denver Bronco’s, writing John 3:16 under his eyes in black, is said to have generated so much interest in What is John 3:16?
John 3:16 has been googled so many times, people, are so hungry for answers.
They don’t know the truth about Jesus.
People, everywhere I go, know something is wrong.
But they aren’t getting any answers.
No one is telling them any truth.
We are the light of the world. We are the city on the hill. We are the salt of the earth.
Time is short, we need to tell everyon
e we can, about Jesus.
So, thank you Tim Tebow for John 3:16.
Thanks Focus on the Family for your ad with the kids saying John 3:16.
I have heard on the blogs, that John 3:16 is reaching people, & changing lives,
and that is what we need to be doing.
I can’t save the world, I can’t turn back the clock.
I can’t rescue this economy.
But I can tell someone about Jesus!
I can write John 3:16 on the back of a package that I am mailing..
Maranatha !
J
10:26 pm
Very well put!
One thing to keep in perspective is that there are different audiences before us. We always need to keep the message going, pertaining to the love of Jesus. Often times we overlook the simpleness of sharing that love. Then, of course, we have to be watchmen for those who are already followers. Growth is exactly what it means. I want to know more, all the time about God. Whether that is finding reason/discernment of issues with the EU, our government, transhumanism, and on and on. Each one of us has one measuring stick and only one to measure against. Never put a man on a pedestal, but always try to lift them up.
8:08 pm
We should expect to see all kinds of movement and changes in the landscape of Europe until it settles down into the 10 nations of the Bible constituting the revived Roman Empire of Daniel 2:41-44. According to Daniel, we would expect to see the revived Roman Empire partly strong and partly fragile. (Dan. 2:41-42)
An example of the movement can be seen with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy “‘secretly plotting’ to create a ‘new eurozone’ that will fundamentally change the way that Europe is run.” “A leaked internal German government memo entitled ‘The Future of the EU: Required Integration Policy Improvements for the Creation of a Stability Union’ actually proposes the creation of a ‘European Monetary Fund’ which would be given the power to run the economies of troubled European nations. This ‘stability union’ would be quickly followed by the creation of a full-fledged ‘political union’”. (The Economic Collapse, “The Coming European Superstate That Germany Plans To Cram Down The Throats Of The Rest Of Europe)
Interesting times are upon us.
8:59 pm
It doesn’t seem very likely to me that nations within the E.U. will make up the 10 regions of the Revived Roman Empire, as the globalists who aspire to rule the world (many of which are found in various U.N. bodies) have already divided the world up into 10 administrative regions, of which the E.U. would only constitute one with some of the others being a North American Union, an African Union, etc.
The European Union itself is taking steps to further federalize its rule and demote its constituent nations to be mere provinces in a federal Europe, especially with the continuing efforts to move policy making away from elected bodies (such as the various national parliaments and the European Parliament) and to unelected bureaucrats who are appointed, not elected (such as the European Commission.) The trend has been to increasingly move towards policy directives originating in Brussels and Strasbourg and filtering down to all the member nations, which are forced to enact them into their own national laws with no option to pick and choose which parts of it they might actually want and which parts they do not want.
All of these things to me are signs that the E.U. will only make up one of the 10 regions of the Revived Roman Empire, not its entirety.
1:27 am
I agree, I don’t think the EU will be both “feet” of the “great image” in Dan 2:33. I am watching to see what portion of the feet will be the EU, and what portion of the feet will be the revived Ottoman Empire or some union/federation/groups of Muslim countries.
It will be very interesting to watch the changes occur in Europe and the Middle East.
7:15 am
This article, while interesting, and making some good points is really quite old news, in my opinion. The financial debacle in Europe is moving rapidly toward a very ugly ending. Anyone that thinks Germany will want to guarantee the any of the debts of their irresponsible neighbors is going to be very disappointed. The big question in my mind is how much financial exposure do American banks like Goldman and JP Morgan have to the increasingly worthless bonds and financial instruments that have been created out of thin air in Europe. I believe they have much more exposure than they are admitting. Which would mean that as the European banks collapse the US banks will get sucked in also. Another banking crisis much like we saw in 2008 but much worse. A good source for alternative to MS<M viewpoints concerning current financial affairs in the world can be found at http://www.zerohedge.com and I highly recomend Michael Lewis's last 2 books "the big short" and "Boomerang".