Re: ‘We’ve had ENOUGH Merkel’ Rest of Europe gangs up on Germany over crippling EU au
ANGELA Merkel cut an increasingly isolated figure in Europe tonight as the rest of the continent ganged up on Germany over its imposition of crippling austerity.
The "Crippling Austerity" came about how? You don't know, do you?
Before 2010, the EU was borrowing willy-nilly and paying its debt because the economy was (if not growing) not all that bad. The Great Recession, imported from Uncle Sam, changed everything. When the economy busts, so does work. So, the politicians in major countries - mostly on the soft southern underbelly, kept on borrowing at ever higher interest rates. When push came to shove, they all turned to the EU.
And guess who was the Only Country without a Debt Overhang? Right! Germany! Which means what?
It means that for the European Central Bank to buy back "hollow loans" (in euros) from the national central banks, thus relieving them of their maintenance, it had to go to Germany to get the money to do so. Germany was the country that had insisted, in the Maastricht Treaty that created the Euro, that a county must never maintain a national debt more than 3% of GDP. Not one European country followed the rule, except Germany.
So, second time around, and the Germans have said, "Well, you're not going to skin us again!" - which would have been not only politically incorrect but had she done so, Merkel would have lost her job in the next elections.
Which is why Europe is condemned to a slow crawl-out from its recession. Such that not just the politicians, but people understand that 3% of GDP as debt IS THE LIMIT.
That's a hard lesson to learn - particularly in the soft southern EU underbelly
but also nowadays in the Eastern Europe countries - that thinks governments are there to print money.
The Migrant Problem on top simply worsens the situation because countries would rather not pay the cost of housing them within the limited budgets that they have - and, for the moment, do not have jobs for even their own people. But, go tell that to a young migrant (especially those from Africa) who thinks he "deserves" the good life in Europe.
So, the EU pays Turkey hundreds of millions of euros to take care of them - for better or for worse ...
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