Meanwhile on the Gaza Border

 

Yes, that’s right. The Holiest Day in the year for Jews while everyone including as many IDF soldiers as can possibly be spared, and we mean as many, are on leave to attend services with their families, Hamas had their youth warriors out on the border with firebombs which included one made of a gas petrol tank, grenades, some explosive devices and their favorite low budget weapon, rocks. Numerous Gazans breached the border and actually did something almost normal for teens, they spray-painted parts of an IDF position which we assume was not in use at the time. Most of the assaults were repulsed using crowd control such as teargas which will be reported by stringers within Gaza as the IDF using chemical weapons. There were a few reported uses of live fire to repel the most violent and sizable incursions over the border. Where one any day this would not even be a story, the fact it was timed with Yom Kippur makes it different.

 

Why would that be such a difference? Well, one has to understand the Middle East, something many in Western countries are going to soon be far more familiar with than they desire. During the month of Ramadan, the Muslims demand that people respect their daylight fast and try not to be out on the street eating where it might tempt a Muslim to break their daylight fast. When in a Muslim area, anyone caught eating in public could face being attacked and beaten. Well, rules are rules, right? This insistence is because religion is so important to Islam and if we desire our religion to be respected, then we must do so for theirs. Now we understand that there is a difference between the Muslims in Israel and the ones in Gaza. Imagine the screaming to the media and anyone of authority who would listen, such as the United Nations and agencies or the European Union and friends if Israel were to implement a raid against Gaza to remove a dangerous rocket position during Ramadan. It would be depicted as the most grievous display of discourtesy and insult imaginable. This ‘day of rage,’ which basically is what this was, which instituted attacks on the holiest day in the Jewish religion, Yom Kippur, would be recounted as common sense, you attack when your opponent is most vulnerable. It is simply another instance of the Muslims demanding ‘respect for me but not for thee.’

 

For those who might think this could be simply a one time event, allow us to remind them of the Yom Kippur War when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur and almost wiped Israel out. Fortunately, Israel still held the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula which provided the extra precious few hours for the IDF to recover her soldiers and mount a counter which resulted in no change to the borders. As this event was in October of 1973, a very primitive era as there were no cell phones or beepers, the IDF sent jeeps out through the streets going past every Synagogue with loud speakers announcing a complete call up of all reserves and off duty personnel giving them their rendezvous points. Units were patched together initially from combining units with similar duties. By the time this war was coming to an end, Israel was within sight of Damascus and closing on Cairo and Alexandria when the State Department in the form of Secretary of State Kissinger demanded Israel cease all attacks and return to the final lines from the Six Day War. This was also the conflict where Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a nice Jewish boy, advised President Nixon to refuse to resupply the IDF as urgently requested by Israel until Israel agreed to a general peace settlement giving all lands back to Syria and Egypt and forming a Palestinian State along the pre-Six Day War 1949 Armistice Lines. Fortunately, President Nixon was a man who could think for himself, and he called the Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and ordered him to get everything the IDF requested or might require and put it in the air immediately and get it to the Israelis as fast as possible.

 

Actually, this is where the story gets interesting and weird all at the same time. When the European world heard of the United States about to resupply the Israelis, they were quite put out, after all, this appeared to be that golden chance to have the Arabs erase Israel from the map. Every European country refused to grant any resupply aircraft flyover rights or refueling rights. They were even denying the United States the use of her own airfields within their borders and probably threatened to shoot them out of the sky, though that probably would have been one threat too many. Initially, President Nixon desired to avoid direct American involvement so El Al was used to try and resupply the IDF. El Al is a passenger airline making it kind of impossible for them to transport vehicles such as tanks and APC’s. Realizing that this was inadequate, on October 12, 1973, President Nixon decided that no more delays could be allowed, and ordered the United States Air Force to “send everything that can fly.” Within nine hours, C-141s and C-5s were en route to Israel. But how were any of these aircraft to make such a trip with no refueling point en route? Well, after some arm-twisting and the granting of some inducements, Portugal provided their Lajes Field in the Azores Islands as a refueling base and saved the day as well. This did provide evidence to the United States that they had a deficiency in their ability to provide necessary emergency aid even to their own forces across the globe which led to their vastly increasing their refueling capabilities, especially in the area of air-to-air refueling. President Nixon also took one additional step and placed an emergency resupply depot secured somewhere hidden under the barren Negev Dessert which would serve to resupply either Israel or United States troops in the region in case of emergency. This depot was quite a bit more important than many might think as the Iraq war progressed.

 

Henry Kissinger wished this map be forced upon Israel
in exchange for resupply in the midst of the
October 1973 Yom Kippur War

 

This was supposed to just show that attacking Israel on the Jewish religion’s holiest day is a recurring theme and has led to fewer soldiers from the IDF getting to services with their families and instead having to attend them in the field. This is not exactly an ideal way to observe Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah or any of the other Jewish holidays but has become a necessity as apparently Jewish holidays are not to be respected, only Islamic holidays are worthy of such. Oh, and if one were to be versed in the Quran, something we actually do not claim, we are only somewhat familiar with much of the Quran, they could quote you the verses which claim that only Islamic holy days are actual holy days and those of other religions matter not because no religion other than Islam is recognized as a religion. Yes, there are verses from the Meccan Quran which claim that Christians and Jews, as religions of the Book, receive special respect and their observant members will be treated as respected and kept people known as Dhimmis. Dhimmis can be taxed a special tax called the Jiyza and can be demanded to convert to Islam or die at any time, so special, don’t do me so many favors. The Jiyza is usually high enough to run the government and pauperize the Jews and Christians which makes them useless so when they run out of money and other means of paying the Jiyza, then comes the convert or die phase. Meanwhile, in the Medina Quran Christians get a promotion to idolaters which allows for them to be killed on sight. The Jews get a promotion too, we become the worst kind of scoundrel the world has ever laid eyes upon and must be eradicated so that the Islamic judgement day and completing their conquest of the world can become completed. Through abrogation, the replacing of the older verses of Mecca by their more violent and supercessional verses of Medina replace those from the earlier Meccan Quran as explained here. The end of this story is that under Islam, there is but one recognized religion, Islam. Thus, according to Islam, attacking Jews on Yom Kippur is simply good tactics as they do not have an actual religion, thus they have nothing which could be called a holy day.

 

That was then and this is now and apparently nothing has or ever will change until Islam is forced to take a hard look inwards. Currently, that does not appear to be on the horizon any time in the near future. We have often asked each other here at BTC is what it might take for a second reformation of Islam to take place. For those who missed the first reformation, that came back when abrogation was initiated ensuring that their only solution to any situation was to wage some form of war against their perceived adversaries while insisting that there was no state of belligerence and demanding that their perceived adversary’s military stand down. This reformation was one of many. There was the splintering of Islam into Sunni and Shiite branches and later the Wahhabi break in Saudi Arabia, the Ottoman Turks takeover of Islam and their fall and the latest has been a reaction to Islam’s apparent fall from being the preeminent force in the world as the Western World appears to be militarily superior. This latest reformation decided to adopt the concepts from the first great spread of Islam and have simply screamed ‘JIHAD’ and started to conquer Europe and the United States by means other than direct conflict but by conflicts within. Their hope is to infiltrate men of fighting age and become sufficient in numbers in pivotal cities such that they can paralyze the city with violence leading to their reaching an agreement where they rule a large section of the city completely. From that base, more Muslims will arrive and weapons will be stored and at some point, when sufficient numbers of these bases exist, then they will pour out armed and take control of the major cities of Europe. So you think that all of this is mere conjecture? Perhaps, or maybe this is simply another time that BTC is giving warning, a warning which has been sounded by Giulio Meotti. Is this really in the cards? That is for you and your leaders to decide. What can be done? Well, the first step is stop trying to eradicate Israel and take heed of how she approaches these problems. The Israeli approach will become even more efficient and laudable once the world finally decides that everything depends upon what Israelis had for breakfast and what their daily plans were, or more easily put, the world moves along and worries about their own problems and stops making Israel the cause of every ill.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Wars of Vital Importance, Historic and Current

 

The name Arab/Israeli Conflict, or the newer more scandalizing title of Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, is actually, if we were to be honest with ourselves, the Islam/Judeo-Christian War for World Domination. What makes this name so difficult for Western minds to wrap their neurons around is because neither Christianity nor especially Judaism has any desire to rule the world but the same cannot be said in any form of honesty of Islam. Yes, the Christians originally had desires to rule the world and becoming the sole or at least the dominant religion on Earth. The leaders of Christianity were disabused of that notion at some point during the Enlightenment at the same time as the concept of a separation between any formal control of governments by religion nor allowing any state religion to be enacted or religion be favored by the government. So Christianity has adopted the concept of a division making religion free from the influences or restrictions of the government though voters of any specific religion are permitted to actually place candidates up for election, they are just restricted by the various governments in the Western World from showing any partiality, support, legal privilege, or other favorable treatments which have been upheld by the courts. The Church of England even though technically a state founded religion; they receive no real preference as a rule throughout the West.

 

Islam, and both the Sunni and Shiite Muslims are not so restricted and everywhere they have gained sufficient power the Muslims will do all within their power to forge Islam as the sole religion permitted by the State. Saudi Arabia has an official religion of Sunni Islam while Iran has an official religion of Shia Islam. They are far from alone. Currently Iraq is having a war, identical to what is happening in Syria, to decide which version of Islam will be supreme and dominate over the other with Iranian forces led by the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and with Hezballah support fighting with the remains of the Iraqi Army which has either murdered or forced desertion of any Sunni Muslims making the Iraqi military a purely Shia; or with Syrian forces remaining faithful to Bahir al-Assad and his Alawite Shia Muslims, outfitted military while the central Sunni parts of Iraq and southern and central Syria has fallen under the control of the Islamic State which represents Sunni Islam. The final insanity which is today Iraq as well as Syria is populated by Kurdish peoples who have made their two areas in Iraq and Syria into a singular autonomous zone and their militias are fiercely defending their people despite lack of proper assistance as they had been promised and against any bombing by Turkish Air Force or other interferences by any other forces in the area and would likely be content to just retain their lands and not go on any offensive to gain lands though they might try to reacquire the lands they lost to the Islamic State and perhaps assist the Yazidi retake their mountainous region from which they were forced to flee by what was then known as ISIS and now has changed their preferred name to Islamic State.

 

 

 

Islam, neither Shia nor Sunni, have ever experienced a reformation nor have they ever forsaken the concept of world dominion. Both Shia and Sunni still believe they should not only be the preeminent for Islam but also the foremost religion on the face of all of Earth. Further, Islam fervently believes that any lands which have ever come under the rule of Islam must remain under the rule of Islam for all time and must never be surrender no matter the cost. This has been true concerning Andalusia which was the Islamic name given to Spain and Portugal when they fell under Muslim rule but were freed beginning in 1492 when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella began the reconquest of Spain and the Iberian Peninsula as well as the Spanish Inquisition which forced the peoples to either flee, convert to Christianity, which meant Catholicism, or be put to death, a very similar fate befalling those who come under the forced rule of the Islamic State except they demand you convert to Sunni Islam or face torturous death which they can publically display on the Internet using such barbarity as a lure to gain followers and to impress fear on their enemies, which are all who are not Sunnis Muslims under Islamic State rule (it had to do with that rule the Earth thing). This is also the reason that no Muslim entity can ever make a peace with Israel which does not entail transforming Israel into a Muslim ruled state with the Jews at best permitted to live as Dhimmi and pay the special Jiyza tax for as long as their Muslim betters permit their existence as a protected second class citizen lower than the Muslim children’s pets which can end at any time at which it will be decided what the fate of those refusing to convert will face, expulsion or execution. Additionally, there is the concept that the Islamic messiah can only come when the Muslims are fighting the Jews everywhere they can be found and the trees and rocks will call out to Muslims saying, “Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” There is presumably an exception made where only the Gharkad tree (the Boxthorn tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. This will presumably only happen when the warriors of Allah, the holy Islamic armies have had one side prevail eliminating the other between Shia and Sunni and the winner of that struggle is close or has acquired complete rule over the entire planet, then the final struggle which commences with the hunting down and extermination of the Jews as the Jews were the first to refuse to accept Allah or Mohammad as a prophet and secondly the followers of Islam believe that the Jews murdered Mohammad through poisoning. Further, there is the rallying cry used by Muslims during the rioting and demonstrations to taunt the IDF, police or other Jews which goes, “Khaybar Khaybar, ya Yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa Yahud,” which means, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” Below is a video of the actors in an Arab Television Series Khaybar describing the themes, characters and even some of their roles in the shows in their own words for Egyptian television as advertisements for the show before and while it aired translated by MEMRI.

 

 

 

 

There have been in history two main thrusts by which Islamic armies attempted to conquer Europe, one from North Africa into Spain and repulsed at the Battle of Tours where Charles the Hammer Martel repulsed the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate under the command Abd Ar-Rahman Al Ghafiqi. This was the thrust from the west in October 732. The other main assaults came after the fall of Constantinople where the forces of the Ottoman Caliphate (Empire) twice made attempts to seize much of Europe and were likely hoping for their conquest to lead them to Rome itself. Both times, as fate would have it, their efforts came to an end on the outskirts of Vienna. The first battle came in 1529 with Suleiman I as the commander of the Ottoman Caliphate forces with two assisting commanders, Grand Vizier and Pargalı İbrahim Pasha. A combination of causes ended this thrust with the inability to breach the walls and deteriorating weather and excessively long supply lines weakening the Ottoman forces which were outlasted and had to retreat. The second thrust came in 1683 culminating on September 11 and 12 after having begun to lay siege to Vienna on July 14. The crucial turning point gave this battle a hero when King John Sobieski III of Poland and his heavy cavalry (Polish Hussars) ride in to crush the Ottomans wearing heavy plate (pictured below) and carrying pikes on horseback. King Sobieski III leading approximately eighteen thousand heavy horse cavalry, some of the finest in Europe at the time, supported by fifty to sixty thousand German and Austrian troops making up the Holy Roman Army broke the siege and saved Europe once again at the gates to Vienna.

 

 

 

These are the furthest extents to which the armies of Islam ever attained before being repulsed by the European defenders. These defenders are almost nonexistent today and the armies of Islam invading Europe are disguised as refugee families with babies and small children if one is to believe many of the pictures which are often chosen to make the greatest impact and engender as much sympathy for the Islamic refugees within which is the initial seeds for a future army which will rise up all across Europe and the continent will be lost in a single day. The invasion is being planned now and is in progress yet one would be hard pressed to find a single Islamic soldier who is ready to rise up today. The majority of the refugees, the ones who are not Iranian, Pakistani, Taliban or Islamic State planted organizers and eventual leaders, are actually refugee families and single mothers whose husbands have died or been impressed into serving one of the warring parties, are seeking a better life. These refugees will more resemble the families who immigrated to Europe seeking a better life and who contributed working and paying taxes. Even the children will mostly be upright and contributing members of European society. It will be the second or third generation educated either entirely or after school programs or through word of mouth and weekly or weekend classes which will teach them Jihad and slowly train an entire generation of Islamists ready to murder and even die for Allah. These will be children of middle class and upper middle class families which appear to have it all, television, microwave, two cars and kids spoiled and left alone after school to send to the Madrassahs because they promise a proper Islamic and general education but will also choose the leaders of each class to foment the hate and bile necessary for forming an army that will take the entirety of Europe for Allah. This is what Israel is currently facing as the entirety of social media, schools which indoctrinate, camps which provide military training, television which glorifies Jihad, sport teams which incite and teach that sports is a form of training for Jihad where each victory over the infidel proves Islamic superiority and all loses to infidels must be because they cheated or the officials stole it for them and this will build resentment.

 

We watch this in Israel taking place in Gaza and the Arab areas of Judea and Samaria. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in September of 1993, the Arab areas in Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza have run their own schools, collected their own taxes, collected their own garbage, used largely Israeli provided electricity and water without making payments to the independent private companies who have had to raise rates in Israel to cover the literal tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, let alone shekels, and run their own governments with Gaza run by Hamas and Judea and Samaria run by Fatah and they have even held an election; that’s right, just one election as Mahmoud Abbas rightly fears he would be unseated and lose his multi-million dollar schemes and perhaps lose a lot more. Their entire society is predicated on glorification of the martyrs and raising each generation to aspire to martyrdom and the murder of Jews; that’s right, murder of Jews as they are not satisfied with just Israelis, they mean every Jews even the most secular Jew living the life in Anytown, U.S.A. Mahmoud Abbas has stated any number of times that he demands all of Israel as he just did before the United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva where he claimed that the occupation had lasted sixty-seven years, from the founding of Israel and the inability of seven Arab armies to destroy the nascent Jewish State in its crib. These poor youths who are so brainwashed with hatred and so programmed to violence that they are literally bringing a knife or a rock to a gun fight and then their leaders whine about their being shot. One can only imagine what would happen to a Jew charging an Arab in Gaza City except for one small problem, they would never get that far without being shot dead on the spot as soon as they cleared the checkpoint to enter Gaza, and yes a Jew, if they were even permitted, would need pass through an inspection at the same checkpoint that Gazans must pass through to enter Israel. There are no Jews or Israelis living in Gaza and it has been completely turned over to the Arabs to rule and they have ruled that they should fire rockets into Israel ramping it up to hundreds a day until Israel attacks every two years and then they complain that Israel is suppressing their rights to fire rockets into Israel indiscriminately aimed mostly at civilians. Hamas claims they are targeting military targets because they define every Jew as a military target. Much of the deceptions here are due to definitions which the media never bother to discern. They just repeat the lie. The media know that Hamas and Fatah define every Jew as soldiers even in their swaddling cloths and yet to speak or even crawl let alone walk. The difference between Israelis and the Arabs is that where the Arabs celebrate the deaths of each Israeli and celebrate the death of each of their own children attacking soldiers with kitchen knives and many celebrated the 9/11 attacks handing out sweet cakes and candies, the Israeli by and large mourned each and every one of these deaths and will continue to mourn every senseless death in this endless war. The saddest truth is the only way this Arab war with Israel will end is either Israel along with every Jew on Earth is murdered or Israel deals the Arab nations such a defeat that when their children in a thousand years hear the sound of an airliner flying lower than normal will quake and ask their mother, “Mommy, are we going to die now?” This is not what is desired as living together is far more preferable than this constant fighting and deaths of our children on both sides and our older citizens who are well beyond being capable of hurting anybody. Any senseless death is a death too many and there have been far too many on either side. Unfortunately the leadership in Israel will remain unable to do what is necessary as they fear that others might say nasty things about us and denounce us unless we allow ourselves to be slaughtered just as we allowed before we gained our own nation. I want to end with a question for my fellow Jews; how many of our infants need die, our youths, our teenagers, our octogenarians. When do we decide to do what is necessary and right for us, and in the end for the Arabs, to end this farce from September 1993 already and begin to build a society which respects Arab and Jew, ending the incitement and sending the instigators packing! When?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Our Economic World is Shakier Than We’ve Been Told

 

The mainstream media, especially the European Media, are all the news all the time covering the Greek economic meltdown. Some of the more honest media has also included the crises that could be soon to topple as if dominoes all in a row of which Greece is but the first domino to be tripped to fall and they have shown how Spain and Portugal would be precariously hanging and soon toppled partly as a result of Greece’s defaulting though it might be likely they would have fallen eventually all on their own. These would trigger a crisis in Ireland and Italy as to which would be the fourth victim and which would follow as the fifth victim signaling the end of the most endangered Eurozone nations too close to default to be comforting. The real horrific effect of these five weaker economies finally tripping the default cable and snagging the economic webbing, which has held the European Union and the Euro together since 1999, doing irreparable damage to the delicate webbing, more fragile than the most slightly laced spider’s web, tearing enormous holes in its intricate weaves slashing at the most vital threads and upsetting the ever so precarious balance that underlies its supporting structures threatening to unbalance and collapse even the previously though stable economies of France, Poland and many of the other east European economies possibly pushing them right to the cliff-face and potentially tipping them beyond the cusp and into default thus lacerating the last remnants of the Eurozone and possibly taking with them Germany and the ECB (European Central Bank) causing unimaginable damage to the financial structure of Europe and beyond, the ripple effect causing a second deep recession well more serious and taking longer to tank-out and hit bottom and then begin a long sluggish scent clawing for every single Red Cent and Dollar and Euro after having taken its toll on Asia and beyond. But the Euro, Greece, and the rest of the European Union and the Eurozone is but one whirlpool looking to sink every last economic boat.

 

The Euro is what we have been led to believe is the only threat. Where previously economic ships only had to worry about rising and falling tides, now they are adrift and facing not just one whirlpool representing the Euro dying, but now there is a second even more massive whirlpool coming from deep within Asia. China has hit the road’s end and is attempting to push its enormous mountain of debt using a garden trowel while piling on fresh debt using Caterpillar 990K series front end loader shoveling an additional $19.3 billion in an effort to end their three week slide totaling $3.2 trillion downturn in the past three weeks alone. These losses were the result of a Chinese Stock Market where as many as two-thirds of the stocks were frozen in a further attempt to stem the torrents of dollars flowing from their stock market and their economy like the icy waters which flooded the lower decks of the Titanic as she slowly but inexorably fell beneath the waves, something somewhat prophetic for the Chinese markets and economy. There is actually a comparison between the situation in Greece and the downturn in China as one must remember that Greece is as socialist as a nation can be without being either fascist or Communist and Greece has retained their spirit of a democratic Parliamentary system despite it all but China has taken socialism that one final step to communism, the addition of mostly state owned corporations and central planning of the economic engines and manufacturing. Chinese leaders had been attempting to liberalize their economic sectors, though not all of them, selling a number of previously State run businesses and even permitted competition between companies in the same market hoping this would charge their economy further and it had been working but even free-market economic liberalization was unable to stave off this meltdown. The problem obviously is what will this mean for the liberalization of the Chinese economy as the leadership are still Communists who serve the Party and depend on the Party, may decide that much of their financial woes are the result of these new policies and curtail or even reverse some or all of the liberalized companies, markets and take a giant leap backwards to increased government control over every iota of the economy and the manufacturing and sales etc.

 

United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew commented Wednesday on the current crisis in China stating at the Brookings Institution, that the economies of the United States and China are “still pretty much separated.” In further testimony Secretary Lew queried, “I think the concern … it is a real one … is what does it mean about long term growth in China?” Further in his speech he pointed to the main potential impacts which could emerge as a result to the Chinese Stock Market bleeding financially leaving the leadership seeing ‘Red’ in more ways than one. The leading question is to figure out as soon as possible what the reaction of the leaders of the Communist Party is and whether they may decide that the problem dictates such as appointing new leadership, freezing prices, injecting even more dollars into the markets through the banks and state owned businesses or closing the banks and Stock Market for a week or two cool down and reset to normalcy again; the choices and potential marrying of any two or three makes predictions near to impossible. The one thing which can be computed and predicted as long as the numbers being released and any steps taken are done so in plain view then the impact of the Stock Market freefall on the Chinese economy’s core condition and whether it appears that it will have much elasticity and dynamics when the end is finally reached and the rollercoaster slides on in to the station signaling the end of the ride, and what a ride it was with vigorous growth only to drop who knows how large a percentage of that growth in this correction, and what a correction. Secretary Lew’s closing thoughts are worthy of being repeated as he emphasized, “The question isn’t their commitment to the goal; the question is the pace at which they implemented it, and do they do it fast enough for it to be effective. I hope this is not something that slows down the pace of reform. If the reaction is to put the brakes on reforms, that will slow that process.”

 

With China making a long overdue correction which will be far more severe than it should or could have been if the leadership was not so intent on what numbers they released to the world and on making their predicted economic increase and meet all targets set within the government as to fail was unthinkable and would have been a terrible loss of face thus undermining faith in the economy. This has caused the Chinese to follow the example first used by President George W. Bush and turbocharged by President Barack Hussein Obama which was in the old school simply called a ‘stimulus package’ but is now known by a more enigmatic phrase of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ either of which hides the actual result and method being implemented as who would stand for the government announcing they were devaluing the money supply and taxing every single American by a minimum percentage directly proportional to the percentage increase the total added funding was doled out in stacks of hundred dollar bills, literally thousands of such stacks in the United States and unknown amounts though what is known is the Chinese leadership pumped close to twice the percentage of GDP as did the United States. Just as the United States took their hit starting back in late 2008 and continuing through 2011 and briefly relieved with another round of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ this was like the third pitcher of beer at a table trying to drink their way sober. The economic burst from that mid and late 2011 ‘Quantitative Easing’ gave the economy a burst of hope which appeared to continue due to lowered interest rates and the paring down and mostly neutering of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act gave the economy the needed push for President Obama’s reelection as he could run his campaign claiming to have turned the economy around and that great times lie ahead. Well, as far as that goes I’ll point to Greece and China and point out that the United States has followed similar patterns of fueling the economy and especially the Stock Market with borrowed monies and when loans were unavailable the Federal Reserve would electronically buy Treasury Bonds with funds they imagined into existence as a few strokes on a Federal Reserve keyboard and one produces and completed sale with funny money in that the receipt for the Treasury Bonds was used to balance the books as it represented the electronically derived cash used. This is a very convenient way to purchase items this way when you are the government or a very clever fraudster as just try using the sales slip from one register, say men’s clothing from a department store as cash at the Jewelry Counter and see how far that takes you. The catch, and there is always a catch, to ‘Quantitative Easing’ is that eventually you either have to pay back the money that was invented which can only be done some combination of these three methods, first is retire actual money from circulation which can also be done electronically by retiring any electronic payment made on credit cards, second is to remove the funds through higher taxes taking the money directly from the supply, and lastly one could raise the interest rates and siphon off a percentage of each loan to pay the Piper so to speak. The problem is that each of these methods actually hurt the consumer the most; it is the public that pays the price for the economic and financial misdeeds and ill-advised policies.

 

There are but a few redeeming features out of all of this and one serious and potentially unavoidable problem, and it is a big one. So, we will leave the bad news for last and the good news which will cause doom’s day to come and come quickly first. The best of news is that the meltdown in China is most likely to be relatively unfelt even amongst their Asian markets as China does not purchase many goods from outside and the few major needs she has will continue even if slightly abated, things essential like coal and petroleum. Further, the only nation carrying a trade deficit of any note is the United States and even should quotas be placed on any goods currently purchased from China will very likely have ten other sources with some popping up due to China cutting production. The European crisis is more likely to hit the United States harder than anything else on the economic horizon. Should the Eurozone break apart due to the collapse of several of their nations having financial difficulties and teetering at the edge of financial Armageddon plus one, Greece, which has in all honesty gone beyond the cusp and is currently running with his feet well away from solid ground just hanging there for that brief Wiley Coyote moment before collapsing into the darkness below only to make a small puff of dust rising depicting his hitting bottom. Even should the entire Eurozone collapse it may actually serve to keep a lid on inflation and allow for low interests rates, a necessity for the United States. That brings us back to the one thing that at first everyone would be glad to see, a real recovery with rising workforce participation which in the United States is down to approximately 63%, one of the lowest figures since the mid-1970s. This would also bring jobs, especially higher end job market opening up once again which would allow for a ripple effect. As the overqualified people working at menial or minimum wage jobs would leave those as jobs in their field became available and they gain employment thus making room for these other positions to employ more of the nations’ work force and soon inflation will return, something there has been no worry about as even the few months where such measurements showed a possibility for inflation to develop only for indicators to slide back the next couple of months with it often seeming like one big step forward and all promise breaking out only to be followed by three or four months of small to moderate steps backwards and everything gained to be lost and often more. When inflation does finally return for real then there will be a really bad situation. Once inflation starts to threaten then the interest rates will rise as a counter to inflation. Rising inflation takes a bigger bite out of people’s pockets all but actual theft. Inflation also helps with making the national debt somewhat more manageable by deflating the value of the currency taking the currency to new lows and the lessening to of the value of the debt and the purchasing power of that coinage. This was where Greece and the other nations in the Eurozone faced; they no longer had control over their coinage, their monetary worth so they were unable to simply lessen the value in order to get a handle on their debts and also make their nation more attractive to investors and new businesses. Perhaps leaving the Eurozone for a set period of possibly not less than two years and no longer than a decade or quarter century at which point they can reapply at the short end or must face a permanent decision at the longer end. Granted, this will possibly make some nations more reckless but the consequence is the only alternative to having the Eurozone nations turn their entire control of monetary and fiscal planning over to Brussels, they already control the monetary which is part of the problem, and most nations will refuse to be relieved of the power of the purse even if they are no longer able to control the coinage of said purse. Perhaps even a rotating schedule where every nation has to spend a decade using their own coinage would be another compromise. Until the Eurozone finds the answer they will be facing little impossible challenges as is Greece right now and others down the line. Let’s just hope their mistakes don’t become global economic-mines blowing the world markets haywire.

 

Beyond the Cusp