Chopping up the Milch Cow

According to its own website, the European Community is unstoppable in ‘promoting economic growth and strengthening democratic forces’ to ever more European countries.

No, I am not joking. They really say so. Check it out on this here site.

Well, this last week we have been treated to yet another example of the prosperity that the EU brings. Overall unemployment in the Eurozone countries now stands at 10.8 %. That is not only the highest level since the introduction of the common currency, it is also 1.8 % higher than in the non-Euro EU countries. And no, this is not some prejudiced Eurosceptic slander; it is the official figure calculated by Eurostat, the EU’s own statistical bureau, whom nobody can accuse of being anti-European.

Another fine number: as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced, with a sigh of relief, that his slash-and-burn budget cuts are being received with applause by Brussels, fellow EU members and the financial markets, unemployment has risen with 417.000 people over the last twelve months, to a staggering 4.75 million, or 23 % of the work force. This, incidentally, is the number resulting from a new method of measurement. The old one (which must have been the brainchild of cynical Eurosceptics) calculated there were already 5.27 million unemployed in Spain late last year. A couple of weeks ago, incidentally, there was a snippet of news that the Spanish government had accepted, as inevitable, an addition 630,000 unemployed over the coming year, due to the EU Diktat to chop its budget deficit even further. 

The blessings which the Divine Euro bestows are indeed inscrutable. Had I not the EU website to explain these things to me, stupid old Alfred would come to a completely opposite conclusion! Stupid old Alfred would think that we are slaughtering the milch cow so as to save the poison which threatens her life.

So much for Prosperity. Now for Democracy.

Democracy of course fares marvellously well when national governments are more concerned with the opinion of unelected Beurocrats and unrestrained bankers, than with the well-being of their citizens. I prefer not to burn my hands on predictions, for I would not want to pass for a despicable Prophet of Doom. But I will say that this cannot go on much longer. Will there be riots in the streets? Will there be landslide wins by suspect, unpleasant parties on the extreme left and right? Will there be a massive haemorrhaging of Mediterranean young folk to northern countries, Turkey and Latin America? Will there be children living in the streets and eating out of garbage bins? Emaciated grandmothers in their slippers, offering home-made underwear for sale in metro entrances, as we have seen in Russia…?

Unthinkable!!! For the Blessed Union has ‘has delivered half a century of peace, stability, and prosperity’. And will continue to do so…  

Après nous la déluge… !!!

[Postscript April 4^th: As the bewildered comments below show, today’s readers take a mental break as soon as numbers appear on the page. What is this poor world coming to? No wonder that the Eurogues get away with their lies and their frauds! If even the intelligent and the educated no longer grasp a simple text because it mentions percentages, then the con-man and the propagandist are having the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow… 

So I guess I have to spell out for you all the meaning of the third paragraph above. I toyed with the numbers as best I could, and this is what I wanted you to understand:

            Unemployment in the whole of the EU (27 countries) stands officially at 10.2 %.

            Unemployment in 17 Eurozone countries stands officially at 10.8 %.

           Therefore unemployment in the 10 EU countries which do not use the Euro stands at roughly 9 %.

At a later date, I was going to do a most revealing little treatise on comparative GNP growth between the Euro countries and the non-Euro countries in the EU. But that involves some numbers as well; so I am beginning to wonder if it makes any sense to attempt such a post…]