Out of the Dragon's Den

Governments all over the world seem caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They're like the wanderer who realises that at the latest fork in the road he took the wrong turn and is now on the road to perdition. There's no going back, as he's beyond the point of no return. His means of survival will run out long before he'll reach the Last Homely House in the foothills of Debt Cliff Mountain, and he'll perish on the road in agony.
Before him looms the curtain wall at the other side of the Financial Abyss that is opening at his feet and widening fast. If he's desperate enough, he'll try to jump the gap. He's damned if he does and damned if he don't.

That's the situation our politicos and central bankers are facing when they gather in Frankfurt, in Threadneedle Street and inside the Marriner Eccles Building. They're scared to death by the Hydra of the ever developing credit crisis, but they're convinced they're holding the key to salvation: ink! By printing a Great Wall of Money, they expect to be able to bridge the gap and goad their sagging economies beyond the Marshes of Insolvency into the Land of Growth and Prosperity, if not for the commoners, then at least for the 1%. In the meantime, they're enjoying themselves by kicking empty ink cans farther and farther down the road.

In doing so, to their and our peril, they're acting in disregard of the dire warnings of the Financial Wizard of Teutonia. He's been waging a life-long war on the Inflatable Dragon, whose fiery breath once laid waste to Teutonia's lush valleys and scorched its wheel-barrows of paper money into heaps of smouldering resentment.

Now, what shall WE do? The destructive powers that are unleashed are too overwhelming to face head-on. There's no need for heroism, though. I think it will pay to keep one's head down and to put one's possessions away in a safe place, out of reach of the greedy clutches of the governing class and beyond the range of the creeping brood of the Keynesian dragon. Then, wait out the Storm.

This story was first published at Google+ - see my Profile.

Eurocalypse now

Good morning. This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard, folks. We promise you the most enervating voyage of a lifetime, seeing your investments, savings, pensions, as if by magic, snap back to their substance of origin: i.e. thin air. Fasten your seat belts, for we're in for the roughest of rides.

As some of you may know our craft's propelled by debt power. The more you borrow and spend, the faster our climb. Up to a certain height, that is. If there's too much leverage, caused by too much debt vapor in our tanks, suddenly, the engines will stall and after a short Wile E. Coyote-like, delusive spell down we'll go, our tanks being flushed in the process.

Most of you will suffer from giddiness during this dive, which will invoke the necessary recklessness to up any ante and dodecatuple the stakes. Can you smell a leveraged buying opportunity here, folks? It will lend us virtual breathing space, in which everyone so inclined can beg the ECB (Easy Credit Bestower) for a stash of fresh cash, and jolt our craft back up into the plutosphere until its next and, supposedly, fatal nosedive.

Now, however brief your attention span, for a moment, shift at least one eye from your android to the next porthole near you. You may notice we're not up here alone. Several smaller craft are chasing our tail, sucking our tanks dry as we fly. These are so called 'flying PIIGS' who once took wing when credit was cheap, but are now floundering, but for your dauntless dedication to Keynesian economics and fractional reserve banking.

New leverage is needed fast, folks, trillions of it, for apart from those doomed PIIGS, different leeches are syphoning off the precious credit from our banks… er, tanks. Oh, my God! What's that! Right over our head, caught up in a deadly tailspin, aaargh, it's the Monster of Bankenstein! It's banking into our flight path, tapping power from our engines. Bail! Bail! Bail as fast you can, folks, lest we crash! Craaash!

Meanwhile, on the ground, Mrs. Merkel is plotting an overhaul of the whole EU-pact and to do away with national democracy in a rather offhand manner.

Will the once free nations of the continent submissively yield to a Franco-Prussian power grab under EUSSR auspices? Hardly, methinks, as Britain's Foreign Office is preparing for riots in Europe.