EUROPEANS. YOU ARE RETARDED, YES RETARDED. YOU LET YOUR LAWGIVERS RULE YOU AS IF YOU ARE LIVING UNDER FEUDALISM. YOU ARE KILLING YOUR CHILDREN'S FUTURES. PRO-ISLAM, PRO-SHARIA TERRORISTS MURDERING EUROPEANS.

The stupidity of your politicians and your suicidal-indoctrination of this:



Has led to this:




And this:



And this:



Islamism is radical, false theology. An illiterate from the Arabian desert, Mohammad made it up from non-biblical sources including long rejected phony gospels written about Jesus. Scholars have studied this and have known this since the 1800s.

The illiterate Mohammad must of thought of himself as the über Jew. The illiterate Mohammad who couldn't possibly have studied the Torah nor the Gospels demanded that Jews believe more and Christians must believe less.

It's all too convenient when a guy claims an angel visited him and told him things that somehow the omnipotent creator of the universe inconveniently forgot to mention to a whole bunch of other people — the Jews — over thousands of years. Illiterate Mohammad's trick is akin to me claiming that I have been visited by the Jewish angel Gabriel only the other day and he said to me that God forgot to mention that he lied to Mohammad in a giant supernatural joke.

While no man should reject an individual without having any dealing with him, all men should reject those who are members of cults. Right now, Islamism is the false doctrine of a worldwide cult comprised over more than 1.6 billion suckered humans.

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THE 2010-2015 GREEK LAWGIVERS' CRISIS, THE EURO AND CURRENCY AREAS. SHOULD THE EURO ZONE BREAK APART?

So today, editors at Forbes published yet another train-wreck of flawed thinking by Tim Worstall. In The Cause of the Eurozone Crisis Was the Euro: The Solution Is Abolition of the Euro, Worstall tries hard to call for an end to the Euro by blaming its existence for the cause of a what he calls the Eurozone Crisis, which likely he means the the Euro Banking Crisis of 2008 the Greek Lawgivers' Debt Crisis of 2010-2015.




Seriously, I don't understand why Worstall doesn't find another line of work besides trying to write about economies and economics (see more on Tim Worstall right here on Bizarro Theater),

"Even a cursory glance at the economics of this field, optimal currency areas (founded by Robert Mundell) tells us that over such disparate economies a single currency just isn’t going to work." ~ Tim Worstall

Worstall seems not to understand Mundell's Optimum Currency Area Theory at all. Mundell included his theory in a textbook titled International Economics, (1968, pp. 177-186).

Mundell's Optimum Currency Area Theory is one where an authority can stabilize employment and prices over a well-defined region. According to Mundell himself:

• "If the case for flexible exchange rates is a strong one, it is, in logic, a case for flexible exchange rates based on regional currencies, not on national currencies. The optimum currency area is the region."
• "If the world can be divided into regions within each of which there is factor mobility and between which there is factor immobility, then each of these regions should have a separate currency which fluctuates relative to all other currencies."
• "The argument works best if each nation (and currency) has internal factor mobility and external factor immobility."
• "But if regions cut across national boundaries or if countries are multiregional, then the argument for flexible exchange rates is only valid if currencies are reorganized on a regional basis."

In the work, Mundell cites two who he believes has captured the essence for defining the optimum currency area — Meade and Scitovsky.

• "In both cases [Meade's; Scitovsky's ] it is implied that an essential ingredient of a common currency, or a single currency area, is a high degree of factor mobility;"
• "...neither writer disputes that the optimum currency area is the region-defined in terms of internal factor mobility and external factor immobility-but there is an implicit difference in views on the precise degree of factor mobility required to delineate a region."

According to László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, in his speech titled Labour Mobility in the EU: Challenges and Perspectives for a Genuine European Labour Market, Europeans have the necessary ingredient of labor mobility.

Free movement of workers began in 1968. Today, it encompasses the labor markets of 28 Member States of the EU and every Eurozone country.

EU nationals have the right to look for work and take up employment in another Member State and to receive assistance from the employment services in the host country when looking for a job.

Countries experiencing the highest increase in labor outflows to other EU countries in 2011-12 were Greece, Spain, Ireland, Hungary and Latvia. Labor outflows went mostly to Germany, Austria and the UK.

So according to Mundell and his theory, the European Central Bank (ECB) ought to make more credit available in Germany, thus pushing up prices in Germany to remove the demand of Greeks from buying German products.  With Greek demand for German goods cut by being priced out, Greeks would then produce the alike, substitute goods on lower prices (lower wages), thus taking up unemployment slack in Greece.

But the problem has been the lawgivers in countries like Greece. As wages are prices, they have kept wages up through massive fake-work, make-work government programs, pensions and welfare. Greeks had been living through a credit bubble, a public sector credit bubble and not a private sector. When that bubble burst — Greek lawgivers couldn't borrow without bailouts — Greeks suffered at the hands of lawgivers rather than commercial bankers.

For those who doubt that Greek lawgivers haven't been the source of the problems for the Greeks, have a look at GREXIT IS NO EXIT. Nigerians export more than three times as much as the Greeks, but only import 1.34 times as much as the Greeks.

So how do the Greeks do it? How do the Greeks pay for those imports? Their lawgivers have borrowed year after year to pay for government agency workers, pensioners and welfare collectees who, in turn, take their Euro borrowings and buy imports from those of other Eurozone countries.

In the countries hit hardest by the Euro Banking Crisis, their problems have been caused by lawgivers borrowing to keep afloat phony economies and thus hampering price discovery. As well, by Mundell's theory, those countries within the Eurozone experiencing trade surpluses need to have their regional central bankers rediscount more and thus pump more credit into those countries, which presumably would jack up prices relative to the Eurozone trade deficit countries. By Mundell's theory, it doesn't matter if Germany and Greece are separate countries as long as the countries operate under the same exchange rate and have factor mobility.

Mundell also said, "Similarly, if factors are mobile across national boundaries, then a flexible exchange system becomes unnecessary, and may even be positively harmful, as I have suggested elsewhere." 

The Euro is a "gold" standard - one rate for an internal common market with factor mobility that requires lawgivers to adjust policy to that standard. The price of that Euro "gold" standard relative to the outside world (other banking systems' cash) fluctuates.

Mundell wrote at a time when countries had fixed exchange rates with bank cash convertible to gold while many called for floating exchange rates with irredeemable cash. Mundell proposed his theory as an attempt to explain international disequilibrium caused by balance-of-payments crises under fixed exchange rates and price fixing by legislators (rigid wage and price levels).

Mundell believed that countries with trade surpluses whose leaders capped bank credit caused unemployment for those living in trade deficit countries because leaders of trade deficit countries had to shrink their economies to restore the imbalance.

Whether one banking system shared among a few countries or countries each with their own banking systems, according to Mundell, the fix for regional disparities is for trade surplus countries to inflate (add bank credits) —

• "In a currency area comprising different countries with national currencies, the pace of employment in deficit countries is set by the willingness of surplus countries to inflate."
• "Unemployment could be avoided in the world economy if central banks agreed that the burden of international adjustment should fall on surplus countries, which would then inflate until unemployment in deficit countries is eliminated"
• "But in a currency area comprising many regions and a single currency, the pace of inflation is set by the willingness of central authorities to allow unemployment in deficit regions."

Under floating rates with irredeemable bank cash, those living in the trade deficit countries would need to pay more for foreign cash of trade surplus countries until BOP equalized. Thus, all inflation would be unneeded as is the fix for disparities between regions under the same banking system.

So, absent the will to inflate by region in the Euro zone, the Euro zone ought to break up and let floating exchange rates do their work — force prices up of foreign goods as expressed in one's own bank cash.

At the end Mundell concludes, "...the optimum currency area is the world, regardless of the number of regions of which it is composed." By that Mundell means there should be one money and balance of payments would adjust regional difference. In short, Mundell means something like gold as money would be the ideal for the world over.

Legally, Europeans have labor mobility. Culturally, whether they move or not is another matter (see: On the Move, The Economist).



Hordes of illegal aliens, many claiming to be refugees, don't seem to have a labor mobility hang up. For more on the horde invading Europe, check out 2015 EUROPEAN REFUGEE CRISIS. FLEEING THE FAILURES OF TOTALITARIANISM, BUT FAILING TO EMBRACE BETTER WAYS.

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2015 MIDDLE EASTERN INVASION OF EUROPE CRISIS. FLEEING THE FAILURES OF TOTALITARIANISM, BUT FAILING TO EMBRACE BETTER WAYS.

The world is a mess. Confused men — men who believe they walk with the light, but who truly walk with darkness — have made a mess of things. It's inexcusable that men in all countries look for excuses to turn their backs on others of mankind. As well, it's inexcusable for those seeking help not to reject their old ways and to adopt the ways of those from whom they seek help.



The poster child for the 2015 European Refugee Crisis is Aylan Kurdi, a boy who drown because his father decided to lead Aylan on a stupid attempt to sail to Europe in who knows what kind of boat. It's sad indeed that boy is dead. Yet, he died at the poor leadership of his father and no one else.

That said, that anyone needs a passport to travel anywhere and that anyone needs a visa to live anywhere is shameful. Of course, the need for passports and visas has arisen because of all those self-proclaimed progressives, socialists, and liberals and their system of taxation and welfare. In their self-delusion of do-gooding, their foolish and immoral system of false do-gooding has led to the need of passports and visas. Without controlled growth of their needy, their actuarial calculations would fail.

Because of the 2015 refugee crisis being peddled by news media in their quest to secure ratings and thus higher advertising sales revenues, I decided to look into the whole mess created by the greedy and fearful.

The useless bureaucrats at the United Nations have an agency that supposedly tracks refugees. However, their website to report their findings doesn't even work. I tried it with two browsers — Chrome and Edge.

So I pulled together data from Wikipedia, which reveals the power of freedom over meddlesome bureaucracies and something called the World Justice Project (WJP), which exists to advance the rule of law among the world.  Wikipedia provides refugee counts. The WJP scores countries based on how civilized are its people (ruling by law).

From the WJP, I culled the relevant subscores (see the bottom of this work) into an average score for each country, which I could use to filter the data. I defined a host country whose adjusted WJP score meets or exceeds the average for full WJP scores that are over 50. That average score is 67.

Only 15.9% of the countries recognized by the U.N. of the world adhere to what should be said as ruling by laws rather than the stupidly said "rule of law." It is these 26 countries that could host refugees, letting refugees join civilized people.

Most don't know who are refugees. The only ones who are refugees are those who can't get fair hearings in courts of their respective countries or those who face prosecution for free speech or for their religious practices. As well those who are fleeing either a civil war or a war being fought by their political leaders to which they don't approve and where the enemy is bombing them are refugees.

Everyone else is not a refugee. Being unskilled and living in a country where no jobs exist doesn't make someone a refugee. Being shunned by many because others don't like that one for whatever reason doesn't make someone a refugee. That makes them marginalized and perhaps an outcast, but not a refugee.

Many have not thought about why "refugees" become so. Refugees are fleeing the messes made by those ruling by totalitarian doctrines. Islamism or Mohammadanism, if you prefer, is a totalitarian doctrine of population control that masquerades as religious doctrine. True religious doctrines exist to help anyone gain enlightenment.

Many in the host countries don't want refugees. It should be clear to all why this is so.

It is not because refugee refuseniks lack compassion for refugees and their plight. Instead, they have seen previous refugees and other immigrants who have come to their countries fail to abandon their totalitarian ways, such as living by Mohammadanism. Worse, once being accepted, refugees and immigrants become alike to invaders who insist on the host people to change their ways.

If only refugees and immigrants would reject totalitarianism doctrines like Mohammadanism and instead embrace at least secularism, if not various doctrines of Christianity, perhaps the civilized world would become more helpful.

Here is how the supposed 16,929,321 refugees of the world could be distributed either by percent of population of hosts or percent of GDP of hosts. Likely, most who live in these countries, even the liberals, progressives and socialists would reject any call for taking in refugees by the head counts shown in the table.

Incidentally, if your country isn't listed above, likely, you are living in a country with horrible, fearful political leaders, likely who are not smart enough to lead men and women from a position of moral strength. You might not like the reality of my indictment, but nonetheless, you cannot make reality go away.

Here are the worst countries led by the worst political leaders on earth:

To select the worst countries, I took the average of the WJP scores less than or equal to 50 and selected all those countries below the average. Does it surprise you that American per capita income in True Dollars™ is as many times higher than the per capita income of those living in the worst countries?

Relevant WJP Scoring Categories

• 1.6 Transition of power is subject to the law
• 3.1 Publicized laws and government data
• 3.2 Right to information
• 3.3 Civic participation
• 4.1 Equal treatment and absence of discrimination
• 4.2 The right to life and security of the person is effectively guaranteed
• 4.3 Due process of law and rights of the accused
• 4.4 Freedom of opinion and expression is effectively guaranteed
• 4.5 Freedom of belief and religion is effectively guaranteed
• 4.6 Freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy is effectively guaranteed
• 4.7 Freedom of assembly and association is effectively guaranteed
• 8.2 Criminal adjudication system is timely and effective
• 8.4 Criminal system is impartial
• 8.5 Criminal system is free of corruption
• 8.6 Criminal system is free of improper government influence
• 8.7 Due process of law and rights of the accused
• 7.2 Civil justice is free of discrimination
• 7.3 Civil justice is free of corruption
• 7.4 Civil justice is free of improper government influence
• 7.5 Civil justice is not subject to unreasonable delay
• 7.6 Civil justice is effectively enforced

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HEART OF EUROPE? ARE GREEKS EVEN EUROPEAN?

With the rhetoric flying during crunch time in the Greek Bonds Crisis, one phrase struck me — "Greece is at the heart of Europe." Geographically, I know that isn't true. Depending on method of measurement, the geographical midpoint of Europe is either the village of Purnuškes near Vilnius, Lithuania, or the village of Mõnnuste, on Saaremaa island in western Estonia.

"Heart of Europe European" (left), "Greek" (right)

So thinking further upon that deceptive rhetoric — "Greece is at the heart of Europe" — I began to wonder, are Greeks even European? As well, what does being European even mean?

A site titled Eupedia lists the haplogroups of Y-chromosome DNA for the various people of Europe. A haplogroup consists of haplotypes that have a common ancestor.

Males have Y-chromosomes. Females do not. No amount of cross-dressing or getting breast implants or other surgeries can turn males into females.

Males of the same Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup have a common ancestral father.

Looking at the Eupedia data, there are a few kinds of Greeks — northern, central / Aegean Islander, southern, Cypriot, Cretin. 

The central Greek / Aegean Islander Greek is much the same as an Albanian.

The southern Greek is much the same as a Kosovoan.

Cretins are much the same as Anatolian Turks.

Cypriot males and Cretin males share quite a bit in common with some so-called Middle Easterners — Azerbaijani, Kurds from Iraq, and Lebanese.

What defines a European? Are Moldovians, Slovakians, Slovenians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Poles, Latvians or Russians?

The Moldovians, Slovakians, Slovenians and Ukrainians are much alike. The Belarusans are their close cousins. 

Likewise, the Czechs and the Poles are alike. The Hungarians are their close cousins. 

Though they might not like it, the Latvians and the Russians are much alike. 

The Estonians, Lithuanians and Maris in Russia are the same people. These are the people living in the geographic heart of Europe. Are the Estonians, the Lithuanians and the Maris the heart of Europe?

The Bosnian Serbs and the Serbs from Serbia are the same people.

Both Serbs are much alike to the Macedonians and the Montenegrans.

The Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats, the Croatians, and Romanians are the same people.

Except for the Russians who have big population, none of the aforementioned peoples comprise a big population. And these days, no one living in Europe much like the Russians. So the Russians could not comprise the heart of Europe.

The Danes and the Swedes are more or less the same people.

And their geographical neighbors, the Norwegians are mirror images of them.

There are quite of few so-called Europeans who have a common ancestor.

The French from the - Midi-Pyrénées along with the Italians from Central Italy, South Italy and Sicily as well as the Spaniards from Andalusia are the same people.

The Tuscan Italians and the Spaniards from Castile-La-Mancha are the same people.

The Corsicans, the Aragons from Spain and the Spaniards from Basque country are the same people.

The supposed French from Auvergne and the supposed Spaniards from Asturias and Cantabria are much alike.

The French from IIle-de-France and from Provence are much alike with the Italians from North Italy, the Spaniards from Castile and Leon, Catalonia, Extremadura, Galicia and Valencia along with all of the Portuguese. 

The Belgians, the French from Flanders-Artois, the French from Normandy and the Welsh are the same people.

The Austrians overall, the Deutsch from North Germany and the Deutsch from East Germany are the same people.

The Tyrolians from Austria, the French from the Rhône-Alpes, Deutsch from West Germany, and Deutsch from South Germany are the same people as well as Icelanders, Norwegians and Scots. All of these people share the same ancestor.

Though they might not want to acknowledge it, the English and the Irish are the same people. They're the same people along with the French Bretons, the Dutch and the Swiss.

So does anyone constitute the heart of Europe? Are there Europeans? Maybe these people do.

In short, Greeks are a mash-up of a Balkan people with Middle Eastern people.
Without doubt, the Greeks do not constitute the heart of Europe. The Greeks seem far on the edges of everything these days. 

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GREEKS HAVE BEEN SERVED A BIG CUP OF ELLINIKOS KAFES FOR THEIR COLD AUSTERITY WINTER AHEAD

Donald Tusk, the European Commission president has served a big cup of Ellinikos Kafes to Greeks (video). While handing them their big mug of Greek coffee to sober up Greeks after years of swilling free-to-them ouzo, Tusk said, "...five days left...the final deadline ends this week."


It has been laughable to read when pitchfork populist bloggers have claimed the Greek Dumb and Dumber, Prime Minister Tsipras and Finance Minster Varoufakis had the upper hand. They never ever had it.

Their stupidest move was to hold that referendum. While ordinary Greeks were misled by Tsipras and Varoufakis to believe they were sending jingle mail to IMF, EFSM and the EU, in fact, they were voting for their own Grecocide.

An especially popular pitchfork populist blogger hailed the referendum as a genius move. He strengthened his silliness with a mantra he has gotten his neophyte readers to parrot — what can't be paid back, won't.

Right from the start, reality has been different — what must be paid back will be paid back. For Greek law givers to remain in the Euro, Greek law givers had to pay their debts.

The winning No-Vote has given the leaders of the Eurogroup the smokescreen they need to squeeze Greeks out of the Euro.

“Party time at the expense of others in Greece has come to an end. Europe and the euro area are surely unprepared to pay for the irresponsible behavior of the new Greek government...You can’t have one country enjoying a feast, overspending and having everyone else pay for it, including our citizens with much lower pensions and wages.” ~ Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite

 “We have a Grexit scenario prepared in detail.” ~ Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission President

It should have been clear that Greeks needed support from leaders of other small Euro zone economies, the ones who threw off the shackles of the old Soviet system. Yet, it should have been clearer they would never get that support since the peoples of those countries sucked it up for a long time to get themselves in order to be competitive members of the Euro zone and the EU.

Greek law givers caused their own crisis. And Greek law givers couldn't have done so without Greek voters election after election approving of their law givers. Years of borrowing and rolling over debt with new borrowing led Greek law givers beyond the tipping point.

Financially and mathematically, Greeks were in position to pay back enough of their cumulative debt to whittle that debt down to 110% of GDP over ten years. To do so Greek law givers were supposed to declare badly needed so-called structural reforms — cutting spending significantly and by doing, pushing down prices.

In exchange for generous help, Greek law givers had been asked to pay down a mere €6.36 billion a year of debt, which, each year would have been 1.9% of total debt owed and 2.6% of GDP. However, the socialist-communist SYRIZA who came to power as Greek law givers wanted to pay nothing.

Like winter is coming for the fictional world of Game of Thrones, real austerity is coming at last to the Greeks. Whether it's tough austerity through the Euro or extreme austerity through the Drachma, austerity is coming.

The ECB can keep closed their banks forever. So likely, Greeks will be forced into the Drachma. In short, Tsipras (interestingly, Tusk pronounces his name as cheap-ass) and the quitter Varoufakis have misled their Greeks into what will be third world Drachma-austerity.

Right now, Greeks lack the means to pay for oil or natural gas priced on world markets. Greeks lack the means to pay for pharmaceuticals, engineered machinery, engineered materials and of all kinds, cars and trucks, airplanes and well, mostly everything produced by mankind today. Reverting to the Drachma will fail to give Greeks the means.

Winter 2015-2016 is going to be one to be remembered for Greeks. At least they can think fondly upon their no-vote referendum as they burn the last of their furniture to keep warm. They can think of all their Internet supporters in America and elsewhere as the humanitarian aid ship docks in Athens on its way to other third world countries.

In life, for adults who can decide, they don't get what they want always, but always, they get what they deserve.

Kalí týchi!

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VANDALS VANDALIZE A WORK OF VANDALISM BY VANDAL BANKSY. BRITS CRY OUT IN IRONY.

For decades, a graffiti vandal who goes by the name Banksy has vandalized walls of buildings in which he lacks any property.

In short, Banksy lacks the right to paint upon the walls of buildings he does. Further, Banks has a duty to not vandalize the walls of buildings in which others have property, which is the right of ownership and never the thing owned.

Recently, Banksy vandalized the wall of someone's building Folkestone, England. Another vandal took it upon himself or herself to better Banksy's work of vandalism by adding a drawn penis upon it.

Brits everywhere have decried the work of the second vandal as horrific vandalism destroying the work of vandalism by Banksy. How is that for a bit of irony?

Some have taken to Twitter, tweeting such foolery as "Only in #Folkstone could a #Banksy be vandalisesd."

Here is the improved work of Banksy's vandalism:



Here is a photo of Banksy's original destruction:



According to Brits, everyone should have thought vandalism throughout NYC in the low point of NYC as artwork:



Enjoy a ride through graffiti ghettos of New York City.


And the decline of Britain continues as evidenced by the way Brits believe.

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¡OH-LAY! ¡OLÉ! SPANISH POLITICIANS DECREE HEROIN AND HOOKERS LEGAL (AT LEAST ON PAPER)

According to Libertad, Spanish politicians will legalize prostitution and drug trafficking for the purposes of statistics in an effort to boost GDP on paper. In so doing, with a higher GDP, Spanish politicians can run bigger fiscal year deficits and still remain within 18-country Eurozone banking mandates as outlined in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) mandated by European Union politicians for the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).



Under the SGP, EMU member countries cannot have a fiscal year deficit greater than 3% of GDP nor can the cumulative political debt exceed 60% of GDP. Current Spanish GDP tallies to US$1.358 trillion (€1.062 trillion). Adding US$44.7 billion (€35 billion) worth of otherwise illegal drugs sales and illegal prostitute hook ups instantly will add 3.3% to Spanish GDP.

Adding heroin and hookers to GDP statistics would let Spanish politicians run a US$42.1 billion (€32.9 billion) fiscal year deficit and still abide by the SGP. The legally-sanctioned illegal prostitution and illegal drug industry would let Spanish politicians up their FY deficit spending by US$1.36 billion (€1.06 billion) and stay within the SGP of the EMU.

Overnight, prostitution and drugging would become an industry equal in size to electrical power generation as well as education. Each of the 19,773,438 Spanish males age 15 and over spent US$2,262.59 (€1,769.91) last year to party it up with street walkers and drugs.

Politicians always seize the opportunity to spend more of what they don't have in their never-ending quest to maintain their tenuous grip on power. As always, the greedy extend their grubby hands awaiting to get more of that borrowed spending.

Enjoy a groove tune by Lowell George and Little Feat.

There's whiskey, and bad cocaine. Poison get you just the same. 

And if that don't kill you soon. The women will down at the Spanish Moon. 

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RUNNING WITH THE BULLS*#TTERS. HAS SPAIN EVER RECOVERED FROM 2008?

Today, Mish at Global Economic Trend Analysis reports on the flailing Spanish economy.



Foreign trade accounts for a significant part of Spanish GDP. A widening current account deficit reveals foreign markets are shrinking for the Spanish. That shrinking can arise from weaker foreign markets or from products not being bought at the same rates as before owing to buyers switching preferences to better made products sourced elsewhere.

The Economy Ministry reports that exports growth slowed to a paltry 0.5% year over year.

The Spanish mostly export cars (8.8%), refined petroleum (6.3%), packaged medicaments (3.7%), vehicle parts (3.5%), and delivery trucks (1.9%) mostly to the French (15%), Germans (10%), Italians (7.7%), Portuguese (7.1%), and the British (6.2%).

If a people run a current account deficit, they're living on credit. They have become borrowers from the rest of the world.

So who is giving credit and who is getting that credit? Likely, successive Spanish parliamentarians have issued sovereign bonds, borrowing from suckers who then pay for the six million unemployed Spaniards to buy things with welfare payouts.

A current account deficit represents negative net sales abroad. The current account stands as an indicator about the state of an economy. The current account consists of mostly of net exports (exports less imports) added with the smaller components of foreign net income (earnings from foreign direct investment less earnings paid to foreigners on domestic investments) and net current transfers (welfare outflows less inflows).

When people find themselves in annual current account deficits mostly driven by net exports, FDI investors become wary. If a people cannot cover current debt with future revenue, those people can become insolvent.

The Spanish have the 13th largest economy among the world. Spain could be the canary in the coal mine for Europe. 

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EUROPEANS HAVEN'T LEARNED A THING IN 100 YEARS

So the doubling-down on political stupidity begins. European parliamentarians laid down sanctions against the Russians over Ukraine. The Russians took their time, but have decreed counter-sanctions against European-sourced produce. Now, European parliamentarians plan on doling welfare, with borrowed bank credits, of course, to those EU citizens hurt commercially by the Russians.



If European political leaders hate the Russians so much and truly want to cripple the Russian economy to bring Russians to their knees so they turn on their leader Putin, then why don't they stop buying natural gas from the Russians today, right now?

Why not cut off the Russians from Euros or dollars or however those natural gas contracts get settled?

If European leaders truly want to scold the Russians, and if European leaders had courage, this is what they would do. It's simply hypocritical to pick and choose as if from a menu, which products can be bought and which products become banned.

Europeans should have embraced the secession of Luhansk and the secession of Donetsk. As well, Europeans ought to have embraced the secession of Crimea. Yet, if Europeans political fools were smart, which they are not, without doubt so, rather than placing sanctions on Russians, they ought to place sanctions on Ukrainians to pressure Ukrainians to accept these changes.

In WE WANT TO BE FREE. UKRAINIANS WANT WHAT IS RIGHT. FREEDOM.  I wrote,

It's not so much about territory. It's about people. The political establishment hates losing people because they hate losing the ability to control property of others and thus the ability to scoop up taxes, which are an unearned share of profits taken by force if necessary.

Yet, why should some Ukrainians' freedom count more than others? Ukrainians are killing other Ukrainians to decide which group of oligarchs shall lord over themselves. How stupid are Ukrainians? When shall they awaken?

And if the Europeans were really smart, they would have sought to bring the Russians into the fold of the EU right after the fall of the Berlin wall. Further, Europeans should have brought the Russians into NATO while having the USA exit NATO.

After all, EU exists today precisely because of a trade union for coal established between the French and the Germans in the aftermath of World War 2 as the means to keep French and Germans from ever fighting each other again. Can you imagine what a Eurasian Economic Union would have done for the 649.7 million living from the Bay of Biscay to the Sea of Okhotsk?

Europeans ought to be embarrassed for their political posturing and behavior. Rather than trying to poach the Ukraine from Russians, never which should have been the goal, Europeans should have worked hard to enter in union with the Russians. One would think Europeans could look back at their own 100-year history contrasting the horrors of wars and the benefits of trade unions.

On the 100th anniversary of World War 1, it is clear that Europeans have learned nothing.

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DANISH TOURISTS BLAME CANADA!

So a couple of traveling-companion, Euro tourists from Denmark, Holly Chabowski, 30, and Nanna Sorensen, 23, visited Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. During their experience, Ms. Chabowski fired off a letter of complaint, sending copies of said letter to party-hardy Toronto mayor Rob Ford, Jim Watson, mayor of Ottawa, federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen, a newspaper published in the capital.

Of her trip with Ms. Sorensen, Ms. Chabowski wrote, “We just had this impression of Canada being quite different, a bit more European.” According to Ottawa Citizen Marie-Danielle Smith, Ms. Chabowski and Ms. Sorensen slummed it by bumming places to sleep in the houses of strangers, which many rhetorical call "couch-surfing."



Chabowski and Sorensen lamented over “great oceans of car parks,” the "sea of Tim Hortons," and "12 lane high ways, rammed packed with huge SUVs, with people going no where." Chabowski and Sorensen screamed horror over Halifaxians driving their SUVs alone.

And in her disappointment with Canadians, in typical meddling-minded European fashion, Ms. Chabowski wrote, “I write this letter to appeal to you to take radical steps to transform Canada into the healthy, happy and sustainable country we were expecting.”

Rød grød med fløde to those Danish cranks!

Alas, Chabowski and Sorensen suffer from the European disease, meddling European bureaucrat central planning syndrome. According to Ms. Smith, Chabowsk said that urban planning could convert Canadians into Europeans. Chabowski and Sorensen failed to see how meddlesome government planners are the ones who approved zoning, designing the Canada, which Canadians have today.

Suffering years of hyper-indoctrination beginning in childhood, Euros expect everyone on earth to live their diminished lifestyles. And of course, being European, they call for radical action imposed by the heavy hand of dictatorial government.

Noticeably absent from Chabowski and Sorensen were any calls for the removal of politician-fueled subsidies and letting an organic, free-market driven transportation design arise. Ironically, Chabowski acknowledges that European cities arose organically during medieval times of pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.

It seems Chabowski and Sorensen hope for Canadians to have the same graffiti-sprayed trains as they have in Copenhaven.




Canada is huge. If Chabowski and Sorensen wanted a dinky footprint, why didn't they restrict themselves to Victoria or Vancouver. Better yet, why didn't Chabowski and Sorensen stay in Europe and visit Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra or Luxembourg?

It amuses always at how profoundly ignorant Lilliputian Europeans are about the size of Canada as well as the United States, especially west of the Mississippi.

According to Google Maps, someone could pedal the 400 km from Krusa, Denmark on the border with Deutschers of nearby Flensburg, Germany, to Skagen, Denmark, in the farthest north of Jutland in 21 hours. As well, someone could pedal from Blåvand, Denmark in the far west, through the islands of Funen, Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Zealand, coming to Copenhaven in 22 hours and 36 minutes.

To make the ride straight through, that someone likely would need to be a world-class Tour De France caliber cyclist. Oh, and that someone would need to ride a ferry as well as pedal through the town of Middlefart.

If a Canadian yearned to pedal from Toronto, which sits on the southern border with Americans who share Lake Erie to Alert, Nunavut, Canada, which sits 4,366.6 km (2713.25 miles) away on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, a mere 817 km (508 mi) from the North Pole, well that one couldn't do it. There aren't any roads that go that far north into Canada as well as traverse the many islands between Canadian mainland and Ellesmere.

However, assuming someone could, based on the Google Maps pedal rate of 19.05 km an hour, it would take someone 228 hours or 9.5 days! Of course, that assumes, the cyclist would enjoy friction-free, clear-skies weather.

Now, someone could pedal across Canada. According to Google Maps, someone could pedal 6,026 km from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Victoria, British Columbia, in 313 hours. Oh and that would would need a ferry ride out to Victoria as well.

So someone could pedal across Denmark in under a day. However, someone would need a bit more than 13 days, of 24-hour a day pedalling to power oneself across Canada.

Here is the letter from Ms. Chabowski:

My girlfriend and I (Danish) were tourists in your country for 5 weeks this summer. We had the most incredible adventure and met the most wonderful Canadians, who welcomed us warmly into their homes.

Apart from these people, who sincerely do your nation credit, our overwhelming memory of Canada is one of cars, traffic, parking and the related obesity and unfulfilled communities. It is an impression that we have since shared with other tourists who have visited Canada.

Before arriving in Canada we had a genuine impression of a clean, healthy and sustainable first world country. Upon arrival in Toronto we were horrified to see great oceans of car parks deserting the landscape and 12 lane high ways, rammed packed with huge SUVs, with people going no where. A greater shock came when we discovered that this kind of infrastructure is not reserved just for the sprawl surrounding towns and cities but that highways actually run through city centres too. As humans trying to enjoy Canada’s major cities (Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Halifax) we were treated like second class citizens compared to cars. The air was dirty, and the constant noise from horns and engines was unpleasant.

An observation that was especially noticeable in Halifax was the sheer amount of land in the city centre given to parking. Ginormous swaths of prime locations for living (parks, shops, cafés, market squares, theatres, playing fields etc – human activities which are key to quality of life) concreted over as homes for an ever increasing number of SUVs (most trucks and SUVs we saw contained only one person. The most SUVs we saw in a row were full of singular people driving through Tim Hortens). We asked the Canadians that we met how they felt living in such a car culture, here are a few of their responses:

‘Trying to solve traffic problems by building more roads is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger trousers.’ Ottawa

‘It’s only 10km to my work place. I would love to cycle, it would only take 30 minutes but it is simply not possible. I don’t feel safe. Instead I park and sweat, meaning after 25 minutes stuck in traffic I drive my car to the gym and waste another 25 minutes of time I could spend with my family.’ Quebec City

‘I hate cars in the city so much that I actually find myself slowing down as I cross the road, in a tiny effort to exert my authority as a human being over all that metal.’ Toronto

‘It seems to me that birds fly, fish swim and humans walk. Except in North America where you are expected to drive-everywhere. You wouldn’t put a fish in a submarine!’ Montreal

‘I am obese. My children are overweight and most of the people who live around here. I am surrounded by fast food chains, car parks and highways. I would love to ditch the car. My neighbourhood doesn’t even have sidewalks.’ Levis

As we explored more of the country we tried to console ourselves that at least a few cities were making an effort to make life liveable for humans – small local businesses, cycle infrastructure and pedestrianised streets. However, it felt like a token gesture rather than a genuine effort to make Canada a healthy, happy and sustainable country. Pedestrians were squeezed onto narrow pavements and forced to stop every 100m to cross the road, bike lanes were little more than paint on the ground for the cyclists to help protect the parked cars lining every street. We heard that the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, is actually tearing up bicycle lanes to make way for more cars!

Walking and cycling are human activities that bring great life, health and economy to communities. Streets that prioritise cars over humans are bad for business, bad for health (mental, social and physical), unsafe and break down communities.

I write this letter to appeal to you to take radical steps to transform Canada into the healthy, happy and sustainable country we were expecting. You are a nation of the most fantastic people, we know because we met them everywhere! As citizens they deserve much, much better.

Come on Canada! When tourists visit Canada make sure they remember it for for its parks rather than parking.

Sincerely yours,
Holly Chabowski

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21st CENTURY CRIMEAN WAR. OH, AND SARAH PALIN IS WRONG STILL

In what looks like a simmering, could-be civil war in Ukraine, Putin has sent more Russian troops to protect Crimeans. RT reports that thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators across eastern Ukraine and Crimea are protesting against the new government, with administration buildings being seized in several cities.

Crimeans mostly see themselves Russians and not Ukrainians precisely because they are Russians and not merely Russian speakers. Crimea is an autonomous republic. It's name is Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The people of the Crimea ought to decide their own fate. It's a solid bet the people of Crimea aren't borderland (Ukraine) people and want to rule themselves.

Contrary to the ongoing psy op waged against Americans by media workers supporting the E.U. and U.S. political establishments, Russian troops under Putin have not invaded Crimea. Russians already had an active military base in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. To say the Russians have invaded Crimea would be to say Americans invade Deutschland anytime the U.S. Army sends additional troops to Germany.

As to the rest of Ukraine, the country needs to break up in an orderly manner without shots being fired, in two, at least, by oblasts. West Ukraine should consist of oblasts of the north and west. South Ukraine should consist of the oblasts of the east and south.

Of the 44.6 million now living in Ukraine, it's a fair bet that 47.75% of people living in the whole of the current Ukraine want their own country. That's 19.3 million in the oblasts of the south and east and almost 2 million living in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Totalitarian Big Government supporters in the USA, this time, Republicans, have crowed that Sarah Palin has been proven right because in 2008, Palin claimed Putin would have Russians invade Ukraine, a prediction for which many mocked her. Of course, increasing troop strength at a welcomed Russian base hardly could be construed by any straight thinker as an invasion.

However, Ms. Palin seemed spot on when she said, "After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence." What should Americans expect from the college school teacher and small-time community organizer, Obama.

Interestingly, people of the once-existing  Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920) embraced national personal autonomy whereby citizens who identified with their respective ethnic group joined their representative cultural assembly, which had financial powers such as taxation, spending and budgeting for their respective ethnicities.

Like most lands of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, many contested for the land between the Baltic Sea to the north and the Black Sea to the south, the lands that today constitute Poland, Lithuania, Lativa, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Kievan Rus at its greatest extent in the mid-11th century stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.  After the Kievan Rus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania arose, incorporating parts of the former Kievan Rus and grew to become the  largest state in Europe by the 1400s.

After the Grand Duchy came the dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ruled by one monarch to rule the region. At its height, Poland-Lithuania was one of the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th-century Europe consisting of 11 million and spanning 390,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2) at its peak in the early 1600s.

After the commies came to power in Russia during Red October, two governments arose in Ukraine,  the Ukrainian People's Republic run from Kiev and the Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets run from Kharkiv. Leaders from each pushed ordinary Ukrainians into civil war.

In WE WANT TO BE FREE. UKRAINIANS WANT WHAT IS RIGHT. FREEDOM, I explained how politicians don't care so much about territory as  they do about people. Always, it's about people. The political establishment hates losing people because they hate losing the ability to control property of others and thus the ability to scoop up taxes, which are an unearned share of profits taken by force if necessary.

The story of Ukrainians on both sides, the pro-Europe Ukrainians and the pro-Russia Ukrainians is the story of everyone, be them Catalonians, Basque, Flemish, Bretons, South Tyrolians. Millions of people living in Europe want to be free from arbitrary borders imposed upon them from treaties imposed after world wars.

The Independent from the UK reports on separatists gaining ground throughout Europe as people everywhere grow fed up with politicians, their mismanagement of finances, their excessive taxation and their excessive regulation — all signs of totalitarianism. Chief hot spots of likely separatist successes include Scotland in the UK, Basque and Catalonia in Spain, Flanders in Belgium. 

European countries need to break up. The European Union needs to break up. Most of all, the Eurozone needs to break up. 

Breaking up concentrated power is the best way for individuals to gain liberty and thus freedom. 

The more banking systems Europeans can have, each with its own cash, the more conservative these systems shall be. The more conservative the banking systems, the more banking serves short-term commercial interests and the less banking serves politics. 

All you need to do is compare how well those of German-speaking South Tyrol manage their governmental affairs within the borders of Italy versus Italian-speaking Italians and how they mismanage their financial affairs. Italians of Rome have needed their seventh bailout in seven years.

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EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DECREES ITSELF AS MASTER PIMP FOR ALL SEX WORKERS IN EUROPE

On Wednesday, February 26, the European parliament voted for resolution to criminalize the purchase of sex but not the sale of sex. In Europe, this is the known as the Nordic model of prostitution. The resolution passed by almost a 2.5 to 1 margin (343 for, 139 against, 105 abstained). You can read all about the silliness in the U.K.'s Guardian.

Mary Honeyball a spokesman for the labor party of the EU parliament called the continuance of prostitution "exploitation of women," the new measure a "nuanced approach" to tackle prostitution by purportedly "punishing men who treat women's bodies as a commodity" and doing all this without punishing women "who are driven into sex work."

By fining men while letting women work as paid whores, the irony here is that government has become the pimp, the pimp who wants his girls working and who wants to collect fees from customers called fines.


Women aren't driven into sex work. Prostitutes like the work. It's fast, easy, and has a high-pay to low-skill ratio. 

Worse, these silly European parliamentarians suffer from the false belief that bodies are being traded as commodities. Bodies aren't being traded as commodities, pleasure is. For a people who earn their living trading votes for favors, one would think parliamentarians would fully understand prostitution and how it works.

What is the real problem? Government, the created creature has grown beyond society, the creator. This is the true evil.

When a people live under a law for everything, that living is called totalitarianism. That is what totalitarianism means. It doesn't mean communism or socialism, though those kinds of collectivism tend to lead to totalitarianism. 

For people to be free, there must be freedom, or those realms for individuals where there is no officialdom. Said another way, there must be liberty, or where the law (government) is content to leave all alone and thus not create duties and rights.

Government should be tiny, hardly noticeable in the lives of the people. Instead, the lives of the people are tiny and government is all pervasive. 

People get what they deserve. This is what people deserve for wanting government to provide income-giving welfare instead of merely protection of any individual and his property (ownership in stuff) from foreign mobs and domestic ones.

The right act of course, is to de-criminalize prostitution and restore it to its rightful place, liberty, or that arena where The Law is content to leave individuals alone.

Of course, the real reason for regulation and condemnation of anything is revenue for over-sized salaries and pensions for bureaucrats and politicians. If they fine prostitutes, they look evil. There aren't that many working whores so the total take is small. 

However, if they fine the johns, revenues shall increase. There are tens of thousands of potential fine-paying johns. 

By claiming to stamp out yet another evil, politicians can pander to feminist sympathizers as well as religionists. And this is the driver for the latest trend sweeping Europe.

If you want to better understand prostitution from the minds of prostitutes, read The Honest Courtesan. This woman, a former prostitute, blogs about prostitution.

Of course, web cam workers who masturbate on cam engage in a kind of prostitution, trading pleasure for bank credit convertible into cash. So too, porno video sex workers engage in prostitution, working with other prostitutes and having their work recorded to video, also trading pleasure for bank credit convertible into cash. 

The advance of government toward totalitarianism never leads to progress. True progress arises from autonomy, or that which is self-rule.

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