"An ounce of prevention..."

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Immediately after the defeat of President Jose Socrates in our neighbor to the west, the press announced that “the rightists in Portugal will increase austerity measures”... Privatizations, deeper cuts, more unemployment, bowing to the rating agencies... because with the Eurozone, and especially PIGS, the markets won’t rest until everything falls into the hands of the huge international financial consortia, including China and the petroleum-producing countries.

Much has been said about “creating employment”... but, how? No one knows. For the moment what everyone is announcing –in Portugal, and on the horizon in Spain- is further obedience to speculators, the survivors of the globalizers’ “shipwreck” that were rescued by the G-20 and are now incessantly hounding their innocent “rescuers”.

Greece has been obliged to privatize to unthinkable limits, including proposals to sell some of its islands in the Aegean! And to what avail? The markets continue to show a lack of confidence in the European Union and mercilessly attack its socialist governments.

While the corporations in some countries, which have delocalized a large part of their production, reap considerable benefits, governments are continually being forced to make additional cuts. Some countries can make their own money, while we in the Eurozone are making a fool of ourselves. Brussels is giving PIGS even more homework. President Obama and Chancellor Merkel believe it is essential to take measures to stabilize European economy. But without discussing disarmament, the autonomy of European security, or the re-founding of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to ensure that they faithfully fulfill the missions for which they were created in 1944.

And the environment? And the fight against hunger and poverty? And the urgent reorganization of the United Nations, united and strong, to once and for all replace the groups of plutocrats whose incapacity has already been sufficiently demonstrated?

Of this nothing has been said. Absolutely nothing.

What the boss says, goes. And today the markets and the shameless rating agencies are the boss...

Of PIGS, only Spain is left standing. But if we don’t shape up soon, the market will win here too. The unfounded alarm sounded in Castilla La Mancha (by those where the situation is catastrophic in regions where they govern) and the irresponsible declarations concerning Spain’s solvency, immediately orchestrated by Moody's, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, clearly show what will happen in Spain if social justice is also finally replaced here by the market.

We must react. Now, before it’s too late for an ounce of prevention, and we are forced to provide a pound of cure...

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