Tag Archives: Ollie Rehn

The Troika Attack Italy for Refusing to Bleed the Economy

By William K. Black

The title to the latest Wall Street Journal article on Italy is “EU Tells Italy to Adopt More Austerity Measures.”  It’s an old, stupid remedy.  If you hit your carburetor with a hammer and it doesn’t fix it – hit it harder and more often.  Italy is the troika’s carburetor and austerity is its hammer.

The Troika’s Response to Renzi’s Electoral Success: Crush Him

The general context of the troika’s latest act of depravity is particularly interesting.  The troika consists of the European Commission, the IMF, and the ECB.  The troika’s insistence that the periphery inflict austerity caused not simply a gratuitous second recession through much of the EU but a Second Great Depression in Italy, Spain, and Greece.  One-third of the eurozone’s population – 100 million people – was kicked into a Great Depression due to the troika’s long-falsified economic dogmas.

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Spain’s “Stimulus” Plan: An Oxymoron Crafted by Regular Morons

By William K. Black
(Cross posted from Benzinga.com)

Spain’s conservative government, eager to change the media’s emphasis on its repudiation in recent EU elections, has launched a media campaign stressing its adoption of an aggressive “stimulus” program.  Spain’s conservatives – and their predecessors the so-called socialists – are infamous for embracing the troika’s demands for austerity.  Why have the Spanish conservatives finally admitted that austerity is a disaster and stimulus is essential?  They have not done so.  Instead, they have rebranded “austerity” as “stimulus.”

“MADRID—Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is planning to launch a €6.3 billion ($8.59 billion) economic stimulus package, a move to keep sky-high unemployment and the risk of deflation from derailing the country’s recovery.

Mr. Rajoy told 200 business leaders at a conference in Sitges, near Barcelona….”

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Spain, Italy, and France: Economic Failures that Will Soon be Political Failures

By William K. Black

The troika has consigned one-third of the Eurozone to a gratuitous Great Depression

I have written several articles recently describing Spain’s continuing Great Depression levels of unemployment and the absurdity of the troika’s policies with regard to the “threat” presented by “deflation.”  The troika consists of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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Spain Rains on Rehn’s Austerity Victory Parade: Unemployment Rises to 26%

By William K. Black

Two articles that should be read by anyone interested in the global financial crisis have just been published.  They address Spain.  Spain tends to get far less coverage in the U.S. than Ireland and Greece, but it is a far larger country and economy.  Its real estate bubble, relative to GDP, was the second worst among economically developed nations.  Spain is so large and its unemployment is so severe that “Almost a quarter of all the unemployed in the 28-country European Union live in Spain….”  Spain’s housing bubble was funded by an out of control banking sector and the bad loans are causing increasing damage to the banks.  “[B]anks’ assets continue to deteriorate with an increase in the number of loans not being paid back.”

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