EU uses new budget powers to demand more austerity in Italy and Spain [get ready Ukraine]

The European Commission has exercised historic new EU powers allowing it to revise national budgets for the first time

Spain and Italy have been warned that their budgets for 2014 are in breach of European Union rules as Brussels uses new powers to force governments to revise spending plans before national parliaments vote on them.

France was also cautioned that plans for painful economic reforms represent only "limited progress" as the European Commission exercised new eurozone powers in a historic shift of sovereignty away from elected governments.

"Because in an economic and monetary union, national budgetary decisions can have an impact well beyond national borders, member states have given the commission the responsibility," said Olli Rehn, the commission vice-president in charge of the euro.

Germany, Europe's largest and most successful economy, was also criticised for making "no progress" in following EU recommendations to help its eurozone neighbours by spurring domestic demand and imports.

Despite disappointing growth figures and mounting concern that eurozone austerity policies are killing off recovery and locking southern European countries into protracted slump, the commission ruled that "further consolidation in euro area countries is necessary".

For the first time, the EU's Brussels executive has reviewed draft national budgets before national legislatures have voted on them, flexing political muscles aimed at preserving stability for Europe's single currency and at preventing a future eurozone debt crisis.

"This a historic moment," said an EU diplomat. "One has to ask whether the eurozone's voters yet appreciate what a huge shift in sovereignty this is away from national parliaments to conclaves of finance ministers and commission officials."

Why would Ukraine not want to join the EU ? It should be all unicorns, leprechauns and pots o'gold. What could possibly go wrong for the average Ukrainian ?

How about, they get out from under the boot of the Russian bear that has starved, dominated and used their country as a buffer for generations?

Oh and by the way, there is nothing wrong with actual austerity. The problem is none of these countries is really practicing it. Most of them are simply lowering the increase of public spending. Estonia's model of austerity, you know where you actually cut stuff, is working just fine.

And before you get into banker conspiracies, bankers are nothing more than enablers - same as they are for individuals that get into debt trouble. The reason the bankers are always taken care of is because they will keep lending the money that allows these countries to run their social welfare states (effectively buying votes from the dependent class).

Much as the EU is rotten no doubt, but most Eastern European nations along with the Baltic's are much happier being under the Western European umbrella than at the mercy of Russia. Take a moment, remove infowars from your bookmarks and open your eyes. The Ukraine has had far more negative experience with Russia than it has the EU, so naturally the 75% ethnic Ukrainians in the Ukraine (as well as some percentage of others who feel themselves Ukrainians first) will gravitate to the West.

Don’t bother trying to “convince” me that the neocon mythology is real.

I’ve got far too many facts, and none of them come from “infowars”.

Reports and records of the “foundations”, central banks, various businesses, etc., going back into the 1800s are online and publicly accessible.

It enables one to see the undeniable relationships that have existed.

Regarding Ukraine...

People don’t go trashing their own country with a civil war because of old grudges their grandpas had.

They trash their country with a civil war because of few leaders are told they’re in line to gain power and wealth in the aftermath.

Check the sovereign debt of all eastern European countries, per capita, not in total.

Can you see what’s going on ?

Taxes are paid by the “little people”; those in control of the world have hundreds of billions in capital that is under their control - i.e., in foundations, publicly-held companies, etc. - and they pay only a tiny fraction of the tax they would have to pay if the earnings from all the capital they control was included in their personal tax computation. The sheeple have practically no capital under their control. Mostly they have debt. What capital they do have - they’ve turned over to funds whose boards control how that capital is employed. This is why jobs have moved to China and “we can’t get them back”. Instead of owning and operating our own businesses, where we can exit the investment and go start a competitor if the business outsources overseas, we own shares in funds who happily invest in companies that turn a deaf ear to our pleading for jobs.

To understand how the conspiracy works, not as a hypothetical but in reality, one has to look at overlapping boards of directors.

Boards of top foundations, publicly-held companies, universities/endowments, NGOs, think tanks and top government leadership all overlap such as that conflict of interest permeates the whole leadership of society.

One has to think from the elites’ perspective, as if you were a billionaire whose ancestors spent their lives working towards complete monopolistic control of society - you’re an elite leader, you have to “run the world”. And you’ve inherited their ongoing projects and plans, plenty of holdings and connections, and their guidance.

For example: If you wanted to get the entire African continent taking vaccines or growing GMO foods produced by companies that are part of your sphere of control in these world domination plans, you’d certainly make use of tax-exempt foundations to accomplish this.

1) you can place hundreds of millions worth of stock into the foundation and thus avoid inheritence taxes for your heirs - your parents did the same thing for you afer all. All their foundations are self-funding but you and people working for/with you on “new world order” get to run the board of directors and thus determine how every year’s tax-exempt investment proceeds will be spent. capital under your control.

2) it’s great for PR. The sheeple will think you whipped out $100 million in cash and sent it to Africa, when you really only did a paper tax-avoidance transaction.

3) you can actually get OTHER people to ADD THEIR hard-earned money to your foundation. They’ll love it, because their donations are tax-deductible. But they’ll have no say in what how you operate the foundation. Thanks, sheeple !

4) You’ll have a revolving door going between your foundation, the healthcare industry top execs, and the top government regulators and the top universities. You can also sit on the boards for universities. You can get people loyal to you to take regulator jobs. You can get regulators making it law that everyone needs to buy your healthcare companies commercial products.

5) You can get African governments in on a deal. They accept your foundation coming in and “helping” their country. They agree to let your people into their government as consultants and regulators. And you get them to ask the US government for “aid”, which you can have your influence in the US governmet make happen. So US tax dollars go to Africa, the local Idi Amin gets a cut, and the rest comes back to your for-profit company as sales, with your tax-exempt foundation providing the consulting and guidance, and sending voluteers out to vaccinate everyone in sight.

Ultimately, as an elite, you “know” that the planet can only support so many people. If we “overpopulate” we’ll “starve”. Someone has to be the “leader” and make the “tough decisions”. As an elite, that’s you.

Even though your push to promote food exports actually goes so far that outsiders will always bid up the price so that domestic prices for food rise to painful levels as tons of locally-produced food goes out on boats and a lucky few profit greatly, and your position as the maker of these international markets winds up with you profiting enormously, you deserve - you need the profit. It’s what makes you an elite, so you can make the tough decisions.

Someday when people start getting really hungry, you will then be wise enough to adjust the pricing and availability of medicines, perhaps some foods and medicines that have some sicknesses as as side effect might inadvertantly “help reduce population”.

You can rest easy; a world with no competition for the operations where your capital is invested, and no one to contest you as elite. In fact, the very idea that you think of yourself as an elite, the idea that any of this is true: your ancestors long ago learned out to paint that out to be a crazy conspiracy theory. Whenever your sheeple hear someone telling them about you “controlling the world” they laugh and mock the person.

No offense, but this reads like one giant conspiracy theory - the only thing missing is blaming it all on the Jews.

I know some people that believe as you do, and I respect that you are armed with lots of facts and figures - the problem you have is you attribute all things that don't fit properly into your world view of the way things "should be" into some massive, nefarious plot. I have a few dedicated prepper type friends, fanatical Ron Paul followers actually, and they echo virtually the exact same fantastic story as you do here. All armed with lots of facts and figures but drawing ridiculous conclusions. Some of these believe 9-11 was part of this dastardly banker (aka Jew) plot, that this is really all about fiat currency, that whoever has the most gold wins, etc.

Things are much simpler than you make them. Bankers are nothing more than enablers. It is absolutely no different than the credit card company that keeps extending more and more debt to consumers who can't afford it. The same thing holds true for nation states. The banks are protected because they are the mechanism that allows people to live beyond their means. Period. It is really not that complicated.

We may even agree on many of those facts and figures and events the "sheeple", as you call them, know nothing about. Still, in the end, all of the Wests problems can be boiled down to one simple thing - socialism (along with the idea that human beings are perfectible). It doesn't work, but people continue to vote for politicians who tell them it can. Most people are followers and politically ignorant, always have been and always will be. This causes governments to borrow, tax and hand out goodies. They just can't tax enough because it destroys the goose that lays the golden egg - so governments continue borrowing or printing in our case. As they borrow and spend more and more, government grows, crony capitalism expands as governments dole out goodies to favored groups (whom work for particular companies), and the corruption just goes on and on.

People don’t go trashing their own country with a civil war because of old grudges their grandpas had.

You are just determined to wear blinders here. Did you not notice every single one of the European Soviet satellite states as well as the Baltic's all raced to join the EU/NATO? They do this because they, however bad the Eurozone is, are far more frightened of the Russian bear stamping its heel on their nations. And with good reason - unless Russia's population continues to dwindle and the nation withers on the vine, it will likely always attempt to reassert itself in a much more brutal way than the EU is likely to. Do you think the Ukrainians have forgotten being starved by the Soviet Union? You think such memories make no difference now? Grudges among populations last a whole lot longer than that.

Much of what you say about the corruption in developing world is true. There is no doubt that Western governments, NGO's, etc, come into these areas and screw things up. But where you see a massive conspiracy, I see human stupidity. Sometimes it's even good intentions paving the proverbial road to hell, usually it's nations and companies trying get themselves an advantage at the expense of others (and keep the borrow and spend gravy train that keeps them in power going).

The Ukraine is going to want to look West for the simple reason that it fears Russia more than the EU/NATO. It's like asking for protection from the least nasty guy on the block that has the power to keep you safe. You enter into such alliances and you give up some of your freedom of choice, but it keeps you from getting stomped into the dirt. That's just how life works, and it's never, ever going to change because human nature is what it is.

You may view my comments to you as condescending, but they aren't intended that way. As I've said, I am confident you are armed with lots of facts and probably know things about history only a tiny percentage of people know - I just think you are taking all that knowledge and coming to an unnecessarily complicated, irrational conclusion. Sometimes very thoughtful, educated people take all the information they have and spin them into conspiracies when the simpler explanation is really the correct one.

Cheers!

Your prepper friends stories may sound like mine but they really don’t fully understand, or they would not be prepping. The prepping thing is a hoax intended to make naive, innocent good guys look like fools.

First of all, by the word banker what is meant is the banking families, which is really just families that have acquired enormous wealth, and thus would be more aptly described as investment bankers. Most of the setup of the hierarchy in America was the “gilded age”, and the Rockefeller interests were and are the ultimate power and decision making in the US. The other “half” of Wall Street in the 1800s was the Morgan “half” - but in fact both were financed by Rothschild money. Peabody was the first American to endow his own foundation to attempt to control education in all of America, and his foundation laid the groundwork for Rockefeller’s later foundations which would finish the task.

Meanwhile, the banking families of the UK and long since already permeated the peerage of the UK and established their control firmly over the country, Parliament and the Royals, through finance and investment, and intrigue and corruption. One of the notable ventures was the British East India Company, from which there is a direct line to both today’s socialism/communism as well as free-market capitalism.

No one ever thinks about the financing of the industrial revolution, the railroads, slaves, etc., in the 1800’s. Rothschild’s “official” representative was August Belmont, but in fact the reach of their financing was enormous. Much of the gold mined in the US was shipped to Europe. Mid-century, prior to Rockefeller and Morgan’s father, they financed Morgan’s father’s business mentor, George Peabody, whom Queen Victoria referenced as “her favorite American”.

The anti-Semitism linkages are also a tool used by the elites to discredit those who point out any significant part of what they’re doing. Some truth is mixed in with the anti-Semitism to accomplish this.

For example, Paul and Max Warburg were two brothers of the Warburg banking family, which happens to be Jewish. Paul came to America and became a citizen and a few short years later was one of, if not the key figure in the implementation of the Federal Reserve. A few years later he was on the US negotiating team for WWI’s armistice. His brother Max was in Germany, and was part of the negotiating team for Germany. There’s obviously some conflict of interest there. But we must dig much farther before we have proof of any conspiracy. Trust me, if we dig - for source documents mind you, not alex jones conspiracy - we find more than enough to prove WWI to be a planned and managed conflict.

But not all these banking families are Jewish: notably in America the Rockefellers, Morgans, the Peabody’s. If you study their foundations, you find that they couldn’t be any more elite globalist than they are. It’s not about religion or ethnicity, it’s about money and control.

And part of the history of what was done by elite banking was the engineering of WWII, the enabling of the Third Reich. Only one Rothschild was killed during the war. So how could Jewish bankers engineer a regime that they knew was going to exterminate Jews ? Because elites see themselves as different than “sheeple” in one important way: their priorities. That’s how they manage to so efficiently grow their wealth and power. They put their plans above concern for anything or anyone. Like your typical mob boss. Normal people just don’t think that way.

Those who want to climb the banker’s ladder of success will gleefully run to sign up for wartime service, taking the risks for glory that will pay them back so well over the rest of their life. They crave the status of the veteran, as it solidifies their credentials for ever, and they absolutely love the idea of intrigue. So the elites can easily find dedicated minions to be their hands-on operatives. Usually the minions working at the highest levels are the children of families that were minions, as that helps to ensure loyalty. Turning on the elites then would imply turning on one’s parents, grandparents, etc. It’s just not going to happen, so the most important secrets are very well kept.

The other point you made about fiat currency and gold is the key indicator of folks that only understand part of the picture, and have fallen for a ruse.

The key to financial elites controls is that government can’t wake up and realize that it can print its own money.

“Backing with gold” is a fallback concept, in case the Federal Reserve ever is forced to relinquish it’s authority over the money supply back to the government.

It’s really very simple: if government has to have x amount of gold for every dollar it prints, when it wants to print dollars - it needs to go “get” gold. How can it just “get” gold ? It can’t, obviously, it will have to buy gold.

That’s why all we hear is “fiat money is bad”.

Another essential tactic to understand is alignment of purposes. If I want to get you to support what I’m doing, one way is to entice you to invest in the idea with me. Once your money is invested in my thing going they way I want, you’ll actually help my cause.

This is why the elites want regulated, i.e., closed, financial markets. Almost everyone who has capital to invest invests it with “their” Wall Street. Every investor’s capital is aligned with their purposes.

Regarding “old grudges”, quickly: some grudges that melt away. Japan-US, for instance. I hear no serious calls for war between the US and Japan, no claims that the other is an “animal”, “evil”, etc. And this with the culture of Japan being very, very much not about mixing with outsiders. Once the veterans of both sides got old enough, the grudges virtually disappeared. The only people would wince a bit at the horrors of the war today on any kind of routine basis would probably be history afficianados of those times.

I would recommend the video “The Best Enemies Money Can Buy” an interview with onetime Stanford researcher Antony Sutton as a starting point.

That’s why all we hear is “fiat money is bad

So we are clear here, you are one of those who thinks fiat currency is some terrible thing, and that we should have gold backing every dollar? Because, though you dismissed my prepper/Ron Paul friends, that is precisely what they think. In the end, whoever can mine and/or accumulate the most gold wins. So they sit around trying to figure out where the physical gold is, is China hoarding it, does the US really have the gold reserves to give back to Germany, etc. They take it one step further and believe American intervention in Libya and elsewhere is really about fiat currency.

Why not boil all this down to something simple, as the simplest explanation is often/usually the right one.

To me, the vast majority of the West (and world's) problems are socialism and the idea that mankind is perfectible. So we'll just say "secular socialism" is the real root of debt, malaise, stagnation, etc.

To you..what? Rich people have accumulated vast sums of money and control? Is that it?

What is your response to the problems you've outlined?

To me it is to work towards writing constitutions that more explicitly write out the ability of nation states to construct social welfare countries (though localities, provinces, etc, would be free to build them so long as they have to compete with one another) and make sure we are harnessing human nature rather than attempt to reject it in some silly attempt to perfect mankind.

And you? Break up the monopolies of the rich? What prevents rich people from accumulating wealth again just like they always have? What stops the old axiom "it's not what you know, it's who you know". And how do you deal with the problem that only 20% or so will really take advantage of the perfect, fair, free market system - leading to it's overthrow by masses who simply aren't as motivated and put their faith in politicians who essentially tell them their envy is right and good and the system is unfair because everyone isn't achieving roughly the same outcome.

No, I do not thing fiat money is a bad thing. I think gold-backed money is (as I said)..

“Backing with gold” is a fallback concept, in case the Federal Reserve ever is forced to relinquish it’s authority over the money supply back to the government.

The elites' control is very simple, but very tricky to understand at first. As I said...

The key to financial elites controls is that government can’t wake up and realize that it can print its own money.

If YOU were a KING. you have your own country. I'm a banker. You can print your own national money. If you want LongBowDollars to spend on a new fighter plane, or bridge, or palace, all you need to do is either a) tax your people, or b) print brand new LongBowDollars, or c) some of both.

I come to you and tell you I can arrange a LongBowNation government bond sale. You print LongBowBonds, denominated in LongBowDollars (LBD). A billion worth. I coordinate the sale of those bonds. You receive almost a billion LBD in cash. (your own LBD that you can print yourself mind you). And after a few years, you need to pay back those bonds, with, for example 2.5% interest per year. Wow, you're gonna have to collect some taxes. But why not just print new LBD, and pay them off with them ?

I convince you, no, you can't just "print paper money", it would be "worthless".

If you had any sense, you'd tell me to take a flying leap - and never issue LongBowBonds, that is, you would never borrow. You'd just print your own LBD whenever you needed to supplement your tax revenue.

Of course, if you print LDB like crazy, you'll drive their value down. But YOU don't want that, you'll be trashing your own wealth. Everything you own inside your own country is denominated in LDB. Also, all your rich citizens have millions in LBD-denominated assets; land, businesses, etc. They will start screaming if you print way too many new LDB. You'd don't want a revolt of your richest citizens, they can stage a revolution.

As the population of LongBowLand grows, and LongBowLand businesses get more efficient, technology increases, then per capita wealth increases. You'll have more and more business every year. Businesses will want more cash on hand, because they'll have more total assets, to maintain about the same percentage of cash to total assets.

So you'll want to print new LBD every year; but a reasonable amount.

You should never have to borrow from me, the bankster. And the value of your LBD currency should hold up well. And the government of LongBowLand will not have any debt.

Therefore, LongBowLand can keep taxes at a reasonable level.

This is why bankster elites always wanted to get rid of kings that would not accept their debt shackles, and replace them with their own bought-and-paid-for politicians.

So the "people" (well, their people") could rule "themselves" (well, the sheeple).

in re: socialist/communist protests against “austerity”

you do realize what the net result is, right ?

I mean, from the financial elites’ point of view.

not cutting government spending requires one of two things: a) higher taxes or b) more borrowing.

a) higher taxes - taxes are for the “little people”, and the elites love higher taxes for the sheeple.

b) more borrowing - the financial elites benefit, it’s more business for their banking/capital markets monopoly. And more of a lever of control over government. It’s government spending “out in front of” tax revenue.

No wonder financial elites want all the sheeple enrolled in socialism/communism.

The elites LOVE government spending. Desperately. They want trillions spent on weapons. Social spending. Research. Bridges. Space programs. Anything.

Some of the social spending goes to a few of the lazy sheeple. They turn right around and spend it on housing, food, clothing, cars, etc. That’s all revenue for businesses, and most of the big ones are controlled by the financial elites.

Most folks in America don’t realize that socialist countries have a few large monopolistic companies whose boards of directors have continuously been very tightly controlled, and those few companies are the bulk of the manufacturing, transportation, financial services capital markets, etc., of said socialist countries. The financial elites get a piece of everything that passes throught the government (government pays interest on its debt), and they sell tons of products and services to it (trains, building projects, etc.).

Take “healthcare” for example. The idea is to drive down what people are paid, like doctors, etc., and then, all the buildings and equipment - sell/lease all that to the government at a profit and provide financing to the government so it can make the purchases. These arrangements are complex, few people have any idea what’s really going on in dollars and cents.

Think if you want to sell $10 million xray machines to hospitals. If they’re normal businesses where customers pay cash for services rendered, they worry about there being a cost/benefit that made sense for them, so your sales are limited by the _hospitals’_ sales.

If you can get tax or insurance dollars to pay for your xray machines, that’s a much bigger potential marketplace, since your machines no longer have to create a net profit for the customer. The more they spend, the more they can justify higher taxes or higher insurance premiums to be extracted from the sheeple.

Instead of companies all competing to try to convince individual people to buy from them, monopolies are all viciously slurping at the government/regulatory trough, competing for money mandated/extracted from their customers.

the socialist agitaters (lol) don’t realize (or they do ?) that they’re agitatin’ on behalf of the elites’ enterprises. If they lose, and there’s austerity, they pay more and get less out of government. If they win, and there’s no austerity, they pay more and temporarily get what they’ve been getting.

Since the politicians belong to the elites, and are left wing, and the elites control the leadership of the “socialist” movement, the movement/protests are not going to dislodge the government, which is largely made up of parties that belong to the movements doing the protesting. It’s socialists protesting against socialists.

This way, there’s little chance of actually really overthrowing the puppet government the elites have established, no matter how violent the protests get. They can just play political musical chairs and that’s that. Essentially it’s the same scheme as we have in the US, just with different party names.

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