CLEAR!!!

I can hear this over and over from upon the Stoa. The European patient is expiring. adrenaline has been administered at least twice already. The Federal Reserve and world Central Banks trying oh so very hard to save their patient.

The whine of the shock pad capacitors is heavy in the air again as the Federal Reserve once again makes dollars available in unlimited supply; applying aid through several back doors since the ECB has already called a "time of death" out on the patient.

Dollars pouring out of the Treasure to support "dollar denominated" transactions. I wonder if trading in a portfolio of Greek bonds, to the tune of $5 Billion Euros can be classified as a "dollar" denominated transaction since the action taking place is the trading of Euros for Dollars?

How much is really being converted? How much of this debt is the American taxpayer retiring for the Europeans?

The first group of doctors has stepped back from the patient. The IMF, the ECB, a variety of "Residents" that were helping, part of the EU alphabet soup of professional leaches; all have stepped back, unable to decide what to do next to save the patient.

Good old Barak to the rescue. The United States has stepped in and plunged a central line into the neck of this corpse called the Euro and has attached the other end to our own Carotid. We will infuse this patient with our own life force and win the day...

...or doom ourselves to die with them.

The lending markets in Europe are dead. The lights are off and the only trades taking place are sales to non-European entities. And those transactions are being done in dollars, not Euros. The Euro is collapsing and the US will not be able to stop it.

Now I have to ask, does it need saving? Traditionally, if an economy goes in the tank, the currency would be devalued and the cost of doing business would dramatically shift downward. If Greece were to pull out and just thumb their noses at the rest of Europe, what would be the downside for Greece?

They will go back to the drachma, stick their tongues out at the EU and then begin to roll in the new business as folks from the rest of Europe begin to re-invest in a cheaper Greece. Happens all the time.

Greece was not ready, yet, to join the Euro. It should never have been allowed to join. The culture is not conducive to a Northern European concept. Greece shares more with Italy, Spain, and Portugal than it does with France, Germany, or Denmark. The economies are constituted very, very differently. Wrapping them up in a slick Euro did not eliminate the Black Economy that permeates the Mediterranean nations. Business is done differently down there. The governments have their own way of collecting taxes and disbursing them to the masses.

The vital signs are fading. There is a rally every few days, but the decline is clear. Sooner or later...likely very soon, we will lose this patient.

Once the Euro has passed, the world will look in terror at the issues facing the United States, issues made worse everyday with bailouts to Europe and the crony capitalism that has taken over in America.

The contagion will spread to the United States and then things will get very scary after that. Very scary indeed.

Live well, everyone.

--Zavost