One day, it will become necessary to thank the media and the Anglo-Saxon politicians, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, for having talked so much about the euro crisis and the European integration difficulties. In doing so, they helped the Europeans a great deal in becoming aware of this and to do all that was necessary to meet the situation. Indeed, for the last 3 years, the European Union has profoundly transformed its governance: it has set up instruments (LTRO, OMT, ESM) to respond to any attack against the euro; it has created instruments to stabilize its banking system; it has moved down the path of budgetary convergence and even of fiscal integration. Certainly, much remains to be done: use the eurozone’s budgetary capacity, launch large investment projects, fund a vocational training program for the unemployed, provide the eurozone with a parliament. All this will emerge in due course. Because Europeans are starting to learn that austerity is not the solution and that growth alone is a democratic response to debt and unemployment.
Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon world does not see that its bankruptcy is fast approaching: the British who are so full of mockery for the Eurozone, accept without batting an eyelid a budget deficit of more than 8 per cent of GDP and a public debt out of control. Americans refuse to see that, in almost every respect, their situation proves to be far worse than that of the Europeans: the eurozone has a balance of payments surplus; this is not the case for the United States; the U.S. unemployment (the real unemployment rate) is far above that of the European Union; inequality and crime rates are much higher in the United States than in Europe; life expectancy is increasing in Europe, while it is diminishing in the United States.
On the matter of public debt, with which the Anglo-Saxon media have bombarded us for the eurozone, the United States is in utter disarray. Even going bankrupt:
Their public debt has now reached $16 trillion, or 100% of GDP. Exceeding all the ceilings that the Congress and the President pretend to have imposed on themselves.
The latest calculations, made from figures provided by the Congressional Budget Office show that the deficit will be $800 billion in 2014 and at best
$590 billion in 2018, if all the promised cost savings are achieved and if growth is sustained, which is very unlikely, above 4 per cent per year starting from 2015. Otherwise, the government deficit will stroll around every year between $800 billion and $1 trillion. In other words, in the best-case scenario, the U.S. national debt will be $20 trillion in 2018. And more likely $22 trillion. A national debt increasingly financed by the FED, being the only consideration.
And so it is with paper, worthless other than what those who need them are willing to accept, that the United States will continue to fund its army, health, and administration.
In addition, the U.S. balance of payments has experienced a deficit of around $500 billion per year over a period of ten years and more.
Therefore the United States is in a much worse situation than that of the European Union, and even the most highly indebted countries of the Union.
The U.S. is bankrupt. The dollar holds its ground only because some are willing to maintain their assets in this currency.
That one day the Chinese, gripped with an anti-Japanese frenzy (and, through alliances, anti-American), or the Gulf countries, (shifting under the control of fundamentalists) decide to invest their money into another currency, or to change the denomination of oil, and the superpower will collapse. Or will try to extricate itself from those contradictions by means of war.
It is in nobody’s interest. And we, the Europeans, must return the favour the Americans did to us recently: announce to them their forthcoming bankruptcy, so they become aware of it, and if there is still time, avoid it. They have the capacity they need to do so. As long as they do not believe this will come naturally, because they would be entitled to all this.
It was always when they believed they were immortal that the strongest empires have disappeared.
j@attali