What's more tiresome than a hastily rehearsed soap opera that replays the same boring plots again and again? Re-Runs of that soap opera. The Eurozone "drama" is now in re-runs and I for one am switching channels. Nothing will change until some critical part of the worm-eaten, corrupt construct of artifice and denial collapses in a heap. Until then, all we have is replays of the same boring plot lines:

Put-upon Greece: We were just minding our business here in the sunny south, living happily on borrowed billions in a thoroughly corrupt Status Quo, and suddenly we're debt-serfs squeezed by rapacious Eurozone enforcers of the banking cartel. What did we do to deserve this? It's not fair.

Put-upon Germany: We were just minding the store here, racking up 40% of our GDP in exports and raking in bank profits loaning money to our Eurozone compatriots, when suddenly everyone who's lived beyond their means demands that we refinance their debts because we're rich. Excuse us, but did anyone look at how we got rich? Hard work, cuts in spending, high taxes and a tight lid on wages. What did we do to deserve this? It's not fair.

Married couple in counseling: France and Germany: It's all his/her fault. They never bothered to understand me, etc.

The lit-fuse terrorist: Either refinance our debt and bail out our Status Quo, or we're gonna blow up the Eurozone!

Is anyone else tired of the entire cast and threadbare plotlines? The "crisis" drama could be dispensed with in short order:

A. The bickering couple(s): get a divorce and quit blaming the other.

B. Insolvent banks: fire the management and liquidate the banks in an orderly fashion, following the well-established model: clear the books of impaired assets, and let the market price those assets. Any losses are passed through to the shareholders and bondholders. Once the losses have been taken, recapitalize the banks with new bonds and/or shares, and establish prudent lending guidelines. Prohibit backstopping or bailouts by central banks or Central States.

C. Unsustainable pensions, budgets, deficits, etc.: only spend what is collected in tax revenues, period. Stop living in the past and borrowing from future taxpayers.

On the macro scale, the Eurozone's systemic problems boil down to these realities:

1. No household or economy can sustainably spend more than it reaps in surplus. The net surplus (what's left after paying the expenses of producing goods and services) can either be spent on consumption, invested in productive assets or leveraged into debt. If it is leveraged into debt, then the interest eventually consumes the entire surplus and the entity enters a death spiral.

The only way to be able to spend more is to generate more surplus. It's that simple.

2. The demographics of a dwindling workforce and an expanding populace of State dependents cannot be gamed or disappeared by artifice. The entire developed world is facing the impossibility of one full-time worker supporting one State dependent. Here in the U.S., there are 115 million full-time private-sector jobs and over 110 million dependents on the State just in the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. Add in all the other State dependents and the ratio is perilously close to 1-to-1. (That Which is Unsustainable Will Go Away: Medicare May 16, 2012)

(Recall that all Federal spending is "pay as you go"--there are no vast pools of money laying around in trust accounts. If Social Security expenses exceed SSA tax revenues, the Treasury sells bonds to cover the shortfall.)

I don't have the figures on hand for Europe, but if all State dependents and only full-time jobs are counted, I am confident the ratio in most of the Eurozone is close to 1-to-1: one full-time worker for every State dependent.

3. "Growth" based on debt and the build-out of China is over. The "growth" story in Europe over the past decade was essentially debt-based: real estate bubbles in Ireland, Spain and elsewhere, and debt-based consumption everywhere. China is massively overbuilt and has gargantuan levels of overcapacity in virtually every industry. Selling luxury cars to China may appear to be a good business, but 500+ spontaneous citizen demonstrations a day portend game-changing blowback to corrupt officials buying Audis and Cayennes by the thousands.

4. Everything that is held away from market forces eventually snaps back and faces market pricing of risk, valuation and surplus, i.e. reality. Unrealistic pensions, unrealistic spending, unrealistic budget projections--all will increasingly be exposed to market forces, one way or another.

5. A nominally capitalistic economy without collateral is living on borrowed time (and borrowed money, needless to say). Correspondent David H. summed this up very succinctly:

What we are all living through today is the failed experiment of trying to run a capitalist economy on no REAL capital. This not only crimps wealth and the overall standard of living, but also elevates the perverse over the rational.

The entire Eurozone "drama" is the result of the perverse being elevated over the rational. As Yeats so aptly phrased it, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

The Eurozone soap opera is truly a tale "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," until the rubber band snaps and reality intrudes.

Read the Introduction (2,600 words) and Chapter One (7,600 words) for free.

We are like passengers on the Titanic ten minutes after its fatal encounter with the iceberg: though our financial system seems unsinkable, its reliance on debt and financialization has already doomed it.

We cannot know when the Central State and financial system will destabilize, we only know they will destabilize. We cannot know which of the State’s fast-rising debts and obligations will be renounced; we only know they will be renounced in one fashion or another.

The process of the unsustainable collapsing and a new, more sustainable model emerging is called revolution, and it combines cultural, technological, financial and political elements in a dynamic flux.

History is not fixed; it is in our hands. We cannot await a remote future transition to transform our lives. Revolution begins with our internal understanding and reaches fruition in our coherently directed daily actions in the lived-in world.

If this recession strikes you as different from previous downturns, you might be interested in my book An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times (print edition) or Kindle ebook format. You can read the ebook on any computer, smart phone, iPad, etc. Click here for links to Kindle apps and Chapter One. The solution in one word: Localism.


Readers forum: DailyJava.net.



Order Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation (free bits) (Kindle) or Survival+ The Primer (Kindle) or Weblogs & New Media: Marketing in Crisis (free bits) (Kindle) or from your local bookseller.

Of Two Minds Kindle edition: Of Two Minds blog-Kindle

---

"This guy is THE leading visionary on reality. He routinely discusses things which no one else has talked about, yet, turn out to be quite relevant months later."
--Walt Howard, commenting about CHS on another blog.

---

NOTE: gifts/contributions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

Thank you, Michael P. ($75), for your outrageously generous contribution to this site--I am greatly honored by your ongoing support and readership.

---

Or send him coins, stamps or quatloos via mail--please request P.O. Box address.

Subscribers ($5/mo) and contributors of $50 or more this year will receive a weekly email of exclusive (though not necessarily coherent) musings and amusings.

At readers' request, there is also a $10/month option.

The "unsubscribe" link is for when you find the usual drivel here insufferable.

Your readership is greatly appreciated with or without a donation.

---

For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog.

                                                           

All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images copyright © 2012 Charles Hugh Smith, All rights reserved in all media, unless otherwise credited or noted.

I would be honored if you linked this essay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.

Terms of Service:
All content on this blog is provided by Trewe LLC for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.