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May 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda It took European leaders two years to cobble together a shaky plan to save their common currency, the euro, a grand economic experiment undertaken in more prosperous times.
Now, with recession spreading and deepening, it took voters across the continent just two days to reject the deep government spending cuts their leaders enacted in hopes of salvaging that common currency.
“The euro is an experiment that is in the process of failing,” said Michael Crofton, CEO of Philadelphia Trust Co., a private bank.
“You’re going to see the euro at least divide at a minimum, if not collapse completely,” he told CNBC. “What I think we have seen in these elections is the fact that people don’t really want to be governed without their consent.”
The pan-European plan to slash government spending has been years in the making but never fully tested in a popular referendum. So the results of weekend elections in Greece, France and Germany came as little surprise. Aside from being deeply unpopular among voters losing jobs and benefits, the plan hasn’t worked. Deep government budget cuts have sent Europe into recession, shrinking tax receipts and forcing deeper spending cuts and weakening the capacity of individual government to their sustain existing debts.
The widening European recession is already being felt by U.S. multinational companies. Among companies in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index, some 20 percent of profits come from European sales. Last week, for example, General Motors reported that it lost a quarter-billion dollars on slumping sales in Europe, even as it posted strong profits on robust car sales in North America.
Now as voters eject political leaders responsible for shepherding Europe through its debt crisis, the outcome is even further in doubt.
In Greece, epicenter of the financial turmoil, voters rebelled against crippling wage cuts offered up by their elected representatives in return for a bailout from wealthier countries led by Germany. The rise of smaller Greek political parties to the right and left of the incumbents produced a deeply fragmented slate of new leaders, leaving no party with enough candidates to govern alone.
That will force another election, possibly as soon as next month. The result is a new round of political turmoil in Athens that could put the carefully negotiated bailout in jeopardy – forcing Greece’s economy deeper into depression and hasten its exit from the euro.
In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy, as expected, lost to Socialist Francois Hollande, who campaigned on a promise to reverse course on government budget cuts and hire thousands of teachers, create new jobs for younger workers and bring the retirement age for some workers back down to 60 from 62. To balance the French budget, Hollande pledged to cut spending and raise taxes, mostly on the rich and large businesses.
Sarkozy’s exit from the European political stage will also be a blow to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who engineered a so-called fiscal compact that calls on heavily indebted countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to make the deep budget cuts that prompted the electoral backlash. In return for spending concessions, Germany agreed to back financial lifelines for the struggling companies.
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The failure of that austerity policy has prompted calls for alternative solutions, including deferring budget cuts, expanding the bailout fund and creating a single European bond that could help lower borrowing costs for weaker countries but raise costs for German taxpayers.
This weekend, German voters in state elections got their turn to weigh in on the idea of abandoning austerity – and gave it a resounding “nein.” German taxpayers are loathe to see their wages used to fund bailouts for European neighbors who are seen as too quick to borrow and spend freely.
The voters’ message was not lost on Merkel, who had backed her ally Sarkozy. On Monday, Merkel’s government rejected the idea that Europe was about to shift course on the fiscal compact.
“The position of the German government is clear: We will continue on our savings path,” said Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of Merkel’s Christian Democratic party. “Germans could end up paying for the Socialist victory in France with more guarantees, more money. And that is not acceptable. Germany is not here to finance French election promises.”
Germany’s insistence on imposing austerity on her neighbors, though, may not be sustainable. Berlin has been able to win concessions from other governments because its large, expanding economy has been a source of stability during the financial crisis. But as Europe’s recession spreads, German companies are feeling the impact.
With U.S. in a weak recovery and growth in China slowing, the export-driven German economic machine is at risk of stalling out. That could harden Germany’s resolve to adhere to an austerity policy that has so far proved to be a political and economic failure.
“The problem is that the German economy is beginning to soften, and along with that I expect the polls to start showing lesser support for providing backstops to the periphery,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, an investment management firm. “From a geopolitical standpoint, an ever-isolated Germany spells even more instability.”
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