EUROPE WILL SHOW THE WAY TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION

I feel compelled to editorialize about the region whenever I'm on foreign soil.  For example, last year I wrote about "The United Countries of the Americas."

I'm still in the Netherlands.  Their government fell and Queen Beatrix, of all the people, set September 12 as the date for national elections.  This why the country is a Kingdom.  The dissolution came because leaders could not arrive at an  austerity plan.  Interestingly enough, This country is the only one with a reasonable unemployment rate (actually, the rate increased to 6% this month).

Scarily enough, Socialist Francois Hollande, was quoted to say he would push growth over austerity.  He is favored to beat Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6.  Remember, this rather bland Hollande replaced former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now better known as a sex fiend, as the party candidate.  Keep in mind that, relative to the American presidential race, the exact opposite situation prevails in France, for the current president is a conservative, and his opposition is a liberal.

Then, there are those PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain).  It is just a matter of time when they join Iceland, which went bankrupt in 2008, and, just this week, Romania.  Further, in case you missed it, UK, which has stuck to the pound, and therefore not as vulnerable as France and Germany, was just announced to officially be in double-dip recession.

A poll being run this month indicates that almost half of those responding feel that Europe is on the verge of a Great Depression.  Paul Krugman (hey, he won the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2008) says Spain is already in depression with their 24% unemployment, and European leaders seem inclined to drive their economy off a cliff.  As tepid as is the U.S. economy, it is the envy of Europe.

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