The Fast Soviet

Europe Forcing the Recession Upon Itself

Sep 082012

Unemployment rate for the EU27 countries as of April, 2012 (click to enlarge)

This figure alone should be enough to testify the general failure of the Euro project to deliver anything it had promised – or rather, any of the salesman’s arguments that have been used to make the Euro acceptable for the public opinion. Unemployment fell and rose just as shaply in six years that make for more than half of total Monetary Union history, meaning that the only way the Euro system was able to quell unemployment was to follow the suit of a global speculative drive. None of its supposed control mechanisms rung any bell or resisted the global trend to instability – so the next logical step (in the perverse governance of the Union), is to put more of those in place.

The Great Escape

Capitalism, The Fast Soviet No Responses »

Sep 072012

Billions of Euros of capital removed from Spanish banks during the first quarter of 2012 (click to enlarge)

Yeah yeah yeah. Always in the event that I get my numbers right, an amount of capital equivalent to one third of the Gross Domesti Product of Spain in the same period, was siphoned off the Spanish banking system in the first quarter of this year. As I’m writing, the first quarter in question has barely closed, so as far as I know, this may or may not be the begininning of the real catastrophe in Spain. Much more so if this information is coupled with the silent ‘run on Bankia’ that were circulating a few days earlier, which talk of the zombies about to definitively rot back to the graves they should have been into now it’s four years. Which as far as I understand, would have cost the world community much less than it is costing right now.

The Real Debt

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Sep 062012

Ratio of banks' vs. general government external debt in Italy at the end of 2008 (click to enlarge)

We may not be in the situation of Iceland, in which banks held a much larger share of debt than their government, but in our case, still, the debt of banks alone, at the height of the crisis at the end of 2008, had accumulated a debt towards foreign creditors that was larger than that of the government itself. Which then bailed them out. And they turned back and bit the hand that was feeding them. And put one of their men in charge, to make sure that ‘we behaved’, while they are the primary responsible for the mess we’re currently in. Not the sole responsible, of course, especially given the kind of policies that our government, as a dependance of Germany, has put into effect. And I’m not referring to Monti only. Bah. Keep this in mind, though – as the media very rarely point this out: it’s a private debt crisis, but it’s called a public debt one.

Guess who Bears the Burden of Taxation?

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Sep 052012

Implicit tax rate on labour income in EU17 countries as of 2010 (click to enlarge)

Since European countries (outside Germany, of course) lost their currency sovereignity, they were automatically forced to shift all the burden of competitiveness on workers and wages. So beyond being (according to Marx) the way exploitation is obfuscated, wages became also a mean of redistribution towards the top through the State – which far from representing taxpayers, only acts in the interest of capital. It has been a lot of years since this mask has even fallen, with the consensus of citizens themselves – especially when this state of things is justifyed explicitly by saying that ‘if we don’t do this, capital flies’. That’s true, but no-one ever questions the fact that the interests of capital are not the interest of people – so it’s normal that there is a struggle between the two.

The Great Regression

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Sep 042012

VAT in EU17 countries in 2012 (click to enlarge)

While average personal income and corporate taxes have been decreasing since 2000, VAT has been growing. Decrease in average income tax does not mean that taxes have decreased for all, in general, that corresponds to a ‘simplification’ in the tax scheme and a lowering of the tax rate for the highest income echelons, i.e.: the tax scheme itself is becoming less progressive. But VAT, as much as the excises, is possibly the most regressive of all. Why? Because it strikes all income levels at the same rate, regardless of the impact this has on the disposable income of households. These sort of taxes are those that grant the highest returns at a given maximum rate – so the scheme is clear: according to plan, collect as much tax income as possible and leave the job ~~destroyers~~ creators alone.

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