ON YOUR KNEES?

Madame, you are the Director of the International Monetary Fund.  To say that would be a undignified position would be the understatement of the year.  OK, you got it wrong but you know what Les Anglais are like.  They never miss an opportunity to "give you the mickey" as they like to say.  Ignore it…like Little Paulie Krugman of the NY Times who's been wrong for the past two years so he just stops talking about it.  It will go away unless the Irish decide to get in a few shots.  Never miss the chance to land a couple, that lot, and then you're in the stew pot.  But they wont, so relax.  After their dumb-ass move at the start of this thing to guarantee all their banks, they're just happy to be around.

So they and of course the Germans tighten up and get all conservative on everybody (including you) and they're looking at GDPs in the 3-4% range while everybody else is stuck at 1% or less including your mob despite having as good a work force and infrastructure as there is Over There.  So answer me this.  Do you think that despite the advice of Little Paulie and every out of work economist from the sub-continent that works for you, has it ever crossed your mind that monetary expansion might not be all it's cracked up to be and despite Paulie and the late, great Keynes, there might be something else going on?  Did you ever think that Paulie & Co. might, just like the economist he is have sat back and started by saying, "Assume sound fiscal policy, a mobile work force, sound labor policies, government stability, no corruption, sound credit distribution, little or no bureaucracy within government, simplicity and paucity of regulation and an efficient system of taxation.  Then, let's create a trillion or so out of thin air and drop it on these guys and wow, will it take off!!!!"

Of course assumptions are not reality, and southern Europe has none of these things.  Fact is, we used to have a lot of these things Over Here, but the people who listen to Little Paulie are running the country now and we don't any more.  Oh by the by, we were at -1% in the first quarter and it wasn't all weather.  So Madame, why don't you get up off the floor, dust off your knees and tell the stupids running things in Brussels and in the southen tier that it might not be a bad idea to take a good, hard look at the way things are being run and perhaps come to the conclusion that the problem is not in our stars or lack of monetary creation but in our administration.  Warning.  Paulie and the New York Times and the Guardian and your Landsman, Frankie aren't going to be saying nice things about you any more but hey, you're known by the company you keep.  And this time you will have gotten it right.


Speaking of Frankie, he of course was the Chef de Field at Normandy last week.  It was a solemn ceremony at a solemn place.  He spoke.  We had a president who spoke at one of these things some years back.

 "…The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it will never forget what they did here."

 Frankie didn't read that speech.  He spoke for what seemed like hours.  He said not as much.