Angela Merkel, dead woman walking

As one of the most visible champions of the Pan-European ,
"austerity" project, Angela Merkel is in the dangerous position 
of being democratically accountable to the German electorate.

As one of the most visible champions of the catastrophic Pan-European "austerity" project, German President Angela Merkel is a dead woman walking. Her main problem being that she is answerable to the German electorate. Unlike most of the other "austerity lovers" that have been wreaking their ideologically driven chaos across the continent, she is the dangerous position of being democratically accountable.

Merkel's main (democratically accountable) ally in "austerity economics" Nicolas Sarkozy became the first sitting French President to get booted out by the French electorate since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1981. At the front line of "austerity economics" in Greece the pro-austerity parties suffered heavy losses in the legislative elections. Then one week later Merkel's own CDU party took a kicking at the North Rhine-Westphalia regional elections, leaving them with an all time low of 26.3% of the vote, an indicator that the German electorate are rapidly tiring of Merkel taking a highly visible role in imposing "German austerity" onto much of the rest of Europe.

Merkel may be the next figurehead of the "austerity lovers" to be turfed out by their electorate, however many other culprits in this European economic meltdown are completely insulated from the "dangers of democracy" by being completely unelected. Some of the most notable of these unelected "austerians" include Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank (who recently handed out over €1trillion in ultra low interest loans to save the neoliberalised European financial sector from the consequences of their own reckless and incompetent gambling), the entire European Commission including "our" Euro President Mr Van Rumpuoy and the IMF blackmail fund technocrats.

Nigel Farage may be a bombastic right-wing tool, but he is absolutely right when he complains that almost all of the architects of this European economic meltdown are unaccountable, unelected enemies of democracy.

See also

Eurozone Austerity; neoliberalism rebranded

Argentine recovery economics

The Greek rejection of austerity 

Eurozone austerity; neoliberal dogma rebranded

Mario Draghi, head of the ECB and neoliberal austerity lover.

Even as IMF and European Central Bank imposed "austerity measures" cripple the European economy with low growth, falling living standards, negative equity, massive reductions in welfare standards and labour rights, mass unemployment and dramatic falls in discretionary income the orthodox neoliberals have their fingers in their ears as they repeat their pathetic anti-state, free-market incantations.
 
They keep chuntering on about how excessive welfare spending is responsible for the Eurozone crisis but state spending didn't cause the neoliberal economic meltdown, three decades of insane ideologically driven greed-is-good neoliberalism caused it, after which the state sector had to step in the financial sector and their temples of neoliberalism with the biggest state subsidies in human history (massive bailouts, secretive ultra-low interest central bank loans and the nationalisation of debt riddled banks).

Without the intervention of the state sector, the whole neoliberal economic experiment would have come crashing down, yet these orthodox neoliberals know no other economic elegies. So their mantra tells us that the blame for this crisis lies with the "excessive costs of statehood" not with the reckless financial sector gambling they enabled through neoliberal market deregulations that actually triggered the economic meltdown.

Since November 2011 the European Central Bank has handed out over one trillion euros in ultra-low interest loans to help private sector banks pay off their reckless gambling debts (a process euphemistically referred to as deleveraging) and in order to pay for this splurge of reckless lending to cover the debts incurred through reckless lending, they are insisting that the ordinary working people of Europe pay for it through "austerity measures".

These beloved "Austerity measures" of the IMF and the ECB are just the same old defunct, ideologically driven neoliberal clap-trap that caused the crisis in the first place with a new name. A decade or more of economic stagnation doesn't matter a jot to these people as long as they can keep milking the system for their disproportionate share of the wealth, they don't give a single toss that millions of decent hard working people and their families across Europe are going to be driven deep into poverty.

The ruling elite of bankers, politicians and unelected technocrats have completely lost touch with reality, they're singing from a book of defunct pseudo-scientific economic dogma, leaving the people of Europe searching for an alternative to their willfully destructive policies. Will they look to the left wing with their policies of mixed economy, state investment and regulated capitalism, selective re-nationalisations, financial sector re-regulation and clampdowns on tax fiddling? Or will they join the even-further-right wing in their traditional blame the minorities scapegoating?

See Also

Austerity and the double-dip

Argentine recovery economics

The Great Neoliberal Lie 

What is neoliberalism?
 

Mario Draghi, austerity lover

Do you know who this man is? 

If you live in Europe you should have. He is Mario Draghi, the unelected Italian head of the European Central Bank and one of the key players of the neoliberal "austerity lovers" movement, that have handed out over €1 trillion in ultra-low interst loans since November 2011 in order to save European private banks from the consequences of their own reckless gambling, whilst insisting that the ordinary working people of Europe pay for these handouts through harsh socially and economically destructive "austerity measures".