Why Aren't EU Protests Aimed at Central Banks?

thedailybell.com

Thursday, May 26, 2011

 

ECB presses battle against Greek restructuring ... The European Central Bank kept up its attacks on the idea of letting Greece restructure its crushing debt load, even as a top ratings agency argued that Germany's banks would probably survive losses from such a move with credit ratings intact. Juergen Stark, the European Central Bank's chief economist, said at a conference in Berlin on Wednesday that cutting Greece's debt by letting it pay later or less than the full amount owed to banks and other bondholders was not the simple solution some think it is. "To think that there is an easy way out, in that a country's debts are largely or fully relieved, is an illusion," Stark said. "Debt relief cannot and must not be the solution ... We should think one connection further when we use this miracle word debt relief, or debt restructuring," he told a conference organized by a group linked to Chancellor Angela Merkel's party. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: Central banks simply are not important. Remember that!

Free-Market Analysis: We can see from the above article excerpt that it is the ECB mainly that is behind the European Union's "immoveable rigor" when it comes to enforcing austerity measures on Greece, and other EU PIGS as well. It is always this way with central banks. Their members and operators tend to be the most holy about fiscal integrity because they are the least so in practice.

The ability to print money from nothing is the singular achievement of modern elites and the single most ruinous practice of the modern state. It is responsible for most if not all of the abuses of modern history, from torture, to war, to genocide. Money-printing (not money) is at the root of all evil.

It is strange that EU protests and Greek protests in particular have not in particular taken aim at central bankers and their banks. (At least not that we can tell.) Government buildings, police stations, private and commercial banks, all these have been targeted. But in our view, if EU protests over austerity are to be effective, it is central banks that have to be peacefully targeted on a consistent basis. A message needs to be sent and only physical protests around central banks can do that. [...]