EU: living in the banksta’s paradise

Europeans been spendin’ most their lives livin’ in the banksta’s paradise

European Union’s eventual collapse is a certainty - it has been for a very long time. It’s been rigged for demolition through its financial architecture which institutionalizes a system of governance that’s typical of all historical eras where moneylending oligarchies gained control of the political system. The predictable result of all this is that European economies are floundering: their entrepreneurial dynamism and competitiveness are being systematically suffocated and slowly consumed by the parasitic leech hidden behind the EU bureaucratic institutions. For the ordinary people and businesses, this system is driving a steady, inexorable descent into poverty.

European Stability Mechanism

One of the main components of Europe’s pathological financial architecture is the European Stability Mechanism (ESM): Eurozone’s permanent bailout fund. The ESM is not exactly a household name, but you can really think of it as a monstrous vampire leech attached to Europe’s economy.

The treaty establishing the ESM is an astonishing legal concoction which established a limitless, institutional conveyor belt of bailout funds from the European taxpayer, ultimately to the banking cartel. ESM’s capital was supposedly limited to €500 million (in some documents it says €700 million), but the Treaty sets no limits on the obligations imposed on European taxpayers, no room for negotiation, no legal recourse.

As drafted, the ESM Treaty was a violation of the EU Treaty (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) as well as constitutions and/or laws of EU member states as it restricts each member nation’s fiscal sovereignty. Ratifying it necessitated a dismayingly convoluted process of amending the EU treaty and circumventing member states’ domestic laws.

It came to an initial vote in January 2012 when it was passed with barely a mention in the press. The ESM became operational in October 2012 even though it was never fully ratified by all member states. Here are some of the Treaty's provisions:

• Article 8: the Treaty does not limit the fund capital to its authorized capital (€500 or €700 billion), but to its issue value which is up to the ESM’s board of governors to decide.

• Article 9: "ESM members hereby irrevocably and unconditionally undertake to pay on demand any capital call made on them... within seven days of receipt."

• Article 19: ESM governors may extend the scope of the ESM’s operations. ESM may borrow funds to bail out insolvent Eurozone banks in capital markets, without approval by national parliaments.

• Article 21: ESM can borrow funds from banks or other persons or institutions without any limits. ESM member nations shall guarantee and be liable for the repayment of these sums.

• Article 25: if one or more ESM members fail to meet their obligations, the other members are liable for the shortfall in proportion to their share of the fund capital.

• Article 30: "Governors, ... and staff members shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents."

• Article 32: The ESM, its property, funding, and assets... shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process ... the ESM shall... be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation, or any form of seizure... by executive, judicial, administrative or legislative action." This article further stipulates that ESM shall be exempted from the legal requirement in any of the ESM member nations’ legal requirement to be authorized or licensed as a credit institution.

• Article 34: all ESM officials, governors and directors are to observe absolute professional secrecy in relation to any matter relating to the ESM.

• Article 35: directors and governors will enjoy full legal immunity beyond their time in office and in both international law and that of the EU member states.

If we boil down the legal language of the ESM Treaty, we have an unelected, supra-national body that can allocate unlimited bailout funds, ultimately to the benefit of Eurozone’s failing banks, at their discretion and in perpetuity.

A different social contract

ESM officers may not be held accountable at law, nor can their decisions be challenged. Member nations must guarantee such funds, but they can’t challenge ESM’s decisions. Article 9 may well be titled, "Stand and deliver," and articles 30 and 32 amount to what Nicholas Rockefeller arrogantly called the bankers' KMA card (KMA = kiss my ass): we can do what we want and there is no agency of government that can limit our power, investigate our actions or hold us to account in any way whatsoever. If we gamble and win, the gains are ours. If we lose, all you debt serfs and tax donkeys must make us whole.

This is truly a different kind of social contract. It effectively reverses one of the 19^th century’s key political achievements: the transfer of fiscal sovereignty from unaccountable monarchical bureaucracies to democratically accountable parliaments. It thereby nullifies any notion of democratic governance of the people, by the people and for the people.

This legislation is clearly of the bankers, by the bankers and for the bankers. The ESM treaty was spearheaded by Mario Monti, former Goldman Sachs banker, one of the leaders of the Bilderberg group and a prominent member of the Trilateral Commission. He was enabled by another Goldman Sachs banker, Mario Draghi who had taken the helm of the ECB just in time for this heist, in November 2011.

Bankster gangsta: Mr. Mario Draghi

Crushing the resistance

For a few days in October 2011, a group of Slovakia's MPs actually looked into the contents of the treaty. They held out and refused to approve the ESM bailout funds arguing that it was wrong, punishing prudent nations (their banks, actually) and rewarding the profligate ones. Richard Sulik, the leader of Slovakia's liberals conveyed the scale of the heist when he said that, "Since we joined the EU, our net receipts from the Brussels budget have come to just over 1 billion EUR. Under ESM, we are liable for 13 billion!"

The EU and ECB came down hard and fast against Slovakia. Within 5 days the government fell and the parliament quickly ratified ESM funds. The ESM became the industrial-sized conveyor belt, transferring wealth from those who created it to the gamblers in financial markets. In doing so, the ESM removed all accountability and constraints on the gamblers to act responsibly. 

Twelve years after the ESM was established, the ordinary Europeans have seen their standard of living collapse even if they can’t tell how or why that happened. According to Eurostat, in 2023 more than 45% of European people struggled to make ends meet. In some nations, like Slovakia, more than 65% struggle. This is not exactly the prosperity we'd been promised.

Of course, rather than fixing the system, the bankers will blame the Russians and demand war. Throughout history, when failure became undeniable and social pressures built up, the oligarchies always cried, “barbarians at the gates!” Then the military-aged men could be sent to fight and die in far off lands, safely away from the vampire leech’s seat of power.

As Mario Monti's BFF and fellow Trilateral Commission alumnus Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard, you get away with such schemes only "in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." Therefore, that perception is being constantly manufactured for us: Putin evil, Russia bad. If you're disenfranchised and broke, blame the Russians who, by the way, are coming to get you! Real men go to war!

In spite of all that, socialism for the bankers will end as all socialist experiments have done through history: with stagflation (we're there already), hyperinflation (give it time), wars and civil wars (let us do all we can to avoid that outcome). It is time for the plebs to realize who the real enemy is.

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com

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