5/13 Your Euros, Their Euros, My Euros are Your Euros?

Written on May 13, 2010

Alo, Like the Irish say, it takes “some stones” to do the right hard thing. Suppose every country in the EU brought a keg of beer with them to one pub in Belgium. Each proud EU member sat down to enjoy a beer and the party went on for more than a decade. Then at the start of the eleventh year it was noticed that the Greeks, the Irish, the Spaniards, the Portuguese and the Italians all brought kegs to the party that were somewhat leaky and the beer was kinda weak. The other thing was that they had borrowed money to buy the beer to bring it to the party and now they were going to have to go home and pay for it now that the beer had run out. The German looked at the French man and said “Why is this my problem?” And he thought he would just go home. Unfortunately when he looked out the pub window, he noticed a growing crowd brandishing ropes and lanterns and chanting something about “no beer”. As the crowd walked closer, the German turned around and said, do you mean to tell me “ you brought the last keg of beer from your country?” As the German slowly looked around the dimly lit pub, (which was growing brighter as the torch wielding mob grew closer), his mouth opened wider as he listened to their responses…”Ja…Nai…Sim…Si..Yes.” What were you thinking? “I got this” said the Irishman. I think I speak for all of us. For the good of our kinsmen would ye loan us a pot o gold since the beer is gone and we could just pay back our kinfolk for the beer we took… for the party… by borrowing money from you. So let me get this straight, you bring that weak, watery beer here in leaky barrels you drink more than you brought and you want me to loan you money because you borrowed the beer you brought? Cheers! I think you’ve got the picture. The German said, “Not on the Kaisers best day. No chance you freakish little leprechaun.” “But we all told them that you would! See that is the rub mate. All those people outside think that you will,” said the Greek, “The ones with the ropes?” said the German. “You’ve got the picture,” said the Portuguese man. So late into the night they sat with empty glasses remembering happier times when the beer flowed freely and the kegs were full. Then the German stepped up and said, we need to tell them that we will loan limitless amounts of beer. Hundreds of billions of beers!” The Dutchman in the crowd said, “Do you think it matters that we have no beer?” “No, the important thing is that the lie be so big that it is undeniably true. We need a really big lie, a colossal untruth. Let us tell them that we have agreed that we will loan each other a trillion beers, limitless amounts of beer as far as the eye can see.” ---in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. —Adolf Hitler (aka a smart guy) , Mein Kampf It looks like the Europeans are going to try to pin the failure of the EURO on speculators rather than on the profligate spending of their members in the PIIGS countries. And, now they have moved from borrowing $130bln to $1 Trln. Astonishing. Truly astonishing. After more press coverage than any network should have given them, the EURO which had traded as low as 1.26 bounced up to 1.309 and then promptly back into 1.27 handles. I thought a $1Trln would be good for a bit more. Guess we will see how the crowd outside the pub reacts. Looks like they might string ‘em up. I once asked my Chinese friend Chris Chong why so many of the Asian kids in San Diego chose to go to UCSD. He responded, "cuz all the Asians go to UCSD." Another time I asked my friend Archie Ray Robinson "why do all the black kids go to Lincoln High?" He said "cuz all the black kids go to Lincoln." There is no value judgement here as they are both great schools with proud traditions. I was curious why we all do what we do until it fails or it kills us. We really need good leadership locally, nationally and globally right now. It is hard to stop something that you have been working hard on even when it is no longer worthwhile or profitable. It is always difficult to do the hard right thing and it is a leader’s job to define reality to their followers. We all crave good leaders. We often settle for the lesser of two weasels, evils, whatever… Have a great day, Leon