Profiting from the ruins of Europe

I was one of thousands who recently received a link to a You Tube video taken from BBC News.

Although the clip was only three minutes long it was more effective in illustrating what exactly is going on in the world financial markets than any in-depth piece I have read in The Economist.
The man being interviewed, Alessio Rastino, outlined with refreshing candour just how he feels recession and depression are reasons to be cheerful.
In the fall of financial markets he sees opportunity. Rastino, a trader, claims to “dream” of another recession so that he and those like him can swoop in and make money from the carnage.
His straight talking led to deep discomfort on the part of his interviewer who asked what he thought of the efforts of EU nations to tackle the financial crisis. He answered that he, and his ilk in the major funds, doesn’t care. “Governments don’t rule the world. Goldmann Sachs rules the world,” was his frank summation of reality as he sees it.
While this man’s attitude will be repugnant to many people, he is not alone in his stance. He may be among the few who will state it openly but he is one of thousands internationally who will never be called before a camera or an electorate to answer for their actions. They care nothing for people’s daily lives or whether they had any role to play in perpetuating the misery. They care only for the bottom line.
We are bombarded daily with headlines regarding EU governments’ attempts to fire fight the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone. They are desperately trying to save the currency and a number of economies in the process.
Greece is the weak antelope and has been for some time but as the lions gain ground on that nation it has become increasingly clear a number of other European economies are only marginally better off. The lions in this case are the traders on the international markets.
They have already been successful in separating Europe into the strong and the weak and sowed the seeds of division that will remain for many years to come. Far from blaming their own banks or international traders for the crisis, many German taxpayers now blame their equivalents in Greece.
When you step back and consider this rationally, it is very difficult to stomach. It is an example of successful media manipulation from the shadows where the real power lies.
The relentless media coverage of this ongoing crisis, which makes the whole thing seem like a never-ending cycle, has anaesthetised the public to the very real threat that it represents. Despite politicians’ best efforts to appear phlegmatic in the face of the looming disaster, it is difficult to see how they can maintain this façade for much longer.
Certainly, they can try to appease the markets, the traders and the funds but if these entities see more profit in destroying the Eurozone than taking the collective governments’ word and money, then it will be done.
The reality is European economies and the euro are under attack. The aggressors in this case are not driven by any religious ideology as we have been told to imagine terrorists to be in the popular consciousness. In fact, they are not even breaking the law. They are just doing their job. Streams of numbers rain endlessly over computer screens on the world’s trading floors and these people work tirelessly to extract as much profit from them as they can. Rumour, contagion and suspicion characterise their daily lives as they seek to stay ahead of their peers in juicing the world for every penny they can. This would be fine if their actions didn’t have such a potentially massive effect on everybody else.
The real lives affected by the traders’ indefatigable lust for profit will, for the most part, never figure in their existence. They will never have to turn up on the doorstep of a newly unemployed worker or a teacher whose pension has been slashed and ask them for a vote come election time. Politicians, on the other hand, will. They will tell us at such times that they are seeking power and in doing so serve our best interests. In fact, they will have little influence when faced with the power of the market.
When we go to airports we are forced to take off our shoes and belts in case one of our number is intending to destroy the plane. It is a nuisance but we can see the benefit and sense in it, for the most part.
We can generally agree that certain measures must be taken to protect public safety. Why then, can the same not be done in the face of actual financial attack?
The fact that governments and the EU seem to be doing nothing to protect the citizens of the continent is both frustrating and difficult to fathom. In fact, the citizens are financially punished while obsequiousness bordering on sycophancy marks politics’ relationship with the international money markets.
It is difficult to know how this ongoing crisis will end up. The best efforts of the EU will work for as long as they yield a higher profit than destroying the euro, along with any number of economies with it. It is difficult to imagine how such devastation might be dealt with.
While many lives would be destroyed by such an event, the one thing we could guarantee in the aftermath would be the presence of the recidivist moneymen generating profit from the ruins of the European project and the lives of ordinary people all over the continent.