Strauss-Kahn Can't

Over the last 3 years we have got used to the world financial disaster engineered by highly paid bankers and we have come to realise that the governments of the Western World will do absolutely nothing to exert control over their incompetence. This week negotiations are under-way to grant yet more money to bail-out Greece. To what purpose? If Greece wishes to borrow money from normal commercial sources the government will have to pay about 25% in interest charges. Why? Because nobody believes for one moment that Greece will ever pay off the debts and sooner or later the country will default. Then half the money will be written off. Greece may even leave the Euro. Then we can move on to Ireland. By 2015 it is estimated that Ireland will owe Euro 250,000,000,000. In effect this means that every man, woman and child in Ireland will owe about Euro 50,000. Like Greece, there is no chance whatsoever of their paying off such a debt and, in the meantime, the interest rate they will have to pay for any commercial borrowings will rise and rise. But, like Greece, they will be given more support until they too collapse, overcome by the realities of economics and gravity. Then there is Portugal and possibly Spain - and then the new countries in Eastern Europe. And so it will go on until the vast heap of bureaucratic rubbish that is the European Union will go bust. Until then, the countries of Europe will carry on - like the USA - passing on the debt to the future for someone else to sort out.

And today, just to cap things the MD of the IMF has been remanded in custody in the USA after allegations of a sexual attack on a chamber maid in the very expensive hotel in which he was staying in New York over the week-end. Mr Dominique Srauss-Kahn should have been in Berlin today before moving on to Brussels to take part in meetings to discuss the financial mess that he and his cohorts have managed [and are managing] to create but that will not happen. He has been remanded in custody because the judge believes that he would do a runner if released on bail - no matter how high the bail was set. I think the judge is right. I am sure that he has countless millions salted way in some tax haven or other so the loss of his bail money would not matter. He was expected to stand in the French presidential elections next year but that will probably not happen. I cannot say definitely not since we live in a world where Jacques Chirac could get away with his dodgy history and be President of France and Senior Belisconi in Italy can do just what the hell he likes. The trouble is that all these super-rich people believe that they have the right to do what they like and will always be protected by their money - or a super-injunction. After all compared with these masters of the Universe, what does an ordinary chamber maid in a New York hotel matter? I think Mr Strauss- Kahn is about to find out.

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