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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (109999)	11/8/2013 1:53:28 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	6 Recommendations Recommended By Alex MG benwood el_gaviero ggersh philv and 1 more member Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

I'm not sure anyone would have been happy with a traditional economic depression, which Bernanke could have allowed - except for the fact that he would have been immediately replaced. We just got back last week from two months in Europe, and the feel of 25% unemployment in Spain is sad. It's mostly hidden from view, but I have never before seen well-dressed people begging everywhere in Spain. Each beggar has their own act. Handsome young men, using the transit pass which is part of their welfare benefits, hop onto trains with a musical instrument and amplifier busking for money. Changing cars at each station. Silent pathetic looking old women place xeroxed slips of paper on each seat of the train next to each person silently asking for indulgences in Spanish. Just as silently they pass back through the car picking up each slip to be used in the next coach. Those were the most popular methods of begging - but it's everywhere. The most interesting thing is we never saw anyone ever give these people any money, yet it continues persistently. University graduates in Portugal and Spain, fluent in many languages, who should be starting their careers share a small apartment with five other recent graduates and make what ever money they can by offering tourists bicycle tours. Things are just as tough in Hungary, but to a lesser extent in the Czech Republic which is still fairly socialist in income distribution. We also saw serious economic stress in Switzerland which is currently suffering from a very expensive currency and not being part of the EU. It still a wealthy nation, but people can't afford what they're used to. In Germany, France, and the Netherlands things are quite different with government funded construction and repair projects going on everywhere. Our Treasury is carping to Germany for currently running a far larger trade surplus than China. In contrast Merkel thinks they're a model for Europe and won reelection with some really xenophobic campaigning - see the poster below opposing a Green candidate in Berlin. Friends who own businesses in Europe are anxious and getting by with far lower margins to keep their customers. Things are tight and business people fear far worse is ahead. Italy is still the same predictable shit-hole where nothing works correctly and nearly everyone is corrupt. The miracle for me seeing former East Germany, for the first time in 30 years, now almost indistinguishable from West Germany after 19 years of Germans paying an extra 9% income tax each year to fund the Treuhandtanstalt reunification agency. But talking with people from the former East, they're still a culture apart from former West Germans. They were taught to value culture over prosperity and that's still well embedded. The number of Germans from the former east who have married Germans from the former west Germans is miniscule, well less than 1%. They've kept much of the German command language which was de-Nazified in the west. I heard an elderly waitress outside Dresden irritatedly interrupting west Germans in conversation with Achtung! Die The! to get their attention long enough to put down a pot of tea. Train employees in the former east also use Achtung frequently - something you would never hear in the former West Germany, at least not since 1946 or so. Even the train system in former East Germany is the Alex trains rather than Die Bahn. Alex is an unholy alliance of Luxembourg investment upgrading the rail infrastructure of the former east with 1/3 ownership and management by TrenItalia. Lot's of Russians on holiday in France and Switzerland. Several of our Hertz cars had to be reprogrammed from Russian to English. European trains are still the best. The Bahn ICE trains (Intercity Express) are superior to TGV and Die Bahn Navigator smartphone app can easily get you from one address to another with trains, trolleys and subways -- also get reservations and tickets on your phone. bahn.com A Merkel paid campaign poster, mocking suggests a First-Vote for Ströbele (Germany uses a ranked preference voting system, where you can vote for more than once candidate, with your first choice counting more): My great-great-great Granfather, Alexander Herzen continues to be very popular with Russians. The Cimetière du Château in Nice has signs in Russian directing you to the grave where he and his immeadiate family are buried. Russians even left a wreath and ribbon tribute to his 200th birthday in 2012, which I reattached after the photo.