Τruths and lies for a Europe that has no relation with the Europe which we had imagined

''That doesn’t seem like much of a stretch: We all know that the European Union — the EU — nearly fell apart a few years ago.

Is the European Union doomed?

And we know that massively unpayable debts piled up by members of the Union were the reason.
Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and later Italy, Spain and even France, all came dangerously close to defaulting on their debt.

Had these nations done so, they would have utterly imploded ... wiped out trillions of dollars of invested wealth all over the globe ... and destroyed the Union.
Since then, watching the EU struggle to survive has been like watching a slow-motion train wreck, a painfully slow spiral down into oblivion.

Debt is skyrocketing ...

Over the past seven years, the European Union and its Central Bank have repeatedly bailed out its member states.
But the bailouts have only given politicians license to increase their reckless spending.
And today, 22 of the 28 EU member states — including the largest states: Spain, France, Italy and the UK — are deeper in debt now than ever before.
In Spain and France, it would take nearly all the money generated by their economies in an entire year to equal their national debts.
The governments of Cyprus and Belgium each owe MORE than their economies produce in an entire year.
Ireland owes 23% more than its economy produces. Portugal and Italy each owe 28% more.
The Greek government, still in the worst shape even after six huge bailouts, owes 75% more than its economy produces.
And there’s no end in sight: Europe’s debt burden is STILL rising at an alarming pace.

Economic growth is dead in the water:

Excessive regulation, outrageous levels of taxation and obscene levels of government debt are literally killing Europe.
The Italian economy is barely growing.
France is stagnating.
Germany, the economic engine of the Union, recently slipped into recession.
As a result, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch have consistently downgraded the troubled nations’ credit ratings, further threatening their ability to borrow.
In February of this year, Greece’s debt was downgraded to junk status.
Meanwhile, governments across Europe are becoming increasingly desperate for cash — and instituting oppressive and patently unfair regulations and capital controls.
In Spain, the government has begun taxing bank deposits. You pay an income tax on your paycheck then pay another tax when you deposit it in the bank.
In France, police routinely search travelers, looking for large amounts of cash that’s being smuggled out of the country to avoid taxation.

Robbed by their own government ...

They have every reason to be worried.
In 2013, Cyprus’ leaders pulled off the crime of the century: To qualify for a bailout from the EU, they quite literally robbed their own nation’s banks.
Bank customers with more than 100,000 euros watched helplessly as the government seized up to 40% of their money.
The bigger story, of course, is that depositors across Europe and around the world were sent a sobering message:
“No deposit in any European bank is safe. If we want your money, we will simply take your money.”

Why money printing can’t save Europe, Japan OR America:

Europe is already printing money like there’s no tomorrow and yet debt is piling up faster than ever and the economy is coming unglued.
The Bank of Japan printed 10.3 trillion yen in January of 2013, but the economy just kept getting worse. So, in December of last year, Tokyo announced it is printing an additional 3.5 trillion yen.
But despite everything, the nation fell into a recession again, its fifth recession since 2000 and the third one in four years.''

Source:
Money and Markets