BERLIN — For decades, Germany’s role in Europe has been to supply the cash, not the leadership. With fresh memories of war, the continent was cautious about German domination — and so were the Germans themselves.
But the economic crisis has shaken Europe’s postwar model, and Germany increasingly calls the shots. As countries struggle to pay their debts, only Chancellor Angela Merkel has enough money to haul them out of trouble. And the price Merkel is demanding — more control over how they run their economies — is setting off alarm bells in capitals across the continent.
Yes indeed! How bloody dare those evil Boche? Putting conditions on the cash they’re asked to fork over to pay for other people’s stupidity and laziness?
In Athens, protesters dressed up as Nazis routinely prowl the streets, an allusion to the old model of an assertive Germany.
“If you don’t buy me that new iPad, mom and dad, you’re bloody NAZIS!”
How can anybody resist such grace, eloquence and gratitude?
Germany “has been in a constant reactive role,” said Fredrik Erixon, head of the European Center for International Political Economy, a Brussels think tank. Now, though, it “is at a place where it can largely dictate what it wants to see in other countries, and they have to go along with it.”
Well no, they don’t. They can just say “no thanks” to the money they’re demanding that German taxpayers hand over to pay for their cradle-to-grave, unproductive socialist dystopias. Then they’ll be free to be as “non-German” as they blooming well like, but that’s not really an option when you can’t pay for your own college tuition and the only way your parents will help you out is if you promise not to spend the cash on a 6-year degree in transgendered basket-weaving studies.
If embraced by Merkel’s fellow European leaders, the proposal probably will push the euro zone in a more German direction, a model that enforces low inflation, small deficits and strict curbs on borrowing.
The HORROR! Low inflation, small deficits and strict curbs on borrowing? The sound you hear is millions of socialist Keynesian Kackleheads stampeding for their smelling salts and their autographed copies of Das Kapital.
Still, many economists — including those at the International Monetary Fund — question whether the German model is really the best way to dig out of a recession
Proving, once again, that rampant idiocy is not limited to Paul Kluck-Kluckman of the New York Times. It also proves beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever that the IMF is about as useful as teats are on a bull.
Here’s a hint to the EuroTwits insisting that Germany pay their bills with no strings attached:
Get a farkin’ job, already.
Thatisall.