Sunday, June 3, 2012

EUSSR: Banking Union, Another Power Grab in de Making

The economy is still in private hands, but not for long. Statist vultures have long set their eyes on the banking sector. It started with enforced bailouts by which great sums of debt were shifted from the private sector to the taxpayer. Using the public utility arm of banking as an argument, the statists pleaded for nationalization.
Crypto Marxists go as far as arguing central banks to lose their 'independent' status altogether and resort under the government directly. That would conveniently enable them to Cntl+P money just as fast as they can spend it. Such a move would bring the entire money business - and de facto the economy - under state control. Marx would be pleased!
But as so often with statist plans too big to implement nationally, they are moved up one tier to the international level. There are plans in Europe right now - perhaps as an experiment to be implemented globally at some stage - to bring the banks together under EU regulation. And a nice, innocent sounding label to go with it: the banking union *awwww* #cute! 
Nicolas Veron, a fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels - a incubator of ideas for the EUSSR to usurp the nation state - says: "If you have more centralized decision-making for the whole bank restructuring agenda throughout Europe, then you can be tougher because you get a hold of the entire branch." *you bet yah!* (...) Veron says quicker help is needed *we are from the government and we're here to help* He proposes putting together a task force similar to the one that oversaw the restructuring of US auto companies General Motors and Chrysler under bankruptcy court protection. The current system "is unsustainable and we need to change course," he said *quick! don't let a crisis go to waste!*
Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market and services, on June 6 is expected to reveal more proposals for Europe to restructure banks. The EU is likely to phase in any new system. Earlier studies suggested first increasing cooperation and making rules more uniform and only later creating an EU-wide authority. (...) The solution, economists and a number of European Union policy makers say, is to cut the knot between governments and banks. Europe should create a central banking authority with the power and the money to take broken banks off governments' hands — and override national regulators who may be reluctant to force expensive and politically painful restructuring of failed financial institutions. The current European Banking Authority lacks such sweeping powers. (...) The commission suggested that the permanent European bailout fund could be permitted to put money directly into banks, bypassing the governments. But Germany, which contributes most to the bailout fund, has long resisted such a move and said Wednesday that it would continue to oppose it.
May they long continue to do so. And then there are the eurobonds to deal with. They would in effect create a full transfer union, pooling the debt into one giant international sink hole.