Another Look at the Eurozone Crisis

Used the OECD stats to make those:

Investment as a share of GDP, quarterly data, seasonally adjusted

Government consumption as a share of GDP, quarterly data, seasonally adjusted

One can see the investment boom in Spain and Ireland very clearly on those pictures. That boom was fuelled with credit (created at home and coming from Germany amongst other countries) even though it doesn't show on the graph above.

And with the same graph in mind, one can understand why employment has collapsed: lower investment - contraction in wage income - lower wage income - private debt distress - liquidation - fall in asset prices - lesser investment still... and so on.

The only way to keep employment and the economy going is to call for public investment projects (included in the investment graph) and if they don't come, next in line is government consumption, such as pension funds, employment benefits, etc., to maintain cash flows to the public since people don't get investment-employment any more.

But that wasn't allowed: Ireland's and Greece's state coffers were squeezed "since it is the solution to the eurozone crisis" said the slaves of some defunct economist. Ireland and Greece were in fact squeezed so hard that now they are squeezed more than the main squeezer is squeezing his coffers: Germany. Spain is just around the corner (see government consumption graph above).

So when the State cannot meet the collapse in demand from the implosion of investment, public and private, the unemployment skyrockets.

Unemployment levels in the eurozone - Total Unemployment

Unemployment levels in the eurozone - Unemployment amongst people under 25 years

And when the unemployment goes up, as it did in the 1930s, we get to see social unrest and Molotovs flying:

A motorcycle policeman burns as his colleague (right) tries to help him after protesters threw a gasoline bomb in Athens on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011. Scores of youths hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at riot police after clashes broke out during a mass rally that was part of a general strike. Photo and text from The Washington Post

And after the social unrest, the Molotovs and burned down buildings, we see nutcases and lunatics like those guys:

Leader of Golden Dawn, an allegedly neo-Nazi Greek political party, and party supporters. Stinks like early 1930s

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana