A Lesson From History

With the retreat from Afghanistan nearly completed .....

Sir William Robertson Got Afghanistan Spot On ....

.... well ahead of President Biden's arbitrary 11th September 2021 deadline, its perhaps time for a lesson from history.

Lessons Of History

Spain is in full-blown economic meltdown .... a 'depression' rather than a 'recession', with the overall unemployment rate at 23.6 per cent, which is comparable to the US/Europe in the depths of the Great Depression of the late 1920's and 1930's (with the youth unemployment rate over 50 per cent) .....

Communist and Nazis Street Fights - Berlin

This simply can’t carry on without risking the kind of social breakdown last seen in the 1930's (Street fighting and extreme political parties on the march .... Communists and Nazis), as the rise of the Far Right and Left in France, and perhaps more worryingly the Far Right  'Chrysi Avgi' ('Golden Dawn') in Greece illustrates.

Extremist Parties Rise In Economic Crisis

This is an era that modern Europe is starting to replicate in ever more faithful detail.

Greek Political Factions Fighting Over Economic Ruins

The 30's depression only ended after countries exited from the gold standard, which is the equivalent  of an exit from the Euro today, and the restoration of national currencies .... as an alternative to carrying on imposing ever-harsher austerity on countries that were already suffering Depression levels of  unemployment. However its the course of  imposing ever-harsher austerity that the European governments and ECB have reinforced.

It's hard not to conclude that rather than admit that the policies being followed are wrong, most European leaders seem determined to drive their economies and their societies into the ground  ..... you would think the Germans and the French leaders would be worried. Certainly many others fear that the whole world may pay the price.