International alarm grows over fate of Europe's failing economy

I had written last night that Greece was said to be defaulting. However, those reports were almost immediately retracted. I wrote that no matter if the default is now or later, it will come, given the numbers. The level of debt Greece is staggering under cannot be borne much longer. Nor can Italy's, Spain's, or even the US's debt be borne by those nations much longer for that matter.

This Jefferies report quoted in Zerohedge lays it out clearly on how and why the European economic failure will be just as bad if not worse than the one the US suffered in 2008. Jefferies is a full-service securities and investment banking firm serving companies and their investors globally, not some pajama blogger or fringe guy who thinks he has a handle of geo-political economics. This is the real deal. In the report, Jefferies lays out the European end game.

"The bottom line is that it looks like a Lehman like event is about to be unleashed on Europe WITHOUT an effective TARP like structure fully in place. Now maybe, just maybe, they can do what the US did and build one on the fly - wiping out a few institutions and then using an expanded EFSF/Eurobond structure to prevent systemic collapse. But politically that is increasingly feeling like a long shot. Rather it looks like we will get 17 TARPs - one for each country. That is going to require a US style socialization of each banking system - with many WAMUs, Wachovias, AIGs and IndyMacs along the way. The road map for Europe is still 2008 in the US, with the end game a country by country socialization of their commercial banks. The fact is that the Germans are NOT going to pay for pan European structure to recap French and Italian banks - even though it is probably a more cost effective solution for both the German banks and taxpayers."

It is a very good report. Even I understood it, and math and economics is not my strong point.

British economics reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote about Germany's and Greece's mutually assured destruction. Pritchard is another guy I like to read. He is sound. He wrote,

Germany and Greece flirt with mutual assured destruction
Bild Zeitung populism has prevailed. Germany is pushing Greece towards a hard default, risking the uncontrollable chain reaction so long feared by markets.
"Whoever thinks that Greece is an easy scapegoat, will find that this eventually turns against them, against the hard core of the eurozone," said Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos. Greece can, if provoked, pull the pin on the European banking system and inflict huge damage on Germany itself, and Greece has certainly been provoked."

In the wake of all this economic news from Europe, Moody's downgraded France's largest banks today.

"Moody’s Investors Service downgraded two of France’s biggest banks Wednesday, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, citing their exposure to the Greek economy and the fragile state of bank financing markets. It kept a third, BNP Paribas, under review ... France brushed off concerns about its biggest banks Wednesday, insisting that it had no plans to nationalize any of them despite a credit rating downgrade linked to their exposure to the limping Greek economy."

The Polish Finance Minister warned that Europe was about to collapse, though his comments engendered a firestorm under which he 'clarified' and partially retracted. He said,

"While speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski warned that Europe was in grave danger of collapsing if the euro zone debt crisis was not resolved rapidly. Europe must be saved at all costs, he added. Anxieties regarding the euro zone debt crisis have been mounting this week. Many judge US Treasury Timothy Geithner's announcement that he will attend a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Wroclaw this Friday as yet another sign of the seriousness of the situation. “We should not deceive ourselves, if the euro falls apart, then Europe will not survive the shock for long,” said Mr Rostowski during his speech on Wednesday. ... Also speaking in the European Parliament on Wednesday, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso also underlined that Europe's future was at stake. “We are facing the biggest crisis of this generation,” said Mr Barroso. “It's a struggle for the political future of Europe, for European integration as a whole,” he added."

It IS a struggle to hold things together when all the forces of evil, history, and prophecy are tearing them asunder. The final empire that reforms out of this crisis and emerges in the last days will fall apart, as well. This is foretold in Daniel 2.

Wayne Blank wrote, "In the Bible study Daniel's Statue we looked at the curious prophetic symbol found in the book of Daniel. The vision of the statue was given by God to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in a dream. The dream was interpreted by the prophet Daniel. The statue was a composite, made up of different materials to represent the successive human empires that ruled the land of the Bible and beyond. With the starting point of the Babylonian "head of gold" plainly stated to us by Daniel, Bible History and secular history both provide us with the other pieces of the puzzle that fit perfectly: after the Babylonian empire came the Persian empire (the chest and arms of silver); then the Greek empire (belly and thighs of bronze); and finally the Roman empire (the legs of iron). The legs of iron terminated in the feet which were composed of a mixture of iron and baked clay. Daniel provides us with a fascinating description of the "feet." The iron in the feet is described as a group of different peoples (nations) that despite their differences in language and culture, come together for a short time to fulfill an important stage in God's plan. The "baked clay" in the feet is the necessary binding agent that holds the pieces of iron together. A common religion, led by a popular, and eventually great miracle-performing leader, is thought to be the baked clay."

We do not know what the exact catalyst will be for the last Empire to emerge, nor are we told exactly when,  but we do know that it will happen. Will Europe collapse all the way, only for the antichrist to arise from the chaotic smoke of the falling empire? Will Europe hang on and the antichrist appear at the right moment to offer a solution so that it will not fall? Either way, the pieces are in the air and it is both exciting and unnerving to watch them play out their final arc in the face of bible truth.
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