When we think of saving Europe from itself, we think of our involvement in World War I when our fresh, if inexperienced Army tipped the scales for an Allied victory. Then there was World War II when our production capacity and military literally buried the Axis powers and pulled Europe from a blood letting of its own making. After that, there was the Marshall Plan when the infusion of U.S. capital and technical expertise restarted the Western European economies which lead to decades of unimagined growth. During that time, we played parent by stationing hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe and for the first time in a thousand years the Europeans were not killing one another. After the Cold War, we saved Europe again during the economic crisis of 2007-8; due to their poor accounting and banking regulations, “at least half the liquidity support it (the Fed) provided went to banks not headquartered in the United States, but located overwhelmingly in Europe.” (Crashed by Adam Tooze, pp13). Without that help from the U.S. taxpayer, most European banks would have gone under. But, the Europeans seem to be a bit slow to learn as we see from this article on the Zombie firms in Europe and the poor state of the European banking community. With the Europeans signing a major trade deal with the Communist Chinese, maybe this time they will be rescued by someone other than our taxpayers, but I am sure the terms shall be much more difficult. https://www.wsj.com/articles/zombies-could-stunt-the-bank-recovery-11610447847?page=1
Barry J. Klazura
With a Masters Degree in Guerrilla Warfare and Totalitarianism, Mr. Klazura was well prepped for a career in Sales and General Management, consulting on corporate startups and turnarounds as well as lecturing on history and politics. For the past twenty years he has focused on being a financial advisor and consulting.
