Borrow, Bomb, Repeat—history’s oldest government playbook, and Europe is about to prove chaos still makes the perfect distraction.
Posted by freedomforall 5 days ago to Economics
Excerpt:
"So, speculation about IMF bailouts is back—but this time the whispers aren’t about Greece, they’re about Britain and France. London looks wobbly enough to need a foreign lifeline, while France’s own finance minister admits Paris might end up in the same queue. For Britain, of course, this would be a rerun: the once-mighty empire went cap in hand to the IMF in 1976, begging for what was then a record $4 billion loan. That humiliation came with strings attached—brutal austerity and a farewell to Keynesian fantasies—paving the way for Thatcher’s monetarist revolution. Nearly half a century later, it seems history is limbering up for an encore.
...
Before exploring the fallout of a European sovereign debt crisis, it’s worth remembering what the IMF actually is. Born at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference alongside the World Bank, it was designed to prevent the kind of financial chaos that sparked the Great Depression and World War II. Officially launched in 1945, the IMF’s first job was keeping exchange rates “fixed” and lending to countries in temporary trouble. Over time, it morphed into the world’s crisis manager, handing out loans with conditions and keeping an eye on national budgets. It is funded mainly through quotas paid by its 190 members—membership fees scaled to the size of each economy, which also dictate voting power. Big players like the U.S., Japan, and Europe effectively call the shots, while the IMF quietly waits to rescue any country that trips over its own finances—and has implemented policies that serve the globalist agenda of its main contributors by helping extract resources from what the Western world has been calling Emerging Markets over the past 50 years. In short: a club of western globalists to run the global economy, with a polite promise to help everyone else.
A blue and orange rectangles with numbers and text
AI-generated content may be incorrect.
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factshee...
The grim truth is that Europe and the Western world are marching inexorably toward a sovereign debt crisis, a key chapter in the scenario of the world rule order. Western governments have borrowed relentlessly, year after year, with no intention of ever repaying a single penny. Warnings since 2025 have gone unheeded, and now France and the UK teeter on the edge of an IMF bailout. Yet these same governments demand NATO contributions of 5% of GDP, a spectacle of loyalty while their coffers bleed dry.
In this climate of economic collapse, Western governments seek a distraction. The ‘Russian Bear’, conveniently framed as a threat, becomes a tool for diversion and control. History and political science have long documented this tactic—the so-called “diversionary theory of war” or “scapegoat theory.” When domestic unrest rises, popularity falls, or the economy teeters, governments manufacture an external enemy. The goal is clear: unify the populace, deflect attention from internal decay, and tighten the grip of power. Western Keynesian opportunists, now masquerading as authoritarian overseers, are perfectly willing to stage—or at least exploit—a foreign attack to consolidate power. Psychologists call it the “Rally ’Round the Flag Effect”: a manufactured crisis sparks patriotism; silences dissent and unites a divided populace behind a lamed duck totalitarian leader. Class, race, and ideological divides vanish in the glow of a common enemy.
History is littered with examples of governments using external threats to mask domestic failures and consolidate power. After 9/11, the U.S. government invaded Iraq, passed the Patriot Act, imposed draconian financial controls, and turned airports into ritualized security theatres. Conflict became the excuse to expand state control, divert resources from social programs, and bend the population to obedience, all while citizens cheered, blinded by fear and loyalty."
"So, speculation about IMF bailouts is back—but this time the whispers aren’t about Greece, they’re about Britain and France. London looks wobbly enough to need a foreign lifeline, while France’s own finance minister admits Paris might end up in the same queue. For Britain, of course, this would be a rerun: the once-mighty empire went cap in hand to the IMF in 1976, begging for what was then a record $4 billion loan. That humiliation came with strings attached—brutal austerity and a farewell to Keynesian fantasies—paving the way for Thatcher’s monetarist revolution. Nearly half a century later, it seems history is limbering up for an encore.
...
Before exploring the fallout of a European sovereign debt crisis, it’s worth remembering what the IMF actually is. Born at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference alongside the World Bank, it was designed to prevent the kind of financial chaos that sparked the Great Depression and World War II. Officially launched in 1945, the IMF’s first job was keeping exchange rates “fixed” and lending to countries in temporary trouble. Over time, it morphed into the world’s crisis manager, handing out loans with conditions and keeping an eye on national budgets. It is funded mainly through quotas paid by its 190 members—membership fees scaled to the size of each economy, which also dictate voting power. Big players like the U.S., Japan, and Europe effectively call the shots, while the IMF quietly waits to rescue any country that trips over its own finances—and has implemented policies that serve the globalist agenda of its main contributors by helping extract resources from what the Western world has been calling Emerging Markets over the past 50 years. In short: a club of western globalists to run the global economy, with a polite promise to help everyone else.
A blue and orange rectangles with numbers and text
AI-generated content may be incorrect.
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factshee...
The grim truth is that Europe and the Western world are marching inexorably toward a sovereign debt crisis, a key chapter in the scenario of the world rule order. Western governments have borrowed relentlessly, year after year, with no intention of ever repaying a single penny. Warnings since 2025 have gone unheeded, and now France and the UK teeter on the edge of an IMF bailout. Yet these same governments demand NATO contributions of 5% of GDP, a spectacle of loyalty while their coffers bleed dry.
In this climate of economic collapse, Western governments seek a distraction. The ‘Russian Bear’, conveniently framed as a threat, becomes a tool for diversion and control. History and political science have long documented this tactic—the so-called “diversionary theory of war” or “scapegoat theory.” When domestic unrest rises, popularity falls, or the economy teeters, governments manufacture an external enemy. The goal is clear: unify the populace, deflect attention from internal decay, and tighten the grip of power. Western Keynesian opportunists, now masquerading as authoritarian overseers, are perfectly willing to stage—or at least exploit—a foreign attack to consolidate power. Psychologists call it the “Rally ’Round the Flag Effect”: a manufactured crisis sparks patriotism; silences dissent and unites a divided populace behind a lamed duck totalitarian leader. Class, race, and ideological divides vanish in the glow of a common enemy.
History is littered with examples of governments using external threats to mask domestic failures and consolidate power. After 9/11, the U.S. government invaded Iraq, passed the Patriot Act, imposed draconian financial controls, and turned airports into ritualized security theatres. Conflict became the excuse to expand state control, divert resources from social programs, and bend the population to obedience, all while citizens cheered, blinded by fear and loyalty."
