Europe

By Mark Fleming-Williams of Stratfor

Europe Without the Union

German officials have banned the serving of ham and bacon at schools and cafeterias in fear of offending refugees. Muslims and Jews do not eat pork if they are religiously inclined. The recent influx of refugees escaping wars and economic famine has inundated Germany and Europe. Chancellor Angela Merkel initially welcomed the refugees by giving them a nod and a wink. Now that they have arrived, they seem to reveal themselves to be mostly rapists and economic migrants looking out for their own selfish selves, according to the media.

It was just seven weeks ago when we said the following about Donald Trump and Europe’s increasingly intractable migrant crisis: “Europe’s worsening refugee crisis is in many ways the best thing that could have happened to Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign.”

The European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has warned that Britain could spark World War Three if it votes to leave the European Union. In an astonishing outburst the leader even warned voters not to repeat the “enormous stupidity” of two world wars. He accused Brexit voters of forgetting the role that the EU had played in the years since the Second World War and even suggested that eurosceptics visit war graves to try and avoid a breakdown in peace between nations.

Source: munplanet.com

We have heard a lot of chatter about a potential negative interest rate policy, and whilst the general market consensus in the USA is still expecting to see at least two rate hikes by the Federal Reserve before the end of this year, the situation is completely different in Japan and in Europe. The Japanese central bank was the first central bank to openly discuss a potential negative interest rate in an attempt to boost the country’s economy again, but the grand scheme of things seems to be going much further than that.