Shenandoah

by John Galt

January 19, 2010

The Somewhat Revised Modern European Version of The Three Little PIIGS

This is the story of the four little PIIGS….(and one drunken one that tagged along for fun)…..

Once upon a time, there were these great nations of Europe and the little piggies that lived in those nations devised a new fiat currency.

The new fiat currency was to become the ultimate anti-dollar as dependency on the American Dollar was troublesome as they saw the Federal Reserve Piggies making their fiat funny money into a seriously poor grade of bacon.

The French whined and bitched and moaned as they always do, but in the end  agreed to surrender again to Germany’s wishes and a new fiat superstar was born.

The little piggies all proclaimed with joy and celebration with huge barbecues in all of their nation’s capitals.

The Portuguese piggies roasted whatever the hell it is Portuguese piggies eat and drank some high quality  wine at the party.

The Irish piggies roasted their own hand as they were drunk and passed out on the hot grill.

The Italian piggies roasted peppers and chicken, drank wine and threw their unfired firearms into the Adriatic, even though they were not at war.

The Greek piggies roasted a Turkish Communist in celebration along with a side of lamb which was quite tasty with the Ouzo.

And the Spanish piggies celebrated late into the night drinking Sangria and roasting fish and Franco supporters, covering them with a fantastic sauce as they sizzled into the night.

As sobriety took hold, the first little piggy from Portugal  said “I’m going to build my house out of the new Euros and borrow lots of them to get a firm foundation and then just throw some straw thatch on the walls and roof because it doesn’t rain that often down here and we’ll surge ahead of those Frenchy-French by leveraging our markets up in such a fashion.

The second little piggy from Spain saw what the Portuguese piggy was up to and said “Oh yeah, I can do it better!”  With that the little pig got cosmetic surgery to look like Antonio Banderas so there would be no issues with the world as they looked at the beautiful houses they built with fiat Euros all over their nation and women worldwide would ignore the books the accounting piggies kept  and stare at him (bleh).

Ah but once again, they,  like their neighbors used those cheap straw roofs this time on top of the paper Euro  walls and Euro based foundation thinking there housing market could weather any storm.

The third little piggy laughed and mocked the piggies of Portugal and Spain because that’s what Italians do best and they just papered over their old homes and factories with the fiat Euros thinking that be superior to building everything again and that would interfere with the hours and hours of work it takes to rebuild their other FIATS as they screamed out every week “Fix It Again, Tony!”

The little piggies in Greece just shook their heads in disbelief as they went to their bankers and bureaucrats to set up engineering and architectural committees to design the ultimate Socialist fiat homes and the project which started years ago was tied down in committee after committee as their homes rotted but they knew that when the bureaucrats were finished their homes would stand the strongest of them all.

One day, a big bad wolf landed on the shores of Portugal and knocked on the doors of the houses there and said, “IF you don’t come up with my interest payments, I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll foreclose your house in!” The terrified little piglets inside screamed in horror but papa piggy said, “Have no fear my children. Our home is built on a firm Euro foundation and that JP Morgan Chase Wolf doesn’t scare me. Go away you evil wolf!”

The JPM wolf shook his head in disbelief and wheezed and inhaled, wheezed and inhaled, and when he let loose a huge tornado laden windstorm of paperwork and bank failures engulfing the homes causing them to all collapse. After he pocketed his fees and left the nation a mess, he boarded his Gulfstream G550 to fly home.

Meanwhile, over in Spain….

The Antonio Banderas piggy heard a knock on his door. This time it was an evil twosome, the Barclays and Goldman Sachs wolves screaming, “Open up you little piggies and let me in! Pay me my interest and principle due or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and blow your houses in!” Well, Antonio piggy would have none of that as he replied, “My Euro walls are papered over and stronger than anything your funny money trash can knock down!” The two bankster wolves looked at each other, snickered, huffed and puffed, huffed and puffed and VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A torrent of CDS defaults and CDO collapse engulfed the nations and the banks and homes were all blown away and  into the wallets of the two bankster wolves from Barclay’s and Goldman. Then they boarded their private jets to fly home after a weekend in the casinos of  Monte Carlo using their TARP chips they found in their tuxedos from party nights of gambling on Wall Street and in Washington.

The Italian piggies were somewhat horrified reading the newspapers about the events at their neighbors. So instead of fighting the evil bankster wolves they insured safety for their homeland by buying protection from the Bernanke wolf and Obama feral hog by buying Chrysler to save the weakened American bankster baby wolves who ingested too much lead infused Chinese baby formula. So a “family” arrangement had been reached so they would have “protection” and the bankster wolves hopped the Adriatic to get their past due monies from the Greek little piggies.

To the horror of the Deutsche Bank and Citigroup wolves who were dispatched to the home of Western civilization, they found a socialist mess on their hands and this time it was not one of their own design. There were Euro shanties everywhere and the Greek bureaucrat piggies began speaking, well, Greek to the two wolves who by now were confused and agitated by the Greek piggies. As they started to huff and puff and huff and puff a Greek Bureaucrat piggy ran up to them and warned them by issuing an environmental impact study on the effects of wolf breath on the already polluted socialist Athenian atmosphere.  The angry bankster wolves blew into their hands and went “PEEEEEWWWWW” and told the little bureaucrat piggy, “We’ll be back after we pick up some ECB Breath Mints.” The little Greek piggy began shaking in his piggy pants and trembling at the thought of a forty hour work week and less vacation to pay back all the money they squandered said, “Hey, why don’t you go pick on the Irish piggy, we heard he’s loaded!”

The two bankster wolves from Deutsche and Citi looked at each other then burst out laughing. “You silly little piggy, what do you think they do in that nation besides play golf, grow potatoes and make Jameson’s”

“They loaned all of their borrowed  Euros to the other PIGS to build those fiat paper homes! They are as broke as the Turbo Timmy Piggy because you and the Eastern European piglets can’t pay them back!”, they yelled mockingly at the little Greek piggy and headed to the airport to board their private jets home empty handed but with a promise that the Greek piggies would form a committee to work on paying them back.

The moral of the story?

Bulls make money,

Bears make money,

PIIGS get slaughtered.

Pass the K.C. Masterpiece please.