A Slow Death

The bad news in the Eurozone keeps on coming; France is in trouble and is likely to be another Eurozone country to go pop, Greece unsurprisingly is still buggered and Eurozone unemployment swells to a record high:

In latest confirmation that the eurozone crisis is far from relenting, unemployment in the 17-country bloc reached a staggering 18.5 million in September, according to the European Union's statistical office, Eurostat.

The figures showed a marginal increase on August’s rate of 11.5 per cent, with the number of those out of work increasing by 146,000. But in comparison to last year’s September records, when unemployment was at 10.3 per cent, 2.2 million more Europeans find themselves out of work.

Similarly, youth unemployment (joblessness under the age of 25) recorded a 2.3 per cent annual increase on last September’s figure.

Across the whole 27-nation European Union unemployment reached a rate of 10.6 per cent, increasing by 169,000 since August.

Unemployment rate spiked in countries at the epicentre of the crisis. Spain posted a September-to-September increase from 22.4 per cent in 2011 to 25.8 per cent in 2012, with Portuguese unemployment swelling from 13.1 per cent to 16.7 per cent over the same period.

But it was Greece that recorded the most dramatic surge in joblessness, as unemployment figures shot from 17.8 percent in July 2011 to 25.1 per cent in July 2012 – the most recent month when figures were available. August data will likely be posted next week.

Overall, the record high in unemployment paints a bleak picture of the eurozone, plagued by declining consumption and waning business confidence.

Much as it is desirable for us to wish that the whole stupid project would just collapse in a big bang, it's more likely that it will suffer a slow and protracted death, thus taking us all down. Instead of making Europe a major player on the world stage, as puffed up unelected EU politicians like to reassure themselves with, it will instead do precisely the opposite - a kind of self inflicted industrial strength dose of Rohypnol - the rest of the world will take what they want and move on.

We are chained to a corpse, and no amount of pathetic arguing of semantics over the EU budget will change that.

Still, a little schadenfreude can be had that Ted Heath's other legacy - leaving his house to the nation - is up for sale because no cares about visiting it:

Charity closes Ted Heath's house after it flops as a tourist attraction with less (sic) than 40 visitors a day

I particularly like this quote ( my emphasis):

A charity is set to close Ted Heath’s house after it failed to be a lucrative tourist attraction because the ‘memories of Sir Edward Heath receded into history’.

God moves in mysterious ways...