Europe is following the U.S. lead and will be throwing a lot of good money after bad military projects. From Thomas Kolbe at zerohedge.com:
While the green pseudo-economy drags the broader economy into the basement, two-thirds of Germans say they are satisfied with renewable energy or even want to see it expanded more rapidly. Meanwhile, the construction of a European war economy marks the next stage in Europe’s ongoing impoverishment.
The most popular yet most destructive economic strategy remains the modern interpretation of Keynesianism. With his oversimplified view of economic activity, the British economist John Maynard Keynes inadvertently handed postwar politicians a toolkit that they later perverted into an all-purpose “solution” for every economic crisis. The condensed version reads as follows: nearly every recession stems from a demand shortfall by consumers. The state’s job, therefore, is to create artificial credit to fill this demand gap.
Recipe for Bureaucratic Expansion
Lower interest rates, print credit, and—so the fairy tale goes—the economy takes off. In reality, what remains is a mountain of state debt, a swelling bureaucracy, distorted financial markets, and declining productivity. These are economic facts, easily verified even by non-economists. Prosperity arises from a growing capital stock that serves consumer demand efficiently and precisely with more goods and services.
Keynesian policy has proven disastrous for Europe, because it hands politicians a permanent excuse to expand their influence, build bureaucracy, and manipulate markets. Political institutions such as the European Commission, most European parties, and the governments of member states operate almost exclusively in this mode.
