Is Europe worse off than the United States economically? If the EU does collapse, will it take another form? Is the Green Movement based on junk science?

In a recent interview, James Delingpole provides a different perspective on the future of the EU and the dangers of the modern Green Movement.

While many people originally thought creating a European super-state would avert war, James Delingpole believes it has had the opposite effect. “Like the Titanic, the ship is doomed,” he explains. A journalist for the London Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, Delingpole asserts that Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has been a disaster for conservatives – no Margaret Thatcher by any means.

In his recent book, Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors, Delingpole argues that the Green Movement is the “greatest threat Western Civilization has ever known.” With activists taking the moral high ground, and scientists distorting scientific facts, the circumstances are dangerous. President Obama has neglected to look at the cost-benefit analysis of the Green Movement, and has wasted $38.6 billion of taxpayer money by investing in clean energy start-ups.

So is the EU destined to decline? And is the Green Movement a dangerous ideology? To hear explanations for these questions and more, watch the full interview below.

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It turns out minding other people’s business is a worldwide affliction. In this very special edition of Nanny of the Month, we explore nannyism across the pond. Fat taxes are all the rage in Europe. After the skinny Danes slapped a tax on foods high in saturated fats, other European pols—including British Prime Minister David Cameron—have considered following suit. In Australia’s Northern Territory, they’re bringing alcohol prohibition back—incrementally, that is—by barring problem drinkers from buying grog. What could possibly go wrong?

But in the first-ever Nanny of the Month Global Edition, top dishonors go to the European Union’s control freaks who have cracked down on free-range kids, slapping regulations on everything from baby rattlers (which have brand-new noise restrictions) to blowing up balloons (not to be done by tots under age eight!). (more…)

It is not necessarily true that as goes the Euro, so goes the Dollar, but as goes the EU, so goes the US is as certain as the rising (or setting) sun. At least, if American fiscal policy continues to emulate that of the European spendthrifts.  The EU heads of state had marathon, round-the-clock meetings in Brussels last week, and inked a plan to finesse a Greek default (which is an eventual certainty) in a way that doesn’t immediately plunge the rest of Europe into a financial hell, and quite possibly drag America along with it.  Under the best of circumstances, the picture remains bleak.  Market analysts who focus on short-term stock market movements responded with sighs of relief.

The Germans, understandably, wanted those who have loaned Greece money (primarily, the European banks) to take a loss of about half of the value of their loans in order to ease the extremis in which Greece finds herself.  France, whose banks are holding a lot of Greece’s debt, preferred to rely more heavily on a pumped up bailout fund to ease the burden on Athens.  Given that the German taxpayer is certain to be the biggest funder of the proposed additional bailout, it is not hard to understand the rising tensions on the continent.

One can’t blame the banks for their reluctance to dance at this party.  Based on commitments the EU countries made, to keep their debt to no more than 60% of GDP and their deficits to no more than 3% over the prior year, Europe’s banks became major financiers of the new Euro countries.  But many of the European countries that were financially irresponsible prior to the advent of the Euro had no intention of changing their ways subsequent to exchanging their old currencies for the new Euro.  Greece flat out misrepresented its financial condition when it applied to become a member of the Euro Zone.

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It was a year and a half ago (May 17, 2010) when we first warned about Greece and hypothesized just how close France and the UK might be to the continental vortex we thought was in the process of spinning out of control. We also warned that we could expect the same result here if we persisted on pursuing the same economic model in the United States. Well, things have not improved.  Not there, and not here. Things have only gotten worse.

Greece is in violation of the covenants that were imposed as conditions of the first tranche of the bailout it received just last July. Italy just experienced a severe downgrading of its debt as did two of the three largest banks in France, with France’s largest bank having been placed on a negative watch list by the rating agencies. A major French/Belgian-owned bank is in a state of near collapse over its exposure to Greek debt as we write this. Concurrently, The Fed has embarked on what can be described as “QE 3 light” (…if at first — or second — you don’t succeed…), with Chairman Bernanke warning just last week that the US economy “is close to faltering.”

Let’s review the anatomy of the persistent and growing dilemma in Europe as well as the vacuous, if not clueless, approach the White House is pursuing to deal with our own deteriorating situation in the United States.

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By Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer

In a capitulation to Islamic supremacists and violent radical Leftists, French and European Union authorities have canceled a free speech rally that we had planned with a coalition of American and European human rights organizations in Strasbourg, the seat of the European Parliament.

Our human rights organizations Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and its sister group, Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) were planning to hold their first-ever transatlantic summit in Strasbourg, France, on July 2.

The SIOA/SIOE summit was dedicated to the defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law – all principles denied by Islamic law.

But the Strasbourg police could not guarantee our safety. When the thugs of the Antifa group and Islamic supremacist organizations announced plans to hold a violent counter-demonstration and to do everything they could to disrupt our activities, the authorities canceled permission for our demonstration and conference, instead of standing up to these violent neo-fascists and their Islamic supremacist allies.

Strasbourg authorities told us that they could not guarantee our safety at the conference and demonstration location, the Place de la Republique. Efforts were made to hold the demonstration nearby, but the authorities still considered security to be too much of an issue.

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British MEP Daniel Hannan, who gained international recognition several years ago for his passionate denunciation of Keynesian economics in general and then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown in particular, visited The Heritage Foundation last week to discuss his new book. Provocatively titled “The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America”, it does not disappoint. Armed with firsthand experience with the failures of socialism in Europe, Hannan’s message to America is simple: Don’t repeat our mistakes.

Before his speech, he sat down with Heritage for an “In The Green Room” interview to discuss his warning to America. But despite Hannan’s deep concerns, he was clear that we have not yet reached the tipping point and remained optimistic that Americans can right the ship.

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Around the world, Western nations that wish to remain culturally in tact or, in some cases, simply to survive, are currently bolstering their borders and revamping their immigration policies.

For example, the Danish government recently announced it will “reinstate guards along borders with Sweden and Germany and conduct spot checks designed to fight crime and illegal migration.” Said Danish Justice Minister Lars Barfoed: “Denmark should be a safe country, and we will do all it takes to fight the rise in cross-border crime committed within our borders.” (Both Italy and France have “have demanded the EU changes its rules to allow them to restore some border controls” as well.)

In Israel, where Palestinians frequently seek to breach the security fence on the West Bank, dogs are being employed to track (and deter) those who plan to cross the border illegally. Said an Israeli Army spokesman: “[the dogs] are only brought in as a way of protecting the sprawling separation barrier from Palestinian vandals looking to create openings which would allow ‘terrorists’ to infiltrate Israel.”

Of course, there are many who will consider Israel’s use of dogs in this instance to be too harsh, too draconian. In which case the larger point has been missed: and that larger point is that Israelis resort to such measures precisely because they place such a high value on their own security. (If, perchance, you’re wondering how successful such measures have proven to be, just consider the impression the dogs made upon a Palestinian who recently tried to cross the border illegally: “At about 5:00 am I got to the border to try and get through a hole in the fence when all of a sudden a dog attacked me and tried to savage my hand. When I managed to get my hand away, it bit my backside.”)

Two safe bets that could be made at this point:

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The INET Bretton Woods summit, summoned by George Soros and those who alternatively hide behind, or gather around him, has now happened.

But before trying to analyze whatever we may discover of what occurred there, it is critical to discern how it fits an overall picture.  For context, one must also see what the IMF and World Bank “communitarian” elitists are up to.

We find that before the Bretton Woods affair, focusing upon “new solutions,” there was a similar IMF meeting, called “New Ideas for a New World.”  It was centered upon “Post-Crisis Policy Making” and occurred March 7-14.  That gave some of them a lot of time to communicate and plan in quiet (the traditional word for that is conspire) when they were not attending official sessions, or making videos.

Then, we see that Soros’ April 8-11 conference ended just as the IMF and World Bank took up their April 11-17 Spring Meetings, just a limo ride away.  “Blossom of Spring, won’t you bloom and grow?”  Let us see what is budding in this intensive series of conferences, by the first one’s own promotional vid.

Here is a collection of pitches for “New Ideas for a New World.”  Hey, they left out the last word, “Order.”  Could it be that some of them know their version of order requires fomenting massive disorder first, the crises not to be wasted?  They also left out the word “Brave,” before “New World.”  Maybe that is because some of them like Huxley, have qualms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsst1U8jidA

This video puts their dexterous foot forward about that March 2011 conference, while their sinister footfalls go on.  So who are these dudes, getting together and yukking it up (well, three out of four globalist manipulators seem to approve) and just how spooky are they?  What are the messages of the Big Money priests, to the unwashed, PITI-ful masses of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance payers?

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What would you think if George Soros were organizing his fellow anti-American, globalist, neo-Marxist “thought leaders,” in pursuit of globally governed banking and finance, in a second Bretton Woods conference?

Would you consider that their goals include dragging American influence and incomes down, while confiscating much of our personal finances and giving them to other nations (and yes, the age-old financier network behind them) in the name of “communitarianism?”

Would you find their goal is to replace the bad influences of the IMF and the World Bank, with a much worse, more powerfully controlling, post-American global apparatus?

What would you think, if that meeting were being held this April 8th through 11th?

I got an email, last week; it was Tuesday the 22nd.  It was from George Soros.  To hear as straight from the dragon’s mouth as feasible, I had subscribed.  In this emailed article, he lamented the inequities of wealth among the nation-states of Europe, under the strains of their continuing insolvency crisis.  He warned of the dangers of national interest.  Rather, he proposed, not surprisingly, a further blowing of the global insolvency bubble, so the more indebted European nations may get along owing, while their lending nations get along being owed — all the while, blending and worsening the  financial and monetary crises and spreading this yeasty recipe further throughout the world, especially to America.

That was quite provocative.

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Last week President Obama began the blitz which, barring Republican collapse (read on) could last for the next two years, pushing his State of the Union call for American taxpayers to hand over even more billions to underwrite a supposed ‘clean energy’ future.

By chance, I read of this between sessions conferring in London and Brussels with leading experts on the disastrous folly of Europe’s experiment with the ‘clean energy economy’. We know that this is the same disaster that President Obama is now doubling down on as an economic recovery plan because he used to admit as much.

But in his new push the president has toned down the European roots of his model, as well as the planetary salvation rationale for energy rationing. This is because, respectively, the success stories all proved to be black holes which European governments are now trying to walk back, and the public turned against the global warming campaign.

So it was with great amusement that I caught, on my flight back this weekend, some art imitating life in a spectacularly appropriate way. Accountant Leo Bloom revealed to producer Max Bialystock, “under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit”. Voila! There you have, in a Broadway second, President Obama’s ‘clean energy’ agenda.

Government Electric – once a bastion of American genius now fallen to being no more than a government front company – and the rest of the ‘renewables’ Music Men (to note another apt vehicle) are the Bialystock and Bloom of policy. They seek to make their fortune by producing flops. But since their ‘markets’ are arranged by pals in government and not due to performance, it works. That’s the beauty of it.

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For nearly two decades now, people have been arguing about climate change and getting nowhere. Right-wingers argue that global warming is a hoax based on unsubstantiated science, while left-wingers insist that not only is it real but unless we spend everything we have and more trying to stop it, the world will end tomorrow.

To which I say, “Stop—you’re both wrong!”

This, in a nutshell, is the message of the new documentary about me and my work that opens nationwide on Nov. 12. It’s called “Cool It” and, yes, the title is meant to be clever. The idea is that we do need to cool down the planet, but in order to do it sensibly we first need to cool it ourselves. That is, we need to dispense with both the anti-scientific denialism and the Al Gore-ish fear-mongering. Instead, what we should be doing is facing facts—and responding to them not with rhetoric but with smarter, more rational policies.

The first fact we need to acknowledge is the reality of global warming. Like it or not, the data is abundantly clear that man-made greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for decades if not centuries, with the result that global temperatures are rising. Yes, the “Climate-gate” emails and the disclosure of funny business at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exposed some deeply disturbing academic chicanery and prejudice at some supposedly prestigious institutions. However, these revelations did nothing to undermine the fundamental scientific basis of global warming. What they did call into question were many of the more extreme predictions about global warming’s likely impact—such as the idea that all the Himalayan glaciers were about to disappear (they’re not) or that half the Amazon rain forest would soon be destroyed (not likely).

Of course, these extreme predictions are at the heart of the mainstream environmental movement’s position on climate policy. And this brings us to another set of facts we need to face: that while global warming is real, it is not quite the imminent catastrophe so many climate activists would have us believe.

There may be some truth to the notion that in order to get people to focus on a problem, you need to scare the pants off them. But while worst-case scenarios may be a great way to get the public’s attention, they are a terrible basis for making public policy. If you believe that the southwest U.S. is about to become another dustbowl (as Paul Krugman has insisted) or that Greenland and Antarctica are on the verge of becoming huge piles of slush (as Al Gore would have us believe), of course you’re going to argue that we should do everything we can to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible—even if that means amazingly costly and ineffective government policies. (more…)

In a victory for American trade interests, the World Trade Organization rebuked the European Union for issuing government subsidies to European companies, giving them an advantage in international contract bidding. In what is being called a “stinging rebuke,” the WTO charged that the EU’s assistance constituted an illegal export subsidy. They requested that EU figure out a way to help European companies without adversely affecting American companies or discontinue the subsidies altogether.

The ruling has particular significance for American company Boeing, which has been locked in a bidding war for large civil aircraft with a European company receiving these very subsidies, EADS. Boeing, which filed the case in the WTO, contended that EADS was being given an unfair advantage when bidding for American contracts since they were able to undercut American companies; the EU would provide a “loan” to EADS allowing them to bid less, with the agreement that EADS would repay the loan as planes were sold. The result? European companies were able to underbid American companies, take jobs from American workers and send them to Europe. Today, the WTO agreed that this was an unfair practice.

The Wall Street Journal puts it bluntly:

This has been obvious for years to most fair observers, but with the WTO ruling Germany, France, Spain and the U.K. now have a strong legal and political reason to end the practice of lending money to Airbus on easy terms to fund the development of new aircraft. The practice dates to Airbus’s beginnings as an multi-government-owned consortium, but the aircraft maker is no longer a fledgling and now splits the market for large civil aircraft nearly equally with Boeing. With soaring deficits and a debt crisis that is still creating turbulence on the Continent, politicians have better uses for taxpayer money than subsidizing a successful company.

In each of the five individual cases involving Airbus models, the WTO found that these subsidies led to a loss of sales and exports for Boeing. U.S. Trade Representative lawyers stated that the key finding in this case was that without these subsidies, Airbus would not have been able to develop or produced when they were or with their current slate of features. The A-330, the base airplane EADS intends to use for the tanker is, unsurprisingly, one of the aircraft models that the EU subsizided. Boeing has already contended time and again that their plane is superior but had feared that EADS’s unfair competitive advantage would stall their bid, which could mean uncertainty for Boeing’s American workforce.

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U.S and world stock markets are slumping badly as intensified systemic risks from the Greek and European debt-default contagion continue to spread. Disciplinarian markets of stocks, bonds, gold, and currencies are signaling the inadequacy of European Union rescue plans and the global fear that economic recovery will be blunted.

Europe is the main source of the current upheaval. Specifically, the biggest issue right now is short-term funding. Key funding risk indicators, such as LIBOR and various short-term swap spreads, are showing credit and liquidity stress in Europe. Interbank funding looks increasingly sloppy and worrisome. These are dangerous market signals.

The repo market for bank-to-bank loans was the source of the credit freeze back in the fall of 2008. And while today’s funding risks are not even remotely as bad as they were back then, liquidity stresses seem to worsen with the passing of each day. If these funding problems keep worsening, along with stock markets that keep declining, all hell will break loose. Another meltdown is possible.

So I have a thought.

In the autumn of 2008, when financing markets completely froze up during the very worst of the credit meltdown, the FDIC guaranteed all bank debt, from 30 days out to 30 years. In addition, the Fed and Treasury essentially guaranteed overnight lending in the repo market and the commercial-paper market for bank debt. It worked.

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Just as a frog will jump out of a hot frying pan, but will sit in water that slowly goes from cold to hot until he cooks to death; California’s politicians have sat quietly as the accumulation of chronic budget deficits bubbling up from an uncomfortably warm problem to a scalding hot crisis.  Even the release of Governor Schwarzenegger’s $19.1 billion budget deficit projection for the coming July fiscal year appears to have failed to bludgeon the state’s political establishment into action to avoid a looming credit rating downgrade to sub-prime that would set off a Greek style default on steroids.

The media, after months of missing the potential consequences of a Greek default, have now become focused on the similarities between California and Greece.  Both do owe gobs of money, have huge budget deficits, massive unfunded pension liabilities and can’t print their own money; but California’s situation is worse!  The California economy is 5 times larger than the Greek economy.  Los Angeles alone is twice the size of the $356 billion Greek economy.  Greece is less than 2.5% of the European Union (EU) economy, but California is over 13% of the US economy.  From 2000 to 2008, the Greek economy grew at 3.1% annually, the second fastest growth in Europe, whereas California’s growth of 2.3% during the same period was only slightly better than the rest of the US.  Greek unemployment just hit a crisis 12.1%, unemployment in California is 13% and has been above Greece’s since the start of the year.

What started out a month ago with Greece having trouble making a $10 billion debt payment has mushroomed into a worldwide liquidity crisis.  Germany and France have been forced to lead a $1 trillion bailout.  Even the U.S. was required to kick in $50 billion to the support International Monetary Fund’s contribution.  For a few days this block-buster financial backstop calmed the bond markets and allowed short-term interest rates across Europe to decline, but by the end of the week Greek interest rates were headed back up.

Chief Executive Josef Ackermann of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution, said last week he was “doubtful whether Greece will really be in a position to achieve” the repayment of the emergency loans.  However, he went on to stress that Athens had to be propped up, because if it fell, it would lead “with great certainty to a spillover to other countries,” sparking “a type of meltdown,” he added.  Ackermann’s comments are all the more surprising because they follow recent reports that Deutsche Bank itself is preparing to provide €500 million ($625 million) in loans to Greece on the same conditions as those set by the German government.

Last September the state of California sold $8.8 billion of prime rated short term debt to investors at an interest cost of 3%, similar to rates Greece was paying before the threat of default sent the rate to 24%.  The Governor Schwarzenegger’s new budget projections indicate that California will need to borrow $12-15 billion just to get through the fall.  Given that state’s economy is five times larger than Greece, if California is downgraded to sub-prime this fall and the crisis spreads to  municipalities and other states, it might take up to a $5 trillion bailout to stabilize the situation.

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After three weeks, most Americans still do not understand all of the behind-closed-door deals that had to be cut on the $965 Billion dollar bailout of Greece.  It’s yet another complicated deal, with little transparency to let non-governmental folks understand the specifics.

But, I do understand the power of a dream that can inspire a new generation.  And I know that Obama just killed that dream.

Obama’s decision to expand bailouts to include Greece coincided with a Senate hearing on another decision Obama  made to cut funding for a government space travel program, killing the dream of a permanent station on the Moon or a landing on Mars.

As an unintended, but cruel, joke,  Obama’s decision to retreat from space exploration has been pushed as an example of  the President’s fiscal discipline.  No doubt, Obama was hoping that such cuts would mask the fact that  he has endorsed the greatest deficits spending in the history of the United States.

But, as with many of Obama’s posturings, fiscal discipline was a canard.  Obama’s decision to cut NASA’s space travel wasn’t fiscally disciplined, it was just ill-informed.

Let’s take another look  at these two decisions.

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The European Union may have temporarily bandaged the sovereign-debt crisis in Greece. But we need to face the fact that Greece, Europe, and the United States all face the same problem. To varying degrees, we have build unsustainable welfare states that have called into question, once again, the sustainability of democratic government. Greece is the canary in the coal mine, not just in financial terms, but even more in political and philosophical terms.

Because of the spectacular success of American democracy over the last two centuries, we are apt to forget how discredited democracy was in 1776. The lesson of history was that, in democracies, demagogues would led the passionate and fickle masses would vote themselves the property of the rich minority, and tyranny would result.

The lessons–how Greek city-states destroyed themselves and were conquered by larger despotic empires, how Rome morphed from a republic into such a despotic empire–were well known to the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. James Madison observed that the ancient “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Even more familiar was England’s experiment in “commonwealth” democracy during their seventeenth-century Civil War. “Democracy” was a bad word at the time of the American Revolution.

The state governments under the Articles of Confederation repeated many of these ancient maladies. In particular, they engaged in the kind of inflationary debtor-relief polices that demagogues always proffer in times of economic distress. The American Constitution was in large part an effort to save democratic government from the tendency of majorities to vote themselves the property of minorities. Thus James Madison in the tenth Federalist argued that the new Constitution would help prevent a “rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project,” from going nationwide.

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What leading vacation destination has a warm, temperate climate, villas overlooking the sea, terrific food and drink, and an enormous debt crisis? Greece has been in the news recently because its massive debt is sparking a crisis in the European Union. But I was actually referring to California.

While Greece dominates the headlines, California’s state debt is actually rated as more risky than Greek debt by at least two rating agencies. Although the rating agencies differ in their assessments of Greece and California, Moody’s rating agency gives California a Baa1 while it gives Greece a higher rating—A2. Don’t be mistaken: both ratings are severe warnings from the financial markets to California and Greece that they must get their fiscal house in order. The recent downgrades in California’s debt ratings mean that the state will face much higher costs of borrowing both now and in the future. Similarly, even though both have the euro as their currency, Greece’s borrowing costs are twice that of Germany because of the difference in the two nations’ perceived creditworthiness. And both Greece and California face similar problems attracting lenders to purchase their debt.

In the bond markets, Greece is known as one of the “PIIGS” – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain – countries that joined the euro in 1999 and have faced problems in adjusting and adhering to the strict economic discipline theoretically required of members. These problems may result from the economic union of weaker nations like the PIIGS with fiscally stronger nations like France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Right now, Greece is creating a problem for the European Union (EU). Greece’s national debt compared with the size of its economy, GDP, far exceeds the 60% ratio that is the limit for EU member states to adopt the euro as their currency. It is surprising that our fiscal status has declined so much in recent years that even if the United States wanted to adopt the euro, our federal debt to GDP ratio does not even come close to meeting the minimum criteria.

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Of course there were no news accounts of this, so we missed it. On March 31st, Rep. Paul Ryan delivered a keynote address to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, one of the better state-based free market think tanks. It is a magisterial distillation of where we are…and where we need to go. Full text of the address below:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill – or I should say, one political party passed it – over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much…or whether you don’t qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.

This presumptuous reform has put this nation … once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person … on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.

Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots…but the “causes” of both are the same:

• Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?
• Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity … or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?
• Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism … or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

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As the Greek Debt Crisis continues, President Obama needs to stand firm: American tax dollars should not be used to bail out Greece – or any country – that engages in reckless government spending and deficits.  And yet, a bailout paid for by U.S. taxpayers remains a real possibility.

This week, leaders of the European Union will be meeting to consider aid for Greece. But instead of using their own money to bail out Greece, it’s more likely the EU will adopt Germany’s proposal to use money from the International Monetary Fund. That way U.S. taxpayers – not just the European Union – will be on the hook for an international bailout.

U.S. tax dollars already pay for 17% of the IMF’s liquidity. And any bailout by the IMF would have to be approved by the U.S. government. According to the IMF’s rules, major decisions require an 85% supermajority. And the U.S. is the only country with the power to block a supermajority on its own.

Therefore, President Obama has the power to either approve or reject a bailout of Greece. So far, he has been quiet. But instead of waiting while storms gather, the President should be vocal that U.S. taxpayers will not bail out Greece. The European Union may be tempted to pass the buck to the U.S. by requesting IMF “help.” If the Presidents tells them ahead of time that such “help” will not be forthcoming, he will make it more likely that the E.U. will meet its responsibilities.

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