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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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!).

“Nanny of the Month” is written and produced by Ted Balaker. Opening animation by Meredith Bragg.

To watch past episodes, go here.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

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.

As it became apparent that many European countries had little or no hope of servicing their debt which, in some cases, was running over 100% of the agreed upon debt-to-GDP limits, the banks, which had bellied up to the bar to buy the debt of countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, etc. were asked to write down (or forgive) a substantial portion of what was owed to them.  Just last summer, the banks agreed to a 21% haircut.  Now, they have been forced to make that a 50% haircut. They are not happy.

The banks are also being required to raise well over $100 billion over the next six months to shore up their balance sheets with ”safe assets” equal to 9 percent of their total capital. This will, it is argued, assure investors of the banks’ financial health (good luck). The great concern, of course, is that no one will want to hold or buy the debt of the gaggle of other European countries with debt way over the limits that were set as the basis of the Euro Zone in the first place.  The situation is somewhat analogous to private companies ignoring their loan covenants.  Over half of the 27 European Union countries already exceed the 60% debt-to-equity ratio limitation.  Last year the average debt-to-GDP ratio of the EU countries was running well over 80% and the average of the 17 Euro Zone countries now exceed 85%.

The political leaders of the EU countries are determined to save the Euro, although deep differences exist over how to accomplish what is becoming an increasingly difficult task.  German Chancellor, Angela Merkel has succeeded in prodding her country’s lawmakers into approving a plan to more than double the existing $610 million bailout fund to $1.4 trillion. Given the growing reluctance of the German taxpayer to continue underwriting the lion’s share of these gargantuan bailouts, Merkel rates high marks for political courage (perhaps she wants to prolong the day of reckoning so that Euro doesn’t collapse on her watch).  The Europeans have jumped through hoops to facilitate a soft landing for a Greek default (that is, after all, what a 50% haircut amounts to) out of a well-founded fear that credit availability for the rest of Europe’s overly indebted countries could either disappear or come at very high cost.

The risk of contagion is very real.  If concern over the solvency of the weaker countries such as Greece and Portugal persists, that anxiety can easily, even predictably, spill over into larger economies such as Spain and Italy. At that point the solvency of the entire European banking system, which has huge exposure to these economies, could be called into question.  Banks might suddenly refuse to lend to one another out of fear that their banking counterpart may have solvency problems. Remember Lehman Brothers?

The deal to save the Euro, if not the EU itself, includes several components including the restructuring of Greek debt, the infusion of fresh capital into major banks on the continent and the expansion of the existing bailout fund.  This agreement will, it is hoped, help avoid panic in Italy and other Euro countries.  Some of the troubled countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland have made progress to shore up their fiscal affairs, but Italy remains particularly worrisome because of its huge debt-to-GDP ratio (124%) and its dysfunctional government (sound familiar?).  Thus far, Italy has failed to produce the budget cuts promised by Prime Minister Berlusconi. Given Italy’s huge debt, now over $2.65 trillion, his colleagues in the EU want more than promises or letters of intent promising to do more.

Sadly, this agreement to tamp down the jitters over the sorry state of Greek finances will, at best, convert Greece from an utterly lost cause, to merely a basket case.  Greece was on course to have, by the end of next year, a debt-to-GDP ratio of 272%, not only unsustainable, but also politically unsurviveable.  The agreement reached in Brussels, including the 50% haircut banks will take, will reduce, by the end of 2020, Greek debt to 120% of GDP.  In other words, from deadly to merely terrible.

As a recent of study of economic history by Reinhardt and Rogoff shows, economies cease growing and begin to contract at debt-to-GDP ratios in excess of 90% — and that is exactly the tipping point to which the United States seems unalterably headed. While public debt in the United States has increased by over $500 billion each year since fiscal year 2003, increases during the Obama Administration have been enormous with increases of $1 trillion in FY2008, $1.9 trillion in FY2009, $1.7 trillion in FY 2010 and $1.3 trillion during the 2011 fiscal year that just ended.  As of last week, the gross debt of the United States was $14.9 trillion, of which the public held $10.2 trillion and $4.74 trillion was intragovernmental holdings.

As we write this essay, the US Treasury is auctioning (selling) debt in transactions that settle, ironically, on October 31 (Halloween), which will drive outstanding US public debt to an amount larger than the entire American economy of over $15.0 trillion. “Not a problem,” many on the left say.  ”We’re not like the EU countries that can’t print their own currencies. We own the dollar; we can produce all we need to service our debt. Spend on.”  And that is just what we are doing.  We can continue to collect taxes from only about 50% of tax filers to extract more from our highest earners, and shut our eyes to the long-term consequences of copying the collapsing eurozone by continuing to spend, tax and incur debt that jeopardizes economic growth.  If we do so, we are inviting a fate no different than theirs.

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.

The crisis in Europe is not nearly as complicated as it often seems.  The Europeans made a bet twenty years ago, they bet that if they all joined together in an European Union, created a Euro flag, formed a parliament and issued one currency, that they could become a cohesive economic entity. An entity that would grow, govern, budget, discipline and finance itself in lock step. It was, and is, a losing bet.  Perhaps the first hint of disunity was startlingly apparent when the nations that were to comprise the Euro Zone had so much trouble finding sufficient consensus to ratify the so-called Maastricht Treaty (a sort of constitution for the new European Community). Then some of the major European players such as Great Britain and Switzerland refused (wisely it seems) to give up their own currencies in deference to the new Euro.

When we read of Germany’s, Finland’s and a host of other European nations’ frustrations with Greece and Portugal and some of the other Southern European countries, we can’t help thinking of the refrain from My Fair Lady when a frustrated Rex Harrison laments, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”  Why can’t Greece be more like Germany (or Finland)?  All they have to do, after all, is conduct themselves responsibly.

But alas, there yawns a gap in the fiscal discipline between the Greece’s and the Germany’s of Europe through which one could slide the Alps. For example, one requisite of membership in the EU is that no country’s deficit should exceed 3% of GDP and no member’s debt should exceed 60% of GDP. Greece’s deficit will be approximately three times the allowable limit and its debt is projected to reach 172% of GDP next year. Other Euro Zone countries have varying degrees of the same problem. Italy’s debt is over 120% of its GDP, Belgium is at nearly 110% of GDP, Portugal is approaching 90% of GDP, as is France. We could go on, but you get the picture, even if Washington doesn’t.

Given that Greece has spent to the hilt and borrowed far more than it can hope to repay, why not just let them default and exit the Euro Zone?  The healthy and fiscally responsible members of the EU, and their banks, are the holders of most of that Greek debt. Other Euro Zone countries, such as Ireland, also have balance sheets that are on life support.  These countries are facing steep increases in their cost of borrowing at the very time their economies are contracting. This becomes a vicious cycle as money that is desperately needed to fund growth is being consumed by escalating costs of debt service. The risk of contagion if (when) Greece fails is enormous.

Some Euro nations have kicked in considerable taxpayer money to bailout the profligates and the European Central Bank has been a buyer of troubled sovereign debt to artificially tamp down the borrowing costs of the troubled nations. European banks, which are large holders of troubled European sovereign debt, are experiencing a growing and well-founded fear of a run on deposits.

France, which arguably has been one of the healthier economies in Europe, has seen its most venerable banks downgraded because of their enormous exposure to Greek debt.  Just this past week, a major French and Belgian financial institution was rumored to be on the verge of breaking up over its exposure to Greek debt.  Dexia had, in 2008, already received bailouts of over 6 billion Euros from Belgium, France, and Luxembourg as well as a short-term loan of $26.5 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s discount window.

The courts and parliaments of the healthier countries have begun to weigh in, and Germany’s highest court has now required the parliament’s Budget Committee to approve any further bailout funding of other sovereigns. This is politically dicey given the anger brewing among German voters. To make matters worse, no sooner had Germany, approved a 440 billion Euro fund for further bailouts, then the EU acknowledged that Europe’s ailing nations will need at least 800 billion Euros.

It’s a mess. Slovakia is, as of this writing, refusing to go along with the bailout, which would torpedo the entire Greek rescue effort.  The EU governing model, with its amalgam of independent large and small states (anyone of which can block a major initiative such as funding the bailout), is akin to the thirteen original American colonies under the Articles of Confederation – unwieldy and unworkable given the complexities the EU faces.  Anyone who thinks the Euro, which is the currency of 17 of the EU countries, isn’t in jeopardy is terribly naïve.

Naïveté, however, doesn’t account for the course being set by the Obama administration in Washington (political crassness would be more like it). Fed Chairman Bernanke tells the country what it has known for two years, “the economy is close to faltering.” The President’s response is to call for a millionaire’s tax (actually what he was calling for was his old stand-by tax on any family earning over $250,000 a year) in order to fund more of what has failed to nudge the economy for the last two years, notwithstanding the $1 trillion+ that has already been poured down that drain to nowhere.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has scrapped the President’s proposal and actually used the draconian nuclear option to keep it from being offered by the Republicans who knew it would fail for lack of Democratic votes. The Democrats will rue the day they pushed through this rule-corrupting maneuver should the majority shift in 2012 or whenever Democrats find themselves in the minority.  Reid plans to replace Obama’s bill with one that would apply an additional 5.6% tax on any taxpayer with income over $1.0 million. It has little to do with stimulating the economy.  In fact, it is the antithesis of economic stimulation. It does, however, have everything to do with 2012 campaign television ads, banners, bumper stickers and scripts for liberal writers and talking heads.  Few voters object to increased taxes on millionaires, so the President’s strategy is to make taxing millionaires the issue and to distract the electorate from focusing on the nation’s diminishing economic growth and the President’s failed economic policies.

What the President is proposing is the opposite of what his own Debt and Deficit Commission proposed. They understood that there is, and has been, a desperate need to jolt the economy. They understood that the certainty of more money in the pockets of all the people would be the best possible tonic for an ailing economy.  But the President, like many on the left, are far more interested in providing for the coffers of government than for the pockets of the people.

When President Obama first launched his tax-to-prosperity program a couple of weeks ago he proclaimed, “It’s not class warfare, it’s simple math.” Then, thanks to a rapid fact check by the Associated Press, it was clear that simple math proved exactly the opposite. So this week he changed what Washington pundits like to call “the narrative.” Now he proclaims, “It’s not class warfare, it’s simple choices.” While we do believe the President’s focus is class warfare and only class warfare, we do agree that what the country faces are simple choices.

What the country desperately needs is renewed economic growth. The choices are not that complicated.  We can lower tax rates for our nation’s corporations and wage earners (as the President’s own Debit and Deficit Commission recommended) and let the people truly stimulate the economy, or the government can raise taxes on some so that it can try to stimulate the economy. Well, we’ve had three consecutive years of $1.0 trillion+ deficits, and we have little, if anything, to show for it.  We favor letting the people stimulate the economy since they have the capacity to do it quite efficiently.  The government doesn’t.

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.

Muslims and Leftist fascists previously burned down a hotel in Strasbourg during a NATO summit, and burned a large number of cars in a car park during riots in the same city.

We are not intimidated, and will demonstrate in the future, just as we did in Harrow, Copenhagen and Aalborg. This planned Strasbourg demonstration and conference will be rescheduled.

This incident shows yet again that freedom and democracy are being denied in Europe. But we are not giving in. On the contrary: when our governing authorities are refusing to protect freedom, we have to do it ourselves. That’s the impetus for our Freedom From Jihad Flotilla.

The SIOA/SIOE Freedom From Jihad aid flotilla is intended to be a direct response to the capitulation of French, European, and American authorities to Leftist and Islamic supremacist forces of oppression and injustice. It is set to launch after our national Rally for Freedom at Ground Zero on the tenth anniversary of the Islamic jihad attacks that murdered three thousand Americans.

The Audacity of the Infidel will launch on September 11 from the New York harbor closest to the World Trade Center site. On board will be freedom fighters from all over the world, united in defense of human rights and human dignity against Islamic supremacist oppression.

The mission is the first attempt by free citizens anywhere in the world to come to the aid of non-Muslims persecuted for their faith in Muslim countries. It is a direct response to the heavily-armed Leftist/jihadist flotilla that attempted to violate Israel’s legal maritime blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza on May 31, 2010. In that incident, Turkish jihadists onboard one ship attacked Israeli soldiers without provocation; nine jihadists were killed in the battle. The Freedom From Jihad Flotilla is also a response to the Audacity of Hope flotilla that is soon to set sail to continue the jihad against Israel, with plans to use chemical weapons against Israeli forces.

The Freedom From Jihad Flotilla will offer aid to persecuted Christians, Hindus, and other non-Muslims, and call upon the international community to recognize Muslim persecution of non-Muslims as a violation of international law, to be punished with strict economic sanctions and other appropriate action.

The first stop will be Greece, in recognition of the Greek victims of jihad in Anatolia for well over a thousand years. The Freedom From Jihad Flotilla will then sail along the Turkish coast, where speakers will pay homage to the millions of victims of the Armenian and Greek genocides in Turkey.

The next stop will be Egypt. All Coptic Christians seeking to escape Islamic oppression will be saved. Subsequent stops will include Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other areas where Christians are facing persecution from Muslims. The freedom flotilla will also include stops in Bangladesh, for Hindus facing Muslim persecution, and Thailand, for Buddhists facing the same persecution.

The SIOA Freedom From Jihad Flotilla will call upon the international community to act in defense of these basic human rights:

• The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of “blasphemy” and “slander,” which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
• The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;
• The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia’s institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

The Flotilla will call upon all free people of all races and creeds to stand with us to defend our freedoms against the radically intolerant ideology codified in Islamic law.

We are determined to defend human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the West – even if our governing authorities are too afraid to do the job themselves.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad (both Regnery).

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.

With a nod to the Tea Party, Hannan said, “The policies being pursued by this Administration all trend in that direction—European healthcare, European social security, European defense, European green taxes—but these things are reversible. … And from what I can tell looking at this country, you are doing something about it.”

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:

1.The dogs aren’t a threat to people who aren’t climbing through holes in fences or otherwise trying to enter Israel illegally. 2. The Palestinian whose hand was “savaged” by a guard dog won’t soon be crossing borders illegally again.

And now that we’ve examined what Denmark, Italy, France, and Israel either plan to do or, in the case of Israel, are already doing, let’s ask the all important question: “What is President Obama prepared to do to secure our borders?”

Do we see him diligently adding more and more “spot checks” by more and more border guards as Denmark plans to do? No. Instead, we have the recent announcement that the members of the National Guard who currently patrol the American/Mexican border will quit doing so by June 30^th. (That’s right: they’re not only leaving the border but a public announcement about their departure has been issued.)

So it should come as no surprise that far from pursuing more border control, in the spirit of Italy and France, Obama is pitching a new amnesty plan to the House and Senate just in time for the 2012 elections. No wonder Israel is held up as an example: a nation whose policies are light years ahead of us when it comes to preserving a border in such a way as to be certain it remains what it ought to be in the first place: a divider between “us” and “them, between “ours” and “theirs.”

Note to Obama: a nation without borders isn’t a nation at all – it’s just a bigger sidewalk.