The Guarantee ‘heard round the world’.

Well, folks, it’s taken a little time and it is still unfolding a bit slower than 1914 but the Leni/Cowen blanket guarantee is turning out to be the equivalent of the shot fired in Sarajevo in 1914.

The guarantee has triggered a wave of escalating reaction in all the captials of Europe and now stands on the brink of collapsing the Euro. If the Euro goes the Germans will, after losing more than a decade worth of growth to their Reunification project and after 40 years of funding French farmers, most likely up sticks and say ‘Goodnight, Vienna’.

The complex cross relationships between North and South, between France and Germany, the bugbear of British scepticism and the fragility of the Russian buffer states now and in 1914 are frighteningly similar. One thread could unravel the whole thing. Wouldn’t it be astounding if the Irish 1200 years after spreading the seeds of the end of the Dark Ages across Europe were to be the ones who ended the greatest democratic experiment in the history of the world. And all for the sake of a few lousy developers.

I don’t think we will have a war but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.

The EU and the IMF are not here to sort our finances and help revivify the Celtic Tiger. They are here to ensure that the gangrene of Irish debt does not spread onto the Continent.

Personally, I do not believe that the application of more medicine will work and there is a real danger of the patient dying. I have been saying since the outset of this infection that surgery in the form of ‘haircuts’ is the only sure treatment.

The good thing is that an economy that suffers a small amputation can always regrow. But re-growth after a major amputation is not assured.