European Rescue Collapses, American Misery Loving European Company

It seems like just yesterday, or last week, when the German finance minister was saying bold things about the fall of the United States as a financial superpower, as though the U.S. was an island alone, sinking into the abyss.

But apparently that was a bit of idle verbal finger pointing:

The scale of the financial storm was brought home when, during the summit, the German bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) announced that a planned 35-billion-euro (48-billion-dollar) buy-out had collapsed.

A consortium of banks was to have led the biggest rescue in German history and its failure could wreak havoc when financial markets reopen on Monday.

Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has warned that the financial crisis could have political repercussions, noting how Adolf Hitler rose to power after the 1929 Wall Street crash.

"The consequences of that depression was Adolf Hitler and, indirectly, World War II and Auschwitz," the minister was quoted as saying in Der Spiegel's latest edition to appear Monday.

(AFP)

Goof up financially in America, and you get perhaps, an Obama. Make the same mistake in Germany and well, Hitler reborn.

Lesson from this? Don't point fingers when you can't afford to have them bitten off.