With the news of Germany standing fast against “Eurobonds,” and the Eurozone crisis worsening as a result of the impasse, I posted this silly tweet last night:
Fear! Fire! Eurobonds! Awake! #PANIC
Political Math said he found this very funny, to which I replied with a faux-quote from Angela Merkel: “Let the little people blow.” This caused a brainstorm, as I suddenly realized there’s waaaay more material there. Lord of the Rings quotes are perfect for this situation! (And every situation, really. But particularly this one.) I immediately couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before. Anyway, the flood gates opened:
“Understand, François, I would use these eurobonds out of a desire to do good. But through me, they would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.”
“One Bond to rule them all; One Bond to find them; One Bond to bring them all; and in the darkness bind them.”
“Give Greece the weapon of the bankers. Let us use it against them!”
“Greece cannot wield the Eurobond! None of us can.”
Merkel to Hollande: “I will not lead the Eurobond within a hundred leagues of your city.”
“I am the Servant of the Anti-Inflationary Fire, Wielder of the Flame of Weimar. Dark Eurobonds will not avail you, Flame of Udûn!”
European Council: “If you ask it of me, I will give you the right to issue the One Bond.”
Merkel: “You offer it to me freely? I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this. In the place of a Council you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! … I have passed the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Merkel.”
“Greece is demanding Eurobonds from the south, Spain from the west. And France, you say, has betrayed us. Our list of allies grows thin.”
I eventually broadened the joke to quotes more generally about the Euro situation, not necessarily Eurobond-related:
“I know what you saw, for it is also in my mind. It is what will come to pass if you should fail. The Eurozone is breaking. It has already begun.”
“We Germans cannot hold back this storm. We must weather such things as we have always done.”
“But you’re part of this world! Aren’t you?! You must help! Please!”
“The Euro cannot be destroyed by any craft that we here possess. It was made in the fires of Frankfurt. Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into the heart of the European Central Bank, and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came!”
And lastly, my personal favorite:
[Greece throws a few hundred billion euro down a hole.]
Germany: “Fool of a Greek! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!”
UPDATE: Brandon Minich chimes in with more good ones:
(Conversation in the 1990s)
“The European currencies are strong, my Lord. Their roots go deep.”
“Rip them all down!”
Hollande: “What is this new devilry?”
Merkel: “A Bank Run. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you. Run!”
Merkel: “My currency is spent. My chancellorship has ended. Greece has deserted us. ABANDON YOUR DEPOSITS! FLEE, FLEE FOR YOUR CURRENCIES!”
“The Euro is burning…already burning.”
“It’s not dead! It’s not dead!”
“Farewell, Hollande. Go now and die in what way seems best to you.”
Heh! #nerds
UPDATE: More:
“A great bank run, you say?”
“All Barcelona is emptied.”
“How many?”
“Ten thousand strong at least.”
“Ten thousand?!”
“It is a bank run bred for a single purpose: to destroy the Eurozone. The banks will be insolvent by nightfall.”
“I will not risk open #PANIC.”
“Open #PANIC is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”
“A red sun rises. Red ink has been spilled this night.”
Panagiotis Pikrammenos: “Go back to the abyss! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your fellow lefties!”
Alexis Tsipras: “Do you not know death when you see it? This is my hour!”
“Arise, Voters of Syriza! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A sword day… a red day… ere the sun rises! DEATH!! DEATH!!!”
France to Netherlands re: opposition to eurobonds: “How long has it been since Germany bought you? What was the promised price?”
“Angela… they cannot win this fight. They are all going to die!”
“Then I shall die as one of them!”
“Is there any hope, Angela, for Spain and Italy?”
“There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope.”
“I’m… naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil… between me… and the € of fire! I can see it… with my waking eyes!”
“Sons of Germany, of France, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the Euro fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of currency. But it is not this day! An hour of woes and shattered banks, when the unity of Europe comes crashing down! BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY! This day we bail out Greece! Again!”
Merkel: “Forgive me. I mistook you for Sarkozy.”
Hollande: “I am Sarkozy. Or rather, Sarkozy as he should have been.”
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UPDATE: More…
“You did not seriously think that a small Mediterranean economy could contend with the will of the Bond Markets? There are none who can.”
“Smoke rises from the Acropolis of Doom. The hour grows late, and Hollande the Red rides to Berlin, seeking my counsel. For that is why you have come, is it not? My old friend.”
UPDATE: Uh-oh. We have crossover:
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of bondholders suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
UPDATE: Back to LOTR, with still more jokes, some from comments…
“One does not simply walk out of the Eurozone. Its iron gates are guarded by more than central bankers. There are technocrats there who do not sleep. And the great € is ever watchful. Not with ten thousand drachma could you do this. It is folly.”
“The Greeks delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of the Bundesbank.”
“The Euro stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while Germany is true.”
“I think you should leave the Euro behind, Greece. Is that so hard?”
“Well, no. … And yes. Now it comes to it, I don’t feel like parting with it. It’s mine, I found it. It came to me!”
“There’s no need to get angry.”
“Well, if I’m angry, it’s your fault! It’s mine… my own… my precious…”
“Precious? It’s been called that before, but not by you.”
“What business is it of yours what I do with my own currency?”
“I think you’ve had the Euro quite long enough.”
“We swears we will enact austerity measures! We swears to serve the master of the Euro. We will swear on… on… the Euro!”
Or, if we make the drachma, instead of the Euro, the “precious”…
“We wants the drachma back. We needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little Eurocrats. Wicked, tricksy, false!”
UPDATE: More!
“Strangers from distant lands, friends of old, you have been summoned to answer the threat of debt. Europe stands upon the brink of destruction. You will unite or you will fall. Each nation is bound to this fate, this one doom. Bring forth the Euro.”
“I owe nothing.”
“Indeed. I can avoid paying my debts for a while if I wish, but to make them disappear entirely, that is a rare gift.”
“They were nations once. Great nations. Then Germany the deceiver gave them Euros of power. Blinded by their greed, they took them without question — one by one, falling into darkness. They are the Euro-gûl. Nation-wraiths, neither living nor dead.”
“I’ve put this off far too long … I regret to announce that this is the end! I am going now. Goodbye!” [slips drachma on finger, vanishes]
“They will find the Euro, and kill the one who carries it.”
Heh.
“You did not seriously think that a small Mediterranean economy could contend with the will of the Bond Markets? There are none who can. Against the power of the 1 Percent, there can be no victory.”
“Who now has the strength to stand against the armies of the Marxists and the Central Bank? To stand against the deadweight of Panagiotis Pikrammenos & Nicolas Sarkozy, of Mariano Rajoy Brey and David Cameron, and the union of the many economic s***holes? Together, my lord Communism, we shall rule this Middle Earth.”
Hehe.
What do I think the odds are of the Euro zone surviving? I suspect the odds of Canada and Mexico politically merging with the United States under the dollar to form a more perfect fiscal union ruled from Washington is about as likely as the Euro zone surviving ruled by Berlin.
Not the only crossover begging to be made…
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of bondholders suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
There is another thing about Eurocrats that must be mentioned, an astonishing habit: they burned cash like pipe-weed. “This,” says Meriadoc, “is the one art we can certainly calim to be our own invention.” The Bree Socialists, east of Europe, claim to to have been the first actual smokers of cash, and in this case their claim is likely to be true.
What? No one had “My Precioussssss”?
“What? No one had “My Precioussssss”?”
Biggest surprise is that no one had “One does not simply walk out of the Eurozone.”
Hahahaha! Brilliant!
“One does not simply walk out of the Eurozone. Its iron gates are guarded by more than central bankers. There are technocrats there who do not sleep. And the great € is ever watchful. Not with ten thousand drachma could you do this. It is folly.”
“The Greeks delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of the Bundesbank.”
“I think you should leave the Euro behind, Greece. Is that so hard?”
“Well, no. …and yes. Now it comes to it, I don’t feel like parting with it. It’s mine, I found it. It came to me!”
“There’s no need to get angry.”
“Well, if I’m angry, it’s your fault!”
“…it’s mine… my own… my precious…”
“Precious? It’s been called that before, but not by you.”
“What business is it of yours what I do with my own currency?”
“I think you’ve had the Euro quite long enough.”
The Euro stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the German is true.
Hello! My name is Greece. You killed my Drachma. Prepare to die.
Ask not the MEPs for counsel, for they shall say both nonsense and fallacy.
Merkel: Gentlemen, we do not stop ’til solvency.
Pikrammenos: What about a bailout?
Merkel: You’ve already had it.
Pikrammenos: We’ve had one, yes. What about second bailout?
[Merkel turns and walks off in disgust]
Brey: I don’t think she knows about second bailout, Pik.
Pikrammenos: What about pensions? healthcare? welfare? Solidarity Taxes? Eurobond? She knows about them, doesn’t she?
Brey: I wouldn’t count on it.
LOL! Well done, YJLAW.
For the next Internet meme, anyone care to tackle Greece’s Hitler video? Thanks to Golden Dawn, the ending should write itself.
This whole thread is bloody brilliant!
“We have long ago paid the goblins of solvency,” said Pikrammenos. “We must give a thought to the bond market.”
“Don’t be a fool! That is an enemy far beyond the powers of all the PIIGS put together, if they could be collected again from the four corners of the world. The riots and the bank runs are more than big enough tasks for you!”
The Euro Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what may be preserved. For though much has been saved, much must now pass away; and the power of the Euro is ended. And all the lands that you see, and those that lie round about them, shall have currencies of their own. For the time comes of the Currencies of Nations, and the Euro shall fade and depart…. The burden must lie now upon you and your currencies.