Michael J. Schussele, CPA

Ireland has been celebrated as the European Union poster child for eurozone austerity. Yet, its efforts have received little respect from the bond market, which has become increasingly aware that austerity will not make Ireland again prosperous. In attempting to be the good European Union partner, Ireland created a "bad" bad bank which gave government guarantees to all liabilities of three private banks which had engaged in risky investment policies and poor management. In doing so, the government bailed out incompetent management and bondholders at the expense of the Irish people.

While the campaign to establish a fiduciary standard is commendable in that it could establish fiduciary responsibility for advisors, the fiduciary standard is not the same as professional fiduciary duty. Fiduciary responsibility assumes unavoidable conflicts of interest, while professional fiduciary duty does not tolerate any conflicts of interest at all. It is time to clearly delineate who is who, to have salesmen and advisory salesmen regulated by the SEC and FINRA, and to have true fee-only professional advisors regulated by an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

The China Dream, a new book by senior Chinese army officer Liu Mingfu, argues that China will become the world's number one economic power within the next five years, and that this change will be a harbinger for economic warfare between China and the United States that could escalate into military conflict within the next 10 to 20 years. While the U.S. needs China to buy treasury bonds, there is controversy over whether Japan has displaced China as the largest holder of U.S. debt.

Michael J. Schussele says the ill-conceived economic restrictions imposed by the European Stability and Growth Pact made the Greek debt crisis inevitable, and Germany and other Eurozone members seem unwilling to commit to a solution. The situation in Greece may just be the beginning of a pan-European debt crisis that includes Spain, Italy and Ireland.

Schussele provides an in-depth look at the divergent fiscal problems facing Spain and Greece. "The possibility of default is speculative hoopla and deficit hawk destructiveness. While deficits need to be controlled, targeted public spending grows an economy and the withdrawal of public spending constricts an economy. At the present time, Greece and Spain need targeted spending and financial regulatory reform. Default is not a plausible option given the domino effect."