We Know Why Belgium Needs to Sell a Lot of Chocolate: Broke in the Eurozone

Belgium is a country that is at the heart of the Eurozone. The European Union has headquarters in Brussels, and even NATO is located there. But Belgium has financial problems and an ethnic division. So I am half amused and half sad that a commercial comes on TV saying that we need to eat more Godiva chocolate rather than use it for special occasions, as is the habit in the United States.I believe that the commercial, while being a legitimate marketing tool, is also revealing of the financial trouble that is coming out of news reports in the European country. Belgium is nearly broke!

Belgium is divided into three regions.The Brussels Region, Wallonia, and Flanders, which are often at odds with one another. Brussels is capital of the French Community and the Flemish Community. A smaller Brussels city within is the capital of Belgium is the actual capital of Belgium.

The two issues that are hurting the small country these days are:

1. Flanders wants to separate and go her own way. The Flemish are conservative and the French and Wollonians are socialist. At this point, the desire to separate is more talk than action, but it is unsettling to the nation.

2. Belgium has quietly become a silent partner of the PIIGS, ie countries that owe a great deal of money and are heavily in need of European Union bailouts, or as I would prefer, of default in order to straighten up their balance sheets. The PIIGS are Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. These countries were offered easy credit upon entering the European Union and they used the credit to buy products from France and Germany. France and Germany factories made a lot of money, but their banks are among the most leveraged in the world. Belgium likely needs a bailout or really should default if the European Union insists on giving these countries loans with interest rates that are outrageous.

Germany can't seem to decide whether to bail these countries out or pull out of the European Union. But Germany cannot have her cake and eat it as well. I sympathize with taxpayers in all these nations because they are bailing out rich people and banksters just like the US government has done with JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Banks in Germany are leveraged as high as over 100 to 1, while banks in the US had excessive leverage at no more than around 30 to 1. So a bailout of Belgium and the PIIGS would really be a bailout of these greedy banks. For more information just scroll past the nice chocolate videos below to the other informative links and videos regarding the sovereignty of nation states in the new financial order.

Update: Dexia bank is in need of a bailout. With Belgium's debt to GDP at 96 percent, this bailout will result in a likely downgrade of Belgium's credit rating.

It apparently is true, that women have a difference experience when eating chocolate than men do. In fact, women apparently have an age old craving of chocolate. And more than that parts of the brain are affected differently in women than in men. If you have been around a woman who is eating chocolate, often the experience difference from that of men is clearly evident. And it just isn't make believe, but is founded in scientific evidence!

The reason that men give chocolate to women on valentines day is so that they can arouse an passionate interest that is firmly founded in scientific truth. So don't be afraid to act on those age old secrets boys. Since Godiva Chocolate is one of the best, you know the rest!