THE PARTY CONTINUES

What's a high unemployment figure?

That all depends on where you reside. In places like Spain and France double digit figures are worrisome.

In another part of the EU, up north, 7.7% is getting up there, a figure the Netherlands reportedly breached in February where, according to a recent WSJ piece, unemployment has been steadily rising for the last two years.

The Netherlands it seems late last year reclined into another recession for the third time in four years. Recessions are the worst nightmare for austerity pushers. But they're best buddies of the kick-the-can crowd. 

The EU's budget guidelines call for keeping deficits within 3% of GDP for 2013, a figure Dutch officials recently admitted they will miss, forecasting a figure closer to 3.3%. Instead officials rolled out a plan with $4.5 billion in new cuts for 2014 when the deficit is expected to grow to 3.4% of GDP.

In the meantime the government announced, it's adopting a wait-and-see mode to see if the cuts will be necessary. The government hopes improving exports will make the cuts unnecessary. 

Along the way they're planning to cut the duration of unemployment benefits by one month every quarter in 2016 and leaving the amount received unchanged. Initially they had planned to cut the duration from three to two years and lower the amount people receive in the second year.

Consumer sentiment continues to decline and austerity pushers appear to be weakening in face of rising public pressure. To quote Prime Minister Mark Rutte: 'We are taking a breather."  

Given that since the crisis hit this has pretty much been a north versus south dilemma from the beginning, look for a lot more breathers in the future. No bureaucrat wants to sing those famous, much needed words of an old Willie Nelson tune:

"Turn out the lights. The party's over. They say all good things must end."