Happy July 4th from Europe

Keith McCullough tweeted out that we essentially pay for bailouts with inflation at the gas pump.  Here’s what the ECB/ESM’s E-TARP program gave us as a gift just before Independence Day (via Bloomberg):

Oil rose the most in more than three years on optimism that Europe’s debt crisis may be contained after leaders agreed to ease repayment rules for emergency loans to Spanish banks and relax conditions on help for Italy.

Futures gained 9.4 percent, trimming the biggest quarterly decline since the final three months of 2008, as leaders of the 17 euro countries dropped requirements that taxpayers get preferred creditor status on aid to Spain’s banks. Prices also advanced because a European Union ban on the purchase, transport, financing and insurance of Iran’s oil starts in July.

Which, don’t get me wrong, is preferable to global bank contagion and meltdown…

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