It's Well Past Time for Plan Z
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It still looks like a toss up to me whether this will end in depression or hyper inflation. One thing I know, the people in power will do everything they can to remain in power and confiscate all the money that they can to do so.
To me, that means hyper inflation since depression allows people who withdrew their money from the system before it was too late to become the new rich and thus be in power.There is no question that some parts of Europe are very likely to experience HI in the near future. Greece, for example, when it is forced back on the Drachma. It’s less likely that the entire euro currency will have that fate if parts of the core separate out and choose to retain. That will depend much more on how far Germany is willing to go to keep the current structure intact. The fact that they seem unwilling to compromise on any austerity may signify that they have already given up on keeping Greece in (not to mention the Greek people striking and protesting are well into the process of giving up on staying in).
“To me, that means hyper inflation since depression allows people who withdrew their money from the system before it was too late to become the new rich and thus be in power.”
Not sure I get this statement as it seems to me that in a deflationary environment (depression) all asset classes go down, nothing is spared, so there is no way to “withdraw” from the system. However, in a hyper-inflationary environment, the purchasing power of one or more fiat currencies is affected so then it is possible to shift your assets into another “safe” class and retain your purchasing power, or in fact dramatically increase it relative to those who did not “get out in time”.
Before the banks crashed in the US during the 30s anyone who withdrew their money from the banks and “hid it under the mattress” was very rich after the crash. Now it seems governments are about to confiscate all cash in the banks or hidden in mattresses by means of hyper-inflation. The US via QE1,2,3…… is doing that in order to support deficit spending. Europe is making plans to do the same to support the illusion of government bond security. I might add they are not doing a very good job of it.
In the early 1900s what was yours was yours now through taxes and inflation what’s yours will become ours as we need it to support a failing system.Golem writes -for a change- about the Propaganda machine cranking up. Try here (https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/02/propaganda-wars-their-version-markets-dont-fail/). Not exactly about the topic but close enough…
Europe is now deliberately trying to push Greece out
There is only one way of interpreting the set of fresh demands tabled by eurozone finance ministers last night in return for agreeing a new €130bn bailout for Greece – that they are now quite deliberately trying to push Greece out of the euro. All pretence at European solidarity has been abandoned, to be replaced by the vengeance of Shylock.
To push Greece out is of course the right approach for all. There is now no chance whatsoever of Greece making it in the eurozone. Economically and politically, the country is in meltdown.
Nobody in their right mind would invest in Greece right now, knowing that at any moment Greece might leave the euro and that overnight, they will therefore lose half to two thirds of their money.
lautturi wrote: Not exactly about the topic but close enough…
Comments don’t have to be about “the topic”!
PS – We will probably end up closing commentary threads altogether, and just running general discussion threads with the features, like before. Or something like that.
Greek police union wants to arrest EU/IMF officials
(Reuters) – Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country’s European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.
In a letter obtained by Reuters Friday, the Federation of Greek Police accused the officials of “…blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty” and said one target of its warrants would be the IMF’s top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.
The threat is largely symbolic since legal experts say a judge must first authorize such warrants, but it shows the depth of anger against foreign lenders who have demanded drastic wage and pension cuts in exchange for funds to keep Greece afloat.
“Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy,” said the union, which represents more than two-thirds of Greek policemen.
Ash,
Regarding your comment on the police. As I’m sure you know, when the Police / Military refuse to fight / control their fellow citizens, the jig is up for whoever is giving the orders. So it is an important announcement.
It may be symbolic now, but if it becomes a real threat, then the Union will only have a few options, take a loss on their “investment” and cut Greece loose, intervene militarily from outside, or negotiate some other agreement which will be acceptable to the Greek people but will certainly be unacceptable to the banks. But I’m sure I’m missing something here.
Punxsutawney post=248 wrote: As I’m sure you know, when the Police / Military refuse to fight / control their fellow citizens, the jig is up for whoever is giving the orders. So it is an important announcement.
Yes, a very important announcement. But it is only a large segment of the police that is starting to buck the system, not the military. That obviously raises the question of whether the politicians will try to cling to their delusions of grandeur by declaring martial law against their own people, even when it is becoming obvious that Germany has all but given up on Greece remaining in the EU, and merely wants to avoid a “disorderly” exit. I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but we should find out soon enough.
Ash said:
“PS – We will probably end up closing commentary threads altogether, and just running general discussion threads with the features, like before. Or something like that.”Perhaps I am a bit of a Luddite, but please Ash, do return to the general discussion. I find the new system takes up far too much time searching. I recall in the former TAE there was much talk of increasing complexity causing increasing systems fragility.
I did much prefer the previous format of general free-ranging discussion and the reader/commenter supplied links. I enjoyed that general commentary as much as the feature articles.
We set up a recurring donation to TAE about a year ago, and really felt we got our money’s worth.Now I find it takes much more time to use the site, so don’t use it as as much. The old “Blogger” certainly had its drawbacks, but it was simple.
Thanks to you all….. staff and commenters…….. your illuminations have been invaluable.OT – not important, but i thought the trend in the stock market was odd between the last hour of trading and “after hours”. ramp in the last 30 mins and then an after hours sell off…but no big market news to cause this? and i think volatility is low? so it looks to me like the “smart money” is selling off in the after hours and the sucker mutual funds are doing their usual buyng in the late afternoon. I always liked LG’s slant on stuff like this. BTW – i changed my “name” from Joe_in_NC to JoeP for giggles.
Interesting that the police union is ready to rebel against TPTB. And your point, Ash, about the military not being part of that, reminds me that some months ago I recall a huge sale of military goods, including tanks. They seem to have spent some of their bail out buying up the weapons of suppression. Now a policeman can “quit his job”, but a member of the military seems to sign away his ‘right to quit’.
Today’s demos in Athens seem to be just the prelude to tomorrow’s turn out. I expect it will be a big Occuptaion of the streets there. Good for them to not put up with the “austerity” measures that are so that banker’s don’t have to “lose their shirts”. But aren’t all those loans gambles that they get insurance against going bad? So do they get paid by insurance, if the peons don’t have anything left to squeeze?
Comments –
On another note: I’m finally getting the hang of this new way of posting. I look for the most recent responses and read those, since they float to the top of the Recent Topics.
I noticed a feature that has disappeared, where a red print notice of “3 new comments”. That is gone now.
But if it all went back to a General comments, that would be ok too.
Can this site have red underlines for misspellings? I’ve become used to being alerted to spelling errors.
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