This Is Why The Euro Is Finished
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Walker Evans Waterfront in New Orleans. French market sidewalk scene 1935 The IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis report on Greece that came out this wee
[See the full post at: This Is Why The Euro Is Finished]This is a serious moment – even allowing for the farce – even for us crowd in more comfortable seats with our bags of popcorn.
In the wider EU context we remember that these were the stage managers who were willing to transition a risk to a certainty of civil war in Ukraine after colluding with ‘regime change’ outside of democratic procedures. Behind that were the shadowy forces of political ‘triangulation’ internal within a less than competent US administration.
I left this as part of a comment at Ugo Bardi’s blog a few days ago:
“It seems clear – and again from the media reports of the incoherent ‘dinner’ the other night at ‘EU Summit’, where UK PM Cameron was allowed a 5 min “commercial break” which at least in its irrelevance lowered the temperature a little – that they have ‘lost the plot’. That is; the ‘narrative’ is separate from reality. They fail at technocratic financial/ economics, at military understanding and do not grasp the meaning implicit in any real response to ‘climate threat’. They have no idea to manage the coming unstoppable flood of refugees from war and contagious breakdown. They even fail at knowing who Europe is. (I think of Russia as an essential part of Europe.)best
PhilI’ll grant everything about the euro’s effect on Greece that is said here, but I think I understand why why Greeks want to remain in the EMU.
A chance to escape from this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave/2015/06/25/why-grexit-is-not-greeces-biggest-problem/
Raúl Ilargi Meijer still remains fooled by Greece’s Syriza fake ‘leftist’ frauds Tsipras & Varoufakis, funded by & with clear ties to George Soros etc…. Syriza are the leading gangsters preventing Greeks from realising the real truth, that default & drachma are the only exit. Whether Yes or No on the vote, Greeks lose and will be under more ‘austerity’ & brutal impoverishment for banksters.
Syriza spent months looting billions from Greek pension funds etc to pay ECB / IMF, & waited till ECB choked the banks shut to have a ‘vote’, whilst Greeks are in full terror that ATMs will stay empty, terror that Syriza helped create (knowing ECB tactics very well) … Syriza’s referendum is a game distracting from how Syriza is not acting for the welfare of Greek people, Syriza instead is pushing Greeks into a helpless box in order to achieve bankster goals.
The Trotskyite World Socialist Web Site is, surprisingly, one of the few venues in English to recognise Tsipras & Varoufakis as frauds: “Political fraud of Syriza’s referendum on EU austerity in Greece … designed to engineer a further capitulation to the EU’s demands, regardless of the outcome of the vote”.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/03/pers-j03.htmlPretty good summary of why the IMF report was not published – thanks
So clearly Greece has some further negotiating power for debt relief if one party of the troika now says yes to debt relief.
Why it would make sense for all concerned is set out below:
Can you tell me how it was that Germany was able to transfer the Greek debt from German Banks back on to the Greeks. What was the transfer mechanism? Is it all back in Greece or is it held by the ECB?
It seems to me that Brussels maintains authoritarian rule over its members via the press and courts. It has successfully survived the Scottish NO vote, thwarted the separatist movements in Spain with favourable court rulings preventing separation, they some had Berlusconi removed from office after he threatened to pull out of the Euro. Now they say that even if the No wins, the referendum is illegal and will not be accepted as the referendum was not given enough time from its announcement to vote.
No offense to the Greek people, but you are blind if you cannot see that you are being manipulated into a life of debt servitude. You are being controlled by an unelected body in Brussels. Are you that ignorant not to be able to understand what is happening to your country? You are going to face hardship with whatever decision you make, at least take control of the situation and fix the problem NOW! Although it seems clear the Yes will prevail, your hardships will continue for much much longer than is required, sad but true!
This, like any crisis, won’t likely be allowed by some very dark forces, to go to waste. What should be more concerning is, what happens after all the can kicking ends, border gates reappear and assorted Neo National Socialists occupy various halls of governance?
Of course the Euro is toast, as are all fiat mediums of exchange. It was doomed from the start. At this stage of debt collapse, there is simply no fix. Any attempt at such is not much more than a further waste of time/resources.
Here, again, is the crux, though no one wants to believe it. Especially egotistical anointed Statist Apparatchiks.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” Ludwig von Mises
I know,,,too simple, and it might put some pundits onto the EBT rolls. I mean, hell, hope is cheap provided one has nothing to lose, but lots to sell.
,,,nothing to lose, but lots to sell? I heard somewhere, that during the Great Depression, in Oklahoma, bullshit was a dime a bail, but no one had any money.
But, rich countries like Denmark already know all this. https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/denmark
The “broken-hearted” in the following song might symbolize the people of Greece. You could substitute “broken-vested who had love that’s now arrested” (for the Troika). Exceptionally good cover of a classic Motown song, with former Motown musicians and one h-e-l-l of a good singer.
As I walk this land of broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusionThe fruits of love grow all around
But for me they come a tumblin’ down
Everyday heartaches grow a little stronger
I can’t stand this pain much longerI walk in shadows, searching for light
Cold and alone, no comfort in sight
Hoping and prayin’ for someone to care
Always movin’ and goin’ nowhereThat will stir them up a bit.
Former IMF director saying the IMF has acted in bad faith, is incompetent, and following the austerity medicine will make Greek situation worse.
Great stuff:
https://www.bruegel.org/nc/blog/detail/article/1669-in-bad-faith
To return to an earlier part of today’s essay, it should be clear that in 2010, again in 2012, and continuing now, there has been an elite perception that Greece should be sacrificed/amputated/whatever to shield the European banks from collapse.
That must have been exquisitely clear in 2010, and has been carried forward without much internal debate.rapier – “My sense is that most of them are trying to get stuff into their lifeboat.” Yeah, I think that’s what the reinflation was all about, giving them time to get stuff into their lifeboat. Because you can see that they’ve all got each other’s backs, making excuses as to why the economy is not getting better, pretending that it is. The media, economists, analysts, politicians, corporate CEO’s, hedge funds, mutual funds – all of them are flim-flamming.
Same thing with Greece. They needed time to get their stuff.
The transfer was pretty straightforward: when you start a monetary union with a big credit expansion, the PIGS, periphery, south, –someone– mathematically gravitates toward debt, while the core, north, –someone– ends up being the creditor. Where the cutoff between the states (or elements) would be is fluid, but we know where it turned out in this case. Important note: Germany is ONLY rich because they are OWED money by countries/people who were bad credit risks and couldn’t pay. That is, their “good” choices, power, etc is also an illusion, because in reality Greece, Spain, Italy cannot pay, and the loans should never have been made, and therefore Germany will never receive the wealth they have written on their books. This German illusion wouldn’t be possible without the credit expansion, and preventing the illusion of Germany’s wealth from popping back to a much poorer reality is what the war is all about.
Anyway, once the debtor nations had a crisis–which was mathematically inevitable–the debts could have been written off, reality conceded, balance restored. It was not. If not, then it’s a matter of choosing–politically–WHO takes the loss. Well obviously the taxpayers, not the bank corporations, otherwise, what are all your lobbyists for? To do this, the banks needed several HUNDRED BILLION, minimum. And you bet that taxpayers of Germany, Austria, Spain, are not going to go lightly into paying more trading losses and big bonuses. So how to hide a $300B transfer as the minimum to save this pig? Easy: you say Greece needs a “bailout”, which sounds plausible, sounds like help, doesn’t it? I mean they’re in a crisis, right? Until you realize–as argued today–that it was NOT a bailout, was NEVER a bailout, it was selling $300B in additional debt to a country that already couldn’t pay its $80B in debt–and everyone knew it since before the Euro began. Ok now you added the $300B, and when Greece tried to have any parliament, Democracy, discussion, referendum, you illegally remove their government and put in a Goldman Sachs rep, oh and in Italy too.
So who is owed the $300B you just added? Well, back then lots of people–soon to be solved. You have Greece default on the unimportant outsider bondholders to reduce the pressure, then have your pals determine that it is not a “default” so your bond insurance (part of the derivatives you hear about) doesn’t have to pay out. P.S. They’ve already decided that Greece’s July ’15 default is also not a default, no matter how long they refuse to pay. Then you use the ECB “stimulus” to rapidly buy all the bonds so they are now owned by the TAXPAYERS of the EU and not the private banks of the EU. So now no matter what happens, the taxpayers now take the loss.
End state: smaller bondholders illegally screwed, banks have garbage dumped on the EU taxpayers, Greece $300B in debt that still can’t be paid. –But way more plausible than saying “Let’s liquidate Greece, kill 5,000 people, to bail out UBS and DeustcheBank.” That’s the short process of how the EU/ECB bailed out the wealthy and the private banks at the expense of Greece and the working taxpayer of Europe.
Next step is–when sucking more blood is too expensive–to let Greece inevitably fall, then have a “crisis” that the ECB can only cure by printing even MORE money and handing to their friends while watching the EU taxpayers suffer the further loss you’ve already arranged for them. We could of course use technical financial language to describe all this. But why bother? It’s not that complicated. The wealthy and influential are using the violence of governments to transfer the wealth and assets from the poor to themselves. The only obstacle is to create enough plausible crises, and “solutions” that provide stories to cover their actions of raw power and violence. So if their public narrative no longer makes sense, that’s why: their violence and greed has outrun their credibility.
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