Greece Watch...

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 09:30

The #ThisIsACoup meme burned bright in the BRICS as well as Euro periphery last night.

It appears Tsipras has more or less capitulated. In his own terms, though, I am sure he believes he has "won" something in terms of stopping the Germans from pushing his country out of the EU.

Greece should have walked.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 09:51

Little John wrote:It appears Tsipras has more or less capitulated. In his own terms, though, I am sure he believes he has "won" something in terms of stopping the Germans from pushing his country out of the EU.

The option of being pushed temporarily out of the EZ or indeed the EU was not even discussed until after 4 months of Syriza posturing.

If, for example, Greece had voted yes in the Referendum it was likely that that deal would be the basis of an agreement.

The current deal is a lot tougher (particularly the automatic budget cuts if they are not on target).

The need to recapitalise the Greek banks is mainly from electing Syriza into government.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 10:06

It is not difficult. The Greek government have entirely democratically taken a bad situation and made it spectacularly worse.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 13 Jul 2015, 10:52

On reflection, the Troika were never going to let Greece 'off the hook'. They've still got a few assets left to plunder.

I suggest revisiting the following articles, which go some way to explaining why, from the Troika's perspective, a debt laden Greece is worth having.

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2014/09/next-crisis-part-one/

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2014/09/next- ... nifesto-1/

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2014/09/next- ... hip-earth/

The reason assets are in many ways more important than cash is that although cash keeps imminent death at bay, assets, pledgeable ones, are the key to profit.

Banks want assets. The kind they are looking for are physical assets which produce wealth – like factories, or frackable land, or electricity grids, or ports, or telecoms systems. Assets that, unlike money, cannot be so easily withdrawn, tapered or ‘tightened’. The kind of assets a nation might have, funnily enough. The banks don’t want these assets in order to use them to produce wealth directly, but rather to use them as collateral for creating more credit and debt. To think of the value of an asset in terms of the wealth or profit it can produce by its productive nature, is to be so very last century. It’s akin to thinking the value of a stock or share is to hold it and watch it go up in price. The real value of the stock or share is in trading it up and down as fast as possible.

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 13 Jul 2015, 11:11

A dark day for democracy.

And a stark warning to anyone, from nation state to individual, who considers taking on debt. Debt = slavery.

None of the "reforms" required are about improving the state of the Greek economy. They're all about pushing a neo-liberal, privatisation agenda. How, I wonder, is privatising the ferry and electricity services supposed to help Greece's financial position?

We have the same issue with ferries in Scotland. CalMac employees are resisting attempts to put the (publicly owned) service out to tender. Why is the government doing this? Because the EU tells them they have to. The contract would likely go to the same company that took over the Shetland service a couple of years ago, on which fares have allegedly risen to the point where many Shetlanders can no longer afford to travel off the islands.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 13 Jul 2015, 11:20

Tarrel wrote:How, I wonder, is privatising the ferry and electricity services supposed to help Greece's financial position?

It won't and more to the point, it was never intended to.

This was all about acquiring Greek assets and frightening other indebted sovereign states into submission.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 14:23

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 15:05

It is not unusual that state owned bodies from time to time are chaired by ministers.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 13 Jul 2015, 15:14

biffvernon wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KfW

The KfW, formerly KfW Bankengruppe (banking group), is a German government-owned development bank, based in Frankfurt. Its name originally comes from Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau ("Reconstruction Credit Institute"). It was formed in 1948 after World War II as part of the Marshall Plan.

It is owned by the Federal Republic of Germany (80%) and the States of Germany (20%).

It is led by a six-member Managing Board headed by Ulrich Schröder, which in turn reports to a 37-member Supervisory Board.

The chair of the Supervisory Board changes annually between the German Federal Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs; the chairman for 2015 is Wolfgang Schäuble.

The magazine Global Finance rated KfW as the safest bank in the world in its "World's 50 Safest Banks 2009" rating. The rating was based on long-term foreign currency ratings from Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor's and the long-term bank deposit ratings from Moody's Investors Service.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:23

Caroline Lucas wrote:the oldest democracy in the world has been subjected to a coup.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/carolin ... 84412.html

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:36

The Greek Finance Minister just tweeted:

Euclide Tsakalotos ‏@EuclideTsakalo 17m17 minutes ago
Under French law, any consent extorted by moral or economic violence is a cause of nullity of contracts. Think #ThisIsACoup

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:43

Yanis Varoufakis interview: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... is/6616532

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:50

Exactly as I'd feared, earlier.

Varoufakis has a vision. Tsipras is a politician.

Tsipras folded. So Varoufakis walked.

Varoufakis said:

In parliament I have to sit looking at the right hand side of the auditorium, where 10 Nazis sit, representing Golden Dawn. If our party, Syriza, that has cultivated so much hope in Greece ... if we betray this hope and bow our heads to this new form of postmodern occupation, then I cannot see any other possible outcome than the further strengthening of Golden Dawn. They will inherit the mantle of the anti-austerity drive, tragically.

The project of a European democracy, of a united European democratic union, has just suffered a major catastrophe.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:52

Here's an interesting little tale about KfW from 2013.

https://www.urgewald.org/sites/default/ ... il2013.pdf

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 16:55

And another, even more interesting Varoufakis interview.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affai ... ave-greece

In April, he said vaguely that it was because “I try and talk economics in the Eurogroup” – the club of 19 finance ministers whose countries use the Euro – “which nobody does.” I asked him what happened when he did.

“It’s not that it didn’t go down well – there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on, to make sure it’s logically coherent, and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply.”

(No John, H., you stick to Peppa Pig, please.)