Greece Watch...

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 17:09

This is the EU Biff. This is what the EU always was. In the end, the only way you get a state is either with the full and transparent consent of the people, or (more commonly) it is with brute force. The EU project has progressed thus far with deception and misdirection for the last several decades in the vague hope that consent would eventually emerge out of familiarity with and resignation to this project by the various peoples of Europe. That hasn't happened and so, when push has come to shove, a form of violence has been perpetrated on one of the dissenting states. And make no mistake, that violence would have eventually become fully physical, one way or another, if its perpetrators had deemed it necessary. A real-life coup of the Ukrainian variety would have been orchestrated if things had not gone the way that Germany and others wanted it and I would not be the least bit surprised if Tsipras had been told this explicitly.

At least the ugly truth is unambiguously out there now.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 18:31

Syriza's climbdown: Greek control handed to Europe - Paul Mason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYEGZz7IVO0

The functional message this sends to individual European sovereign states is that finance will be used in a hostile way, bordering on a sanctions regime, if you flout the "Sovereignty of Europe"....

....It would be logical now for every country in the EU to make contingency plans against getting the same treatment – either over fiscal policy or any of the other issues where Brussels and Frankfurt enjoy sovereignty.

Parallels abound with other historic debacles: Munich (1938), where peace was won by sacrificing the Czechs; or Versailles (1919), where the creditors got their money, only to create the conditions for the collapse of German democracy 10 years later, and their own diplomatic unity long before that.

But the debacles of yesteryear were different. They were committed by statesmen. People who knew what they wanted and miscalculated. It was hard to see last night what the rulers of Europe wanted.

What they’ve arguably got is a global reputational disaster: the crushing of a left-wing government elected on a landslide, the flouting of a 61 per cent referendum result. The EU – a project founded to avoid conflict and deliver social justice – found itself transformed into the conveyor of relentless financial logic and nothing else.

Ordinary people don’t know enough about the financial logic to understand why this was always likely to happen: bonds, haircuts and currency mechanisms are distant concepts. Democracy is not. Everybody on earth with a smartphone understands what happened to democracy last night....

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 18:54

Even the FT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e38a452e-26f2 ... z3fnJuoJr5

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 18:56

Little John wrote:Syriza's climbdown: Greek control handed to Europe - Paul Mason

Paul Mason wrote the foreword to the new edition of Yanis Varoufakis's book The Global Minotaur.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 18:59

johnhemming2 wrote: I personally think being able to rely on the figures is actually quite important.

Is that a joke? Varoufakis is a statistician.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 19:04

biffvernon wrote:Even the FT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e38a452e-26f2 ... z3fnJuoJr5

Key section from that article:

....Greece capitulated because the European Central Bank forced it to do so. In flagrant defiance of its treaty obligation to support the general economic policy of the eurozone — which includes since June 2012 a requirement to separate the health of the banking system from the solvency of sovereigns — the ECB forced a shutdown of the Greek banking system and made clear it would only let it function again once a deal on sovereign finances had been struck.

This has established beyond any doubt that the independence of the eurozone’s central bank from politicians is nothing of the sort. Far from being independent, the ECB does governments’ bidding. But its dependence is selective — and that is something that should worry the citizens of eurozone nations beyond Greece.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 19:30

biffvernon wrote:
johnhemming2 wrote: I personally think being able to rely on the figures is actually quite important.
Is that a joke? Varoufakis is a statistician.

It is part of what is being forced on Greece (on the basis that they have to do this to discuss a bailout). They have to have independent and reliable statistics.

I thought you were sufficiently interested in the issue as to look at what is being proposed in some detail.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 19:34

biffvernon wrote:
Little John wrote:Syriza's climbdown: Greek control handed to Europe - Paul Mason
Paul Mason wrote the foreword to the new edition of Yanis Varoufakis's book The Global Minotaur.

So no surprise there then.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 13 Jul 2015, 22:21

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... el-verdict

Greece’s rescue package: utter humiliation or disaster averted?

Has the threat of Grexit really been seen off by the deal that emerged from an all-night summit?

Our panel of experts from Greece and across the eurozone give their verdict.

Alexis Tsipras had a chance to make a difference. He could have made a clean break, dispensing with previous Greek governments’ cronyism and lack of vision. He had an opportunity to galvanise eurozone leaders to push for a change in economic policy. He could have led a chorus arguing that the eurozone was undermining itself by allowing problems such as Greece’s to be seen as national rather than European.

He failed on all counts. A lack of preparation, the absence of a clear plan, pervasive amateurism and unwise personnel choices undermined his efforts at home and abroad. He ambled aimlessly through his first few months in government and only over the past few weeks realised his options were running out, prompting a furious flurry of activity to avoid the Grexit – which he, at least, had the self-awareness to realise Greece could not handle.

Tsipras now faces an immense task if he is to oversee further fiscal adjustment and the implementation of structural reforms in a country that socially and economically has been brought to its knees by its own failings and those of its lenders.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 86514.html

Greeks brace for unrest as Alexis Tsipras prepares to push through cuts

As a political rebellion took off in his own party and anger swelled among a population already sick of austerity, Mr Tsipras could point to the promise of €500 million in rapid emergency cash to keep Greek banks alive - and perhaps enable them to reopen soon. But given the millions who voted “no” to fresh austerity in the recent referendum, many were predicting unrest on the streets.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jul 2015, 22:34

Richard Murphy ‏@RichardJMurphy
To think we only nicked the Elgin marbles #ThisIsACoup

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Jul 2015, 22:46

3rdRock wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... el-verdict

That article looks to be setting the stage for using Varoufakis as scapegoat.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 22:47

It is a situation whereby people are saying if you want our money you have got to have reliable statistics etc.

We live in an interconnected world. There are environmental interconnections and also financial ones.

If a country wants to say they won't follow the rules that all the other countries abide by then there are consequences to that.

If they are part of a currency union and disavow the rules then the consequences are more severe as they cannot just have inflation.

peaceful_life · Post by **peaceful_life** » 13 Jul 2015, 23:11

johnhemming2 wrote:It is a situation whereby people are saying if you want our money you have got to have reliable statistics etc.

We live in an interconnected world. There are environmental interconnections and also financial ones.

If a country wants to say they won't follow the rules that all the other countries abide by then there are consequences to that.

If they are part of a currency union and disavow the rules then the consequences are more severe as they cannot just have inflation.

Most countries are insolvent, John and that's just according to the narrowed tertiary parameters of finance , on the primary metric of the environment, well.......lets just say she's sending the creditors round, coz we ransacked the gaff, ohh...neither will there be any negotiations, only consequences, although you could try quoting these mythical laws of mathematics.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 13 Jul 2015, 23:45

Little John wrote:Show me where the IMF and EU has been applying similar fiscal rules to Ukraine, to name just one example. You are just plain ******* lying now.

Lets start with a question.

The question is "What is the currency of the Ukraine?"

Quoting from The Guardian

In return for the latest $17bn bailout of Ukraine the IMF insists on dramatic measures in five main areas of the economy: a sharp currency devaluation, which will increase the cost of all imported goods, a government-funded bailout for domestic banks, government spending cuts, measures to regulate money laundering and a sharp increase in energy prices.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... its-people

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 14 Jul 2015, 04:30

Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece

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

....In his first interview since resigning, Greece's former Finance Minister says the Eurogroup is “completely and utterly” controlled by Germany, Greece was “set up” and last week’s referendum was wasted.....

....Varoufakis said that Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister and the architect of the deals Greece signed in 2010 and 2012, was “consistent throughout”. “His view was ‘I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything.

“So at that point I said ‘Well perhaps we should simply not hold elections anymore for indebted countries’, and there was no answer. The only interpretation I can give [of their view] is, ‘Yes, that would be a good idea, but it would be difficult. So you either sign on the dotted line or you are out.’”

It is well known that Varoufakis was taken off Greece’s negotiating team shortly after Syriza took office; he was still in charge of the country’s finances but no longer in the room. It’s long been unclear why. 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.”.....