MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Greece nears euro exit as bailout talks break up without agreement
By trkingmomoe on Sat, 07/11/2015 - 11:53pm |With Greece on the edge of financial and social implosion, eurozone finance ministers met to decide on the country’s fate and on what to do about its debt crisis, after experts from the troika of creditors said that new fiscal rigour proposals from Athens were good enough to form “the basis for negotiations”.
But the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, dismissed that view, supported by a number of northern and eastern European states. “These proposals cannot build the basis for a completely new, three-year [bailout] programme, as requested by Greece,” said a German finance ministry paper. It called for Greece to be expelled from the eurozone for a minimum of five years and demanded that the Greek government transfer €50bn of state assets to an outside agency for sell-off.
I have read for the last few months that Greece has a national oil company that investors have been wanting to get their hands on in a fire sale. They can also take private savings accounts from Greek banks too. They just close the banks and keep the money. Sounds like rape and pillage time.
URL:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/11/greece-euro-exit-bailout-alexis-tsipras
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Comments
Things got interesting in the last Euro meeting.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/11/greek-debt-crisis-eurozone-creditors-meet-to-decide-countrys-fate
There is plenty of interesting tweets on this page that covers the mood of the summit.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 12:21am
It really does appear that Germany wants Greece out though I doubt it's to scare France. The question I've been wondering on is how does Europe as a whole or the individual nations treat Greece after. Greece will surely at least stop paying the debt if not outright repudiating it. Will Europe impose restrictions or punishments that could crush the country, leave them alone to rebuild the economy with their new money, or attempt to help them make a transition? If Germany wants punishments to attempt to force payment or maintain the delusion that the debt can be paid how will the other nations in the EU respond? If there're strong disagreements on how to respond to Greece stopping all debt payments how will that affect EU unity?
by ocean-kat on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 12:54am
I think the Greeks gave them a good reform package that went against what the voters wanted to call the hard liners out and expose them.
Any ways I am going to see if I can find some video of this summit. If they can't come to an agreement on Sunday it will get "kicked up stairs" to the leaders.
There is no such thing as a temporary exit. The UK was temporarily kick from the EMC in 1992. That became permanent and they never returned to the Euro. The EMC was replaced by ECB. I am sure the Greeks won't want to after they find out they are better off like the UK.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 2:06am
So here's a really simplistic question, but if I lived in Greece it would matter to me in a simple way - how can those who will feel the outcome trust their newly empowered government? They were encouraged to stand up and say OXI! in the face of drastic repercussions, and they did. They stood together and felt triumphant as a people pushing back against a far more powerful foe. The average people on the street trusted their leaders to keep their word, to back them up. Less than a week later they're realizing they were duped, the referendum was nothing more than a political ploy. Not just duped, but used.
The people of Greece have said twice now -once through an election and again through a referendum- that they want a new direction. If that isn't possible in the near future, the people they've put their last chance trust in should at least be straight with them.
by barefooted on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 2:23am
First off the No vote was a surprise. It was expected to be a yes because the people wants to stay in the Euro. It did send a message to the Eurogroup that Greek people was reaching their breaking point. It also told the creditors that the Greek people was behind their government. This was the first referendum vote in 41 years.
Second the Greeks know they are being blackmailed and singled out for abuse. They know who is behind this abuse. Some have their money stuffed in mattresses because there was some bank closing in the last round of bail outs and people lost their savings. That money went to the creditors.
Will they replace their government because of this, I don't see them making too many changes at this point. Everything has to play out legally.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 3:30am
Tsipras rallied the populous for a no vote, and they answered. There is no doubt that you are more knowledgeable than I on this subject, but I've read little of substance claiming the outcome was a surprise in the end.
I agree that their vote expressed a breaking point and solidarity with their government's hard and fast position, but it's the fact that that same government seems to have disregarded that expression that puzzles me. At least if honesty was ever in play.
Blackmail is a loaded word that's easily twisted. Cash under a mattress is an average man's leverage against political manipulation of collective wealth. As long as the mattress is his, he has control.
by barefooted on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 4:14am
The poling showed the yes ahead until Lagarde released the report showing austerity caused the depression. Then the day of the vote the polling showed a toss up. Tsipras would have resigned with a yes vote.
The ECB right after the left leaning government was in place in January chose to slow the flow of liquidity to the Greece Banks. Greece had not defaulted yet. It was done to put pressure on the new government because it had just replaced a right leaning one that was more agreeable with ECB and to force a show down early. It quickly depleted the Greece economy of liquidity. They wanted to force Greek people to replace the new government. You do what I want or I will hurt you is blackmail.
You might want to read this. It does covers a lot of what has gone on. It even has some charts.
http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5965.html
It ends with this.
The Greek people are smart and they understand what has happened. They are not going to go back to an agreeable right leaning government to please the Troika.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 6:06am
Oh come on - the article says the bankers helped game the system, but it was Wall Street & a US bank, Goldman Sachs, that rigged that system - not a German or European bank. Maybe Germany or Burssels naïve for not thinking Greece would use the Americans to cheat - that hardly makes them complicit.
Slovakia joined the Euro in 2009, while its Euroskeptic brother the Czech Republic stayed out. What's the message for Slovaikia - that it can receive 100 billion Euros or more in bailouts by keeping a second set of books, paying out unaffordable pensions and other financial malfeasance? Some people seem to be saying that Germany and others have the money, so why not spend it. But it's a question whether Germany has an extra 100 or 200 billion Euros for every struggling Euro member. And of course if we as Americans have such great advice for a system hoodwinked by one of our swindler banks (who we gave free credit to make billions in 208/9), why don't we just bail out Greece ourselves instead of being German-scolds? Sure, we have the money, right? Most prosperous nation on earth.
For me I think the biggest issue is trust - the questioning whether there will be a 4th or 6th or 19th bailout, each time with "well, why not, it's not our fault - it was the Troika or the preceding administration or the Nazis in 1942 or ..."
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 8:21am
There is a good update from the website ZeroHedge to which someone might want to post a link. The Greek situation is distilling down to a trust issue---the Northerners now requiring reforms made before consideration of bailout. Taxes, pensions and new?---reform of the statistical agency. Meanwhile they need 1 B euros a day to keep the banks open. The Sunday summit canceled.
by Oxy Mora on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 8:57am
UK Telegraph:
NYT:
NYT:
They want it, they need it, they have to have it. Not a 3 year old, the Prime Minister.
by NCD on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 12:32pm
That's some really fine print there, NCD.
I went looking for an analysis of the referendum vote (the common view is that young folks swung it) because I had a hunch that the landed gentry had decided to back Tsipras. Theory being the old grey mare wasn't what she used to be. Why not get a new one and ride it---under the assumption that it also loved oats and would do as instructed.
Now I understand that there is a four page memo circulating and a meeting scheduled.
by Oxy Mora on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 2:45pm
Greece given 72 hours to legalize reforms.
by Oxy Mora on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 3:06pm
I think the former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, knew what he was talking about and stand vindicated. I posted this on another thread yesterday. Schauble did propose that Greece be turfed out of the Euro for five years in Saturday's meeting.
This is from a German News outlet. To read it you will need to use google translator. http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/eurokrise/griechenland/eurofinanzminister-treffen-schaeuble-bringt-grexit-auf-zeit-ins-gespraech-13697851.html
I get the impression from the second page of this article that he don't like the way Greece government is formed. He don't trust any of them. He is demanding the that there is a full agreement from the Greece Parliament. Some of you may read something else into it.
He may want all of them tossed out but in reality that is not going to happen. So I guess if he don't like you, he feels you should be replaced. Some of the Guardian reporting covers this and also some of the journalists tweets do to.
Wolfgang Shaeuble and Jean Claude Junker are the Austieran hard liners. I guess we will see how the French and Italians push back on them in the next meeting.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 1:35am
Excellent comments and link, Momoe and recent German statements confirm that forced bankruptcy, Grexit was the plan for Greece for quite some time and the so called 'negotiations' were a farce.
One thing that i think obscures the real powers behind this crisis is the narrow focus of attention on personalities as the driving forces behind the German and other European's attacks on Greece. Shaeuble, Junker and Merkel represent a much more powerful financial elite that has the most to lose or gain from this crisis and the vile rhetoric spewing from their mouthpieces is evidence of their fears and agendas.
Anything vaguely resembling Communism/Socialism or even just human compassion is the only remaining threat to the final stage of Capitalist accumulation, also known as the Vampire Squid, and it must be crushed with technocratic efficiency and authoritarian ruthlessness or it may spread.
The one thing that Syriza has accomplished in the last six months is to create a venue for other voiced in Europe to be heard, however weak they may be, and some of these voices are being reported which was rare before Syriza was elected.
This resistance probably won't be enough to stop the planned destruction of Greece because the elite representatives of the EU don't represent their people but follow their true masters dictates.
This crisis and especially the uncompromising rhetoric ot the last six months has shown people everywhere that true Democracy will not be tolerated, just as the Egyptians were shown in a much cruder way, and the institutions of power may be unavailable to anyone but the powerful elites who are bent on their dominating agendas.
by Peter (not verified) on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 2:11pm
I think I've discovered some video of the fight between Greece and Germany
by ocean-kat on Sun, 07/12/2015 - 7:03pm