A decisive win against the European financial dictatorship in Greece

Posted by: nmb | Jul 6 2015 6:53 utc | 103

Yanis Varoufakis is a Soros boy he has done his dirty work which is causing mess in the Eurozone and Germany. So no need for him to stay, he will return to his real country Australia to surf. I have feeling the Greek military threatened one political couple like it happened in 80s. Without money from the Eurozone the Greek army is finished.

Posted by: Wullf | Jul 6 2015 7:04 utc | 105

Varoufakis said in his resignation statement that he had become too controversial a figure among the Eurogroup, but he will keep his seat in Parliament. Also that Tsipras now has a clear mandate to proceed without him.

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 6 2015 7:10 utc | 107

Can the ECB maintain or up ELA for Greece in these conditions? (after the no vote.) I really don’t know. It’s mission is to insure stability in the Eurozone after all. And Greece is still in. But will it?
Yanis V. has already signed the legality of printing IOUs. (California did this remember.) In effect, that is a parallel currency.
ATMs not rendering can be seen as a temp. cash problem (though it isn’t in this case merely that) but when payments etc. are snarled or halted it is kind of a rot that signals the beginning of a process. I mean financial time is much faster than legislative time! Events on the ground have their own peculiar momentum with all kinds of actors contributing.
In effect, in the past few days Greece was already cut off from the Euro! Like a couple not yet divorced who doesn’t eat dinner together anymore..That would not, would not!, have happened if the Troika was determined to bring in a plan to keep Greece ‘in’ (while getting the max. possible blood out of the stone, of course.)
What I’m saying is that a Grexit remains a strong possibility. Plus see the latests updates from okie 74

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 6 2015 7:28 utc | 109

OT
Iran’s Message: Our Counterparts Must Choose Between Agreement and Coercion
https://youtu.be/cw71HMKDpco
javadzarif

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 6 2015 7:47 utc | 111

@70
Difficult to get to the truth regarding the proposals for reduction of military expenditures. The June 13th FAZ article claims the IMF opposed an offer “for Athens not to decrease pensions if it manages to cut its military expenses by EUR 400 million.” Still, Junker admitted on the 16th that he had proposed “a modest cut in the Greek defence budget and on June 22, Tsipras submitted a proposal to reduce military expenditures by €200m, or approximately 5% of the military budget.

The case for deeper cuts in the defence budget would seem to be all the more persuasive given that Greece’s military expenditure is high. Ironically, the EU’s most leftwing government spends proportionately more on defence than any other. Greece’s military spending amounted to 2.2% of GDP last year, according to Sipri. Among Nato countries, only the US spent more in proportion to the size of its economy.
Thanos Dokos, a defence analyst and director general of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, noted that the latest figures nevertheless reflected a sharp drop since the start of the Greek crisis. “The defence budget has come down by around 40% in the last four years,” he said.

The reason for IMF’s opposition appears to be their insistence on reducing the pensions; they won’t even commit to the debt relief they admit is essential until Greece makes the “structural adjustments” they demand. I doubt the IMF is the primary opponent to bringing Greek military spending more in line with other EU nations.

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6 2015 8:46 utc | 113

The Syriza-led government of Alexis Tsipras was asked to cut €400m from the defence budget, less than 10%, to secure the last €7.2bn of its previous bailout. It refused, saying the most it could cut was €200m. Some analysts said deeper cuts were blocked by Syriza’s nationalist and pro-military coalition partner, the Independent Greeks. Others blamed the military, which remains influential 40 years after it relinquished power and Greece became a democratic state.

Yet.

On June 16, Yiannis Bournous, the head of international affairs for Greece’s ruling Syriza party, signalled a willingness to reassess the military budget.
“We already proposed a 200 million euro cut in the defense budget,” Bournous said at a Center for Economic Policy and Research event. “We are willing to make it even bigger — it is a pleasure for us.”

Probably Tsipras held the cuts down so as to not antagonize the military.
Still, the military expenditures in the past, when they were ~7% of GDP, were a significant contributor to the accumulation of debt. Wonder if that’s stored in hardware or gold toilets for Greek “military philosophers” and bandits.

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6 2015 9:16 utc | 115

Good article with Thomas Pikkety
https://medium.com/@gavinschalliol/thomas-piketty-germany-has-never-repaid-7b5e7add6fff

ZEIT: But shouldn’t they repay their debts?
Piketty: My book recounts the history of income and wealth, including that of nations. What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Jul 6 2015 11:55 utc | 117

67
If you want to really understand Greece, and NeoLiberalism, and
‘Triumphant Exceptionalism’, then take 3 hours of quiet time one
evening and watch these:
Memoria Del Saqueo
Hour of the Furnaces
Don’t be like the Germans, and say, ‘We did not know.’
Watch, …you’ll be uplifted.
“My heart has closed up tight
So it can survive
Living so I can save my skin
Which is all I have left
My soul is wasting away
Don’t think, don’t protest
Don’t even try, don’t interfere
Anyway nothing makes sense
Our lives are preordained
In this apocalyptic comedy
We’re all headed for the slaughterhouse
We’re not eliminated in the same old way
Now we’re told to make ourselves disappear
Asking questions without answers
Protesting without hassling anyone
Domesticated, neutralized, paralyzed
When will we wake up?”
On September 11th, Americans lost their country.
They are weak, and venal, and will never get it back from the oligarchs.
On December 1st, Argentinians won theirs back.
They didn’t do it by voting ‘No’ to more bailouts.
They didn’t do it by then accepting IMF ‘structural adjustments’.
They did it by revolting against their government of corruption and complicity.
They elected a new government which repudiated the loans and the debts outright.
Para los santos, para sa yawa, pour a 40 for Greece.

Posted by: Chipnik | Jul 6 2015 12:01 utc | 119

“The history of public debt is full of irony.” Quiz time: Why do compradors love the word irony as a euphemism for fraud?

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6 2015 12:52 utc | 121

From 2010 – German Greek weapon deals – Germany sells its weapons at the same time giving credit and insisting on household cuts – Der Spiegel in German.
German companies bribing Greek ministry of defense – from 2015.
Portugal is the largest buyer of German weapons. Greece is next. German members of govenment visit Greece with an arms export wish list, Greeks confirm their import needs. According to Greeks close to then governments, Angela Merkel herself pressed for the sale of Eurofighters between 2005 and 2007.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 6 2015 14:06 utc | 123

From a wider perspective, the EU authorities (ECB, EuroGroup, Parliament, sub-bodies, Courts, whatever and all – together) have created a bureaucratic and legal hegemonic nightmare that basically serves themselves, and possibly their distant but little understood masters.
Such structures, clumsy, unwieldly, far too complex and distant from reality, rife with underground if muted infighting beween ‘leaders’ and subject to hidden influence (lobbies) are incapable of reacting to upstarts, accidents, catastrophes, challenges, to sways in opinion, etc. Their MO is expansion and increasing control, creeping into every corner. They are incapable of changing tack.
Tsipras, Yanis V. and the Greek Oxi vote have shown that up, made it clear as day.
The EU’s reaction, within such a pov, will be more brow-beating, threatened punishment, and finally abandonment, expulsion, shaming and blaming.
If Grexit is avoided it will be at huge loss of EU prestige and control, and merely a harbinger of more difficulties to come, act I of IV. Nevertheless, the weak party, Greece, is in quite a bit of danger, which is why Syriza has been let’s say moderate.
The US wants no trouble in the constituted EU, as Obama has told Merkel several times. Ukraine imbroglio is bad enough. Russia cannot but be amused at such pathetic ineptness and theatre.

Posted by: Noirette | Jul 6 2015 14:26 utc | 125

75;Just what the hell does Greece need an army for?To stop illegal immigration?All hail the Spartans!
Someone was talking about Greeks being blonde,and remnants of Aryan ancient Greece.Never saw a natural blonde Greek American in my life,and their are many many Greeks in America.Of course its possible,but modern Greeks are definitely of a different racial stock than the ancients,probably a Turkish or Balkan heritage,mixed with Greek.
Not a critique,just an observation.

Posted by: dahoit | Jul 6 2015 15:15 utc | 127

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6, 2015 9:21:07 AM | 92
Greece bought German weapons whilst being bailed out. German politicians peddled them to the last moment. There is a corruption case in the courts just now of German weapons firms bribing the Greek ministry of defense.
Greece is second position after Portugal to buy German arms.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 6 2015 15:58 utc | 129

WoW @93
Have the Greeks (and international leftishs) had their Katharsis yet the Theater of Power mellodramatizes on?
Noirette @94
Ah. Here we have the “startup advantage” transposed from the private sector to the public. This is neither the playing field of Syriza nor the EU.
German ordoliberalism may be more hidebound than Anglo-American conspirator-liberalism but they can change tack. One must ask, if it is supposed that the IMF’s autistic neglect of debt relief earlier can be laid upon the political ambitions of Genghis Straus-Kahn, perhaps it is not so much a foundation of rules that at the root of expansion and control, but the libido of bourgeois society.
The US gets a pass on the destructiveness and brutality of it’s economic transformation while showcasing the ordeal of the Greeks under the Germans (Goldman Sachs having polished the Greeks’ Trojan horse for presentation.) Some Germans even envy the Anglo-American conspirator-capitalists their vitality.
The weak party is a pawn in the capitalist finance war. Will Syriza advance on mobilizing Greece against austerity and capitalist barbarism or will they whine about the bureaucracy of Germans?
sillybill @95

[Piketty] conflates capital into wealth by including non-productive assets like housing and stocks and bonds in his measure. In doing so, he loses sight of how wealth is created and appropriated, as Marx shows with his law of value. And his net rate of return on capital becomes separated from the capitalist process of production. Indeed, if you strip out housing and financial assets from his measure of the rate of return, you get Marx’s rate of profit and it falls (and moves up and down), unlike Piketty’s ‘steady’ r.

Piketty covers up how bubblicious this crapitalist economy is, masking the fraudulence for fellow compradors.

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6 2015 17:15 utc | 131

dahoit @96: Wikipedia:

“Aryan” is an English language loanword derived from the Sanskrit ārya (‘noble’) […] The Sanskrit term comes from Indo-Iranian or Proto-Indo-Iranian *arya- or *aryo-, the name used by the Indo-Iranians to designate themselves. […] Based on speculations that the Proto-Indo-European homeland was located in northern Europe, a 19th-century hypothesis which is now abandoned, the word developed a racialist meaning. It has been used in Nazi racial theory to describe persons corresponding to the “Nordic” physical ideal of Nazi Germany (the “master race” ideology).

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 6 2015 17:40 utc | 133

illegal immigration?
50,000 boat people crossing from Libya (and coming from everywhere, Somalia, Niger, Erythrea, Syria etc)
arrived in Greece in the first 6 mnths of this year and same in Italy
The EU told Greece and Italy “sorry we can’t take quotas, you have to deal with them”

Posted by: Mina | Jul 6 2015 18:10 utc | 135

Yaroufakis is talking :-)) they should have insisted on him remaining finance minister
Angela Merkel has a red and a yellow button. One ends the crisis. Which does she push?

Posted by: somebody | Jul 6 2015 18:37 utc | 137

@107,
Those people are from Syria. It was Obongo scumbag fault.

Posted by: Wullf | Jul 6 2015 18:45 utc | 139

@107 mina.. do you live in greece? i have visited chios and samos just a wee bit south of lesbos… beautiful islands – all of them in the aegean sea..

Posted by: james | Jul 6 2015 19:03 utc | 141

@111 laguerre.. great story and parallel.. thanks..

Posted by: james | Jul 6 2015 19:42 utc | 143

In Raqqa (Syria)
the Kurds are now fighting… the Turkish army,
according to RT
http://tinyurl.com/ngvr33q

Posted by: Mina | Jul 6 2015 20:27 utc | 145

The report you give (in Arabic) talks about conflicts between the Turks and the Kurds in Tell al-Abyad, which is on the Turkish border. But in Raqqa province. I am not surprised to hear of Turko-Kurdish conflicts. But there’s no way the Turks would advance so far south as Raqqa city.

Posted by: Laguerre | Jul 6 2015 20:46 utc | 147

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33416316
New Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos may be less flamboyant than his predecessor Yanis Varoufakis, but his views on his country’s debt crisis are no less stridently held.
While most commentators appear to agree that Mr Tsakalotos, 55, will be less bombastic than Mr Varoufakis in his dealings with international creditors, some argue that his negotiating stance could even be more hardline.
Mr Tsakalotos is a Dutch-born, Oxford University-educated economics professor who served as minister for international economic affairs before taking over from Mr Varoufakis as Greece’s lead negotiator in its debt talks in April.
A long-serving member of the governing Syriza party – in contrast to Mr Varoufakis – he was the obvious choice to become the new finance minister. His less confrontational style is certain to be welcomed by creditors – although few expect him to be a pushover.

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 6 2015 22:00 utc | 149

@94
‘ The US wants no trouble in the constituted EU, as Obama has told Merkel several times. Ukraine imbroglio is bad enough. ‘
The US wants what it wants world wide. The idea that NAZI Ukraine was the EU’s baby parthenogenic isn’t right. NATO … ‘F* the EU’ – remember who started it?
And it’s still ‘F* the EU’. The US banks were bailed out along with French and German banks 5 years ago, with European Unit funds … so why have they let this go on and on? Isn’t it because, having bailed the banks – but not having Washington’s magic printing press – the US’ European Unit is still trying to avoid having to pay the bill? and doggedly plans to get its blood from a stoney Greece instead? To ‘morally’ balance its own cooked books, if without objective co-relative?
I hope the Greeks stiff ’em. They have no other choice – if they are to exercise any choice at all. And we have no tohher choice if we are to exercise any choice at all. The house of cards is growing without restraint, as it always has been, and so as far as its crash is concerned … there’s no time like the present. That’s the alternative, locked in by IBGYBG. The only alternative is We All B Gone … either instantly via nuclear war or over the century via the spew of all these weaponized contending.

Posted by: jfl | Jul 6 2015 23:30 utc | 151

Let us examine briefly some of the tricky strategy used by white liberals to harness and exploit the political energies of the Negro. The crooked politicians in Washington, D.C., purposely make a big noise over the proposed civil rights legislation. By blowing up the civil rights issue they skillfully add false importance to the Negro civil rights “leaders.” Once the image of these Negro civil rights “leaders” has been blown up way beyond its proper proportion, these same Negro civil rights “leaders” are then used by white liberals to influence and control the Negro voters, all for the benefit of the white politicians who pose as liberals, who pose as friends of the Negro.
The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”
Again, marvelous explanation of current situation in Greece.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Jul 6 2015 23:43 utc | 153

The highest probability outcome now is a US/German/EU/UK sponsored coup. If John Helmer is right, then one was planned for just after the vote, but the massive majority for NO has stalled that.
That just means a change in plans and another attempt will be tried soon with different tactics.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/nulands-nemesis-will-greece-be-destroyed-to-save-her-from-russia-like-ukraine.html

Posted by: Lisa | Jul 7 2015 1:19 utc | 155

for anyone interested in reading john helmers take directly see here. i always enjoy reading him!

Posted by: james | Jul 7 2015 1:30 utc | 157

@124, @126
Saker thinks another Maidan will be the attempt in Greece … 1/3 of those voting voted ‘yes’. I’ll wait and see. What else can I do?

Posted by: jfl | Jul 7 2015 3:16 utc | 159

Posted by: Lisa | Jul 6, 2015 9:19:00 PM | 124
Greeks have gone through a terrible civil war, they will not repeat it. They very wisely got a unity government now.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 7 2015 6:07 utc | 161

Paul Jay discusses the results of the Greek referendum with Costas Lapavitsas and asks whether Syriza was prepared for this moment
https://youtu.be/A-x-IlOW19M?list=PLhvPB4lyc4dRGni9nReqS0cmq8pufU_E4

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 7 2015 7:24 utc | 163

Αυτοκαθορισμός: Η μη αθωότητα, αλλά πιθανή ανοησία του Τσίπρα
Αυτοκαθορισμός: Η μη αθωότητα, αλλά πιθανή ανοησία του …

Posted by: Ιωάννης Τζανάκος | Jul 7 2015 8:33 utc | 165

Posted by: neretva’43 | Jul 6, 2015 7:43:03 PM | 122
By your criteria there is no left. Marx was the son of a Rabbi and Engels a practising industrialist. Revolutions are preceded by the ruling class losing belief and lust for their rulership. Like the king of France pretending to be a farmer. There is no working class movement either – in Germany it was made up of artisans who had lost their status by the industrial revolution, i.e. very skilled and knowledgable people.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 7 2015 8:38 utc | 167

@ “somebody | Jul 7, 2015 5:22:41 AM | 137”
Nonsense, every point.
at 7., it is Monopoly Capitalism and Hegemony not competition, god-market or viability. They are still in control of currency. Germans off load its extra Euros from export driven economy on to the Periphery via credits aka usury.
In essence the EU/Euro is for Germany what’s the US dollar in the world. Never forget that. Market isn’t supernatural phenomenon it is humans creation, it is controlled by them.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Jul 7 2015 10:01 utc | 169

Blackmail ?
The demands of the “neoliberals” are not that outrageous. The pensionsystem needs to be reformed. The reforms are highly overdue.
Like the reforms that are highly overdue here in the US.
E.g. military employees can retire after 20 years of military service with an income of 50% of their last earned wages. For the rest of their lives. A general can retire after 20 years of military service with half of million of income for the rest of his life.
Take e.g. truckers. When a person wants to become a truck driver in the US, Greece or Germany then one has to prove that one is able to drive truck. One needs to show that one is able to drive a truck. (Driver’s License).
But in Greece one need an additional license/permit to buy a truck. No wonder Greece didn’t benefit when the Iron Curtain fell in 1990. Freight destined for Bulgaria & Romania could have been shipped to a greek port and then transported into the former Eastern Europe. But due to the high transportation costs Greece hardly saw any increased port & transportation activity after 1990.

Posted by: Willy2 | Jul 7 2015 11:15 utc | 171

Posted by: Willy2 | Jul 7, 2015 7:15:17 AM | 140
Sure, just that there is nil incentive to reform when the proceeds end up in some European coffers.
It is no use to get morally outraged about anonymous money. It is morally outrageous when known individuals are supposed to starve as the normal risk of business.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 7 2015 12:19 utc | 173

Posted by: somebody | Jul 7, 2015 8:19:59 AM | 142
Greek starvation versus Willy’s convenient anecdotal reasoning? Guess which one wins in the shriveled comprador mind?

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 7 2015 14:37 utc | 175

Eric Blair was educated at Eton College. Does that fact make him a fascist?

Posted by: lysias | Jul 7 2015 15:00 utc | 177

Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com is at it again. Using the flawed Op-Ed, “We Voted No to Salvery But Yes to Our Chains”, to bash Syriza. As her co-blogger Lambert like to say: any stick to beat a dog.
She uses her readers as foil to burnish her own view (this is not the first time):

Tsipras formed a new coalition that included the firmly pro-Eurzone parties of To Potami and New Democracy. When we suggested a couple of months ago that Tsipras would do that in order to cut a deal with the creditors, readers rejected it out of hand.

Yves is being terribly misleading here, making an equivalence to what she had previously suggested is JUST WRONG. What she had previously suggested was NOT the unity government that Tspiras has achieved but a reconfigured government that would have moderate elements of Syriza break away to join with centrist/right parties in order to accept the Troika’s terms.

The Greek voters, contrary to what Syriza fans have claimed, did not engage in a brave act of democracy. They abjectly misrepresented the alternatives that voters face

Yes and no. This is a rehash of the Troika’s ‘NO’=GRexit charge phrased as “I told you so.”
Tsipras/Varoufakis have said all along that it is best for Greece and best for Europe to reach a comprehensive deal to end the crisis. Most Greeks seems to agree. Before the referendum, Tspiras made it clear that he would go back to get such a deal. He said that it is too costly for Europe to allow for GRexit – and studies that he is right: RBS sees a cost of 220bn Euro for GRexit vs 130bn for debt relief.
But if a deal is NOT attainable, then the referendum result has made a GRexit politically viable and probably much less disruptive. The referendum + IMF debt sustainability study has placed a moral (and political) burden on Europe to help Greece via managed GRexit (if no agreement is reached).
One last comment. It is beyond bizarre that Yves attacks Tsipras as selling out (via the wish for an agreement with the Troika and alliance with Centrists) and yet is an ardent supporter of Greece’s making a deal with the Troika. I can only guess that she does so to push back on the huge criticism that her coverage of Greece has engendered.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 7 2015 15:08 utc | 179

@148
Adding: Many EU establishment figures also said that a ‘NO’ is not a vote for GRexit.
=
However, both sides will have to give something to avoid a GRexit, and as Yves has said (rightly), there is no solution space that resolves the crisis. IMO, this makes a managed GRexit the most likely outcome. Which maybe was the best outcome all along.
Repeating myself: It is cruically important to recognize that a managed GRexit was not possible 6 months ago. The Greeks were offered only the Scylla of harsh austerity (continued misery) or the Charybdis of unmanaged/unprepared GRexit (unmitigated disaster). Accepting either of these outcomes would likely have brought down the Syriza government and thereby put an end to any remaining resistance to the Troika.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 7 2015 16:01 utc | 181

– We, here in the US, have avoided the fate of austerity because interest rates kept going down. But in Southern Europe rates went through the roof in 2010 through 2012. Rates went through the roof in Argentina in 2000 & 2001 before it went bankrupt. And rising rates are the MOST powerful “incentive” to “impose” austerity.
– But a BIG pile of debt is NOT exclusive to Greece, Europe or Southern Europe. We see it here in the US, Canada & Japan as well. And in A LOT OF countries (incl. the US) private debt is at 3, 4, or 5 times the amount of government debt.
– When Europe goes belly up the world’s financial system has a decent chance of surviving but if/when the US goes belly up it will take down the ENTIRE world’s financial system. Since that system is based NOT on the USD, but on USD denominated debt (read: US T-bonds).
What a BIG FAT mess we’ve gotten ourselves into ……………

Posted by: Willy2 | Jul 7 2015 16:49 utc | 183

CX@178
This class of professionals is the same class responsible for the US losing $500 Billion a year from tax fraud and evasion.
The Troika Austerity program will not allow Greece to address their tax evaders because to do so they would be required to hire a multitude of new tax collectors, government hiring is verboten under its terms.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Jul 7 2015 17:08 utc | 185

Changing values and ideology are decades-long projects, so moral appeals might make for nice op-eds but will not change the power dynamics in time to have any impact.

Yves said that she would capitulate to the Troika “on day 1.” Power dynamics is an excuse for capitulation and a call to end all resistance. What would she have written about Martin Luther King in the 1960’s?

Even after its incredible suffering, Greece is not as radicalized as those outside Greece would like to believe. The high percentage of Greeks saying, even on the eve of the referendum, that they still wanted to remain in the Eurozone, shows that Greek society is not willing to make a break even from its punitive overlords.

Blaming the victim. Until Syriza, Greece was controlled by Centrist governments that promoted the Euro and accepted Troika control. Media oligarchs in Greece still harp on the benefits of the Euro. So Greeks preference for the Euro is understandable. The referendum shows that this preference is not absolute, as the ‘NO’ to the Troika’s ‘take-it or leave-it’ offer implies that GRexit is preferred to being bled out and humiliated.
=
Keeping Greece in the Euro is best for everyone but the Troika refuse to do what is necessary because:

– other countries will want similar relief; and
– Some powerful political leaders will be embarassed and their parties will lose elections.

Pointing fingers at ‘moralists’ and ordinary people is wrong-headed. They didn’t create the mess and they are not responsible for the failed polices and selfishness that have perpetuated it.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 7 2015 17:25 utc | 187

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 7, 2015 1:25:43 PM | 187

Pointing fingers at ‘moralists’ and ordinary people is wrong-headed. They didn’t create the mess and they are not responsible for the failed polices and selfishness that have perpetuated it.

I don’t devote much attention to Ms. Smith these days (it was her simple crapitalist moralism which minimized what little I once did), but she is advocating senescent reformism which requires her to point fingers at ‘moralists’ instead of the monsters (she probably aided in her prior career.) It’s a Cold War habit.
How long has she been changing values and ideology? In a meaningful way, that is?

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 7 2015 18:12 utc | 189

Paul Mason on DemocracyNow, paraphrased: Greeks were radicalized in the last two days before the referendum when exposed the blatant propaganda of the oligarchs on their TV networks. This is how crapitalist society “educates” it’s people, by spectacle and crisis.

Posted by: Comrade X | Jul 7 2015 18:36 utc | 191

Jackrabbit, I don’t want to get in the way of your argument with Yves Smith, but I think you’re rewriting the past month’s history and promoting Syriza into anti-austerity warriors. This even though they had agreed to a drastic increase in austerity, aimed mostly at the poor, on June 23! I find it hard to believe that such a brutal capitulation was part of a plan, and that Syriza’s leaders were sure it would rejected by the troika:

In total, the proposed cuts amount to €7.9 billion over a period of 18 months. €2.5 billion alone is to be cut from pensions. To achieve this, the Greek government will put restrictions on early retirement, increase premiums, and cut top-up pensions.
Up to €1.8 billion is to be obtained by increasing the sales tax on goods which are basic necessities. …
Even the property tax, which was implemented at the urging of the EU and affects many poor people in Greece, will be maintained, although its abolition was among Syriza’s main election promises.
… By contrast, taxes on the rich and corporations are only to raise €2 billion of the €8 billion total. The €4 billion military budget is to be cut only by €200 million.

Posted by: fairleft | Jul 7 2015 23:48 utc | 193