World Politics

[python]

The thing is legally it's impossible to exit the euro. No article in any Euro treaty allows for that. The only way out is art. 50 of the TFEU but that means exiting the EU.

it is 2 different things to exit the eu and the euro(zone).

while it is correct that the eu exit is formally very difficult, almost impossible, leaving the euro (or being expelled) is as easy as the european central bank deciding to stop supplying the liquidity. such a decision by the ecb would be quite dramatic but this is what isabout to happen come monday...i still believe the politicians will find a way to postpone the decision, but the grexit imo is now quite likely eventually...the plebiscite in greece announced yesterday is understood by most observers as the cover up for the huge political decision that has apparently been made.

It seems the IMF and other creditors want to get rid of the Syriza government

What made them think they could dictate the terms ? The are the ones asking for help.

i would not characterize the greek position as 'dictating the terms'...stubborn, ideological, a tad unimaginative...yes, but the diktat, if the word has a place here, was rather coming from the other side. the demands for cutting the public spending in the very specific areas by by specific amounts was coming from the 'troika'. actually greece has offered 2 compromises, the last just days ago, which were deceptively greeted as promising and then flatly rejected is 'not good enough'. as far as i know, and i have been following the crisis closely, the were no alternate plans for a compromise coming from the ecb or the imf..at least, they were not made public..

is greece responsible for its own problems ? certainly, but the unprecedented harsh stance of the eu/ecb/imf re. another rescue package is more than just the greeks faulting on payments. as i already wrote, it is a very political affair imo when the euro establishment is sending a message to a political economic thinking ( 'extreme left' ) they consider nonnegotiable. as rhubroma noted, the extreme right seems comfortable in not receiving a similar message.

i do however think that the the us dominated imf is a minor player here. as such, i view it both positively and negatively...positively, b/c europe is showing more and more its independence of the us currency dominated world. negatively, b/c a true economic sovereignty is impossible without a real sovereignty in foreign amd military affairs.

which europe is very far from.

 

[blutto]

....find below a link to a recent article in a major Canadian paper concerning the West's response to the crisis in The Ukraine....as such it follows the usual script Putin is evil and we have to fight to protect democracy and freedoms from the onslaught of godless Communism, errr , evil Russians....

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/27/canada-clearing-final-obstacles-to-ukraine-military-aid-mission-kenney.html

...what is quite ironic is the last sentence which is supposed to buttress unequivocally the official script...

" The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that unexploded mines and ammunition pose a special threat to children in eastern Ukraine."

....because vast majority of the children that have been killed have been in the eastern part of The Ukraine and by the very forces that Canada hopes to train and equip ( ...the further irony is that Canada is apparently stepping into the breach and working with the neo Nazi units that the US Congress recently voted to not equip...and which btw are the elements in the Ukrainian armed forces that have been very active in attacking civilian targets...in fact they seem to hold that as almost a singular aim, sort of like a Ukrainian speaking version of ISIS, though here it is not a religious divide that defines the conflict but an ethnic one...)

Cheers

 

[blutto]

....speaking of elephants in rooms and stuff....

"Iceland Just Jailed 7 Bank Executives For Market Manipulation

Their sentences range from one to four years.

According to The icelandmonitor: “By fully financing share purchases with no other surety than the shares themselves, the bank was accused of giving a false and misleading impression of demand for Kaupþingi shares by means of deception and pretence.”

They were accused of trying to artificially inflate share prices in 2008 by using the bank’s funds to buy shares.

The Iceland Reveiew reported: The court case began in late April, and the hearings were the most wide-ranging and complex in Icelandic legal history. Over 50 witnesses were called, and testimony lasted for many weeks. They were quizzed on the nine defendants’ suspected illegal trade in their own bank’s shares in the lead up to its collapse. Charges laid by the Special Prosecutor claimed that the widespread illegal trade was carefully choreographed and highly deceptive.

By jailing these executives of Iceland’s failed Kaupthing Bank, the country showed the world how to deal with corrupt banks. "

....do note the reference to artificially inflating share prices and take a peek at the stock market where share value is soaring and growth is kinda $h!tty...

Cheers

 

[rhubroma]

The thing is legally it's impossible to exit the euro. No article in any Euro treaty allows for that. The only way out is art. 50 of the TFEU but that means exiting the EU.

it is 2 different things to exit the eu and the euro(zone).

while it is correct that the eu exit is formally very difficult, almost impossible, leaving the euro (or being expelled) is as easy as the european central bank deciding to stop supplying the liquidity. such a decision by the ecb would be quite dramatic but this is what isabout to happen come monday...i still believe the politicians will find a way to postpone the decision, but the grexit imo is now quite likely eventually...the plebiscite in greece announced yesterday is understood by most observers as the cover up for the huge political decision that has apparently been made.

It seems the IMF and other creditors want to get rid of the Syriza government

What made them think they could dictate the terms ? The are the ones asking for help.

i would not characterize the greek position as 'dictating the terms'...stubborn, ideological, a tad unimaginative...yes, but the diktat, if the word has a place here, was rather coming from the other side. the demands for cutting the public spending in the very specific areas by by specific amounts was coming from the 'troika'. actually greece has offered 2 compromises, the last just days ago, which were deceptively greeted as promising and then flatly rejected is 'not good enough'. as far as i know, and i have been following the crisis closely, the were no alternate plans for a compromise coming from the ecb or the imf..at least, they were not made public..

is greece responsible for its own problems ? certainly, but the unprecedented harsh stance of the eu/ecb/imf re. another rescue package is more than just the greeks faulting on payments. as i already wrote, it is a very political affair imo when the euro establishment is sending a message to a political economic thinking ( 'extreme left' ) they consider nonnegotiable. as rhubroma noted, the extreme right seems comfortable in not receiving a similar message.

i do however think that the the us dominated imf is a minor player here. as such, i view it both positively and negatively...positively, b/c europe is showing more and more its independence of the us currency dominated world. negatively, b/c a true economic sovereignty is impossible without a real sovereignty in foreign amd military affairs.

which europe is very far from.

That was indeed my point. When it comes to political issues like xenophobia and nationalism, the EU is far less involved than when it comes to monetary financial ones, which means that the banks dictate the political agenda (no surprise of course, but I wonder what the hell this EU apparatus wants to be, represent, in a global context that has become increasingly dehumanized and impersonal). The Greek crisis has only exacerbated the ideological divide between financial capitalism and social democracy and risks reducing the concept of state as being made up of very expendable personnel, to be cut or kept based upon the disadvantageous or advantageous status of the business investment.

After all that's what this really boils down to, no: a business investment. So long as the creditors get rich off the interest of loan repayments, which in times of financial crisis can be (have been) used to save the same creditors, then the personnel is advantageous. To the contrary, when there is no more profit to be made (after the principle was paid off) then they become disadvantages and thus expendable. When this remains within the indifferent limits of a hegemonic corporate praxis nobody seems to bother much, though when this involves an entire society, perhaps something at least politically should be done.

 

[Amsterhammer]

BREAKING - Greek banks and stock market to remain closed tomorrow, and possibly all week. Capital controls imposed....

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

EU will be 'fine'. Greece is too small to cause too much damage and EU has prepared themselves for grexit.

I think there will be some trouble maybe in the short term then it will stabilize but the EU must be worried about four or five other countries as well. Outside the EU it sounds like Ukraine will default in July according to stories circulating within Ukraine. Of course Russia won't mind this.

 

[Echoes]

it is 2 different things to exit the eu and the euro(zone).

while it is correct that the eu exit is formally very difficult, almost impossible, leaving the euro (or being expelled) is as easy as the european central bank deciding to stop supplying the liquidity. such a decision by the ecb would be quite dramatic but this is what isabout to happen come monday...i still believe the politicians will find a way to postpone the decision, but the grexit imo is now quite likely eventually...the plebiscite in greece announced yesterday is understood by most observers as the cover up for the huge political decision that has apparently been made.

I think you miss the legal aspect. None of the different European treaties currently in force provide for a Euro exit at this point. So it's virtually impossible to exit the Euro unless a country is disobeying it or ... he will have to exit the EU first and then exit the € because that is provided for by the Treaty.

It's Article 50 of the TEU (not the TFEU as I formerly said, my bad)

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-European-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html

So I guess it shouldn't be formally difficult and least of all impossible to do so, otherwise it wouldn't be in the treaty...

It looks like Article 72 of the 1977 Brezhnev USSR Constitution: Each Union Republic shall retain the right freely to secede from the USSR. That article might have seem ironic at that time for the USSR was such a monolythic block but in 1990 Latvia freely seceded under article 72 of that constitution. Let's remember that precedent.

By the way, stopping liquidity supply to Greece. I'm not sure it's the objective. The European institution want to keep Greece. They have more to lose than Greece has.

 

[blutto]

....there is another financial crisis looming on the horizon that may prove to be a very interesting story in and of itself and also how its solution may become a nice compare and contrast to the way Greek financial "crisis" is ultimately dealt with...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" “Ukraine will miss a bond coupon payment in July, setting off a default on about $19 billion of debt, as a standoff with creditors shows no sign of abating, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc…

Ukraine is giving creditors a few weeks to accept a proposal that includes a 40 percent writedown to principal before it imposes a debt moratorium, a person familiar with the talks said on June 19.

“Ukraine will not make the July 24 coupon payment and, as a result, will enter into default at that point,” Matheny said of his base-case scenario in the report. “We do not expect the ad hoc committee to accept Ukraine’s latest restructuring proposal.” (Goldman Sees Ukraine Default in July as Debt Standoff Holds, Bloomberg)"

Cheers

 

[python]

0ne of the more curious aspects of the looming ukraine default is that after a long period of stating the opposite, just a few days ago they proceeded to pay russia 75 million interest towards the 3 billion euro bond loan their president called a bribe to the deposed yanulovich...

allegedly the reason to pay russia the debt they'd rather not was the imf warning that a failure to service the debt would automatically mean their default and endangering the imf further transfers...

speaking from memory, but the links could be easily found.
----
edit: the amount was 75 million, not 175...

 

[gooner]

This has really shown up our government when they put a blanket guarantee on the banks and buckled under the pressure from the EU for reforms and cuts as part of our own bailout program.

You would think Enda Kenny would be backing the Syriza's government in its aims but in his wisdom he thinks they should be following the Irish example of dealing with their debt. Pure political move where he secretly hopes the Syriza government fails in its efforts as a general election is on the horizon in the first half of next year.

Compare the two government stances. Kenny in his first meeting with other leaders in Brussels after becoming Taoiseach(PM), went up to Sarkozy and told him that the memorandum done with the previous government for the bailout was a bad deal for the Irish people where it needed to be re-negotiated. Sarkozy wanted our low corporation tax increased as a result.

I welcomed Kenny's approach for standing up at the time but it was short-lived ever since in the immediate aftermath Faisal Islam with Channel 4 News reporting that the other leaders found him arrogant and cocky as a result of it. Now we have an Irish government who have a have a policy of just wanting to be best guys in the classroom at the head of the EU institutions.

I don't agree with everything Sinn Fein has to say but they're probably the only party in Irish politics who would be willing to follow in a similar lead to the Syriza government. Sadly looking at the polls we could have the nightmare scenario of a Fine Gael/Fianna Fail coalition next year.

 

[rhubroma]

There comes a time when debt repayment needs to be qualified, there are many ways to pay back debt.

The rigid dialectic of the econ-ethicists, loan erogation-repayment beyond the limits of usury = the only abiding contract, needs to have though its ethical limitations. In the past, especially as far as Germany is concerned (both after WWI and WWII), a willingness toward flexibility in light of the actual benefits and detriments of that so-called econ-ethical principle proved fortuitous. For example Germany's post war boom would not have been possible without a massive cut to its sovereign debt, the same treatment the 'conservatives' in Germany today, for "ethical reasons," ferociously refuse Greece. Thus when the Germans respond that they are only motivated by "ethics," one is left wondering if it is a joke, or rather is it simply because of devastatingly short memory?

 

[blutto]

....find below a worthwhile read on the Greek crisis...a particularly good bit is immediately below...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Indeed, Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy obeyed Mr. Obama and Geithner when the latter insisted at a G8 meeting that the ECB ignore the IMF economists’ analysis that Greece could not pay its debts, and bail out the banks. Geithner and Obama explained that U.S. banks had placed big financial bets that Greece would pay its private bondholders, so the ECB and IMF had to lend the government the funds to pay – but had to overthrow the country’s Prime Minister Papandreou who had urged a referendum on whether Greek people really wanted to commit economic and political suicide."

....kinda weird that Obama and Geitner drove the agenda on behalf of US banks...especially given that US banks were instrumental in greasing the wheels for this mess with some really dodgy accounting...

....rumour ( ok not quite rumour, but a comment made during a discussion on CBC radio by a panel of economists discussing the Greek crisis...for which I have no further evidence save the quote above...hence we'll call it a rumour...) has it that those big bets were derivative related and given how fragile that mountain of $h!tty paper is ( apparently the fail of 1 % of the total derivative pile would be enough to cause real major issues ) the holders of that paper forced the issue of full payment ( read, they would not take a haircut which is often done in cases like Greece )...and also pushed the agenda ( hence the comment a bit up thread about someone demanding austerity instead of other less onerous ways of moving forward...)....

....from... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/29/the-greek-debt-crisis-and-crashing-markets/

....good read from a guy who is generally quite bang on...

Cheers

 

[blutto]

....Stiglitz weighs in on the Greek crisis....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/europes-war-on-greek-democracy-2015-06-29?dist=beforebell

....which combined with the Hudson article cited above tells the following story....money is lent to Greece and goes primarily to the country's oligarchs and banks who take the proceeds and park them off-shore and are very good at avoiding taxes ....the turn down of 2008 hits Greece particularly hard and something has to be done...so the solution involves piles of money and a big dose of austerity which saves the banks and punishes the populace, read, the non-oligarchs....

....a couple of background facts....Goldman Sachs was instrumental in cooking the national books to allow a financially fatal bout of borrowing that should have never taken place....the borrowed money is used to fund a government that among other things spends an inordinate amount of money on the military ( thru the mad money period Greece had the 7th highest per capita spending on things military...as an example their spending was 3x what Canada, a noted bloodthirsty hellhole of aggression, spends on military in terms of GDP..)...the payment comes from gains in revenue gotten thru austerity and moves to get money from the wealthy and the banks are specifically turned down by the creditors....Obama and Geitner insert themselves into the original negotiations to save US bank from exposure to Greek debt ( though if you look at the amount the banks actually owe it is not much more than what those selfsame banks have paid over the last little while in fines to cover criminal malfeasance and neatly avoid executive jailtime ...and which btw has not caused any issues with either the stability of the banks or their profit outlook )....

....so the question is...what is missing from the picture that is the generally accepted story here that actually explains this ridiculous situation...why for instance haven't bankers been thrown in jail as has recently been done in Iceland?....why hasn't the debt load been given a haircut as is often the case in situations like this ?....where is the pressure coming from to push austerity and not recovery....where is the pressure coming from to put the tax burden on the poor thru austerity rather than on the wealthy and the banks?...

Cheers

 

[meat puppet]

It is well known that most of the money lent to Greece went directly to banks. Worth repeating, of course! Goldman was also a key player in cooking the stats for Greek entry. In another text Hudson also pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the policies pursued by the Troika create grounds for privatising significant chunks of the member states' economies should they face trouble. And that this is deliberate as well as detrimental to the majority. So cheers.

IMO the most important problem of the Greek economy is the collapse of aggregate demand in the aftermath of the world financial crisis, which cannot be repaired in the current EMU setup. The Greek GDP is down 25% but the greeks and their firms didn't suddenly become 25% worse in producing ***, put it that way. Instead, fast forward from the crisis to this moment and 25% of the spending in the economy were there no more to keep it going. As business expectations plummetted and households became more cautious after 2010, the private sector of the economy (households and business) could only achieve its goal of net saving (accumulate financial wealth) thru slashing investment and consumption, and once it does that the economy contracts overall. It takes no rocket scientist to notice that the current medicine has contributed to collapsing the spending flows and business expectations further, in a vicious cycle. Hence the 25% drop in GDP and 25% unemployment rate.

In any case, fiscal stimulus would have reversed this. No recession will be deep enough to not be reversable via large enough govt spending. The catch is that the EMU is built around arrangements that effectively ban government deficit spending. The damn thing has no buffers against crises.

At this hour, the economic question for the Greeks is not very complex. The choice is essentially between a risk of failure and a certain failure. It's either an endless recession due to endless fiscal austerity (3,5% primary surplus in 2017 is certifiable) and running down the public sector of the economy (both as a provider of services and as an actual producer) or the chance to escape this straitjacket via exiting. Nothing but uncertainty is of course certain, but I am hopeful that even if (read: when) there will be harsh retaliatory measures from the EU institutions, a properly excecuted policy to stimulate aggregate demand and thereby employment, will in fact turn Greece's economy around. The first six months will probably be bad, though, as the new currency devalues and certain commodities might become unavailable, etc. Then again, the present is bad and about to get worse if there is no rupture.

Of course, the stakes are very high.

Should Syriza succeed, it will become apparent that in many ways the economic aspects of the Euro crisis are in fact self inflicted and could be avoided via aggregate demand management policies, direct govt employment programs, etc. Others might be intrigued to follow. Moreover, this way the root of the problem would also become apparent: the current EMU is unworkable for everyone except German (and maybe Dutch) export industries and the banking sector as a whole.

Should Syriza fail in skippering the economy and that is pulling off the aggregate demand boost needed, I guess it will result in a backlash that effectively keeps the left out of the office for decades.

That said, in balance they should do it and exit, and I'd vote NO without blinking. Of course, Grexit might backfire. But an agreement based on unsound economic policies further contracting the Greek economy will surely backfire from the majority's POV.

In fact, while we are at it, Europeans should have said NO in 1992 at the latest. The current EMU built around deflationary fiscal surplus mania and "price stability" (i.e. very low inflation which in fact is code for a constant downward pressure on (real) wages and the wage share of member state's GDPs) was and remains a folly.

In the current political conjuncture, I see no prospects in reforming the EMU so that direct monetary financing of govt deficits by the ECB becomes possible and the Stability and Growth Pact (and Fiscal Compact) are scrapped & renegotiated. Then it could be workable. But. If anything, the EMU and EU will be reformed in precisely the opposite direction, ie. making rules based fiscal austerity even harsher. And I used to be if not a federalist at least a hopeful...

 

[Amsterhammer]

Please provide a source link, Meat.

 

[meat puppet]

Re:

Please provide a source link, Meat.

If you meant the most recent EU level reform proposals/guidelines, try these and work from there:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5240_en.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/europe-france-germany-eu-eurozone-future-integrate

The Macron&Gabriel piece was published in many European papers simultaneously before the Commission / Five Prez report. SDs probably wanted to get in before the curve or somesuch.

Other than that, the source was my keyboard.

 

[blutto]

Re:

It is well known that most of the money lent to Greece went directly to banks. Worth repeating, of course! Goldman was also a key player in cooking the stats for Greek entry. In another text Hudson also pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the policies pursued by the Troika create grounds for privatising significant chunks of the member states' economies should they face trouble. And that this is deliberate as well as detrimental to the majority. So cheers.

IMO the most important problem of the Greek economy is the collapse of aggregate demand in the aftermath of the world financial crisis, which cannot be repaired in the current EMU setup. The Greek GDP is down 25% but the greeks and their firms didn't suddenly become 25% worse in producing ***, put it that way. Instead, fast forward from the crisis to this moment and 25% of the spending in the economy were there no more to keep it going. As business expectations plummetted and households became more cautious after 2010, the private sector of the economy (households and business) could only achieve its goal of net saving (accumulate financial wealth) thru slashing investment and consumption, and once it does that the economy contracts overall. It takes no rocket scientist to notice that the current medicine has contributed to collapsing the spending flows and business expectations further, in a vicious cycle. Hence the 25% drop in GDP and 25% unemployment rate.

In any case, fiscal stimulus would have reversed this. No recession will be deep enough to not be reversable via large enough govt spending. The catch is that the EMU is built around arrangements that effectively ban government deficit spending. The damn thing has no buffers against crises.

At this hour, the economic question for the Greeks is not very complex. The choice is essentially between a risk of failure and a certain failure. It's either an endless recession due to endless fiscal austerity (3,5% primary surplus in 2017 is certifiable) and running down the public sector of the economy (both as a provider of services and as an actual producer) or the chance to escape this straitjacket via exiting. Nothing but uncertainty is of course certain, but I am hopeful that even if (read: when) there will be harsh retaliatory measures from the EU institutions, a properly excecuted policy to stimulate aggregate demand and thereby employment, will in fact turn Greece's economy around. The first six months will probably be bad, though, as the new currency devalues and certain commodities might become unavailable, etc. Then again, the present is bad and about to get worse if there is no rupture.

Of course, the stakes are very high.

Should Syriza succeed, it will become apparent that in many ways the economic aspects of the Euro crisis are in fact self inflicted and could be avoided via aggregate demand management policies, direct govt employment programs, etc. Others might be intrigued to follow. Moreover, this way the root of the problem would also become apparent: the current EMU is unworkable for everyone except German (and maybe Dutch) export industries and the banking sector as a whole.

Should Syriza fail in skippering the economy and that is pulling off the aggregate demand boost needed, I guess it will result in a backlash that effectively keeps the left out of the office for decades.

That said, in balance they should do it and exit, and I'd vote NO without blinking. Of course, Grexit might backfire. But an agreement based on unsound economic policies further contracting the Greek economy will surely backfire from the majority's POV.

In fact, while we are at it, Europeans should have said NO in 1992 at the latest. The current EMU built around deflationary fiscal surplus mania and "price stability" (i.e. very low inflation which in fact is code for a constant downward pressure on (real) wages and the wage share of member state's GDPs) was and remains a folly.

In the current political conjuncture, I see no prospects in reforming the EMU so that direct monetary financing of govt deficits by the ECB becomes possible and the Stability and Growth Pact (and Fiscal Compact) are scrapped & renegotiated. Then it could be workable. But. If anything, the EMU and EU will be reformed in precisely the opposite direction, ie. making rules based fiscal austerity even harsher. And I used to be if not a federalist at least a hopeful...

...good one...the comment about the Eurogroup not being formally equipped to deal with crisis is interesting...remember the last crisis they were involved in Cyprus....there they used a bail-in wherein they used a confiscation of deposits to bail out the banks which seemed at the time to be rather over-the-top/rash/or maybe just lacking in access to other more conventional financial tools and/or solutions and quite possibly illegal ( if guns had been involved this could well have been considered piracy )....the weird thing is that particular approach has since been adopted by many other countries, including Soviet Canuckistan....this approach is now the law of the land but while it enjoys such a status it is no less odious and oddly has never been brought to the people in any meaningful way ( as in never been an issue in an election or voted on in a referendum...heck it wasn't even discussed by the business sections of our newspapers who one would think would have an interest in something like this ) it was passed here by a majority government that is very business friendly...

....so one of the questions is, who forced the issue so that such an approach could be made a law of the land...and is there any connection between that group and the folks driving the Greek crisis agenda beyond the introduction of that approach by the Eurogroup ...ok ok its a rhetorical question but there is something really strange going on here and I am wondering if this is extra-governmental or supra-governmental ....and why in this particular point in time...

...btw find below interesting quote about recent events...
-------------------------------------------------
"On Saturday the Eurogroup broke with its tradition of unanimity, issuing a petulant statement “supported by all members except the Greek member”. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, sought legal advice on whether the group was allowed to exclude him, and received the extraordinary reply: “The Eurogroup is an informal group. Thus it is not bound by treaties or written regulations. While unanimity is conventionally adhered to, the Eurogroup president is not bound to explicit rules.” Or, to put it another way: “We never had any accountability in the first place, sucker.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------
...so who is running the show, not surely a group that is not bound by treaties or written regulations...

Cheers

 

[Amsterhammer]

Re: Re:

Please provide a source link, Meat.

If you meant the most recent EU level reform proposals/guidelines, try these and work from there:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5240_en.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/europe-france-germany-eu-eurozone-future-integrate

The Macron&Gabriel piece was published in many European papers simultaneously before the Commission / Five Prez report. SDs probably wanted to get in before the curve or somesuch.

Other than that, the source was my keyboard.

My apologies, Meat. I was laboring under the misapprehension that the piece to which I responded was copied from an outside source. It was that well written, imho. I therefore doff my cap in your general direction, with a flourish!

 

[meat puppet]

Re: Re:

My apologies, Meat. I was laboring under the misapprehension that the piece to which I responded was copied from an outside source. It was that well written, imho. I therefore doff my cap in your general direction, with a flourish!

Cheers, thanks! Similar but more thorough analyses like that can be found in econ prof Bill mitchell's blog. Curiously, he is also the original founder of cyclingnews if l am not terribly mistaken.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

My apologies, Meat. I was laboring under the misapprehension that the piece to which I responded was copied from an outside source. It was that well written, imho. I therefore doff my cap in your general direction, with a flourish!

Cheers, thanks! Similar but more thorough analyses like that can be found in econ prof Bill mitchell's blog. Curiously, he is also the original founder of cyclingnews if l am not terribly mistaken.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/

...just took a wee boo at the blog above...and am very happy I did...thanks so very much for pointing that out for us...

Cheers

 

[l.Harm]

I also like this blog: http://mainlymacro.blogspot.nl/

Clarified some things for me, even for an economics student I will put a few links here about the Eurozone, he wrote pieces about years ago.

Why Germany is doing well during this crisis (piece from 2011).
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/is-there-competitiveness-problem-within.html

About the budget fundamentalism.
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.nl/2014/08/balanced-budget-fundamentalism.html

Why it is even more ridiculous the Netherlands did so much austerity (which not only have a bad effect on the Dutch economy, but also on the European economy, although the Dutch are just a minor player in terms of size).
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.nl/2012/05/budget-madness-in-netherlands.html

There are a lot more, but can't find everything immediately.

 

[Netserk]

Tsipras prepared to accept all bailout conditions

 

[l.Harm]

Better for him to resign than to give in

 

[Netserk]

Better to 'give in' than to destroy the country.

 

[python]

that FT article's heading was intentionally deceptive.

just reading it to the end (which of course isn't what people have time for) makes absolutely clear that tsipras is NOT prepared 'to accept all bailout conditions'. quite to the contrary he put forward several conditions.

The Hellenic Republic is prepared to accept this staff-level agreement subject to the following amendments, additions or clarifications, as part of an extension of the expiring [bailout] program and the new [third] loan agreement for which a request was submitted today, Tuesday June 30th 2015,"

Mr Tsipras wrote