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The Cradle of Democracy Rocks the Autocrats
The StealthFlation Blog
On the old continent, this December 29th, a succinct political showdown is scheduled to take place which may well become a defining moment for our entirely unsettled new millenium. What is at stake is none other than the prosperity of the common man pitted against the privilege of concentrated power. Lamentably, this deliberate dogmatic divide has relentlessly defined human civilization for the ages.
What is at hand isn’t so much about lofty ideals. It’s not about Socialism. It’s not about Capitalism. It’s not about Communism. It’s not about being a progressive, a conservative or a liberal. It’s not about left vs right. Forget all those dumbed down dichotomies. It’s much more fundamental than all of that. Quite simply, it’s about People vs. Power, that’s it, nothing more. Those that have and wield institutional power, and those that do not. It’s as elementary and base as that I’m afraid.
Take a good look around, I defy you to point to a single socioeconomic construct in our supposedly enlightened and advanced society of today which is not essentially determined by that crude polarizing characterization. Whether it be our bought and paid for Political Class, our rapacious Banking Sector, our completely captured Regulators, our entitled Multinational Corporations, our entrenched Governmental Agencies, our marauding Military Industrial Complex, our fleecing Healthcare Providers, our muzzled Free Press, our hijacked Justice System, or our grossly overpaid CEOs, Athletes, and Entertainers, they all have one thing in common, and I assure you that it’s not the common good that they share. What they seek above all else is to expand existing institutional dominion and their own privileges within it.
Sad to say, but at the end of the day, perhaps dog eat dog is what we humans are really best at, and the only state of being we’re actually capable of. Maybe all those exalted ideals of enlightened forms of governance are just a load of crap to make us feel better about ourselves. Judging by the overt self seeking avarice that dictates the pace of just about everything these days, it sure seems that way.
The odd thing about all of this, especially for our nation, is that America was actually born out of a revolt against the oppressive power of institutional entitlement. Does the following ring a bell:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The founding fathers certainly understood the suffocating and stifling nature of undue privilege. Thank God they had the enlightened foresight to realize that liberating men, not subjugating them, was the most effective way to both govern and grow a nation, not to mention the righteous and moral thing to do. We’re not talking about mandating equality here, we are talking about demanding the liberty and opportunity for each of us to strive to become equals to the most admired and successful among us, should we so choose.
The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, awoke Western civilization to the advancement and empowerment of the individual over the authority of the State, which was central to our founding fathers’ declaration. This powerful liberating social-political philosophy of their times traces its roots all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers that roamed the halls of the Acropolis pictured above. The likes of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle insisted that society should be ruled by merritt. In his most famous work The Republic, Plato makes this clear.
Interestingly, in his most famous work, The Republic, Plato critiques democracy, condemns tyranny, and proposes a three tiered merit based structure of society, with workers, guardians and philosophers, in an equal relationship, where no innocents would ever be put to death again, citing the philosophers’ relentless love of truth and knowledge of the forms or ideals, concern for general welfare and lack of propertied interest as causes for their being suited to govern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_philosophy#Western_philosophy
“In a democracy,” the Greek historian Herodotus wrote, “there is, first, that most splendid of virtues, equality before the law.” Cleisthenes’ demokratia abolished the political distinctions between the Athenian aristocrats, who had long monopolized the political decision making process, and the middle and working class people who made up the army & the navy. This obviously did not yet included slave labor, but clearly the foundations for self governance were established, and the seeds of equality of opportunity were certainly planted by the ancient Greeks.
Having laid out the above narrative, let’s get back to the crucial showdown about to take place on the 29th of this December, 2014. As you may know, today Modern Greece is in the midst of a parliamentary procedure to elect a new president. As a parliamentary democracy, the President of Greece, much like the Queen of England, plays mostly a ceremonial role as the figurehead of State. It is the Prime Minister and Parliament that actually govern the State’s affairs. So why is this important you ask?
Well, here’s the deal. To be elected president, the proposed nominee must receive a supermajority of votes from the parliament, and should the current governing coalition fail to achieve the required number of votes, it is promptly dissolved and national elections are immediately held to elect a new government. Moreover, it is widely believed that the next ruling coalition to be voted in would likely be controlled by the popular SYRIZA party led by a new Prime Minister in Alexis Tsipras.
I’ll be perfectly blunt here. The current Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras of the New Democracy party, is exactly who the Autocrats and financial Kleptocrats in Brussels want to work with. I’ll be equally blunt here again. Mr. Tsipras of the Syriza party is their worst nightmare. We’ll get back to this shortly, as first we must wade through some procedural parliamentary protocol to get you up to date.
Thus far, two separate votes have taken place to elect the new Greek Presidential nominee, Stavros Dimas, who has been put forward by Prime Minister Samaras and is favored by Brussels. During the first round, which took place on December 17th, he received 160 votes, well short of the required 200 supermajority threshold required. The December 23rd second round also fell short of the 200 needed with 168 votes, but here’s the catch, when it comes down to a final 3rd round, which is now the case here, the supermajority tally required drops down to only 180 votes out the 300 member Parliament. So, to make a long story short, on December 29th, the current Samaras led Government needs 12 additional votes to stay in power.
The European establishment, as reflected by the 30% drop in the Athens Composite Index, is certainly not encouraged by these developments. Infact, Jean-Claude Juncker, the sitting president of the EU Commission, the man who once categorically stated that when things get serious you have to lie, has instead decided to make, a not so subtle, direct threat to the Greek people.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the EU Commission, stated during a debatethat he does not want Syriza to assume power in Greece. “I think that the Greeks […] know very well what a wrong election result would mean for Greece and the Eurozone.”
Apparently, Mr. Junker feels the EU’s own institutional interests should take precedence in determining the outcome of the Greek presidential elections over the Sovereignty of Greece itself. Last I checked, the European Union was an association of Sovereign member States, not an official body presiding over internal domestic national elections. Should the people of Greece decide they want a new government in Parliament to represent their objectives and aspirations, that’s entirely their prerogative, not Junker’s.
To add some additional insight, below is a brief profile on the EU establishment’s preferred candidate for the Greek presidency. Wikipedia brings you Stavros Dimas:
In 1968 he began working as a lawyer for a firm on Wall Street, moving to the World Bank the following year, where he worked on investments in Africa and the Middle East.[1] In 1975 he returned to Greece to take up the post of deputy governor of the Hellenic Industrial Development Bank(ETVA), while also being a member of the committee preparing Greek accession to the EEC.[1]
Dimas served briefly in the Prodi Commission. He was appointed European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs in March 2004, taking over the role from the previous Greek Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou. A major focus of his work during this time involved making it more difficult for states to opt out of the Working Time Directive. The Greek government nominated Dimas for the incomingBarroso Commission which took office on 22 November 2004.
Sound familiar, yet another technocratic global banker background, who would have guessed it? Clearly, should Greece want to reconsider its current fiscal relationship with Brussels and the European int’l banking community by dismissing their current government, that’s entirely within their rights as a sovereign nation. Junker’s EU can certainly refuse any newly proposed solutions or initiatives put forth, and the int’l banks can decide not to play ball, but what they can not do is force the Greek people to choose a hand picked negotiating partner, that’s for the people to decide, which is exactly what is taking place at the moment.
For the record, most objective observers agree that the dictated debt regime combined with the strict austerity measures which were imposed on Greece by the TROIKA (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund), shortly after the global debt crisis had metastasized from its initial epicenter during the US Subprime meltdown debacle, has now created an entirely untenable situation for the Greek people. However, the EU doesn’t want you to understand this, they are too busy orchestrating a smear campaign painting any opposition to their self serving plans as radical Marxism.
The fact of the matter is that you can only effectively restructure debt if their is enough income to service that debt at a reduced rate of interest, period. If the income side of the equation is not there, simply adding more to the debt load, no matter what the terms, will get you nowhere. Extending and pretending is precisely what got the int’l financiers in all this trouble to begin with. Let’s face it, you don’t solve a debt crisis with more debt, especially when you can’t pay off your existing obligations to begin with.
Below are general points of contention for renegotiation which Syriza wants to reopen with the TROIKA. Sure doesn’t sounds like something Trotsky would draft. It reads more like a resolution by existing shareholders of a corporation (in this case the Greek people) to put in place new management and restructure with creditors. In fact, it actually offers to give the EU more explicit control of the Greek banking system itself moving forward. Hardly seems radical or revolutionary to me? See for yourself:
Negotiating Stance with the Troika: Reconstruction of the Banking Sector and Debt Relief
Reconstruction of Greece’s banking sector
Offer to pass ownership and direct managerial control of Greek banks requiring recapitalisation to the ESM under certain conditions (see below). Such a transfer of ownership (i.e. common shares) and management will entail disbanding the GFSF (the Greek Financial Facility) and passing all its, newly acquired assets, onto its parent the ESM-EFSF, together with the responsibility for future recapitalisation phases. The conditions under which the Greek government will consent to this transfer include:
- No existing member of the Board of these banks must be retained.
- New Boards to be appointed by the ECB, in association with the ESM-EFSF and the European Commission; possibly under advisement from the European Banking Authority.
- The new Boards will replace top management and proceed with bank mergers and resolutions as required and under the supervision of the ECB.
- All depositors to be protected in full, whether guaranteed and not, during the period of insolvency and resolution, with a “deep insolvency” insurance fund funded by the ESM.
- Remaining shareholders and subordinated bondholders are not protected.
- Eventually, the shares of the reconstituted banks are to be sold back to the Eurozone private sector at a profit to the ESM-EFSF.
- ESM-EFSF investments for the purpose of recapitalisation of Greek banks not to count as part of the Greek national debt.
Re-negotiation of loan repayments re. Bailouts Mk1 and Mk2
- Invite the troika to negotiate a schedule of repayment for past loans that is tied to the growth rate of the Greek economy. This way the troika acquires a stake in Greek stabilization and growth.
- Use the profits of the ECB from the SMP program (up to €14 billion so far), and of the Greek Central Bank from the ELA program, to establish a Solidarity Fund to provide food relief, through a food stamps program, and minimal electricity security for eligible Greek citizens and legal residents.
Moreover, there can be little doubt that the predatory international banking institutions was clearly complicit, along with the disgracefully corrupt Greek politicians (many who still hold office) and high ranking government officials, as well as most of the Ionian elites at the highest levels of society in the near total abrogation of their financial responsibilities to their country. They completely failed the common man in this regard, who understandably counted on them for proper sustainable fiscal governance.
Simply put, the provincial woman on the streets of Athens pushing her Gyro cart up the steep hills of Kolonaki is certainly less responsible for the lamentable state of affairs her beloved country finds itself in, then those whom should have clearly known better. Along with the privlige of leadership comes responsibility. Yet, today she is the one being asked to bare the brunt of the terribly onerous predicament her Nation is suffering through. Meanwhile, the bankers get more free Euros, and no one is buying her Gyros.
The EZ bankers need to promptly step up to the plate here, by offer greater forbearance for their own egregious culpability in this Greek tragedy. After all, if you are going to demand harsh self sacrifice from the bottom and middle of slice of society, you best show the example at the top, particularly if you want peace on the streets. It is simply unacceptable to force feed the lion's share of the sovereigns’ financial resources through the EFSF/ESM/OMT bailout mechanisms in order to desperately ressistate what are essentially failed EU banking procedures & a broken EZ monetary regime.
The entire EU financial system has to be soundly restructured, and realistically reconfigured for the long haul, as a monetary union without a corresponding fiscal union is an abomination. Finally, it is the people of the Eurozone who must have the final say on how that is to be done, for in the end, they are the ones footing the bill, not the floundering self serving bankers and bumbling self seeking technocrats Either the Europeans create a an actual Fiscal Union to go along with their Monetary Union, or they dismantle and abandon this grand experiment abomination. Can't have it both ways.
The Eurozone's monetary system which the Eurocrats were in such a rush to put forth was most certainly structurally off base from the outset. Anecdotally, all one had to do was visit sublime Greece, as I did in the Summers of 2009 & 2010, and notice the excessive number of brand new yellow BMW & Mercedes taxis on the streets of Athens to realise something had been too good to be true. Unwittingly, the exporting nations' multinational banks had accelerated the flow of cheap money into the periphery States to such a degree that they had over stimulated the consumption of imported durable goods from abroad, which created destabilizing capital flows and unsustainable trade imbalances. Economies which grow dependent upon excessive debt financing always end up creating precarious misallocations of capital. We may well be about to find that out ourselves, right here in the good old USA.
The Greek people understand all of this more and more with each passing day. They are turning to Alexis Tsipras, not because he’s a radical Socialist as the establishment and captured media would have you believe, but rather because he simply better represents the only viable hope and aspirations of the common man on the streets of Athens. I have recently read nearly 50 articles in the western press covering the current tenuous situation in Greece, every single one of them branded Tsipras as a dangerous “Radical”. You would think that Lenin himself had come back from the dead to dismantle the EU’s Tsarist autocracy and execute a few top European Commission members. Talk about dirty tricks, cheap scare tactics and disingenuous obfuscation. Just exactly what is it that they are all so afraid of here?
The following passage below was written by one of our esteemed contributors, Yanis Varoufakis, who just happens to be a close advisor to Alexis Tsipras. He’s a professor of Economics at the University of Athens, and Visiting Professor Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas Austin, USA. Yanis is clearly in the thick of it, and knows of which he speaks. Listen up.
SYRIZA, a growing political party in Greece, is an acronym that stands for “Coalition of the Radical Left.” For Americans, the idea that a party on the radical left could gain power is unthinkable, and it was for Greeks, too—until very recently. But the harsh austerity measures that the European Union imposed on Greece after its economic collapse have created extreme conditions in Greece: six in ten young people are unemployed, wages and pensions have been cut, national income has fallen by one quarter.
Europe is currently caught in a negative feedback loop, from which the established political process is unable to escape. For three years now, an endless stream of spending cuts and tax hikes has dominated the Greek Parliament’s agenda. A SYRIZA win may be the jolt that Europe needs: a victory by a pro-European party committed to keeping the country both in the Eurozone and in the European Union, but a party that, importantly, because of its radical disposition, is prepared to open up the conversation at the level of the European Council so that, at long last, European leaders address the problems they have been ignoring over the past five years. Back in June, in a New York Times op-ed, James K. Galbraith and I alleged that “SYRIZA may be Europe’s best hope,” and six months later this still holds true.
At the end of the day, is enlightened civilization about protecting the interests of institutions, or about creating institutions that protect the interest of people? You tell me. Let the Greeks decide! Just as our founding fathers threw off the yolk of our regal oppressors, so does Tsipras seek to throw off the straight jacket stranglehold imposed on them by the odious oligarchs and their financial technocrats in Brussels. Furthermore, Tsipras isn’t even calling for their overthrow, he’s simply demanding a more realistic approach to the situation at hand. What’s the problem with that Mr. Junker? Is it about people or only about institutional privilege for you sir? Will you be nefariously working to circumvent the sovereign vote by offering parliament members bribes in Syntagma square, is that what you have been reduced to?
As for me, I would be more than happy to see the cradle of democracy put the imperial autocrats and financial kleptocrats in their place, teaching them a thing or two about enlightened self governance. Perhaps the ascent of Alexis Tsipras simply reflects the frustration of the everyday Greek citizen, who’s completely fed up with their notoriously corrupt old guard political class, the self seeking oligarchs in Brussels and the self interested banking elites that keep offering up the same poison pill to cure a lethal debt epidemic that they themselves were central to spreading in the first place. It’s high time somebody wakes up these all knowing, self-serving, self important, bogus bureaucrats..................Opa!
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Yes, amadeus39, those stages of robbery are the result of analysis of a network, in which there is an ouroboros of incorporated robbery. Causality in a network is NOT like linear causality. Causality in a network loops around and around ...
Overall, I endeavour to do a more creative synthesis of ancient mysticism with post-modernizing science. I totally agree that we should get more mystical. The reasons for that are that we have had profound paradigm shifts in physical sciences, such as through the special theory of relativity, and quantum mechanics, which have been APPLIED to create systems whereby apes with atomic bombs are backing up electronic monkey money.
Post-modernizing science has already significantly converged towards ancient mysticism. However, almost all of the established, socially significant, religions and ideologies are grievously obsolete, to the degree that they have become dangerously counter-productive. The SOURCE of the apparent confusion is the ways that we understand the processes of SUBTRACTION.
Human beings have reversed the meaning of things, because that was the kind of bullshit which suited the biggest bullies. One of the more abstract ways that happened was that an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations of thermodynamics and information theory. The mathematical physics itself revealed that all power and information have relative negative values, not positive values. However, the entropy equations had their meaning reversed, because civilizations based on backing up lies with violence want to present that as being a good and positive thing to do.
Human beings perceive the world by relatively subtracting parts from the Whole. After relatively subtracting parts for the Whole, then those parts must engage in TAKING ENERGY AND MATTER across their defined boundaries, in order to continue living. Thus, as soon as we perceive human beings as separated from their environment, then they must live as ROBBERS. (To take is the basic definition of robbery.)
Civilization has been the development of bigger and bigger gangs of robbers, which became more sophisticated as gangs of defrauders. I.e., warfare was organized crime on larger and larger scales, which selected for the War Kings to create sovereign states, whose powers were effectively captured and privatized by the Fraud Kings, the international bankers, who are the best organized gangsters, the banksters.
Human realities are always organized lies operating robberies, because as soon as we perceive human beings as subtracted from their environment, that must necessarily follow. A return to becoming more reconciled with the world view of ancient mysticism is possible, if we radically transform the errors made in the philosophy of science, such as when an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations.
By and large, the vast majority of people continue to rely upon their common sense understanding of time and space, despite that common sense understanding having been proved to be WRONG. We are currently stuck in the dilemma that profound paradigm shifts in physical sciences have enabled technology to become trillions of times more powerful and capable, while the purposes to which those technologies are mainly used are to become better at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, such as globalized electronic money, backed by weapons of mass destruction.
The only genuinely better solutions require intellectual scientific revolutions, and those tend to re-converge with ancient mysticism. As soon as we subtract humans from their environment, then they must live as robbers. However, that subtraction was never absolute, and so, the processes of robbery are never finished.
Rather than perceiving social pyramid systems, we should perceive that those are toroidal vortices, so that we can better understand how to connect their top to their bottom. We should develop better ways to operate the ouroborous of incorporated robbery, because that is already what exists, however, mostly people do not perceive that, or rather, tend to perceive that backwards.
In nature, eventually it tends to be that everything eats everything else. More and more, the human systems are doing the same things, but that is not being perceived very well by most people. These days, the collective government mandated entities own the vast majority of all publicly traded corporations, including the biggest banks. That is, We the People have enabled the biggest corporations to rob us blind, but that has looped around, so that those biggest corporations have becoming overwhelmingly owned by vast numbers of people, operating through the collective powers of governments:
SEE, Walter Burien, Clint Richardson and Jerry Day etc.:These were not well-made, entertaining videos,however, the concepts revealed are important:
http://www.cafr1.com/
Together, that is the Ouroboros of Incorporated Robbery!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3hUcmNDdA
Ending Taxation - The Only Game in Town - 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkfMuvVuETQ
The Corporation Nation Master (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkWueEjewM
Corporation Nation 2
Another, shorter, talking head video about the CAFR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2aif0Wk9E0
Introduction to the CAFR - Why You Can’t Get Ahead
The American and global economy has become a spiraling system, where the collective powers of the people have been mostly privatized, but then that has looped around back to result in those corporations mostly being owned by government mandated organizations, based on those powers of governments.
COLLECTIVE GOVERNMENTS NOW OWN THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE ECONOMY.
However, the vast majority of people do not understand that, while a small herd of professional money managers follow each others' tails around, without any better understanding of what they are really doing, because they can not gain any better perspective upon the overall ways that the political economy actually fits inside the environmental ecology.
Doing that requires a creative synthesis of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism. Such a reconciliation is possible if and and only if one understands SUBTRACTION and ROBBERY better. (Of course, that is confusing to most people, because they continue to perceive everything backwards, while they take for granted those perceptions, without recognizing the degree to which they are seeing everything BACKWARDS!)
"Hang the money-changers and their complicit accomplice politicians!"
Correct.
This was the solution given to us by Mario Puzo at the end of the "Godfather", except they didn't use rope.
" People vs. Power"
Same as it ever was.
As once read somewhere:
"If the government's power comes from the barrel of a gun, then the people's comes from math: millions and millions vs a few million."
The banksters need to repay us.
The EZ is supposed to be a group of countries linked by a single currency and yes there likely was alot of corruption by the greek elites. YOU CAN'T HOLD THE ORDINARY GREEK CITIZEN FINANCIALLY ACCCOUNTABLE WHEN THE LEADERS WERE THE ONES MAKING ALL THE FRAUDULENT ECONOMIC PROPOSALS.
If anything and this includes goldman sachs as well as the elites who got Greece into the euro club to begin with and all the fraudulent numbers need putting on trial for the suffering imposed on the Greek people to cover their own asses these past 5 years and no end in sight.
But Greece can never leave the euro, will show the euro to be the failed misconception it really was so forced to stay and suffer. On that point Greece should have left 5 years ago, the worst part and like Iceland would be passed and a better future started but got a sneaky feeling here ... the other bailout countries would have followed also effectively killing the euro.
At the first bailout the economy of Greece was a certain size that size has now totally collapsed and the level of debt it can support collapsed with it. Now to support the increased debt overload takes an even larger amount of income to support it effectively trapping the Greek in debt servitude and no way out. (mind the bullshit on this one 30% of nothing is nothing and the growth propoganda).
Go on elect a new government, same rules, same scenario will result in the same outome time after time to protect the precious EZ dream where returning to the drachama (and yes it would be chaotic) an alternative path amd future taken. At that point the future amongst all the turmoil begins for those Greeks not yet born but carry on the next generation will endlessly suffer.
THIS IS LIKE YOU PAYING FOR YOUR PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS MISTAKES FOREVER? WOULD THAT BE RIGHT?
On returning to the EZ at some point? Not bothered either way but at least the torment of the Greeks has ended who had nothing to do with creating this just carrying on as their elected said they could.
NO such thing as "the Greek people," or "the people" only individual humans who collectively become sheeple.
"THIS IS LIKE YOU PAYING FOR YOUR PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS MISTAKES FOREVER? WOULD THAT BE RIGHT?"
++++++++
Greece applied to be admitted to the EU, and was admitted in 1981. The country was not invaded, conquered, and forced into the EU. The people who benefitted from the roll up in the debt - every Greek to some extent - are still there, whether it is the unions which made the shipyards uneconomic or the pensions of the workers of the government owned railroads, or the tax cheats who never paid. They have all earned their part of this outcome. Bankers did not write the legislation creating the Greek system, it is all 100% Greek.
Given all the downs it seems a lot of people are uncomfortable facing up to the full truth about Greece.
"The EZ is supposed to be a group of countries linked by a single currency..."
Fiat currencies are nothing more than the yoke to which the people are connected to the banksters' debt plow.
When each farm has depleted its producing capacity, the farmers unite the farms into a "common currency" farming enterprise for the sake of "economies of scale."
The banksters need to repay us.
Fiat is the yoke, fiat-debt is the plow, government is their managers, and the people are their draft animals.
Drop the yoke, disperse the mangers, and slay the farmers.
When each farm has depleted its producing capacity, the farmers unite the farms into a "common currency" farming enterprise for the sake of "economies of scale."
+++++++++++++++++
The farm was depleted of productive capacity by the practices of the farmer. The banker who made the farm loan did nothing to cause it to decline.
Suppose those farmers had received the loan proceeds in gold and were required to make repayments in gold. They still were inefficient and depleting the land capacity. But, just to show that they were not, they used the gold to pay for parties. Hey, let's hold a big party. How about the some Olympic Games? Just borrow and put it on the Gold tab. What is the difference if it is Euro tab.
How refreshing to see an intelligent dicussion including the author of the article, instead just a bunch of snarky remarks.
s2man
I agree and it is also interesting and coincidental that the discussion is about Greece, the cradle of democracy.
The mobilization by the global financial mafia this time will be more intense, as its representatives know that a potential Leftist government in Greece who may strongly resist against the austerity policies, could trigger an "uncontrolled" domino rise of the Leftist powers in Europe, who will fight against the neoliberal agenda. Make no mistake, the war will be hard. But there is no alternative. Either the European people will choose to fight determined and united, or, will be surrendered to the plutocrats who will bring the new Dark Ages. The "Battle of Greece" will be decisive ...
Being Greek and living in Greece allow me to add my 2 bits.
Regarding the presidential vote on Monday, there is hardly any chance of the government mustering the 180 votes. Hence there will be national elections in one month's time approximately. Syriza will most certainly come first place. The question is whether they can gain 51% of the parliament (unlikely). So we are looking at a coalition government with the bulk composed of Syriza mp's. The real interesting issue is how the EU (and the ECB) responds to Syriza's demands and program. Will these land upon a brick wall in Brussels and Frankfurt? And if so, what will the new Syriza-led government do next?
Partly out of a desire not to scare voters but primarily due to genuine belief (naive you might say) that they could re-formulate present European policy away from austerity, Syriza have ruled out the possibility of ditching the euro. Hence they are financially captive by Frankfurt and Brussels. Draghi could easily perform another "offer-you-can't-refuse" act threatening to turn off even the emergency liquidity from Greek banks. Having no Plan B or workable monetary tools, Syriza would be under great pressure from a domestic population not accustomed to empty ATM machines. Even this would be manageable if said population was radicalized enough to put up with economic warfare. That does not seem to be the case at least at present.
Greek's, however, have a volatile temper and any Gamora-like treatment from the EU and the ECB could well backfire and unite the people in an anti-EU coaltion. Also there is the possibility that the Troika backpedals on it's program as it was absurd from the very beginning. All-in-all it will make for a non-boring 2015 to say the least.
"Being Greek and living in Greece allow me to add my 2 bits."
With respect, but when do you and your fellow Greeks demand to be Greek again, and not EU farm animals plowing for the banksters?
When is enough enough?
You are a Greek, not a EU subject.
The banksters need to repay us.
I ask the same questions myself..
The Greeks overextended themselves and weren't able to adjust to the 'new' way of doing things. To think your hopes lie with a socialist or a 'common' man only shows the level of depravity among the people themselves. Good luck with your Grexit; but I doubt it will materialize and, even if it did, Europe would likely be better for it. The Greeks, not so much. ;-)
Thank you for sharing your excellent insights........efharisto poli!
Let Greece be Greece.
SYRIZA, a growing political party in Greece, is an acronym that stands for “Coalition of the Radical Left.”
...but it's a "dumbed down dichotomy" to say it's about Marxism versus the Free Market.
GOTCHA.
YOU, sir, are an imbecile.
WORSE, you are an apologist for those who would enable tyranny.
Apologist for Tyranny? Hardly............
"What is at stake is none other than the prosperity of the common man pitted against the privilege of concentrated power."
I say Bring on be Le Pen, Grillo, Lucke and Farage, and let’s get it on! For the people, of the people! Enough is enough. If we’re all going down, at the very least it should be on our own terms…………Opa!
It's not about the politics my dumbed down friend.
Divide and conquer...........................both the left and the right fall into the trap which has been set.
You need to move beyond politics when outright theft is taking place behind the scenes.
Do yourself a favor, turn off Fox & CNN sonny.
Their "divide and conquer" is in our heads.
Our "divide and conquer" is with their heads.
The banksters need to repay us.
Greece can never ever recover whilst using the Euro. Its the drachmae or generations of poverty.
Should Detroit issue its own currency?
Either the Europeans create a an actual Fiscal Union to go along with their Monetary Union, or they dismantle and abandon this grand experiment abomination. Can't have it both ways....
It's time for the people to choose, enough is enough of this disastrous, entirely destructive, half baked approach.
Bruno, abomination is part of the vocabulary of the religious zealot
you utterly fail to explain how the monetary union caused untold grief to the Greeks. you gloss over the Greek national banking system's role in this tragedy
yes, there is one choice: either keep the hard, non-national currency and also adopt hard accounting ways or go back to the soft, national currency. or default, of course
but your "we have to have a fiscal union"? why? what for? as you wrote yourself, we have sovereign nations, and the EU is only an associations of them
sovereign means own taxes, own budget, own army. you are just asking for a federalization of Europe, clad in an invective against the current associations
"Should Detroit issue its own currency?"
++++++++
It really is not an issue about currencies. Zimbabwe has its own currency. Has that made it more successful?
Because Greece became a member of the EU it has been able draw subsidies from the wealthier countries. It has also been able to beg for assistance to feed the maw of the inefficient government employees who operated every important element of the socialist economy. When the begging did not yield enough, the Greek politicians turned to debt to fulfill the promises of prosperity for all.
Now the lie has been exposed. The foolish population will suffer and deserves to have some suffering. The Greeks will never be in the situation of the poor of Zimbabwe. But both groups determined their own fate by having governments that ruined their countries. The just took differnet routes to the same concluding bankruptcy.
"Deserves" got nothing to do with it!
If you prick us do we not bleed?
If you tickle us do we not laugh?
If you poison us do we not die?
And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
The main issue, prehaps the only issue is debt. The debt is that created by the banks and being passed on to the citizens by the regulators and Government shills. This transfer has been in full flow since 2007/8 and is continuing. Unluckily for the Bankers and the rest of those involved they are bankrupting the people and we are rapidly approaching the end game.
“It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals.”
- Jean-Paul Marat
Once the penny drops we will have front row seats to the new French Revolution, EU style. This time it will be the internet that seals your fate and that of your family, though the state will use all the means at its disposal to crush the people it will fail and the greater the oppression the greater the Terror will be.
To all you bankers and Eurotrash you have a tiger by the tail and your grip is getting weaker, personally I feel no pity for you but I do feel sorry for your children who will pay also for your crimes
“The ship of the revolution can only arrive safely at its destination on a sea that is red with torrents of blood.”
- Louis Saint-Just
To tell the truth in a corrupt state is definitely "radical."
Stuck on Zero, while I agreed with your point, I would go further to indicate that the same principle applies to the controlled opposition groups, which are pretty well the only publicly significant opposition. Another recent article that the article above reminded me of was 2014: The Year Propaganda Came Of Age ... As well as this one Greek Prime Minister: "It's Best For The Country" To Do Away With Democracy
The most significant trends continue to all be on exponential growth curves, with their problems piling up on top of each other faster and faster, as was recently given a metaphorical expression in another article from 2014 Year In Review (Part 1): The Final Throes Of A Geopolitical Game Of Tetris
"I feel like we’re in the final throes of a geopolitical Game of Tetris as ... the global game of Tetris is accelerating to a finale."
As we become more overwhelmed by problems piling up on top of each other, most of those who pretend that there will finally emerge better "solutions" from when they perhaps reach some possible breaking points, like in an election that does NOT put some regime controlled by the banksters back into power, are probably mistaken. The situation we are inside of is that social systems based on being able to back up lies with violence, which have been developing at an exponential rate throughout the whole history of Neolithic Civilizations, are approaching doubling times which have catastrophic consequences.
The systems of legalized lies backed by legalized violence have always been automatically getting worse, faster, HOWEVER, as they do that each doubling of their criminal insanities becomes more so! I have always presumed that those systems of exponential growth, MUST NECESSARILY RUSH TOWARDS THEIR BREAKING POINTS, especially after becoming backed by weapons of mass destruction, so that we now have globalized systems of electronic monkey money, as FRAUDS ENFORCED by the threat of atomic bombs, which problems are trillions of times worse than anything else that ever existed in known human history.
The common pattern that I perceive is that the controlled opposition groups continue to operate within the same frame of reference of false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which actually make the opposite happen in the real world. In my view more radical truth requires speaking truth not merely to the established systems, but also to their controlled opposition. Unfortunately, that means that more genuine radical truth is extremely unpopular, to the point where it appears to have no practical political point. Hence, I would not hold out any reasonable hope for some relatively "radical" opposition groups to maybe win elections in some of the countries which were more on the periphery, and therefore, were among the first to be destroyed, due to paradoxical final failures that follow from the consequences of too much "success" within systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS.
There are quite a few deeper and deeper levels to consider regarding the basic problem that social pyramid systems are based upon being able to back up lies with violence, which have become systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, all of which suffer from the basic problem that social successes based on being able to ENFORCE FRAUDS never make those frauds stop being false. Rather, the more social successes are based on the ability to back up lies with violence, the more psychotic society becomes overall. Thus, in my view, the controlled opposition groups are very unlikely going to promote more levels of radical truths, in response to the recognitions of the degrees to which the lies are different at every level, especially because the vast majority of people do not understand that, and do not want to understand that.
The article above presents a classic false fundamental dichotomy:
"Quite simply, it’s about People vs. Power."
Actually, everyone has some power to rob, with the limit case of that being the power to kill to back up that power to rob. The history warfare made governments, which are basically military organizations. Those who survived as the War Kings made the sovereign states, whose powers were covertly captured by the Fraud Kings, the international bankers, whose ability to dominate all aspects of the funding of the political processes, for generation after generation, have resulted in almost all successful politicians in that context being those banksters' puppets, while there was also capture of the control of the public schools and mass media, so that those puppet politicians would be able to fool enough of the masses of muppets, enough of the time, so that the vicious spirals of the banksters' political puppets doing what the banksters wanted automatically got worse, faster, at an exponential rate, in ways where some countries on the periphery, like Greece, have relatively suddenly found themselves severely deteriorated by the longer-term consequences of their countries being controlled by the banksters' political puppets.
However, within that analysis, the only publicly significant opposition continues to manifest as controlled opposition groups, which do not deal with either the short-term problems, such as that the banksters would rather destroy any democracy that they could not control, than allow such a democracy to reduce their power, as well as much more importantly, in the longer term, the controlled opposition groups tend to continue to base their bogus "solutions" upon the same old-fashioned fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which would surely continue to backfire badly in the real world, especially because in the shorter term, the banksters who could no longer control a fake democracy would certainly switch gears towards destroying it.
The overwhelming vast majority of people do not have a clue about the degree to which the ways that they think, and the language that they use to think with, is almost totally operating from within the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. That goes everywhere from the most theoretical aspects of the philosophy of science, to the most practical aspects of politics. Not only do we live in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears proportionately backwards, the few that recognize that continue to not grasp how extremely backwards the ways that they perceive the world, that they mostly take for granted, still are, despite their superficial levels of awakening to some of the central social facts, which they tended to be oblivious of before. Hence, while some become relatively "radical" by telling the truth about a corrupt state, most continue to still do that within the same frame of reference as that corrupt state operated within, without more fully recognizing that.
Therefore, I would say that not only should we go through the looking glass of our Bizarro Mirror World, to understand that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, but also we should go deeper through more levels of radical truths about how and why that happened. Some basic unitary mechanisms should be developed: all human realities are always organized lies operating robberies. All private property is based on backing up claims with coercions, while the most abstract way that manifested was that money is measurement backed by murder.
(Recall that both the ancient Greeks, as well as the early Americans, had a death penalty for debasing the public money supply, which were fairly clear indications of the basic fact that money is measurement backed by murder. Backing money up with any other commodities, whether precious metals, or petroleum, etc., only makes that money be the measurement of that commodity backed by murder.)
Warfare was organized crime on a larger scale. The history of warfare created governments, whose powers were captured by those who best applied the methods of organized crime to the political processes. Human beings are basically entropic pumps of energy, which have developed civilizations based upon doing that in ways whereby the death controls are done through the maximum possible deceits, while those back up the debt controls based on the maximum possible frauds.
That was the kind of bankster controlled governments, such as Greece, more on the periphery, while the USA was more at the heart, of those globalized systems based on backing up lies with violence. However, since those systems were successful by brainwashing most people to believe in bullshit, the controlled opposition to those systems continues to mostly believe just as much in the same basic bullshit world view, and therefore, continues to perceive those problems using false fundamental dichotomies, which then is expressed as promoting impossible ideals as the basis for bogus "solutions," which will surely continue to actually make the opposite happen in the real world.
There were deeper levels of more radical truths regarding how and why human systems are fractal manifestations of the principles and methods of organized crime, while those were most successfully done within society by being operated by the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. Tragically, I see no good reasons to believe that those who are in the controlled opposition groups, that somewhat perceive the more superficial levels of that situation, would provide any genuinely better resolutions, when those systems of enforced frauds (MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction) finally drive their exponential growth to their breaking points, whereupon there will be severe social storms, and psychotic breakdowns.
While it has become relatively a cliche amongst those proposing alternatives to the established systems that to tell the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act, in my view it is typical that those doing that continue to stay on relatively superficial levels of such greater truths, while, so far, they rarely go through deeper layers of more radical truths. Since that is the case, I would not count on any publicly significant controlled opposition groups not continuing to promote the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, as the preferred "solutions" for those problems (especially since the vast majority of the public would not be able to understand anything that was still not within the frame of reference of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, that they were already brainwashed to believe in for generation after generation.
In that context, almost all the articles and comments published on Zero Hedge continue to tend to be grossly understating how serious the situation is, and so, grossly overstating how effective their proposed sets of "solutions" would be. The basic problem is that money is measurement backed by murder. Since the debt controls are actually backed by the death controls, any real, radical, revolution that transferred power away from the banksters, as the current incarnation of the ruling classes, would surely have to develop new systems of death controls.
IF a more democratic republic operating through the rule of law was to be realistic enough to be successful, then it would have to democratize the death controls, in order to back up democratization of the debt controls. Nothing else is sufficient. Therefore, there are no genuinely better resolutions of the real problems without radical paradigm shifts in the ways that we understand the death controls, which were manifested through the history of warfare, to end up being most successfully done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries, so that the financial systems ended up being based on enforced frauds, whereby the banksters had effectively privatized the public powers to rob (taxation) and kill (law enforcement) in order to be enable the tiny minority to defraud the vast majority, at an exponentially accelerating rate.
To speak more radical truth to a corrupt system requires doing that the controlled opposition groups, just as much as to the established systems. However, it is quite typical within Zero Hedge, which is symbolic of everywhere else, that the controlled opposition groups promote the same old bullshit just as self-righteously as the established systems did. Paradoxically, a genuinely more honest government should admit the basic facts which I have outlined above. However, since the vast majority of people would not understand that, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand that, the controlled opposition groups tend to merely be a relatively new crop of professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, who might somewhat replace the previous crop.
The only ways that enough genuine progress could be made would be if enough people stopped believing so much in the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, based on false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, and instead started more to use unitary mechanisms. That approach would surely apply to the over-simplified notion that "it’s about People vs. Power."
That "it’s about People vs. Power" is an old-fashioned, mistaken, formulation of the nature of the political problems we face! To articulate that better requires more profound intellectual scientific revolutions with respect to the basic theories of power and information. That is where the source should be to transform political science, so that we approached these problems using unitary mechanisms, which could be more scientific understandings of how human civilizations operate as general energy systems. However, the historical facts were that the biggest bullies' bullshit world view dominated the philosophy of science, the same as it did all other social enterprises.
Of course, I recognize that, objectively speaking, the overwhelming vast majority of people almost totally take their bullshit view of the world for granted, and are not able and willing to go through the kinds of profound paradigm shifts that would be necessary. After all, what appears way more probable is that the runaway debt slavery systems, which have driven their numbers to become debt insanities, are going to provoke death insanities as a result (while the emergence of any genuinely better opposition groups to resolve those situations better seems quite improbable.)
But nevertheless, I continue to assert that, theoretically speaking, we should also tell more radical truths about the corrupt controlled opposition groups, just as much about the corrupt established systems. Honest Politicians ought to tell more radical truths about how they would operate better death controls to back up better debt controls, because nothing else is actually in the same order of magnitude, or ball park, as the banksters being able to make and maintain the combined murder/money systems, which are how those entrenched, established systems are operating NOW!
Yes, yes! I am enamoured of your profound understanding of our problems. Truth and understanding of the truth are the heart of the matter. Now, again. What are some radical truths? I hunger for TRUTHINESS!
Sorry, amadeus39, but my macabre sense of humour is too worn out from overuse to be able to provide more entertaining TRUTHINESS.
In the USSA, it can also be criminal to blow the whistle on government corruption
Ain't that the truth................
Given a growing financial/debt/social debacle/dysfunction in Athens 2600 years ago, Solon, exemplar of integrity and uncommon sense and poet extraordinaire, was asked to fix it. Among his many innovations, one was a magic wand type poof you are gone approach to crippling widespread debt. Given that here and now a great deal of debt begins as the magic wand issuance of credit at parasitic compound interest, then grows and grows and cripples ensnares and demoralizes, there is something to be said for some variation of the magic wand cure:poof.
Love it Radish!
"Sad to say, but at the end of the day, perhaps dog eat dog is what we humans are really best at, and the only state of being we’re actually capable of."
Game theory suggest that free-riders will eventually corrupt any human institution however that doesn't mean there is no hope of making those institutions work for a while at a time. It just means that Jefferson was right (again).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
h/t
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff109180.html#vGDIkG4...
It would change my idea of how things work if the power structure can't find some way to garner those last 12 votes. I'll be watching but not hopefully watching.
Well, your wish may just come true DF.
According to Yanis Varoufakis, a Tsipras / Syriza economic advisor who is in the thick of it, Samaras is expected to fall short here. Like you, I will not hold my breath, but it certainly looks possible this time around.
If it don't in the endless pit Greece finds itself in then next time round the probability of failure will increase.
Unless you can formulate some economic mechanism that actually pays down the debt substantially, real growth in the economy and half decent paid jobs so that the population can support themselves and the Greek debt.
Not a chance, because in all nations everywhere this has not happened although they spoof us to think it has.
Well to start the debate, let me put my tuppence into the kitty.
On Wednesday 24 december, the French government passed a decree based on a previous Parliamentary law concerning military provisions to fight terror on French soil.
Using the terrorist meme, the government has extended, under the guise of the fight against terror, a disposition -- the devil is in the detail-- allowing the Police and french FBI to monitor ALL Internet activity of any individual living in france without further authorisation by a judge. A de facto decision that by-passes previous decisions protecting individual privacy with the regulatory judicial green light that is normally mandatory for all police work requiring bending individual rights of citizens, based on some form of burden of valid suspicion from fragments of proof.
So now the regulatory capture is total as no burden of proof is required to spy on all and sundry by the spooks of government. It is NO ACCIDENT that the decree was passed on Xmas eve...
Also, as cherry on the cake, the law now applies a retroactive disposition that will make all future legal investigation à posteriori of prior decisions by government ministries all the more difficult as of next year.
As ALL written authorisation or all surveillance work under this decree will automatically be ERASED three years after its signature.
IN OTHER WORDS THE GOVERNMENT CAN NOT ONLY DO WHAT IT LIKES IN THE NAME OF "FIGHT ON TERROR", BUT IN CASE "SHIT HITS THE FANS" AND SOMEBODY IS UNJUSTLY CRUCIFIED, ALL LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT BY ITS CITIZENS WILL BE NULLIFIED BY THE THREE YEAR LIMITS.
So government shills can sign these authorisations knowing that 3 years down the road if there is an enquiry no official trace will be left of who authorised that screw up. And we all know that delaying by 2-3 years to get a case into court is childs play to any government agency.
Now ain't that ONE HUGE step down the road to deperdition that the current 'socialist' french government has taken?
And imagine if one day we had a true neo-con government, what mayhem could result from this rule in France.
So its not just in the USa or in Athens that we see the rope of Oligarchy rule tighten its grip.
Wouldn't that be Le perdition rather than De perdition?
French road signs are confusing enough.
déperdition (french) = attrition (english)
I took some poetic licence with words.
The Road to Perdition was a movie...maybe I should have stuck to Perdition.
..
Strong point. Thanks for your tuppence fp!
Democracy is the problem, not the solution.
I get your point bubba. However, in this particular case, the word "democracy" was used in the broad sense of representative governance. As in the first ancient Greek Republics.
Don't be so obtuse brother.......;-)
I disagree with Bindar's ridiculous overstatement - I always enjoy your articles.
However, you really could use an editor. Another pair of informed eyes providing guidance and correction, and enhancing the communication of your insights is always a good idea. It's always hard to read your own material and see what it actually says rather than what you meant to say.
Thanks for your kind words
I do what I can to work with the little I have...........
Actually your thoughts are spot on and, as usual, very timely and insightful. I wanted to create a little emotion because I understand from some sources that a good idea needs an emotional punctuation mark to get people to remember it. They will remember the value of your ideas much longer then the they will remember the stupidity of my comment -- but they will remember your words and that Bruno is important.
Well crafted and well thought out -- thank you.