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Greece Exposes The Global Economy's Achilles Heel
Submitted by Chris Martenson via Peak Prosperity,
The new Greek political party, known as Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, has done the unthinkable: they've dared to speak the truth.
In this case, the truth is perfectly captured by the blunt assessment by the new Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who recently declared "I'm the finance minister of a bankrupt country."
Such honest assessments are not supposed to be uttered in politics, no matter how true they may be. And so, as you can imagine, the machinery of the defenders of the status quo is in quite a lather over the whole affair. And it's doing everything it can to minimize and marginalize the new Greek government.
One editorial in the Financial Times summed up the establishment view quite well, I thought, putting its contempt for those who dare to simply state what is true right on the table:
Athens plots a daring escape from the troika
Feb 2, 2015
Syriza is as radical as any party to take power within the eurozone. Hardly any of Greece’s new cabinet have experience of government; predictably, its first week was studded with chaotic interventions, including a clumsy blunder into EU-Russian relations. Syriza’s rhetoric is still more suited to a university seminar than a serious programme of government.
(Source)
To summarize, the European establishment considers Syriza to consist of radicals with no experience in government who are acting chaotically as they blunder about brandishing immature rhetoric more suited to young students than the serious business of governing.
And that was just the opening paragraph.
As I said, the new Greece administration has got the powers that be in quite a lather. Why is that?
I think it's because the new Greek rulers have dared to call a spade a spade. They've spoken the unspeakable. They've said that the vast quantities of debt accumulated by Greece, enabled by central bank money-printing programs, are simply unpayable under current terms.
Of course, this is no different than the situations of Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, the UK, France, Japan -- or even the US -- which is precisely why it's being considered such a horrendous foul for Greece to publicly speak as it is now. Such honesty does not have a welcome place in modern politics, and more dangerously, it threatens confidence in the entire system.
Who Is Syriza Exactly & Why Are They In Power?
Since the Syriza party is causing such a stir, I suppose we should take a closer look, especially since so many other 'anti-austerity' groups exist in Europe that might become emboldened and try a similar path.
In Wikipedia we find this description:
The coalition originally comprised a broad array of groups (thirteen in total) and independent politicians, including social democrats, democratic socialists, left-wing populist and green left groups, as well as Maoist,Trotskyist, eurocommunist but also eurosceptic components. Additionally, despite its secular ideology, many members are Christians who, like their atheistic fellow members, are opposed to the privileges of the state-sponsored Orthodox Church of Greece.
In 2012 Syriza became the second largest party in the Greek parliament and the main opposition party. It came in first in the 2014 European Parliament election. In mid-2014, polls showed it had become the country's most popular party. In 2015, in the snap polls held on 25 January, Syriza defeated the ruling coalition and went on to become the winning coalition getting 36.3% of the popular vote and 149 out of 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament.
Syriza has been characterized as an anti-establishment party, whose success has sent "shock-waves across the EU". Although it has abandoned its old identity, that of a hard-left protest voice, becoming more populist in character, and stating that it will not abandon the eurozone, its leader Alexis Tsipras has declared that the "euro is not my fetish".
The party has grown in power over the same time frame that the people of Greece have been living under what most consider to be punishing austerity.
Under the austerity conditions imposed by the European bureaucrats upon the Greek nation, suicides have risen by 35%, unemployment is nearly 30% overall -- nearly 60% for those under the age of 25, having fully doubled from 2010 levels -- while wages have fallen by nearly 40%.
Note that the rise of Syriza aligns very well with the decline of employment and wages:

(Source)
These are quite understandable reasons for the rise of a party touting a plan to end the pain. Whether they can deliver on that plan is another matter.
The attempts to malign and bully the Syriza politicians into conformance with standard EU practices is likely to fail. The Syriza politicians have a mandate from the people that will not last if they kowtow to the standard 'kick the can down the road and follow orders' crowd from Brussels.
The basic problem for the EU political leadership is that the Syriza party is made up of people who came from the outside, consider themselves outsiders, and have no instinctive desire to please existing institutions or lobbyists. They simply aren't playing the game as it's "supposed" to be played.
Weeks Away From Running Out Of Money
The clock is ticking...Greece is possibly only weeks away from running out of money. So the situation is quite serious:
Greece may be ‘weeks’ away from running out of money
Feb 3, 2015
Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., reminded clients in a recent note that Greece’s debt schedule eventually leads to a scenario that ends in a government shutdown and/or default, possibly within a matter of weeks.
“Greece will end up with a default, possibly in the form of a restructuring with a sizable haircut, but possibly in the shape of an outright default,” Weinberg wrote. “The only question is how soon. To believe otherwise cannot possibly be more than wishful thinking.”
Pinning down the exact date when the government would run out of cash under current circumstances is difficult due to a lack of daily data on its exact cash position. But Weinberg says that, unofficially, the government was down to 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in mid-January.
In order to finance all the repayments, Greece would have to roll over the outstanding T-bills, run a balanced budget on at least a cash basis, and sell €27.6 billion in new bonds, Weinberg says.
(Source)
With just a couple of billion euros in the coffers, the Greek government has almost no breathing room. It did hold an auction to roll over some of its debt on Feb 3rd, but the bids were very small, and only 625M euros of T-Bills (very short term paper) were bought at the offered rate of 2.75%.
That was barely two-thirds of what was needed to service the upcoming T-Bills maturing on Feb 6th, which total 947M euros. And then on Feb 13th, another 1,400 M euros of T-Bills will mature. And so on throughout the coming weeks and months.
At this rate, the 2 billion euros on hand will not last long. Without some sort of relief, Greece will enter default, triggering all sorts of fun for the holders of its debt and any unfortunate parties that waded back into the pool to sell credit default swaps for Greek debt (and some did).
The only logical thing for anyone in Greece to do is to remove their deposits from Greek banks and place them somewhere safer, like in a non-Greek bank (or even under the mattress).
Many are finally now doing that. Though given the obvious warning signs over the past few years, it's a mystery to me why they've waited this long:

(Source)
The ECB has just recently upped the pressure by removing a waiver that allowed Greek banks to post Greek sovereign debt as collateral for euro liquidity (are you watching Spain?). Essentially, this means that the Greek bonds the banks were holding as an 'asset' have just become a non-asset as far as the ECB is concerned.
The next step in this crisis is for capital controls to be imposed, to prevent further hemorrhaging of deposits from Greek banks in order to preserve the banks and prevent their utter collapse.
Despite all of this pressure and the inability of the Greek government to fund itself, it seems that the Syriza party is sticking to its course:
Greece Sticks to Anti-Austerity Demands Following ECB Loan Cut
Feb 4, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Greece held fast to demands to roll back austerity as the European Central Bank turned up the heat before Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met one of his main antagonists, German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble.
The encounter at 12:30 p.m. in Berlin came hours after Greece lost a critical funding artery when the ECB restricted loans to its financial system. That raised pressure on the 10-day-old government to yield to German-led austerity demands to stay in the euro zone. Shares of Greek banks plummeted.
The government “remains unwavering in the goals of its social salvation program, approved by the vote of the Greek people,” according to a Finance Ministry statement issued overnight. Its aim is “coming up with a European policy that will definitively put an end to the now self-perpetuating crisis of the Greek social economy.”
(Source)
So an intense game of chicken is playing out before our eyes. Neither side seems willing to bend. On the one side, you have Greece being led by people who know that the current path being demanded by the EU leads to many years, perhaps decades, of punishing depression for the people of Greece. On the other side is the EU, which worries that if Greece "gets away" with debt restructuring, other weak countries in the Eurozone will want to as well.
"Fire!"
There's no easy path for Greece and the new Syriza administration appears to know this. That's why they're seeking to chart a different course. This upsets the lumbering bureaucracy of the EU ,which has shown a remarkable inability to admit that its prior policies were the wrong ones and have obviously failed.
While Greece is a tiny spec of the EU economy (~1%), the fact that the truth is finally being spoken about its broken finances is a very dangerous match to light at this time. Why? Because most of Europe shares the same unworkable math as Greece. Everybody in power fears what would happen if the entire pile of unpayable claims were to suddenly vaporize.
It's kind of like being in a crowded movie theater when a fire breaks out. The first few people to catch on leave somewhat calmly, as most watch from their seats. But once it becomes 'socially acceptable' to leave, there's a mad scramble for the exits and pandemonium ensues.
So I can understand the desire of the EU officials to avoid such a panic. But at the same time, their absolute inability to acknowledge the billowing smoke is a very harmful form of denial.
With Syriza shouting "fire!", the EU bureaucracy is predictably seeking to cast the current Greek leadership as illogical, whack-a-doodle pranksters in the hopes that nobody takes them seriously.
Oops. Too late:
In Madrid, 100,000 flock to anti-austerity Podemos rally
Jan 31, 2015
Madrid (AFP) - At least 100,000 people poured into the streets of Madrid on Saturday in a huge show of support for Spain's new anti-austerity party Podemos, riding a wave of popularity after the election success of its Greek hard-left ally Syriza.
A sea of demonstrators chanted "Yes we can!" and carried signs reading "The change is now" as they made their way from Madrid city hall to the central Puerta del Sol square in the first major march called by Podemos, which has surged ahead in opinion polls in a crucial election year.
(Source)
So the current high stakes are quickly getting higher.
The sad part of this tale is that the time to have begun to deal with structurally-unsound levels of debt was many years ago, even before the crisis hit in 2008. But even sadder, that crisis was the fire alarm that should have been heeded. But it was completely ignored by the political and banking establishments in the developed world, who instead opted to pour more money and more debt into the financial system rather than face up to the simple truth that Too Much Debt is a very bad central operating principle.
Greece has merely exposed the fatal flaw of the modern economy, it's Achilles Heel (to stay with the Greek motif), which is that, by definition, a system suffering from Too Much Debt cannot pay it back. The only meaningful question to address at this stage is: Who is going to eat the losses?
The banks would like that to be the citizens of Greece, and the citizens would prefer it to be the other way around. This is the drama that is now playing out.
So Why Should You Care?
If you're living in Greece, obviously you have a direct interest in how Syriza's brinksmanship plays out. And if you live in the EU, you should be watching closely to see what the larger ramifications may be for the Eurozone. But should this Greek drama concern the rest of us?
Absolutely.
The sovereign insolvency at the heart of the Greece crisis is not unique nor isolated. Most other countries around the globe share the same terminal condition of having Too Much Debt. Greece, a small player, is simply succumbing earlier than they are.
And as Greece proves you can't get blood from a stone, other countries will similarly demonstrate their debts cannot be repaid in full, either. And losses will eventually -- inevitably -- have to be taken. And when that happens, watch out.
In Part 2: The Approaching Great Unraveling - Are You Prepared? we detail out how, in today's over-indebted, over-leveraged, and intensely interconnected global economy, the losses created by sovereign insolvencies will spark a cascade of mortal shocks across the world's financial system. Some countries will fall into deflationary depressions while others will experience roaring inflation. Massive failures will ripple across industries and vast amounts of wealth will be transferred from the hands of the many into the few well-positioned in advance.
The developments in Greece are sending us a clear warning. Are you listening?
Click here to access Part 2 of this report (free executive summary; enrollment required for full access)
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"I'm the finance minister of a bankrupt country."
Kudos to them.
Mark to market the US should admit the same thing, but it won't.
These maniacs will ruin everything, I'll blame them when this falls apart. Things were jsut startign to go great and now they threaten to derail this! AHHHHHHHH this makes me angry!!
Why such drama over Monopoly Money. Greece will soon be printing it's own stinking Monopoly Money. Screw the Chosenite parasitic regime that's occupying Germany.
Merkel, Hollande, and Putin have finished 5-hour-long negotiations.
Not a peep ‘bout the agenda prior to that, not a fart after.
Everybody “blames” such an urgent meeting on the situation in Ukraine, but the real reason is GREECE.
Hollande and Merkel’s offer is we will give you Ukraine back and you, in return, don’t touch Greece with a 10-foot pole.
I think? ;-)
Looney
P.S. And while the MHP-troika have been negotiating, our dear leader has signed the HR 5859 into law (see Ron Paul’s rant on ZH).
According to the laws of Physics, Usury is unpayable. N simple terms, all Governments are based on a mathematical scam.
If a country increases it's physical production through new technological advances (I.e., assembly line, new lower cost energy aka cold fusion) it can grow its physical economy and sustain increased standards of living despite growing population or interest on debt. Much like an innovative well run business.
Government is not part of that equation, unless it can contribute to the technological advances.
It is historically been shown the private investment interests aka vulture funds or likes of the Rothchilds that are the source of unrealistic usury. It's govt. that gets in bed with the vulture funds or robber bankers. The distinction is important.
Only old white male Chosenites can print money. All you Zerohedgers are brainwashed if you think that a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Amish will ever be allowed to print money. Young can't print. Females not allowed to print their own currency. Those with dark skin pigment in their skin will NEVER be allowed to have a money printing press. The NATO chosenites will kill you dead before you get one bill out... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pwAClUrhrek
It's fascinating how even the most virulent of anti-semites are becoming increasingly "inclusive" in their rethoric. Then again, if right-wing extremists can get people of color to do the struggle against Jews for them, then that much more "pure-blooded" young whites will be spared death and misery in the process. Quite cunning indeed.
But more on-topic, the new Greek government has one ace-in-the-hole throughout this affair: Terminating the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (Greece's last financial life-line) will require a 2/3rd majority on the ECB governing council. I am not convinced that this majority is there, which means the EU is in fact not in a position to cut Greece loose.
In other words: The EU is desperately attempting to intimidate this Leftist government, but its efforts appear to be nothing but bluf.
"if right-wing extremists can get people of color to do the struggle against Jews for them"
You mean like The Coudenhove-Kalergi plan?
How's that immigrant rape problem panning out? I tell you. Those evil right wingers.
Another Stockholm syndrome victim. Say hi to Barbara Lerner Spectre for us.
Dammmmmm, Looney,thats some shit there.
I was wondering what that was about.I mean just out of nowhere merkel heads to Russia.
Real good guess,,,,,,that could be it.
Thanks for the thoughts!
>>Hollande and Merkel’s offer is: "We will give you Ukraine back, and you, in return, don’t touch Greece with a 10-foot pole."
wow. anyone think Putin will fall for that bullshit?
Let's hope mighty Putin tells them the truth, which is that the promises of France and Germany are utterly worthless in the face of the US govt being hell-bent to keep Russia and Western Europe from working together. Unless France and Germany and all of Europe can publicly tell Washington to pound sand and FOAD and keep their filthy paws to themselves, Putin would do well to hold his ground and keep his options open.
Dante's Inferno famously depicts Sowers of Discord as being occupants of Hell's Eighth Circle, and that is exactly what the US foreign policymakers are doing. This illustrates what Zbig Brzezinski calls "keeping the barbarians from coming together", and it's long past time that Americans and Europeans realize the evil intent of the fools in Washington and the banks.
"Merkel, Hollande, and Putin have finished 5-hour-long negotiations."
Let's hope it was a 5-hour session of mighty Putin pissing in their faces, either literally or metaphorically. I know the man has a big brain, not so sure about his bladder.
In any case, France and Germany have no power to stop the fools in Washington from aiding their puppets in Kiev, so the words and promises of Merkel and Hollande have no power here, and Putin knows it and he would do well to drive a hard bargain given how many choices he has here.
Lots of countries are broke, but they want a bridge loan in Euro, because it is still a real currency.
The Drachma will be a bad joke, and yet inevitable.
You're not doing a very convincing job, troll.
You don't know what a troll is,
and a lot of people on this thread suck at math.
We know what you suck, troll.
Tell your mommy it's your bedtime now.
S-e has been here seven weeks and is calling you a troll. Perhaps this is a new form of MDB-type humor. If not, then Tyler needs to get a new doorman.
We were all young once.
Fortunately, we had fewer opportunities to be stupid in public.
lol...boy ain't that the truth.
The new leftwing "finance minister" also said the government bureaucracy of Greece and business interests are up to their eyeballs in corruption & cronyism but what does he want?
A bridge loan, for a bankrupt country. Chris neglected to point that out as far as I could tell skimming across it.
A bridge to what is what all the Greeks should be asking. "No no no, we'll deal with all that corruption & nepotism later, we're the good guys!" ;-)
Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will lay me down
They are the free market socialists...
Say what?
You suck, troll. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pwAClUrhrek
I keep getting invitations for an American Express card.
I think I'll start forwarding all that stuff to Greece.
No money talk!
Now we drink!
'Chosenite' I like the term-
Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus, now we have Homo Chosenitis Parasitis
USSA merely has a surplus of non transitory unfunded liabilities < fixed >
More than that, they have been jacking the global economy with a toxic waste dollar that has/is the global trade settlement standard. They have been enforcing that with military and colored revolutions, and central bank gold theft.
So the USSA's problems are not confined to the USSA. Are you proud to be an 'Merican ?
FUCK the eu...
Shove it up their ASS Greece.....with a fucking candle on top!
The US would find away to seasonaly adjust the 35% increase in suicide rate. If the US had a 35% increase in suicide rate, bet we would wake up from the bankers veil of circus and bread. Clearly Greece has felt enough pain to address the malignate tumor. The swiss had an MRI and cut that shit quick. Greece will need a chemotherapy program
the people will still be able to barter with one another, dig up those old drachmas and even use foreign currency. they are at the forefront of what the rest of the world will sooner or later have to face. God bless them.
Zhs exactly so, unless the psychos in Washington nuke us to death first.
Syriiza wants and needs the EU,
a lot more than the EU wants Greece.
Banker parasites need hosts, not the other way around...
You know I also expected Syriza to cave under some combination of bribes and threats. But the best time for deal-making has come and gone. Either Tsipras and Varoufakis are totally inept at extortion or they're really going to let ECB/IMF/EU burn. Do we dare believe the latter?
I agree. If they had pretended to play ball, they could have bought a six month transition on the cheap. Amateurs all around. There is no procedure for withdrawal from the EU. I think they expected negotiations to drag on forever, but the bank runs are trumping everything right now. As the Froggies say, it will soon be a fait accompli.
A 6 month transition would also have given their enemies time to burn their house down while making the bad guys look like firemen.
Imagine that. Predatory lending is not a sustainable way to structure international finance. Who would have guessed?
Hey these idiots in Greece wanted the money, much like idiots here in America wanted subprime home loans and to buy worthless facebook stocks. No one forced them. Deal with it.
The good people of Greece were forced by the parasites police force. Their bullets are real. Deal with it.
LOL the good people of Greece..thanks for the laugh...much like the good people of America....haahhaha
Blow me, troll.
I'll let the good people of Greece do that.
Everytime I downvote you it's not because I disagree with what you've written. It's because your constant attempts at sarcasm and parody have become exceedingly tedious. You'd best leave the heavy lifting of writing with acerbic wit to others more suited to the task.
I'll take that as constructive critisim and keep trying. It's a learning experience for me. I'm sure you'll understand.
"Why, Hitlery's such a regular flibbertigibbet, it's like there's
an autogyro in her shirtwaist!"
yeah and ill be you are FIRST in line, sweetie!!
He's busy blowing everybody in Greece, and when he's done he's going to the front of the line and do it again.
Fuck off Evelyn.
not true...it was the elected and unelected bankers that have ruled Greece that took the money-keeping MOST of it for themselves and the banks, while throwing the people of Greece crumbs. Dont be so goddamn dumb
So where were the Greeks when these unelected bankers took to rule?
Same place Americano's went when criminal bankers took their nation...
Home to watch more shit coms and complain.
Hitlery is right on this one.
I'd note that both Occupy and the Tea Party were effectively marginalized, and that both had the bankers in their sights as they took to the streets.
Greece should use 1BN of their euros to short S&P futures
Then pull the trigger
WW III ?
We're already on Iraq War IV or was it V, there's so damn many I forget.
We never officially surrendered, were still on WWII. We will never surrender.
No need to surrender when that enemy actually took over with paperclip. Smart groups of people, evil or not, always win. They certainly won the war they "lost".
According to you. But not according to me. You say their winning, I say it's not over till the fat woman sings. See you at the finish line. You better wear diapers because it's not going to be a fair fight. As if you banker types ever actually did any fighting yourselves...
Funny how they are called radical when most of it is truth and common sense.
Oh my, truth....just listened to an interview with the leader of another bankrupt country who today bowed at the ONE union;Ireland"s Minister Richard Bruton spoke today and I cringed. 5 years ago Ireland said they were not Greece . Today they advised Greece to be more like us!!! Our esteemed leader, Enda Kenny gave an interview last week to Newstalk radio with Pat Kenny. He managed to incorporate 10 unthruts in the first ten statements. A reccord worthy of The Guiness book . I was reminded of the childhood story of the Emperor Has No Clothes yesterday when the Greek Finance Minister had to point out that Greece was bankrupt and just like pregnancy, no matter what the ECB / IMF/ Troica does at this stage , they cannot make Greece less bankrupt or less pregnant ,
Wake up sovereign countries of Europe,,
Hitler was right about the Chosenites.
The Greatest Story NEVER Told - Search it up, it's mind-blowing and will change the way you look at WW2, Hitler and Germany
The supposed poster child of austerity/ reform - Ireland - always ignores that the Irish emigrate en masse when it gets bad. If not for that - they'd be more fooked than they already are IMHO.
Hmm, so WHO knows what's gonna happen?
Hmm, so WHO knows what's gonna happen?
Blast it, a glitch in the Matrix!
Hmm, so WHO knows what's gonna happen?
This is a baaaddd omen!
How will this leftist government realize it's ideology without incurring debt? The irony is that leftist ideology is only possible through money printing and deficit spending so blaming "central bankers" is pretty ridiculous. Austerity didn't cause the Greek depression, their collapsing socialist economic structure did. Austerity is the result, not the cause.
They got a helping hand from the troika bailout and they are biting the only hand thats feeding them. Instead of electing communist rabble-rousers, the Greeks should have been busy building a manufacturing base, and at least making an effort to be productive people. This proves that they are absolutely hopeless and doomed to failure. An ancient, degenerated people with nothing left to offer
My,my,my the Greeks MUST build a manufacturing base.best laugh I vehad for a while.china,Vietnam,India,et al....must be quaking in their boots.
Good job:
Plutocrats and their puppets expose themselves in every levelTranslation; Obomba has given the radical terrorist cell Syriza 10 days to comply with the global coalition on financial terrorism.If Syriza's leaders are not remanded to the proper banking authorities within 10 days,operation Enduring Freedom will liberate the Greeks,with the aid of Coalition drone strikes.
Unless there is a "moral hazard" clause... the EU can fuck off.. your azz just got Greeced up sucka!
"They dared to speak the truth...."
That socialism caused the problem, now they're trying to solve said problem with more socialism?
Are Norway, Sweden and Denmark in the same debt predicament as Europe and the US? Those socialist countries are doing fine, do NOT have the fucked up bankster-controlled economic crony-capitalism disasters the rest of the world has so shove your "socialism" where the moon don't shine doofus.
Its sickening how the "financial establishment" like the mouthpiece FT, are shocked at some people for speaking the truth about debt. They know the whole financial system is one big con game, confidence games rely on confidence tricks. And the trick they hope to perpetuate to the dumb sheep is "everything is under control, don't worry", which is becoming undone day by day.
.
>>>>>Syriza is as radical as any party to take power within the eurozone. Hardly any of Greece’s new cabinet have experience of government; predictably, its first week was studded with chaotic interventions, including a clumsy blunder into EU-Russian relations. Syriza’s rhetoric is still more suited to a university seminar than a serious programme ofgovernment.
-----------------------------------------
FU,FT! to be fair, probably most of the past cabinets you champion have had little or no experience in 'givernment' just extortion and bankers more or less, parasiting off the taxpayer
Any person that DOES have experience in Government probably deserves to be jailed...
I'm sure many o them deserve Ceaucescu's fate.
Hang them all and let the coyotes and crows sort them out.
A herd of cattle.
A gaggle of geese.
A murder of crows.
A clusterfuck of bankruptcy?
A clusterfuck of banksters fucks.
Greece is not on it's own and has MANY FRIENDS.
If Vichy DC don't lay fucking OFF then you'll be picking CLUSTERFUCK shrapnel from your PUSSIES.
In this instance you're 100 times more rotten than the British in 1814.
Tide has turned, yes, my dear Vichy DC & NeoCON SCUM. Tick tock tick tock.
Britain is SPENT and so you'll be on your own up shit creek without a paddle.
Barry Obama and Dave ' the slave ' out of his depth Cambo Rambo are 2 sock puppets who ain't cutting the mustard.
That 10 minute long audio recording points out some of the deeper reasons why the Greek situation "threatens confidence in the entire system."
The article above by Martenson is CORRECT:
"The sovereign insolvency at the heart of the Greece crisis is not unique nor isolated. Most other countries around the globe share the same terminal condition of having Too Much Debt. Greece, a small player, is simply succumbing earlier than they are."
HOWEVER, like all the rest of Chris Martenson' articles, thore are presentations based on Hanlon's Razor presumptions, which tend to deliberately ignore the social facts that the world's political economy is dominated by the international bankers because they were historically the best organized gangs of criminals, that were able to apply the methods of organized crime to the political processes, in order to create the current conditions of debt slavery systems having driven their numbers to generate DEBT INSANITIES.
That ERROR is similar to those of Charles Hugh-Smith, as I already discussed before, e.g.:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/greece-are-you-finally-ready-do...
Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, has ONLY "dared to speak the truth" on relatively superficial levels, that have been obvious to many people for quite a while, as presented in this 2010 comedy skit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzR3UAyXao
World Collapse Explained in 3 Minutes
Wickedly true humour.
"Called laughing why you sink."
The unanswered question in that skit
can only be answered through fraud:
Governments enforce private banks
creating public money from nothing.
Global money-as-debt systems
have countries lending others a
lot of 'money' which was made
from nothing but habit & faith.
Almost ALL that money is fiat.
Various countries were 'lending'
each other money made of zero!
That "money" made out of nothing, as government enforced bankster frauds, has "paid" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources, which processes are running into real limits of diminishing returns, making the continued exponential growth of strip-mining the planet no longer possible.
MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER.
How does the world get out of fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems? That is the issue that the Greek situation is raising. The new Greek government is able and willing to state the superficial truths, however, they continue to be reactionary revolutionaries who do not promote the deeper levels of radical truths. Indeed, almost nobody does, because civilization was based on ORGANIZED CRIME and CONTROLLED OPPOSITION.
The new government in Greece is only slightly less controlled opposition. Anyone who persists in applying Hanlon's Razor presumptions to the problems with the political economy is deliberately ignoring the most important social facts, which tends to enable them to promote superficial "solutions," because they have not done a deeper analysis of how and why the biggest gangsters, the banksters, have been able to capture control over most of the world's governments, in order that systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, have dominated the global political economy more and more, at an exponentially accelerating rate, within the same basic system for several Centuries, (and indeed, throughout the history of all Neolithic Civilizations in similar ways for thousands of years.)
Generally, it is impossible to exaggerate the degree to which the dominance of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which is currently the banksters' bullshit world view, is the form of organized crime that almost completely dominates the world at present, including dominating all of the controlled opposition groups, which have ONLY "dared to speak the truth" on relatively superficial levels. Superficially facing the FACTS that governments which are controlled by the international bankers have drowned themselves in debt slavery situations is NOT enough, because those who do ONLY that are still staying within the basic bullshit world view, which was built into the dominate natural languages and dominate philosophy of science.
For sure, Greece is merely one of the leading edges of the overall problems which the whole world shares, which is that social pyramid civilizations are based upon backing up lies with violence, which become more psychotically insane the more "successful" they are, because the lies never stop being false, no matter how much violence is used to back them up.
The world's political economy is controlled by entrenched systems of enforced frauds, which did NOT develop due to incompetence or stupidity, despite that the majority of people are relatively like that with regard to those facts. That the international bankers have been successfully able to create globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, has made that civilization become runaway criminal insanities, because the more successfully those frauds are enforced, the more out of touch with relatively objective realities that fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system becomes.
The Achilles' Heel of Greece is the same as the for the rest of the world, namely, the current social pyramid structure of civilization is based on being able to back up lies with violence, which system automatically becomes more insane, the more successful that becomes. That problem is way, way more profound than any of the established systems based on organized crime, and their various controlled opposition groups, are able and willing to recognize and address.
"An Achilles heel is a deadly weakness in spite of overall strength, which can actually or potentially lead to downfall."
The deadly weakness in the established systems are due to the ways that social successes based on being able to back up lies with violence, which have become the currently monetary and taxation systems, of enforced frauds, that are integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, automatically become more psychotically insane, the more "successful" those are!
Those problems are way, way more profound than almost anybody who was relatively successful within those systems, either more directly inside the established systems, or indirectly in the controlled opposition groups, are able and willing to admit: money is measurement backed by murder, and any new monetary system must be backed by some new murder system. The established global systems that the Greeks were integrated within was a debt slavery system, which has driven its numbers to become debt insanities. That those numbers have become insane is the obvious truth. However, the deeper levels of that situation was always that the debt controls were backed by the death controls. Any challenge to the debt controls of the established systems is also a challenge to the death controls of the established systems.
Any Achilles' Heel in the global integrated system of enforced frauds threatens to knock over a cascading sequence of dominoes, because the whole system was a pyramid scheme, based on the history of vicious spirals of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. The deeper nature of that Achilles' Heel is the paradoxical final failure from too much successfully enforced fraud.
In my view, NOBODY within the established systems, nor the various controlled opposition groups (or the reactionary revolutionaries, which include most of those whose articles are republished on Zero Hedge) is doing more than that they have ONLY "dared to speak the truth" on relatively superficial levels ... Meanwhile most of my comments on Zero Hedge are about what kind of political science emerges if one dares to speak more radical truths. I do NOT agree that the Syriza party is "radical," since that is presented as an adjective in the phrase "the Coalition of the Radical Left."
Anybody still using old-fashioned labels, such as Left & Right, or Socialist & Capitalist, etc., is still drowning under the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, and therefore, are still reactionary revolutionaries, or still controlled opposition. Anyone still relying upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, is still operating as a professional liar and immaculate hypocrite, whether they are inside of the established systems, or the controlled opposition.
In my opinion, the Syriza party is still mostly controlled opposition, although they may provoke the existing situation to spin out of control, since there was always the Achilles' Heel that successfully enforcing financial frauds NEVER stopped those frauds from being false, and so, the degree to which those frauds were false always continued to become more psychotic, the more that those frauds continued to be enforced.
I think by definition Syriza is without a doubt controlled opposition by virtue of the FACT that we are hearing about it. The two things that are of growing concern are that we're hearing more and more and MOAR from the controlled opposition and that flow is threatening to smash through. When I bleat on and on about Paris I grow more and more aware of the risks of a controlled opposition force of that magnitude being the straw that breaks the camels back. "You can almost see the circuits blowing". We bleat for change and action but "sometimes the angels punish us by answering our prayers" RUH-ROh, as they say...
p.s. came across this today: SPIRIT The Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus with it's funhouse mirror cover (1970) Totally RAD MAN LOL!
p.p.s. scored 9 tix in a row for RUSH @ACC in the cheap seats (thanks Ticketbastards!). Saw them @ Bell in '12 with a stay in Morin Heights and a visit to the now abandoned Le Studio. ...Thx bunches for the heads up Rad!
RUSH!
Haven't grabbed my tix for Detroit yet, but I reminisced about the Clockwork Angels Tour last night by listening to some live tracks. IMHO, CA was a pleasant surprise after the horrific lyrics found on Snakes and Arrows.
How the hell did Peart go from writing lyrics like "Celebrate the moment, as it turns into one more. Another chance at Victory, another chance to score" to "It's somehow so badly arranged...such a lot of pain on the earth."?????
"... Syriza is without a doubt controlled opposition by virtue of the FACT that we are hearing about it."
Since we were born and raised in popular culture, dominated by the mass media, it is difficult to always remember that LIES BY OMISSION are the mass media's main method. As soon as the mass media DO talk about something, then there is almost axiomatically some hidden agenda with an evil ulterior purpose.
P.S.
I enjoyed the nostalgic Dr.Sardonicus ...
I was in the prime of life back in 1970 ...
There are an abundance of statistical facts that indicate it was a wide-spread, overall ride down from about 1970 on, as indicated by average per capita energy having gone up until then ... while that ratio has been declining ever since. As Gail Tverberg's articles have demonstrated, one of the main factors behind all of the other problems that the Greeks have is that BASIC problem!
P.P.S.
I find that a lot of idiotic comments on Zero Hedge appear to me like personal ways to rationalize NOT coming to terms with the way that the planet Earth IS FINITE, (so that those with those beliefs can continue to act like there is nothing wrong with maximizing their habitual indulgences.) At least Chris Martenson appears to have enough intellectual integrity to study that as objectively ashe possibly can ... (although still I think he grossly underestimates the degree to which beneath the superficial appearance of incompetence there was malice both directing events in the past, as well as therefore most likely to continue to dominate what really happens in the future.)
I can't help but remember that Zero Hedge declined to publish articles in 2014 when the topic was the finite world. Of course I'm referring to the press releases of the IPCC AR5 WG2, WG3, and WG4 reports. These omissions telegraph the message that the research contained therein is of less importance to readers than <insert silly article title here>. I like to think the IPCC will morph into the transnational group of scientists you speak of post Paris...
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I actually have that SPIRIT album on vinyl. picked it up about 79-80 when I was in my prime... It is thoroughly enjoyable even today : )
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was catching up on Kurzweil AI the other day just after we talked about Unitary Mechanisms for Dummies:
"Quantum Physics just got less complicated"
whocouldaknOwd!!!
"An international team of researchers has proved that two peculiar features of the quantum world previously considered distinct are different manifestations of the same thing. They found that “wave-particle duality” is simply the quantum “uncertainty principle” in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one."
LOL, whocouldaknOwd!!!
Wait til the BitCoinrs find out ; )
"Because the entropic uncertainty relations used in their translation have also been used in proving the security of quantum cryptography (schemes for secure communication using quantum particles) the researchers suggest the work could help inspire new cryptography protocols."
There's that 'entropy' word again. It's embarrassing that this stuff has been around for a hundred years and I don't know the first thing about it. Still, I can read your comments and even an article like this @Kurzweil and sense the possibilities.
Thanks Rad! ("mental eunuch Unix", I see what you did there. +1)
(LOL, my 83 year old Dad is on for joining my siblings/nephews/niece/old buddy with his wife and two little girls (Homelanders, born after 2004) so we'll span five generations seeing Rush40)
Reducing "two mysteries to one", with a twist! Another awesome avatar!
Hay! Greece should follow Evo Morales' lead and go into the hemp business. Bye bye economic problems ; )
The unanswered questions are how large are the outstanding credit default swaps on Greek toilet paper and who is holding the exposure. I suspect there is a lot of late night oil being burned in the B of A tower in Charlotte.
You have to admit it’s a shrewd statement. The EU can either agree with him and admit their system has failed, or hand him another $100 billion Euros so they can call him a liar.
What’s the going price for a statesman’s ego these days?
Shame 'due to the quote ' i can't up vote your succinct comment. +500 trillion (widgets ) in toxic derivatives lurking out there. Way less than the value of 500 compost heaps.
July 05, 2011 Keiser Report: Robbed and Securitised (E161) with Economist Yanis Varoufakis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtIDKtaTz3M
Aug 13, 2011 Greece debt crisis-On the Edge with Max Keiser with Dr. Yanis Varoufakis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOjkGVmR3Eg
Feb 09, 2012 Keiser Report: Black Holes & Gold Hills (E247) with Dr. Yanis Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt8Dv15FtsM
Aug 13, 2011 [OTE118] On the Edge with Yanis Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOjkGVmR3Eg
Jun 14, 2012 [KR301] Keiser Report – Con Games Go Global! with Yanis Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk4Y0U-bQmA
Sep 15, 2012 On the Edge with Yanis Varoufakis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOy0uL_LTZ0
July 11, 2013 Keiser Report: Facing New Peasant Revolt (E469) with Prof. Yanis Varoufakis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTVhrIj2aOk
Jan 13, 2015 Yanis Varoufakis: Why I am running for election in Greece on the SYRIZA ticket http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbxZB6HYY8k
Truth is Greece needs to cut spending and the policies causing negative spending (mass immigration) Syriza is the opposite of the truth needed, Syriza is delusional and headed for war, they'd prefer an orgy of debt financed on the promise of future nationalisations.
An audit of the last bailout would reveal the bankers bought the Syriza win.
Syriza is as anti establishment as those OccupyWallSt guys that were staying a the Waldorf.
What a remarkable parallel to the decline of the Orthodox Church/Czarist Russia pre Lenin. So the Greeks will also offer a "social salvation" to the people but as it happens in socialist regimes, there will be but a few privileged commies who will attain a bit more salvation than the hoi polloi. Get ready,Greeks, to stand in a mile long line to get your 1 stick ration of butter.
Central banks and governments have been whistling past the graveyard since 2008, playing Extend and Pretend with QE and increasing debt added to already-unpayable piles of debt. The question is how long the extend and pretend game can go on.
Varoufakis and Syriza threaten to cause the game to collapse by stating some intolerable truths:
1. Greece is bankrupt and cannot possibly pay its debts;
2. Debts that cannot be paid will not be paid;
3. Greece will not continue the Extend and Pretend game by taking more money from the Troika and continuing the austerity programs that the IMF imposes on its borrowers; and
4. Greece will not continue to sell Greece's assets to comply with the IMF "privatization" scheme that would allow the IMF cronies to loot Greece of assets.
The only way Greece can avoid default is by borrowing more money to allow it to roll over each bond issue as it comes due, and increasing its mountain of debt. The Troika's strategy for coping with Greece's problem is like a debt snowball rolling down a snow-covered hill, gaining size with each roll. The debt snowball will never get smaller in the process.
The Troika is in a panic because the rest of the PIIGS and probably France and the UK are in little better financial shape than Greece. If Greece defaults (i.e. refuses or is unable to meet payout/rollover schedules on its bond debts), and does not suffer intolerable results, the radicals in the rest of the PIIGS may join in a default rush. If Greece defaults, that may crash a few $Trillion in derivatives, making the 2008 credit meltdown seem minor in comparison.
The latest ultimatum from the Troika, led by Auntie Angela Merkel is almost laughable: "Take more money from us or we will refuse to lend you more money".
Russia's President Putin is using natural gas politics in counterattacking the US/EU sanctions and financial war attacks on Russia. Russia has diverted the South Stream pipeline to Turkey, a non-EU state, away from EU's Bulgaria, and to a hub at the Turkey/Greece border. Russia then announced that once Turk Stream is up and running, Russia will shut off the gas pipelines running to the EU through Ukraine. That makes Greece the natural conduit for the natural gas from Russia to southern Europe, and puts Greece in a position to extract fees for pipeline construction and transit. Putin invited Greece to leave the EU and join the Eurasian Economic Union, and Putin is now offering financial support for Greece to bridge its exit from the EU and Euro.
It cannot have escaped the attention of the EU leaders that if Greece leaves the EU, the EU will lose any legal control that EU would enjoy over pipelines and gas transiting Greece under EU law (see Third Energy Package). Greece would be in a position to play extreme hardball with the EU over access to Russian gas supplies, which now account for about 30% of all natural gas used in Europe.
The EU's hopes to find other sources to replace Russian as a source of natural gas must now be at a low ebb: (i) the US fracking "boom" is not financially viable, and the US lacks facilities for LNG exports; (ii) the EU lacks import facilities for LNG imports and it would be very expensive and take some years to build them; (iii) the process of compressing gas to LNG, shipping it in specially-constructed refrigerated tankers, and decompressing it at import terminals is inherently expensive, tending to make LNG uncompetitive with gas delivered by pipelines; (iv) the North Sea and Baltic fields have only limited ability to increase production and are expensive areas to develop; (v) hopes of getting ample gas by fracking in Europe are fading, with Chevron dropping plans to frack in Ukraine and Poland, and environmental concerns blocking fracking in many other areas elsewhere; (vi) the NABUCCO/TANAP plan to bring natural gas to the EU from Central Asia and the Middle East via the Southern Gas Corridor via Syria and Turkey is going nowhere fast; (vii) Russia remains the lowest-cost and most secure source of natural gas for Europe; if Russia cut off all natural gas to Europe, the effects on EU industries and the public would be horrendous; and (viii) Turkey's Erdogan appears to be swaying away from allegiance to the US/EU/NATO bloc to joining the Eurasian Economic Union. To make matters worse, Turkey is making noises about not allowing the construction of the TAP pipeline for gas to come from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea field to Italy.
In Ukraine, the civil war is going badly for the Kiev forces and the US/EU/NATO bloc is faced with a quandary of how to extricate itself from the financial and political hellhole which is Ukraine, without getting into an all-out war with Russia, while Putin shows no signs of buckling to the US/EU/NATO bloc’s demands that it have all of Ukraine as its new playpen.
The sanctions and financial warfare against Russia are not causing Putin to back down, and are causing significant economic pain and political unrest in the EU.
Now we hear that Merkel of Germany and Hollande of France (the countries whose banks were saved by the "bailout" of Greece) have made an emergency trip to Moscow to meet with Putin. What was on the agenda? Ukraine only? Or Ukraine, natural gas, and Greece? Did they tell Putin the EU would: (a) force Ukraine to federalize and let the Donestk and Lugansk Republics have significant autonomy in Ukraine; (b) give up on getting Crimea back; (c) stop the sanctions and financial wars; and (d) keep NATO out of east Ukraine, in return for Russia not supporting Greece? What they offered to Putin must be more than their earlier position that Russia had to fold to the US/EU/NATO demands, because Putin did not tell them to take a hike – a meeting between Putin and Kiev’s Poroschenko is scheduled for Sunday.
+1 very good geo political analysis.
You have connected all of the dots and made Pax Americana's and Mutti's paradox stand out in the perspective of Putin's NWO strategy, as new alternative king of fossil energy pipeline to world markets.
Syriza is now acquiring a strategic importance to Putin's vision of Euro-Asian plays (via Turkey and Kazakh/Turkmen allies) that is both critical to the global financial as to the global euro energy construct; all based on Putin's MIC clout as alternative umbrella to Pax Americana. (Some revenge for Afghan disaster of Brezhnevian days). In fact, Putin is cut and pasting past US capitalist logic but on the back of his mercantilist RM and commodity base, new potential fount of world consumption.
Like I said, the US strategy has put ALL its eggs in the Saud fount of black gold basket gone sour, having alienated Iran under Khomeiny revolution, destroyed Iraq/Afghan, now Syria and Libya, and not resolved any of the underlying issues of King $'s petrodollar debt= asset rampage since BW revoke and Dear Henry's ping pong poke at Mao's empire.
The US now has a financial empire all based on debt and Putin appears as an alternative who has real assets (but no stable markets).
Big poker game in progress on this second front of markets. China is the unknown in this as its both drowning in debt pegged to $ and represents a new powerhouse of future consumption.
Some conundrum, we will be living in tipping times of awesome change.
Chickens, more appropriately black swans, coming home to roost.
PS : Given the despondent tone of Merkel's announcement this morning and her avowed belief that Ukraine has no military solution to ensure its legal boundaries ; as Hollande said : if there is no peace from this last train before Gun Hill we know what the outcome will be : it'll be moar and generalised war.
The picture of H & M in Moscow looks more and more like Daladier and Chamberlain in 1938 in Berlin. Only difference : Putin is not Hitler, he does not want to invade Europe, just hold what's his in terms of an old ideology : Blut und Boden, which defies current global and nation-state sacrosant Enlightenment dialectic logic, but which plays into his NWO great game of making the Ukraine a BUFFER ZONE with Europe allowing him to plan his Eastern and South European strategy to disseminate his commodity empire.
Meanwhile, Potus has to decide if he is prepared to pick up Putin's militarist gauntlet in the upcoming Ukraine/Novo Russia stand-off to partition current Ukraine. Putin's NWO now defies Potus's similar eastern pivot.
Hellas Akbar
Greeks get out while you can!
In order to finance all the repayments...
FU, we do not repay and voila we have balanced budget !!!