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Meet New Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos
Now that Yanis Varoufakis has metamorphosed from economist academic to controversial finance minister to political martyr (a transition he punctuated Monday morning by proclaiming he will henceforth “wear creditors’ loathing with pride”), the eyes of the financial universe will turn nervously to newly-appointed Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos who has led Greece’s negotiations with creditors since Varoufakis was sidelined after making a scene at an April Eurogroup meeting in Riga.
#BREAKING Greece's bailout negotiator Euclid Tsakalotos named new finance minister: official
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) July 6, 2015
Here’s more on Tsakalotos from The Telegraph:
An Oxford-educated economist, Mr Tsakalotos has much in common with the political elite of Westminster, having been educated at St Paul's school, before going on to read politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) as an undergraduate. He later completed his PhD in economics from Oxford in 1989.
The 55-year-old, who was born in Rotterdam, served as the chief economic spokesman and effective shadow finance minister for the Syriza-led government.
Unlike Mr Varoufakis, Mr Tsakalotos is no party outsider. He has been a member of Syriza for nearly a decade, serving as an MP in the Greek parliament since 2012.
Like many of his fellow Leftist parliamentarians, Mr Tsakalotos's background is as a jobbing Western academic rather than a career politician, having taught at the universities of Kent and Athens.
Described as the "brains behind Syriza's economic policy", he has authored and co-authored six books, the most recent of which seeks to debunk the causes of Greece's economic turmoil.
Published in 2012, Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone and the World Economic Crisis, argues that far from being an economic laggard, Greece underwent two decades of neo-liberal modernisation before the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. The result, he argues, was a widening in social inequality and a gaping democratic deficit.
In a refrain that will be familiar to many, the Marxist economist diagnoses Greece's ailments as not simply the consequence of "an economic crisis" but a "crisis of democracy" in the eurozone.
But far from advocating a "Grexit", as some of the more radical elements within Syriza, Mr Tsakalotos thinks Greece should maintain its membership of the euro.
And more color from Bloomberg:
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is counting on a change of style, if not necessarily substance, by turning to a longtime ally to seek a new deal with creditors to keep his nation in the euro.
Euclid Tsakalotos was named finance minister to replace Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned Monday after more than five months of fruitless back and forth. An Oxford-educated economist who was deputy foreign minister, Tsakalotos had already begun to take a leading role in debt talks before
Tsipras’s surprise referendum call brought them to a halt on June 27.
Tsipras is betting that a new, less confrontational face will help him bring German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders back to the table after Greeks voted to reject further austerity in Sunday’s vote. Varoufakis had vowed to “cut off my arm” rather than sign a bad deal.
“It’s an important symbolic and necessary move,” Famke Krumbmuller, an analyst at political consultancy Eurasia Group, said by e-mail. Creditors “now really need to see the trust restored by a serious and credible commitment from the Greek side to implement reforms,” she said.
Tsakalotos has been described by some as one of the more "sensible" members of Syriza which has led a few commentators to suggest negotiations will move forward quickly with Varoufakis now formally out of the picture.
Still, it's not clear that the transition will mark a turning point as should be abundantly clear from the rhetoric out of Berlin on Monday which certainly seems to suggest that regardless of who is doing the negotiating, the idea of debt writedowns is simply unacceptable and thanks to the IMF, any "deal" which does not include debt haircuts will be a non-starter for Greece. In other words: the stalemate will persist.
Good luck Mr. Tsakalotos, you're going to need it.
* * *
(click image for pre-referendum CNN interview with Tsakalotos)
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A leather jacket wearing finance minister was more of a threat than a Volvo-driving, wine and cheese lover, leftist professor
See, TPTB are staging a coup behind the scenes.
The tell will be whether they renegotiate the debt.
Not whether they stay in the EU or Euro.
Like it or not, but Greece has run out of everybody else’s money. ;-)
Looney
Yet another London-trained economist in the middle of this drama?
*obligatory geometry remark*
C'mon.. Go for it
How obtuse
We all see the parallels
Whats his angle?
What's the vector Victor... Nahhh, that's some other guy..
Not to get off on a tangent, but do you think he will sine or cosine any new agreements in the next 24 hours?
I'm not going to secant guess him.
Why is he riding bitch?
Heheh.
What is his position on derivatives?
(I'm almost ashamed to type that, it's so bad.)
he s communist... (they keep repeating this on european news, as if he had syphillis or something)
In the end its all about the math, really. It doesn't matter if the MinFin drives a motorbike or a Volvo.
We can't be sure if it would be such an orthogonal decision without a better understanding of all dimensions of this problem.
Damn... I'm not drinking enough...
I kind of was thinking the non-Euclidian stuff that makes people crazy HP Lovecraft kind of theme myself ...
Regards,
Cooter
EDIT: That was probablyt, ahem, a bit obtuse, so here is the Wiki citation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Non-Euclidean_geometry
I wonder what ANGLE he'll take in adressing these problems...
I wander whose SIDE he'll be on....
I wonder If he likes PI...
I hope he doesnt break his RADIUS...
All of that is tangential. Try to stay on the same plane as the rest of us.
It's all circumferential to me
What goes around comes around.
Could Varoufakis's Stepping down have been preplanned. If the current greek gov wanted to play real hardball, put forward a lightning rod, a real firebrand who tells the people what they want to hear and tells the rest of the EU to drop dead and let things play out. Get the EU really scared, remove the lightning rod and then negotiate. Never let a crisis go to waste and create one when you need leverage.
Im betting a "deal" is reached by the end of the week.
Maybe, but the big question is, what was the "scene" he created? Who did he punch in the head? Lagarde? I wanna know.
With a name like Euclid, I'd expect him to be able to square this circle of hell Greece finds themselves in.
Then again.....he ain't THAT Euclid so I expect him to suck on some more Eurozone tit.....in the form of Merkel Milk.
I think it's his last name that's pertinent, 'cause he's going 'tsakaloto' the german taxpayer in bailing them out again
I think I've seen him wandering around near the Pantheon sipping English Breakfast tea mumbling, 'Pip, Pip" to everyone and yelling "Cheerio!" when he leaves.
Yeah, that's the Bloke!
Although he is known to be somewhat eccentric, Euclid will no doubt work hard to find the intersection between Syriza's and Troika's demands.
Unlike Yanis, Euclid isn't known to be so hyperbolic in his remarks.
I expect him to yield in bilateral negotiations, else the Pentagon is going to drone-strike dat azz.
That was the deal. Germany gets a weak currency to dominate more competitive producers and Greece gets lavish cash injections. Like it or not, Germany is the one not keeping the pact. Somewhat familiar, is it not? History always repeats itself, after all.
"Like it or not, but Greece has run out of everybody else’s money."
So the banks lend, run up debts that are transferred on to taxpayers, yet the culprits are the populations???
These Stockholm syndrome-afflicted 'Murikans are a pleasure to racket. These morons will enthusiastically order each other to dutifully pay the Mafia bosses.
Yup. That money didn't exist till it was loaned out. They weren't spending everyone elses' money, they were spending....christ, I really can't get my head around this. How can money just be willed into existence and loaned out? I wish I could pull that trick. You'd all owe me MILLIONS!
"...christ, I really can't get my head around this."
Indeed, the vast majority of people continue to presume that there is some common sense principle of the "conservation of money," because that is the way it appears inside their own lives and the lives of everyone else they know. The magical creation of the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts is too mind boggling for most people to be willing to go through the traumatic cognitive dissonance it takes to be able to consider that!
Here is one example, the first 30 minutes of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo
97% Owned - Monetary Reform documentary
There are several dozen more, that
I have collected some links to here:
Excellent Videos on Money Systems
A few decades of working on the Canadian Political Contribution Tax Credit has given me plenty of material to engage in various kinds of political experiments to test the degree to which more than 99% of ordinary taxpayers behave like incompetent political idiots. Mostly, they can not imagine, because they do not want to imagine, the degree to which the best organized gangsters are the banksters, that were able to almost completely corrupt governments, to give away the power to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, while at the same time, those governments continued to enforce those frauds.
In my opinion, even the few people who do begin to understand the degree to which our whole political economy is dominated by ENFORCED FRAUDS still do not think through the deeper and deeper levels of how and why that is the actually existing situation. I have been addressing those questions and generating possible answers for several decades. Intellectual scientific revolutions are the ways forward. Paradigm shifts do not initially change what exists, but only the ways that we perceive what exists. There is a long history of scientific revolutions, such as reviewed by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. That is what we need to happen in political science, and that is what I have been developing for my whole life, ever since I was a teenager and recognized that I had been born into a system that was based on exponential growth, backed by weapons mass destruction.
We should make our accounting systems be based on a energy standard. However, in order to do that, we would have to revolutionize the ways that we think about time and space, as well as entropy. The way that we think about entropy now was inverted, and only by inverting that inversion can be we develop better understanding of human beings and civilizations as general energy systems. That would then enable human systems to become better integrated with industrial and natural energy systems.
In general, I tend to agree with the ideals about what money should be:
http://www.preservearticles.com/201104115268/4-essential-functions-of-mo...
However, I insist that almost everyone who attempts to promote those ideals have their mechanisms backwards. By and large, there is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition, which is mostly controlled by taking for granted the ways that they think, due to the language that they use, or the philosophy of science that they presume is correct. The realistic ways to work towards the ideals of what money should be must start from what money is, namely measurement backed by murder. That then can enable understanding how private property actually manifests, as claims backed by coercions, inside of the overall context of the environment.
The history of science was full of events where progress reached some dead-end, because the fundamental frame of reference was wrong. No more puzzles inside of that frame of reference could be adequately solved, because the frame of reference itself was wrong. We have reached that point in our political situation. We cannot resolve our problems from within the established systems. We need series of intellectual scientific revolutions, in order to change our overall frame of reference, regarding how we perceive those problems.
That is being made imperative by the development of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the force of atomic bombs. Those technologies exist due to profound paradigm shifts in physical science. IF our politics is going to adapt to survive those technologies, then our political science has to go through even more profound paradigm shifts. However, in the past, such paradigm shifts usually took several generations, while now it appears we have run out of time to adapt. But nevertheless, I continue to promote what I consider to be the theoretically possible solutions ...
I have become more than 99% convinced that we are actually headed through the runaway debt insanities provoking death insanities, and it is not at all clear that a technologically based civilization can survive long enough to adapt to the development of its own technology, especially as the "money" made out of nothing was used to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources at an exponential rate, which is running into real limits of diminishing returns, which limits are showing up first and foremost through the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, particularly in smaller countries on the fringe, which can no longer afford to import natural resources, like Greece. Any finance minister of Greece is facing a basically impossible predicament. It will be interesting to watch Greece stay in the EU and still use the Euro, after Greece accepts that it can not pay back the "money" made out of nothing that was lent to it, which was mostly all "odious debts:"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-17/greek-debt-committee-just-declared-all-debt-illegal-illegitimate-and-odious
Greek Debt Committee Just Declared All Debt To The Troika "Illegal, Illegitimate, And Odious"
Since the Greeks had already passed into the conditions of DEBT INSANITY, it is not surprising that when their commission looked into that situation, they came to conclusions that they did. The degree to which the established financial systems are based upon ODIOUS DEBTS is the same as the degree to which privately controlled banks were legally allowed to create the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, while that legalized counterfeiting was allowed and reinforced by governments, that deemed that form of "money" to be legal tender, that must be used to pay taxes with.
The majority of those who post comments on Zero Hedge and vote on those comments already understand that the public "money" supplies have been more and more created out of nothing as debts by privately controlled banks, while those are FRAUDS ENFORCED by governments, due to the long history of the international bankers applying the methods of organized crime to the political processes. HOWEVER, it is all too typical for those relatively few people who comprehend the ENFORCED FRAUDS of the MAD Money As Debt systems, whereby the public "money" supply is almost totally created ex nihilo, to continue to almost totally fail to agree upon any practical solutions to those problems.
In theory, the philosophy of science should be the most important thing to a technological civilization. However, our existing politics continues to almost totally dominated by old-fashioned religions and ideologies, which tend to be adamant about not wanting to adapt, by changing their metaphysics in ways which are consistent with the changes in physics. Metaphorically speaking, whether the Earth is flat or round should not be resolved by compromising that it is a big cube. Rather, one must go through the paradigm shift to accept it is round, before then being able to modify that, such as to qualify that it is not a sphere, but an oblate spheroid, etc. ... Similarly with my political views. It is not possible to not change the paradigms. It is not possible to accept any compromises to only partially change the paradigms. We should radically change the paradigms through which we perceive our political problems, and then, on that basis, we could have progress in political science. However, that progress continues to be extremely problematic because its central features are necessarily the death controls systems, with the human murder systems being the most extreme of those.
Of course, that is how and why our current political problems appear to have become terminally screwed up, because there must be death controls, and there are, however, the existing combined money/murder systems have developed to become based on the maximum possible enforcement of frauds. First, enough of us would have to perceive that for what it is, to then maybe be able to change that in more realistic ways, and second, such changes would have to continue to be realistic, in the sense that money would still have to basically be measurement backed by murder ... Meanwhile the existing globalized systems of electronic frauds backed by the force of atomic bombs continue to automatically become more and more criminally insane MADNESS!
Most of the mainstream people continue to be deliberately ignorant regarding the public "money" supply being actually based on governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks. However, the few that do understand that only do so superficially, and therefore, promote superficial "solutions." The ways that we were taught to perceive the world, and to think about that, are way more absurdly backwards, on way deeper levels, where the lies are different at every level. Tragically, as most of the other articles and comments published on Zero Hedge indicate, those relatively few people who DO recognize that the political economy is being controlled by national governments backing up the international bankers frauds STILL also continue to come nowhere close to sufficiently changing their paradigms ...
The degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit world view dominates everything is the degree to which our civilization has become psychotically out of touch with its own realities, as situated inside of the overall environment. We continue to have more and more progress in physical science, without any progress in political science, with the deeper reasons being due to the paradoxical ways that social success became based on being the best at backing up deceits with destruction, and enforcing frauds. There are deeper and deeper levels we would have to change our perceptual paradigms upon, regarding how and why the human death controls actually worked, and how and why those worked in those ways.
Overall, I see no other choices but to have to continue to muddle through the MADNESS of the increasingly unbalanced dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. So far, it has become extremely problematic, and perhaps fatal, for human beings to have developed globalized electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs. THOSE ARE EXTREME CONTRADICTIONS, WHICH PRESENT INTENSELY PARADOXICAL POLITICAL PROBLEMS!
Sorry, RM, I have never been able to make it through one of your theses. My point was, as I 've said before here, if someone of some intelligence is unable to get their mind around something, then that is probably the intent. Obviously pulling money out of thin air is bullshit. That makes the whole economic system bullshit, because that's its basis.
I think I get points for brevity.
ENFORCED FRAUDS.
Not simply FRAUDS!
The point is not that it is simply bullshit, but that it is the bullies' bullshit. I give no points to those who merely skim the surface, because then that leads to proposing similarly superficial "solutions." Only a much deeper analysis can deal more directly with the deeper reasons for how and why we have ended up with systems based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS.
Those who focus only on the superficial truths that that monetary system is fraudulent tend to then propose solutions based upon their verions of what should be sound and honest money. That does NOT deal with the facts that those frauds are ENFORCED, and does not deal with the deeper reasons WHY money is necessarily measurement backed by murder.
Dude YV loved him some wine and cheese.
Fast bikes and good looking chicks, too!
I seriously doubt it. The leather jacket guy was pro European to the point of being naive.
This guy... this guy looks like one who "has convictions". He'll eat your cheese, thank you and won't change anything in his tune. Maybe I'm wrong; but he smells convictions from 100 miles away.
Really? What is with the financial crisis fixer names? Sack a lottos? Come on! That is almost as bad as Cash-Carry. /sarc
Meet the new boss, same as the old.
Yeah but the new boss rides on the back of the old boss' motorcycle.
Yah - we call that the "bitch seat". So who's bitch is he ? Bwahaha !
Meet the new Playa', same as the last Playa'.
These Varoufakis photo-ops are so ridiculous, I don't even know where to start. Who fucking cares that he is a posing metrosexual with leather jacket and crappy motorcycle? Are we supposed to identify him with Tom Cruise?
What is he like when the camera isn't on him?
LOL. Both Cruise and 'Fakis are undoubtebly miserable faggots who bend themselves over for base reasons (corrupt wealth and artificial fame), while doing their utmost to screw people over with their complex con-jobs.
(FWIW I have no problem with homosexuality, at all, but I do have a problem with lame bisexual motherfuckers who sell themselves out to the devil's gang to such a degree that they even learn to love prostituting themselves to harmful evil).
And LOL at these pictures that show them being all triumphant and proud - PROUD OF WHAT?
Yep. It's a mix of Paris HIlton, red carpet at the music awards, giving each other accolades with an undercurrent of debotchery while serving their hidden evil masters.
I talked a lot of shit about YV, and I still think he and Syriza should have called this referendum from day 1, but at least the finally got it done.
Now hopefully this new guy can also tell the IMF to fuck off.
Tell them to fuck off after they took the money though, right?
The People did not take the money. The People saw very little of any money.
That is the price for being a docile little sheep.
It's always someone else's fault, right. The poor little ignorant sheeple were too busy with their pension money to realize they were fucking their country up the asshole.
If you allow a privilged class of rent-seeking parasites to dominate politics and legislation, then you are a dumb little sheep fuck.
Vote me down, lol, but until people educate themselves, they will be at the mercy of corrupt, self serving fucks, and wishing it wasn't so isn't going to change anything. Time to take responsibility, or not. Can just reatreat into the ouzo bottle, or television, whatever the hell it is that people do to avoid getting involved in fighting off the wretched control freaks et al.
Do you want self determinism, or Rockefeller's et al, they are gods we are bacteria plan?
Why are you still stuck on this false paradigm? There is no spoon! The debt has been transferred to the ECB and IMF. It no longer exists! (ECB can write it off). Greece received currency initially in order to allow German manufacturers to sell their wares to Greece. As in, ECB created credit vouchers from thin air and assigned them to German banks who "loaned" these credits to the Greek government. Greek government paid salaries and benefits to Greeks who purchased German products. German manufacturers than used the revenue to pay back their own debt to German banks. THERE WAS NO MONEY! Only currency credits were exchanged.
The problem arises from:
1) The creation of credit from thin air. Since the intial credit vouchers were created out of thin air they did not represent actual productive value but an illusion designed to enrich the bankesters.
2) The moral hazard. Banks were encouraged to loan money to Greek government at unreasonably low time cost. Banks got the credit for nothing, Greek finances were faked in order to make it appear that they could pay back the loans and banksters were, and still are, guaranteed no actual loses. Greek borrowed based on fake finances and expectations of exponential growth in a clearly finite economy. BOTH ARE GUILTY.
In a money based economy (vs. currency based economy) a nation's (or person's) imports must equal the value of their exports. If I (or a nation) purchase (import) more than the value of my production (exports) I am commiting financial suicide. It leaves me with two otions, either increase the value of my production (value of my exports) to more than my purchases (imports) and the outstanding debt+time cost (principal + interest) or declare bankruptcy.
In a credit based economy all this is thrown out the door since the critical factor is the interst payments on the pseudo debt. That is why corporations and nations talk about "servicing the debt" and not paying off outstanding debt.
you are hoping a marxist does the right thing. Think about that for a second.
Dude give me a minute to digest this shit sandwhich!
I'm sure I'll puke silver all over this bullshit.
Let me quote the younger generation," I ain't hating".
phe
Best comment yet from this guy.
Lol yes .
Cool. I wonder if he is a debt crack whore
He is a professor.
So is Bernanke.
And most professors in one way of another suffer from the mental illness of Krugmanism "MOAR!"
Paul the "shill" Krugman. Their paradigm insists the FED's balance sheet must expand to avoid deleveraging. Deleveraging is evil and must be avoided at ALL COSTS!
Keynesian economics (/?ke?nzi?n/ KAYN-zee-?n; or Keynesianism) is the view that in the short run, especially during recessions, economic output is strongly influenced by aggregate demand (total spending in the economy).
So, the government must keep demand high by spending more. Easy to do with FIAT, right Knukles. Bail out the banks, and insurance companies of the banks. Keep the banks liquid. Keep them speculating with savings. Gotta keep that stock market high, don't forget the wealth effect.
Bernanke is as much a professor as Dre is a doctor.
Merkel and Schauble should explain to their voters, why they saved DB, and fucked all of europe's taxpayers.
Indeed they should
(don't hold your breath, they might do when they write their political memoirs though)
but they should also consider that DB might not be entirely, completely saved - yet
I get the feeling we'll see a real hard line now, and the ECB (Germany) will have to be careful or they just might get bent over themselves.....
hey Greeks, wear helmets on motorcycles.
I remember in Athens it was not very exceptional to see a dude on a heavy motorcycle without a helmet.
You see loads of retards in Amerika wearing no helmet. If the bike goes down - you are f***ed.
I know plenty of examples of people (first, second and third hand) getting hurt badly and dying not wearing bicycle helmets.
Fortunately, Greeks are blessed with an impenetrable layer of body hair that doubles as bike leathers.
LOL! The Japanese make a really cool bike jacket with I guess a CO 2 cartridge. If the bike goes down, it inflates to protect your back, front, arms and neck. The shoulder protection is pretty key too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo9Vlt5tGwY
I guess others make them too. Preety cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoGDwBiTYdU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHvSmfM0DYU
would not want to be that test driver though
Like Florida you mean ?
if you say so, never been to Florida
Exactly like Florida, I've axed some bikers about it, they say "if i get hit, i'm probably dead, helmet or not".
A gator would snap them up before they hit the ground.
Ha ha ! ;-)
dt
I have taken numerous tumbles off of various motorized vehicles over the decades. Once I hit the pavement so hard it knocked me totally blind for about 30 minutes. But I am still here, and I certainly wouldn't be had I not been wearing a helmet.
(I will leave to the reader to determine the merits of a helmet in my particular case)
dt
well, actually I don't how many I saw (probably more than 1) and how heavy these bikes were, but the impression I am left with is that it is not very exceptional for Athenians to drive without helmet on "real" motorcycles (not just the scooter types) and that the police basically takes no action against it. This was about 3 years ago, maybe it changed. This compared to Belgium were I am sure the police will pull you over the moment they see you without a helmet on "real" motorcycle in most cases.
Ben je Belg ?
Vlaming, Europeaan en wereldburger.
En jij ?
Can we please come up with some career people with Names Like Smith, or Wills or Henry.
these names are all Greek to me..
I wonder how many trillions in debt haircuts the US government could get ... if they wanted it?
It is a much better solution than stealing money from small depositors.
.
.
Another delusional, self-gratulatory Leftist fool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11566624/Euclid-Tsakalotos-...
BLAME THE OTHERS! : "[Tsakalotos] argues that far from being an economic laggard, Greece underwent two decades of neo-liberal modernisation before the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. The result, he argues, was a widening in social inequality and a gaping democratic deficit."
MY FAVORITE: ""We are not asking for special treatment, but for equal treatment in a Europe of equals," thumped Mr Tsakalotos."
Fine, A§$H*LE!!! Then, PAY UP LIKE ALL OTHER DEBTORS and STFU until you do.
Pay up, you mean like the Ukraine? And, an earlier article stated that Germany has NEVER repaid its war debts.
I think Greece should pay after Germany pays.
HEY IDIOT:
if you'd bothered to read the comments to the Picketty screed, you'd note that the claim is FALSE.
AND: what I mean is that Greece can damn well learn to pay its own way as other countries do.
So F YOU, you parasitic scum.
Oooohh...looks like someone forgot to take his turrets medication this morning...
Could you see the US Treasury secrtary being given a lift on a motorcycle?
They need a convoy of huge black GMC trucks and SUVs plus cops and endless Praetorian guards.
Those trucks are armored, BTW. Can't imagine why they need protection like that...
You never ride D2B. That's just wrong.
It's just part of the illuminati culture: they all get raped as kids, so they require that their henchmen also spread their ass-cheeks and exchange their pride for that mad bling they desperately desire.
It's not much different from prison culture, where people learn to be proud to wear their pants half-way down their butts to show how they are 'ready bitches'.
Subconsciously, everyone should have understood by now that you get ahead in society by letting creeps f' you in the ass, literally and figuratively. Every taste in life is acquired, so why not acquire the taste for painful shit and then get mad bling and coke for it?
'Fakis and Euclid are very close buddies, clearly. They are 'team players' who are ready to 'take one' when needed.
What is fascinating is the look in their eyes as they try to make this all look so good.
Hmm maybe Euclid can Square this Circle, LOL!
At a minimum, he COULD import some money maker scheme from Germany:
Toto-Lotto!!!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toto-Lotto_Niedersachsen
The Greeks may *already* be a winner!!
Tsipras : "With a strong No I will have a new deal in 48 hours!"
Time left: 23 hours.
No helmet on a motorcycle. Well, that's a violation of at least one EU directive ????
aND Yanis heads for the hill with a chick with no lid
http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cd3d0ae9d3dd7ad3c21d41da68d5079f59df0cb6/0...
They'll keep that one in their pocket in case they need him fired later.
"brains behind Syriza's economic policy"
so they replaced 1 keynsian, wealth-redistributionist with another. im sure the result will be different.
on a side-note, i continue to struggle with who is more at fault here: the greeks for accepting $$$ they would never pay back or the IMF/ECB/EU for lending greece $$$ they knew could never be paid back. most loan sharks/bookies i know cut their "clients" off when they realize that risk intersects return. with only 11.5 million people & limited revenues + prospects for growth, allowing 250 billion euros to flow thru to them - seems to me any rational person would have stopped giving drugs to the junkie a long time ago.
Who is more at fault? That question kind of brings back memories of the housing debt crisis, doesn't it. Was it the mortage lenders or the borrowers at fault? In this case, at least both sides are presumed to be savy in money matters. But ultimately it goes back to the money printers, who created a lot more of it than anyone really needed. That led to mal-investment which will never generate a positive return, and debt that will never be repaid. It always turns out that way, at which point it matters little whether the lender or borrower was at fault.
well, according to that picture, Tsakalotos is Varoufakis' bitch....
I think Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's take on the new finance minister is more interesting:
Scratch a little and you start to discover a eurosceptic who never wanted Greece to join the euro, indeed who already foresaw with remarkable prescience in this paper in 1998 that EMU would not bring about the convergence of the core and peripheral countries. He was miles ahead of the amateurs religiously touting the benefits of EMU.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11720907/Greece-creditors-w...
That link is broken? Would not load.
If he's really 100% Oxford then we need to smell his sh*t ... cause people from Hahrvard and Oxford shit don't smell.
They're exceptional!
It simply means that he's malleable and manageable.
He will NOT negotiate a good deal for Greece, but a good one for Troika and the Interests they represent: Perpetual Debt for Greeks, and perpetual Rentier Income for Bankster elite and their FRB Casino.
A taste of Euclid;
http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/hellenicObservatory/Even...Link is removed.
Mr. Tsakalotos - I hear that there is a very hot Chinese umbrella company stock - I would recommend deploying the proceeds of Greece's IMF emergency fund account to purchase as many shares of Jicheng Umbrella Holdings Ltd.1027.HK on margin - then pay off the Troika...
Christ, it took me a month to learn to pronounce Varoufakis, now I have to learn Tsakalotos
Greece has long since jumped the Titanic...no surprise of course that most of the "exceptional" tribe here have no idea how to read the Greek game.
Iceberg dead ahead Cap'n Merkel or is that a huge stemaing pile of USer subprime toxic derivative filth di$gui$ed as......er Deutsche Bank?
The shit will hit the fan but it won't be Greek shit.
Euclid nice name. Why didn't they just call him Sue.
I remember Euclid's theorems.
Tsakalotos sounds ike Czar-nice toes.
I wonder if he is itching to put his nice toe into IMF Lagarde's Gucci bag?
She needs a big toe hole to show to her US bosses. "I've lost it all in Ukraine and Greece"....
falak pema
She needs a big hole....
LOL. That was great.
The borg will do everything to keep the debt slaves.
The question is, who really picked him for the job?
Euclit...will get banged by the troika
Euclit...will get banged by the troika
Varoufakis is a coward!
He left to avoid going into history as the Fin Min that announced the failure of the banking system and the chaos that will ensue.
Using the referendum victory as background, Varoufakis used the "Seinfeld approach" to leave on a high note.
Varoufakis and George Costanza: two characters, same tactic:
http://www.atlanticperspective.com/home/-varoufakis-quits-using-a-seinfeld-tactic
It's five o'clock somewhere. How are liquor sales in Greece? Weed? Bet they barter.
Black market, here we come.
Gold saver is pretty close to the mark. Good job.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-06/meet-new-greek-finance-minister...
A few quibbles. A lot of Greek debt originated in commerical banks, both in Germany and France. QE operations will transfer the debt instruments to ECB. Therefore, said instruments are now concentrated and easier to erase.
Yes, credit as money has no time value, as it is just keyboard entries.
A money economy has floating money in volume relation to goods/services. Foreign goods exchange should be only barter and marked by accounting...not money. If good exchanges becomes unbalanced then the accounting signals to adjust exchange rate. In my opinion this accounting should be done with a Bancor. (The bancor will exchange with a nation's money.)
Some credit is useful, as its disappearing nature is good for a drain knob, to thus prevent inflation.
Just like different constituent parts of our bloodstream are useful, some credit and a mostly money economy is the answer.
Nobody talks about the real and proper solutions it seems. How is your credit rating is the new mantra, not how much real money you have saved.
Credit is paid for with money, but now we confuse the nature of the two very different units. We have credits paying for credits. Why? So bankers can take usury on a time value that doesn't exist with keyboard entry. Private banker credit is a con job.
www.sovereignmoney.eu
MEFOBILLS
Private banker credit is a con job.
You Rock!!!
Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos should call in economic advisors professors Black, Chossudovsky, Hudson as well as Gavin Marshall and Nomi Prins, that are researcher into the central banksters criminal cabal activities, to advise him in the Greek crisis.
Greece's ailments are not simply the consequence of "an economic crisis" but a "crisis of democracy" in the Eurozone.
Democracy: government of, for and by the People.
------Verse----
Fascism: government of, for and by the multinational corporate monopoly.
Regime change was the modus operandi of the ECB, IMF, and 'no more wire coathangers' Mommy Dearest Chancellor Merkel. The new FM is propagandized from square one as a status quo 'rebel' with a black leather jacket, and a motorcycle. This James Dean meme is being used by the status quo that were pushing for regime change through the smoke n' mirrors of the departure of the former FM who actually demonstrated real rebelion against the IMF, ECB, and EU crony Ponzi Casino Capitalists. What we have here is simply an industry insider that has been sniffing the arses of the 1% since he gained entry into Oxford and all their circlejerk kleptocratic dens of theives back in 1989. Clearly, the motherfucker from Oxford got his PhD in Economics when he was 29 and he has spent the last 26 years teaching students from all over the World how to give us all handjobs in that time.
NOTE: The new FM is no rebel I assure you.
The Varoufakis Grexit does two things:
so
And what would the results of yesterday's "no" vote have been without that scene?
55 %? 51%?
Perhaps the Western Europhiles didn't like Varoufakis' Riga-scene, but apparently the Greek voters did.
As long as the tit doesn't dry up, no reason to move on.
aka Tsakalikmahballz
Oops.
One would be out of touch to think that either Tsipras or Tsakalotos were more pliable than Varoufakis.The incomparible Ambrose Evans-Pritchard correctly wrote this morning: Greece creditors will gain nothing from toppling Europe-lover Yanis Varoufakis http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11720907/Greece-creditors-w...
+1 to anybody referencing Ambrose, so thanks JCD. Always interesting, always thoughtful.
It is only regrettable that after clear mandate from Greek people to continue their stands Tsipras seems to interpret it as his personal mandate to do what he please and did last thing in the world he suppose to do first namely firing his FM, practically surrendering his initial negotiation position without a fight.
I did not like Varoufakis and his flamboyant style but I appreciate his, although symbolic, challenge to the recalcitrant EU institutions and meetings resembling un-elected zombie officials’ reunification party inside the EU tomb, where concerns about world of living are all but rescinded and focusing on decomposing raw meat instead.
It took courage to stand up against all these political weasels and the bankster friends.
I stopped to listen to Syriza academic tautologies devoid of anchor to political reality months ago. And the problem was and is first and foremost political. They thought they could stick to their guns but in fact they were giving circus away inch-by-inch all along.
This is insult to intelligence to believe that it was going somewhere. It is clear dead end of willful submission. And new FM with his fake Marxist credentials acquired in Oxford will provide an arm with which Tsipras will sign a cerograph that Varoufakis would rather cut off if forced to sign. That may be a simplest explanation why he was fired, not resigned, just read his blog.
I am afraid that Greek people have been conned again and the slow death warrant for Greek working people and future generations will be signed soon, and my test of true revolution, i.e. blood in the streets apparently was proven right again. So what Tsipras actually accomplished?
Syriza got nothing from fascist troika over these last 5 months. Nothing at all. So why they waited all this time and squandered $7 billion surplus and reserves, money that could have been used for transition and negotiation leverage but instead was used to pay this odious debt. The same fight, could have been fought in February from much stronger position without this turmoil. Why it wasn’t? Why banks were not nationalized last Monday as it was in England in 2008 for Christ sake? Who’s interest was to weaken Syriza’s support among suffering population?
What Syriza accomplished so far is to undermine European leftist movements while it is not itself true leftist at all. It is a party of those former worshipers of EU with cushy jobs that have been pushed away from the trough, rejected by fascist EU pals in their quest for gluttony and left behind to rot. It is beggars party having nothing to do with true left like Greek communists that spilled blood for national independence and justice in Greece in 1948.
In this context there is nothing curious about all those inexplicable, strange or just stupid and naïve adolescent moves that deny what actually is going on namely steady progress of fascism in Europe and vicious class war with thousands of dead victims of economic extermination. Just consider Greek GDP dropped 25% over last several years, economic effect liken to ongoing hot war, where bombs are falling from the sky.
So far, they are dropping so called metaphorical “neutron bombs” of mass destruction that kill slowly one by one, quietly disappearing form this world without immediate visible damage and producing tens of thousands economic refugees fleeing Greek war zone, a war crime in itself.
The last five months Syriza behaved not as strong leftist movement but as controlled opposition steered from Soros headquarters and Broookings institution under quiet acceptance of ECB, psychopathic enthusiast of Greek tragedy.
Five months and Syriza government did not even established itself at all.
The facts.
1. Government has no control over third biggest Army in EU, biggest Army per capita, no military cuts whatsoever, they even buying useless sh.. from US as we speak.
2. Government has no control over police, no cuts in pay or benefits no prosecution of rampant civil right violations by police against leftist parties and groups.
3. Government has no control over prosecutors and judges, only ONE investigation, related to theft of national treasure, of people connected to oligarchs and foreign banks was open while Syriza members made over thousand requests for investigations.
4. Government has no control over banks. It’s obvious because of ECB but Syriza members requested thousands of reports on banking activities or requests to stop oligarch from repatriating their stolen wealth abroad, no response.
5. Government has stolen retirement money and practically reneg on immediate election promises regarding increase of employment, while paying off so far troika gangsters against their own stated policies and election promises.
6. Government did not nationalized state assets sold to foreign investors for peanuts as declared in their own stated policies that obtained parliament vote of confidence.
7. Government did not use Russia leverage in NATO context and did not warm up frozen relationship with Turkey as extremely strong bargaining chip in current geopolitical situation potentially weakening of NATO southern flank.
I stop here but it’s no all.
The Syriza violated their own manifesto hundreds of times during last 5 month perhaps proving that it is nothing but a fake political entity negotiating cash deal for their own leaders while collapsing their own country.
It is gonna be big political bill to pay.
Who were the economic advisors that Iceland called in to solve their economic crisis? Pick from the list posted prior.
Yes,,, PhD's have done such a marvelous job with the worlds economy, I am sure one more will be the icing on the cake.
I mean we would be absolutely lost and civilization would cease if it weren't for these educated Prima Donna's.
I see Mr Sack-the-lot-of-us is another snappy dresser. Not sure whether that is a + or a -.