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"We Greeks Voted 'No' To Slavery, But 'Yes' To Our Chains"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Michael Nevradikis and Greg Palast via OpEdNews.com,

We Greeks have voted 'No' to slavery -- but 'Yes' to our chains.

Not surprisingly, by nearly two-to-one, Greeks have overwhelmingly rejected the cruel, economically bonkers "austerity" program required by the European Central Bank in return for an ECB loan to pay Greece's creditors. In doing so, the Greek people overcame an unprecedented campaign of fear from the Greek and international media, the European Union (EU), and most of our political parties.

What's simply whack-o is that, while voting "No" to austerity, many Greeks wish to remain shackled to the euro, the very cause of our miseries.

Resistance, not Crisis

Before we explain how the euro is the cause of this horror show, let's clear up one thing right away. All week, worldwide media was filled with news of the Greek "crisis." Yes, the economy stinks, with one in four Greeks unemployed. But two other euro nations, Spain and Cyprus, also are suffering this depression level of unemployment. Indeed, more than 11% of workers in seven euro nations, including Portugal and Italy, are out of work.

But unlike Greece, these other suffering nations have quietly acquiesced to their "austerity" punishments. Spaniards now accept that they are fated forevermore to be low-paid servants to beer-barfing British tourists. Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who has enacted a draconian protest ban at home to keep his own suffering masses at bay, has joined in the jackal-pack rejecting anything but the harshest of austerity terms for Greece.

The difference between these quiescent nations and Greece is that the Greeks won't take it anymore.

What the media call the Greek "crisis" is, in fact, resistance.

Resistance to nowhere

But it's a resistance whose leaders are leading them nowhere.

For decades, Greeks have suffered governments that are both corrupt and dishonest. The election of SYRIZA changed all that: the government is now merely dishonest.

Our new SYRIZA Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, correctly called the austerity plan "blackmail." However, before Sunday'svote, Tsipras told the nation a big fat fib. He said we could vote down the European Bank's plan but keep the European Bank's coin, the euro. How? Tsipras won't say; it's part of a policy ploy his outgoing finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls "creative ambiguity." To translate: Creative ambiguity is Greek for "bullshit."

Sorry, Alexis, if you want to use the Reich's coin you have to accept the Reichsdiktat.

Not a coin, a virus

Tsipras' claim that Greece can keep the euro while rejecting austerity is crazy-talk. The fact is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Cruella De Vil of the Eurozone, will ignore the cries of the bleeding Greeks and demand we swallow austerity--or lose the euro.

But, so what if we lose the euro? The best thing that can happen to Greece, and should have happened long, long ago, is that Greece flee the Eurozone.

That's because it is the euro itself that is the virus responsible for Greece's economic ills.

Indeed, the sadistic commitment to "austerity" was minted into the coin's very metal. We're not guessing. One of us (Palast, an economist by training) has had long talks with the acknowledged "father" of the euro, Professor Robert Mundell. It's important to mention the other little bastard spawned by the late Prof. Mundell: "supply-side" economics, otherwise known as "Reaganomics," "Thatcherism" -- or, simply "voodoo" economics.

The imposition of the euro had one true goal: To end the European welfare state.

For Mundell and the politicians who seized on his currency concept, the euro itself would be the vector infecting the European body politic with supply-side Reaganomics. Mundell saw a euro'd Europe as free of trade unions and government regulations; a Europe in which the votes of parliaments were meaningless. Each Eurozone nation, unable to control neither the value of its own currency, nor its own budget, nor its own fiscal policy, could only compete for business by slashing regulations and taxes. Mundell said, "[The euro] puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians" Without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business."

Here's how it works. To join the Eurozone, nations must agree to keep their deficits to no more than 3% of GDP and total debt to no more than 60% of GDP. In a recession, that's plain insane. By contrast, President Obama pulled the USA out of recession by increasing deficit spending to a staggering 9.8% of GDP, and he raised the nation's debt to 101% from a pre-recession 62%. Republicans screamed, but it worked. The US has lower unemployment than any Eurozone nation.

As Obama scolded the European tormentors of Greece: "You cannot keep on squeezing countries that are in the midst of depression." Cutting spending power only leads to less spending which leads to further cuts in spending power -- a death spiral we see today in the Eurozone from Greece to Italy to Spain--but not in Germany.

"Not in Germany." There's the rub. Normally, a nation such as Greece can quickly recover from debt-induced recession by devaluing its currency. Greece would become a dirt cheap tourist destination once more and its lower-cost exports would zoom, instantly increasing competitiveness. And that's what Germany can't allow. Germany lured other European nations into the euro in order to keep them from undercutting Germany's prices in export markets.

Restricted by the 3% deficit rule, the only recourse left for Eurozone debtors: pay the piper with "austerity" measures.

Tsipras in Wonderland

So therein lies the lie. Tsipras tells his fellow Greeks that we can live in a Looking Glass world, where we can have our euro and eat it too; that we can stay handcuffed to the euro but run free without austerity.

The nonsense continues: Following the announcement of the official results of the referendum on Sunday night, Tsipras tweeted that the Greek electorate voted for a "Europe of solidarity and democracy," while the now-resigned finance minister Varoufakis tweeted that "Greece's place in the Eurozone is non-negotiable," claiming that he would not allow the "only alternative," the old drachma trading alongside the euro.

SYRIZA's euro-fetish was already evident in its pre-referendum proposals to the IMF and European Bank, a 47-page document which included 8 billion euros in new austerity measures plus a new round of sell-offs of state industries, the maintenance of a primary surplus of 1% this year which would increase in the coming years, the increase of the retirement age to 67, and making permanent the previously "temporary" taxes upon an already overtaxed populace. In Tsipras' own proposal, there was no word of a debt write-down or stoppage of payments, despite the fact that the government's own Debt Audit Commission announced on June 17 that the bulk of Greece's debt is illegal, "odious," and should not be paid.

Instead, Tsipras has come out in support of the IMF's proposal for a mere 30% "debt haircut" and a 20-year grace period, effectively sweeping the problem under the rug. Greece is currently running a deficit, meaning that in order for the 1% surplus to be achieved, SYRIZA must cut, cut, cut. Exactly as Mundell and the supply-siders intended.

Death by "Reform"

Like Obama, Tsipras knows that cutting pensions, privatizing and closing industries, slashing wages -- in other words, "austerity" -- or, to use the latest jargon, "reform" -- is not just cruel, it's plain stupid: it can only push a nation in recession into depression.

That's not just theory. The Troika (the European Central Bank, IMF and European Commission) first imposed their vicious austerity measures on Greece in 2010. Greeks watched their annual salaries plummet to half of a German's paycheck. Greece's supposedly generous pensions have been cut eight times during the crisis, while two-thirds of pensioners live below the poverty line. Everything from Greece's airports to harbors, the national lottery to prime publicly-owned real estatewas sold off, while schools and hospitals were shuttered.

And, for the first time since World War II, widespread starvation had returned. 500,000 children in Greece are said to be malnourished. Students fainting from hunger in frigid schools which cannot afford heating oil is now a common phenomenon.

This cruel "belt tightening," the Troika promised, would restore Greece's economy by 2012 (and then 2013, 2014, and 2015). In reality, unemployment went from a terrible 12.5% in 2010 to a horrendous 25.6% today.

Now, the Troika demands more of the same, a continuation of this disastrous policy.

Crashing into Africa?

Meanwhile, following the referendum result which made him a hero, finance minister Varoufakis resigned. Ironically, while Varoufakis rubbed German officials the wrong way with his unorthodox style, he, too, maintained the pro-euro myth. Previous austerity measures continued under his watch. To please the mad austerity masters, he said he would "squeeze blood from a stone" to repay the IMF--which he did in May, when all remaining funds in the Greek Treasury were rounded up by presidential decree to make that month's IMF loan payment. Varoufakis was so wedded to the euro that he claimed that Greece would be unable to print its old currency, the drachma, because we destroyed our currency printing presses when we joined the euro. In fact, the government's banknote printing facility in Athens still operates, printing the 10-euro note.

Meanwhile, our future flees. A quarter million university graduates have abandoned our nation. They have no choice: unemployment for those under 25 has hit 48.6%.

I know that many Greeks, Cypriots, Italians and Portuguese all express a visceral fear of leaving the euro. Depending on which polls one chooses to believe, anywhere from a near-majority to an overwhelming majority of Greeks wish to remain in the euro at all costs. From the hysterical statements I heard from some Greeks that, "We cannot leave Europe!", you'd think that dropping the euro will cause Greece to break off at the Albanian border and crash into Africa.

It would be refreshing to hear political leaders say the honest economic truth: "Workers of Europe unite! You have nothing to lose but the euro--and your chains."

 

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Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:44 | 6281093 aliki
aliki's picture

well, comedy hour continues here in the U.S. --- we’ve been at 0% for 7 years. lagarde asks/warns janet yellen NOT to raise interest rates. then today, i come across this (I highlighted risk #2 of 5):

IMF warns U.S.: Your financial system is (still) vulnerable

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/07/investing/imf-warns-us-financial-risks/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom

2. Risks loom in the stock and bond markets: Meanwhile, extremely low interest rates have encouraged investors to make riskier and riskier bets. The IMF called out the surge in junk bond issuance by U.S. companies and signs of "overvaluation" in some corners of the bond market. That may be putting it lightly as many investors worry about an all-out bubble in the bond market.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:07 | 6281180 Jumbotron
Jumbotron's picture

Well of COURSE, Greek leaders lie.  THAT'S WHAT ALL LEADERS DO !!

Did anybody seriously think the Troika was going to let Greece go like that?  No...because the Troika's BANKS WON'T ALLOW THAT !!

Plus the Troika know the Greeks better than themselves.  They're addicted to the Government Tit.  Pinch that tit....and they'll howl for their chains back.

Bleet, lil' Greek sheep, Bleet.

The Iron Curtain of Fascsim by Gov/Corp descends worldwide.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:26 | 6281277 Terminus C
Terminus C's picture

I was thinking this was a good piece and then... Obama... Really? Fuck... this guy was so close and then BOOM.  Faceplant.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:19 | 6281533 Terp
Terp's picture

lol...ain´t that the truth.

I was thinking: rather good analysis...and then he goes on about how Oboma ended the recession by deficit spending...umm...yeah. Next?

Wed, 07/08/2015 - 03:00 | 6283857 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

I stopped reading at: "...the euro itself would be the vector infecting the European body politic with supply-side Reaganomics. "

seriously? lol

Wed, 07/08/2015 - 03:03 | 6283869 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

"Crashing into Africa? "

lol. does the author actually know how many African countries use two currencies that are issued by the French national bank and are pegged to the EUR?

yeah, let's talk about them

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:25 | 6281568 Lost My Shorts
Lost My Shorts's picture

Government is your big fat Greek momma.  This author is just another clown who thinks confetti money magically produces prosperity.  It was long, not really so positive experience with confetti money that led the Italians, Spaniards, and Greeks to want the Euro in the first place (even if hard currency was somewhat oversold, and they didn't really grasp or accept the discipline required).

What the Greek people voted for was a standard of living well above what they produce.  They voted for an endless stream of Euro-denominated "loans" from the EU on which they will endlessly default.  Who wouldn't?  That sounds great.

The Greeks voted to simultaneously declare bankruptcy and demand new credit.  Who wouldn't?  That sounds great.

The Greeks voted to say anyone dumb enough to lend their government money is a fool who deserves to lose it, and by the way, they are a little short this month and could they borrow some more?

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:24 | 6281271 r00t61
r00t61's picture

I stopped reading at:

"Republicans screamed, but it worked. The US has lower unemployment than any Eurozone nation."

If the authors are either foolish or evil enough to parrot the official US unemployment numbers then this entire article is a waste of electrons.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:27 | 6281280 Terminus C
Terminus C's picture

Stopped at the same spot.

 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:46 | 6281104 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

"US and Russia form alliance with Space X to build launch facility in Greece."

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:47 | 6281105 silverer
silverer's picture

See? TV works.  Ask any propagandist. (Just keep repeating the message...)

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:49 | 6281120 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

"Social Media moves the market better because it thinks the UNTHINKABLE....

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:49 | 6281121 Hugh G Rection
Hugh G Rection's picture

Which is why the Jewish mafia has accomplished what the Italian mafia could never have dreamed.

Ahhh, busting out entire Countries... Fuck taking down night clubs and sporting goods stores.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:56 | 6281143 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

"Run by.a Jew, talked up by a Jew...stock hits ninety."

No bubble here...move along...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:02 | 6281162 Hugh G Rection
Hugh G Rection's picture

Who runs Hollywood and the media?

We'll see how long before this vid is taken down again...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:47 | 6281109 silverer
silverer's picture

See? TV works.  Ask any propagandist.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:51 | 6281128 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

FULL DISCLOSURE:

I AM 100% IN TREASURIES AND WANT YOUUUUU TO BUY THAT POSITION FROM ME!

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:47 | 6281112 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Greece is merely the "coming attractions", the main event will be much bigger and in glorious Technicolor.......

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:52 | 6281115 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

That the Greek people are going to suffer and will most certatinly have to go back to work to fix their own country is not in question.  The question was whether or not they would also have to continue paying a bunch a useless fucking rent-seeking parasites.  Let the Greeks choose the means of their own suffering/work, fine by me.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:54 | 6281138 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

Hard to imagine it can be that simple but I did it at Seeking Appha with a single equity called "preformed line products."

Think hit fucking 90 before flaming out BIG TIME!

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:46 | 6281363 WhyWait
WhyWait's picture

Tsipras is playing a masterful game.  The 61% No vote is a huge step toward the Greek people uniting around a determination to fight back and take their destiny in their own hands.  

If the 30% haircut deal may look like a bad one to us, to the Troika it looks horrifying, a deal they dare not offer. Events will force Greece step by step to take its destiny in its own hands.  Tsipras is taking care to assure that the overwhelming majority of Greeks - and millions throughout Europe - understand and support this and place the blame where it belongs. He is also fighting to prevent Greece becoming a pawn and battleground in a new Cold War, or even a causus beli.   

A similar struggle will unfold in the US if Bernie Sanders' numbers continue to soar - despite the massive, shameless blackout by the MSM - and apparently also by ZeroHedge.  (Did your news sources tell you that a crowd of between 7,500 and 9,000 turned out to see and cheer for him in Portland Maine last night?  Or that his turnout in Madison last week was more than the total turnout of the largest rallies of all the other candidates combined! And that's not news?) 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:49 | 6281119 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

LOL, does he really think the US unemployment numbers arent 4-5x what they are "reported" as?

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:54 | 6281139 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

I liked this guy until he praised Obama, then all I saw was: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

 

Because he had a good start, I''m going to drink a shot and give him a second chance.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:14 | 6281216 rwe2late
rwe2late's picture

Dr. Engali

Learn to read.

 

The article did NOT praise Obama.

Instead, it stated that Obama (and Tsipras) KNOW that

cutting pensions, privatizing and closing industries, slashing wages -- in other words, "austerity" -- or, to use the latest jargon, "reform" -- is not just cruel, it's plain stupid

They know the policies they advocate are BOTH CRUEL and STUPID. 

Faint praise to be sure.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:19 | 6281245 Bob
Bob's picture

Same here when I read it this morning at nakedcapitalism.  Gotta insert narrator voice-over of "as if" in front of those and other "recovery" related phrases.  That made it work when I did it in real time . . . I really wanted to go with him, but was left feeling a little cheap at the end. 

Maybe I'll go back to it above after a couple beers, though. 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 13:57 | 6281145 lawyer4anarchists
lawyer4anarchists's picture

The situation there is sad because the people imagine that the fake ass fiat currency that circulates is real, just as most people do here. As long as that exists, there will never be an answer.  We got fiat in this country by way of a court packing scheme that let Legal tender laws past the obvioius 5ht amendment violation that they are.  And nobody even knows how this happened.   And that is that. http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.com/legal-tender-laws-were-forced-on-us-b...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:01 | 6281161 p00k1e
p00k1e's picture

Why don't they vote on a Debt Jubilee?       

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:06 | 6281178 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

...cuz only debtors would vote YES. It is OXI from the savers.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:02 | 6281163 The Delicate Genius
The Delicate Genius's picture

this keeps up, Greece could be the next Yemen.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/06/civilian-deaths-yemen-will...

While we Americans take great pains to avoid killing women and children and hospital patients and ambulance crews, the sad fact is ISIS hides primarily amongst women, and children, and hospitals, and ambulances, thus guaranteeing that civilians will be negatively impacted as the war to crush ISIS continues.... and continues... and continues well past when Daddy's youngest will have graduated from college...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:33 | 6281310 Terminus C
Terminus C's picture

Your name and comment seem ironic somehow.

If only I could put my finger on it...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:23 | 6281554 besnook
besnook's picture

gosh, where have i heard that excuse before? i think it was that shart on the med.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:03 | 6281167 Czar of Defenes...
Czar of Defenestration's picture

"...many Greeks wish to remain shackled to the euro, the very cause of our miseries."

 

NOBODY'S HOLDIN' YA BACK, ZORBA.

Or, to paraphrase great American Finance Minister Daingerfieldopoulis: 

"Take my Drachma...PLEASE!"

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:04 | 6281168 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

I'm sure the 'cause of Greek misery' is more than just the medium of exchange.

Might have something to do with low productivity.

I'm sure the scheduled riots will do wonders for tourism.

I expect even greater misery soon....not just in Greece.

More cheery news and comments to follow.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:04 | 6281169 Omen IV
Omen IV's picture

With the TPP in place in the USA -  the stage will be set for imposition of Greek like erradication and  support for entitlements and regulations

the USA post election  - will be the killing ground for the end game -  now that the constitution and soverneignty is gone

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:07 | 6281188 henry chucho
henry chucho's picture

The Greeks enjoyed their one day of freedom,woke up Monday morning with a massive hangover,and decided Tuesday that being a debt slave,wasn't so bad,afterall..

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:22 | 6281262 reTARD
reTARD's picture

It tends to be a matter of degree for most people. "Just a little bit of slavery, please."

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:28 | 6281282 q99x2
q99x2's picture

Is Greece going to default?

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:31 | 6281299 DutchMadness
DutchMadness's picture

Do I hear Fidel Castro talking?  A new revolution in Greece?  They - Syryza - already have a poster of Che Guevara in their headquarters. Waiting for the Greec peso. Challenging times for Europe...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:33 | 6281312 European American
European American's picture

We're all going to have to suck it up at some point, sooner or later. Make friends with our neighbors. Live locally within our means,i.e. grow our own grub and let go of unsustainable life-styles. It will be our "speical period" when the 33% obese Americans either get lean or die off. And the 50% on Rx Drugs learned to heal their bodies from a wholistic perspective. Those who make it to the otherside will learn to enjoy the simplier things in life and the old adage "He who dies with the most toys, wins" will reflect a bygone past when selfishness and greed ran rampant.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:35 | 6281323 newsoutlet
newsoutlet's picture

There should be global monetary reform - world wide.

Till now, all money is based on private bank loans.

https://youtu.be/YnAtHbDptj8

 

 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:35 | 6281324 newsoutlet
newsoutlet's picture

There should be global monetary reform - world wide.

Till now, all money is based on private bank loans.

https://youtu.be/YnAtHbDptj8

 

 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:37 | 6281336 besnook
besnook's picture

time to take out the nazis. they can't make money without stealing it. the death penalty may be a deterrent. skakespeare didn't have central banks during his time otherwise the line would be kill all bankers.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:40 | 6281347 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

In Greek, "litotita" (????????) means austerity, but it also means thrift, or even chastity at times. Self-control, in other words.

The Greeks forged their own chains, the same way debt-slaves always do---taking money from the usurer to buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have, rather than making do with what they're willing to work for.

A Greek nation with more self-control would make do with less crap they didn't need. There would be fewer of them, because they would not have children they can't feed with what can be grown on Greek soil or fished from Greek waters. And they'd be much freer and happier people.

They did this to themselves.

Grandma really will starve without her pension? Greece has plenty of cliffs that when you hit the rocks below you won't feel a thing. Sooner she grows a spine and gets on with it, the better. Her son, who might decide to go get a job now he can't mooch off mom, and daughter-in-law, who never liked the old cow in the first place and wasn't looking forward to changing her diapers, will live.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:12 | 6281491 besnook
besnook's picture

the system depends upon ever increasing borrowing. thrift has nothing to do with it. this is a high tech pillaging and plundering.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:20 | 6281543 Totentänzerlied
Totentänzerlied's picture

No no no no the MSM told me it's that damned single currency union (which, in reality, is the only reason Greece's economy is not Zimbabwe's).

If only they didn't have that awful, awful euro, they would be able to print unlimited drachmas, which would be necessary, as no one would accept them, knowing they'd take years to stop devaluing on a daily basis (Zimbabwe), particularly not oil/gas supplies, forcing all Greeks to the moneychanger's stall where they can exchange a whole week's drachma-denominated salary for 1 whole euro.

What's always miraculous when economies collapse is that even a single skilled professional sticks around, exponentially moreso in Greece's case as it is a full Schengen Area member.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:45 | 6281694 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

Tsipras doesn't even have the excuse of being in the last stages of syphilis.

Grace Mugabe can control Bob because Bob's mind is gone.

Betty Batziana can control Alexis because Alexis' balls are gone.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:43 | 6281351 Aaronson.Jones....
Aaronson.Jones.Rutherford's picture

Stopped reading here: "President Obama pulled the USA out of recession by increasing deficit spending to a staggering 9.8% of GDP, and he raised the nation's debt to 101% from a pre-recession 62%. Republicans screamed, but it worked."

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:47 | 6281371 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Angela Merkel wishes she had Cruella Devilles body...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:25 | 6281569 besnook
besnook's picture

please don't make a picture of it.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 14:59 | 6281424 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

Talk about being Conditioned.

I despise the Chatham House MOB but the Peasants Stink of WEAK Piss.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:01 | 6281437 goldsaver
goldsaver's picture

President Obama pulled the USA out of recession....

 

No, he, along with his minions, is faking the numbers by heuritics and dropping discouraged unemployed.

 

a deah spiral we see today in the Eurozone.... but not in Germany

 

Then ask yourself, what is different in Germany? Germany does have an extensive welfare program, so why are they not in the same position as Greece? Perhaps is that the German are productive, obedient ants who would not dream of cheating on their taxes, while the southern Europeans are not.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:02 | 6281444 Arountazief
Arountazief's picture

Am starting to be really confused since a few weeks. Whereare we now and what do u think will happen? greece stay in or goes out? stay on the west side or go brics and russia for geopolitical reasons? such a mess

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 16:06 | 6281792 eric dufau
eric dufau's picture

You're right. It's difficult to sort out things and to get a clear picture. There are several interconnected layers of reading the narrative : financial, economic, political, geopolitical. 

As you may hint from a previous post on zerohedge, it seems that the no vote serves the ECB's purpose, i.e. the better excuse ever to increase the QE programm, the very scheme that made the Greek crisis even worse. Was Tsipras that naive? Or will he be branded a menshevik by its communist coleaguered fellows?

Greek is supposed to go to Ufa on the 9th to discuss membership to the newly created BRICS developement bank. ??? It doesn't take long when you open a map that EU commanders-in-chief aka the US won't let Greece in the open. What is the real purpose of that trip to Ufa? 
http://rt.com/business/272083-russia-greece-brics-ushakov/ 

Too many questions arise from all to disseminated details (or major things: the IMF u-turn last week in a very dramatic fashion raises more questions than it answers).

 

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:04 | 6281451 Element
Element's picture

The chains were complementary ... so ... like ... cya

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:12 | 6281493 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Any vote is a vote within the system which got you to that place to begin with.

 

As if voting mattered.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:28 | 6281578 besnook
besnook's picture

the only real escape for any of the slave states is the brics system.

 

there isa real danger for americans that the parasite nazis will force a war with china/russia because the system will make sure they ahve a subordinate position in the system(like china has done to them).

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:38 | 6281653 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Debt is a form of slavery.  

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:39 | 6281661 MarxFelix
MarxFelix's picture

As I said so many times:

 

Guys, you haven't figured out the situation yet. Greeks WANT to stay inside the euro-zone !! So, there are no other solutions; they MUST pay back their debt up to the last euro !! No more room for ignorance!!

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:44 | 6281686 forgotten in th...
forgotten in the South_born somewhere else's picture

Greeks WANT to stay inside the euro-zone ! 

 

Says who?

 

The same polls that were telling YES vote was ahead last week?

 

Greeks voted No. Their gov might now say that No meant Yes but this is just another corrupt goverment!

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 16:34 | 6281945 MarxFelix
MarxFelix's picture

Probably you haven't read the referendum question...

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 18:16 | 6282374 bombdog
bombdog's picture

It's true, they want to stay in the Euro. You're completely wrong, but I admire you for bolding the text and going all-in.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 15:41 | 6281676 forgotten in th...
forgotten in the South_born somewhere else's picture

The Greek people voted NO! The referendum by the greek constitution bounds the government.

 

If the politicians (govt and parliament) betray the will of Greek people thats a different story.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 17:07 | 6282069 erk
erk's picture

Greece is no better off, they make a big noise referendum, and whats the first thing the do, go around looking for more foreign loans. There is no helping these people whilst they have governmnets who are willing to take on foreign debt, the country will never get off it's usury knees.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 17:15 | 6282105 Batman11
Batman11's picture

After the dot.com boom we still believed in rational markets.

Everyone's a looney tune.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 18:27 | 6282356 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

That article is another superficial analysis.

Of course, I AGREED with the views that:

Tsipras in Wonderland

So therein lies the lie. Tsipras tells his fellow Greeks that we can live in a Looking Glass world, where we can have our euro and eat it too ...

However, the article above presents ridiculously superficial views of the degree to which we are living inside of a WONDERLAND MATRIX, or BIZARRO MIRROR WORLD, where everything appears to be proportionately backward and absurd! Here is a slightly deeper analysis of the bigger picture problems, which can NOT be fixed by changing the monetary system!

http://www.economic-undertow.com/2015/07/03/euro-margin-call/

Euro Margin Call

... the brouhaha in credit markets is a symptom, not the disease. Analysts must observe carefully the larger trends and connect the dots. The problem is not a matter of adjusting the model but with the model itself. Industrial enterprise does not offer a return. Capital and value — and purchasing power — are converted into waste, what stands for ‘wealth’ is a measurement of the wasting process. Our economy has bloated into a monstrous organism that consumes everything and puts nothing back. The disease is the reaching of planetary limits; access to water, fuel, minerals, soil fertility, waste-carrying capacity and credit. Capital resources are being allocated by rationing access to loans. No credit = no resources, taking place under everyone’s nose is "Conservation by Other Means." ...

The world falls apart, nobody has an idea what to do about it ...

"Waste" is another term to refer to entropy or evil.

Social pyramid systems reversed the meaning of
"entropy," and therefore, reversed what "waste" is,
so that a fundamentally fraudulent accounting is
"what stands for ‘wealth’ is a measurement
of the wasting process ..."

By inserting an arbitrary Minus Sign into the
entropy equations of thermodynamics, as well as
information theory, the understanding of ALL of
the human energy systems is also REVERSED.

Of course, we did NOT reverse entropy itself,
rather we reversed the ways we perceive that.

Human beings necessarily live as
entropic pumps of energy flows,
BUT, the biggest bullies have
promoted Bullshit Stories,
that REVERSED entropy,

as the most ABSTRACT of ways that
everything we are doing expresses
Bizarro Mirror World, and various
Wonderland Matrix sort of traits!


Realistic solutions require that we go THROUGH the Looking Glass!

That article correctly stated: we "live in a Looking Glass world."

However, it grossly understated the degree to which that is so, and therefore, grossly overstated what the possible "solutions" could be. Of course, that is totally common on Zero Hedge, where most of the context continues to make no efforts to go through sufficient intellectual scientific revolutions to more fully comprehend the degree to which civilization has been based on the history of warfare, and that money is measurement backed by murder. Neither Greece, nor any other place, could resolve its real problems without somehow changing it death control systems. However, in order to do that in genuinely better ways would require radical changes in the ways that we perceive death controls, which is the most important facet of what it would take to radically transform the ways that human beings and civilization operate as entropic pumps of energy flows.

It is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to which the civilization we are living in at the present time deliberately misunderstands everything in the maximum possible backward ways! The historical reasons for that were that successful warfare was based on being able to back up deceits with destruction, which became the basis to build successful finance based upon enforcing frauds. However, the degree to which we therefore almost totally take for granted perceiving the world in absurdly backward ways are mostly impossible for most people to even begin to consider!

It only begins to scratch the surface of that situation to recognize that money is measurement backed by murder, since the debt controls were backed by the death controls. The deeper points are that we continue to take the old-fashioned common sense notions about time and space being independent absolutes almost totally for granted, despite the progress in physical science having proven that is totally wrong and backward. Since entropy is the way that energy is distributed in time and space, we also almost totally take for granted the ways that we perceive entropy backwards.

Greece is already integrated into the globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs. For Greece to pull out of the Euro is as extremely problematic as for Greece to try to pull out of the electronic fraud backed by atomic bomb systems. In that context, I think it makes sense for Greece to try to stay in the European Union and keep the Euro, because it is the whole world that has to go through profound paradigm shifts in the ways that human beings and civilizations understand themselves as entropic pumps of energy flows. Greece cannot go it alone. Nobody can!

... Meanwhile, the article above, as well as pretty well all of the rest of the content on Zero Hedge, is so totally clueless regarding that, that they do not have a clue how clueless they are! The article above was quite typical it the ways that it was superficially correct, but otherwise still profoundly wrong. However, appreciating how wrong requires a deeper analysis that almost nobody has yet engaged in, which deeper analysis then results in proposing more realistic solutions that are consistent with that deeper analysis. However, I REPEAT, it barely scratches the surface to recognize that money is measurement backed by murder.

For Greece to change, its debt controls must be backed by it changing its death controls. However, by and large, pretty well everybody wants to continue to deliberately misunderstand that in the maximum possible ways. The deeper problems continue to be that there has been progress in physical science, without that being surpassed by progress in political science. That is largely due to the degree to which social success based upon deceits and frauds have dominated all social enterprises, including science as a social enterprise. Therefore, the political realities based upon the history of successful warfare and successful finance, operating through the principles and methods of organized crime, to become based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, have also manifested in the philosophy of science, that almost everyone still takes for granted.

There now EXISTS globalized systems of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs. Understanding those should be done in ways which are consistent with the science that enabled those technologies. However, that science profoundly changed the common sense view of space and time, and so, should have changed the ways that we misunderstood entropy, because we had been misunderstanding time and space in profoundly backward ways. However, so far, our civilization has been applying technologies which are trillions of times more powerful and capable, in ways which continue to be deceitful and fraudulent.

Greece can not and should not try to pull out of the globalized systems of electronic frauds, which is what pulling out of the Euro amounts to asserting should be done. Rather, it is the whole world which needs to transform itself. However, at the present time it is pathetically ironic that there EXISTS electronics and atomic energy, while the vast majority of people continue to rely upon the same old-fashioned religions and ideologies, regardless of that progress in physical science. Indeed, the ways that the philosophy of science was historically forced to compromise with old-fashioned religions and ideologies continues to be almost totally taken for granted by the vast majority of people.

The biggest bullies' bullshit social stories almost totally dominate our society. Today, those biggest bullies are primarily the international bankers, who are the biggest gangsters, the banksters, that covertly control the biggest forms of organized crime, which are national governments. The biggest bullies' bullshit social stories have been more able to continue to corrupt the philosophy of science, that the philosophy of science has been able to correct the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. We are living in a world which is SO EXTREMELY a "Looking Glass world," that even the few that begin to perceive that still mostly only do so in quite superficial ways, and therefore, continue to promote quite superficial "solutions."

On the contrary, my comment endeavours to indicate the deeper degrees to which we are living inside of a "Looking Glass world," which includes that we continue to understand time and space in old-fashioned ways, which have been proven to be profoundly wrong, and therefore, that includes that we misunderstand the concept of entropy in totally inverted ways, which therefore reverses the meaning of everything else! Greece is one of the leading edges of the ways that the established debt slavery systems have driven its numbers to become debt insanities, which threaten to provoke death insanities. However, it appears to me that the vast majority of people do not understand that debt slavery system, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand that, while the few people that do begin to understand that still continue to mostly take for granted the ways that they continue to misunderstand that backwards, and therefore, promote backward "solutions" to the problems.

The problems are due to globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, enabling debt slavery to run away to become astronomically sized debt insanities. Meanwhile, there is pretty well no public application of that whatsoever. Rather, it continues to be pathetically ironic that people want to continue to use advanced technologies, without in the slightest ways advancing their understanding of the science that enables that technology. In general, the philosophy of science continues to be forced to compromise with the core groups of organized crime, and their surrounding controlled opposition groups, rather than that more radical truths based upon progress in physical science driving changes through the paradigms of political science.

The vast majority of people do not want to understand the degree to which they are misunderstanding everything in the most absurdly backward ways possible, while the pathetic ironies abound that those few who do begin to understand that somewhat also themselves barely scratch the surface of the degree to which that is so. Of course, I have to therefore also ask myself the same questions ... But nevertheless, it is FACTUAL that there electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs, and therefore, any "solutions" to the problems that Greece (and the rest of the world) have should deal with those FACTS, rather than promote silly, superficial "solutions" that pulling out of the Euro would work!

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 18:18 | 6282389 shouldvekilledthem
shouldvekilledthem's picture

I wonder if the sheep will ever realize that they are all fiat slaves.

Tue, 07/07/2015 - 18:23 | 6282412 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

More probably they will be slaughtered, after being fleeced to exhaustion.

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