[Formerly T-Bear]

@ V. Arnold reply # 23645

When everything you are told is ‘truth deficient’ and you are still thinking you are hearing ‘truth undiluted’, how long can you go on believing everything you are told is ‘truth’? Lincoln surmised you can fool a few of the people ALL of the time. What percentage was that?

Nice one – rolling disasters – might have pegged what’s coming with that.

[Formerly T-Bear]

When you cannot persuade others to your position, destroy them, their reputation and their standing. Allegations of treason do quite handily. Treason to what?

Tsipras has called for a party referendum on Sunday (ZH), let’s see how that turns out anything like other recent referendums; – ‘Throw a referendum and see if it sticks’, or ‘If covered by referendums you become invisible – nobody can see what you are doing’. Good luck with that.

And the IMF is declining to participate in this last Greek bailout, unqualified borrower it seems, won’t be able to service their debt. Just how long has this condition been known? Why wasn’t something done about it then?

Varoufakis might need lawyer up at this point. Treason? – really? Might check accusers about that very thing; projecting is quite the thing amongst the adolescents these days, and the maturity of the troika institutions + Euro Stability Fund verges on entering adolescence.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Eighty years of Disneyfacation, the world has few oars still encountering reality. Most inhabitants of this world reduced to cartoon, nothing is amiss, none would notice if it were. The absolute mass given its inertia keeps ‘civilisation’ moving steadily and consistently on its pre-programmed course despite encountering unplanned for obstacles and only rarely being diverted. Enumerating a few would be: The English North American Colonial revolt, driven by about one in five colonialists; the French Revolution, a class revolt led by about one percent politically engaged; and F.D. Roosevelt’s New Deal restructuring of economic management until conservative political subversion eliminated the economic vision and the economic tools developed to carry out that policy. All other attempts at reform ultimately encountered the inertia of a priori ‘civilisation’ and did not prevail, Marxism being the most prominent of those heterodox alternatives.

Syriza’s political leadership personified in Tsipras did exactly what political leadership must do, take account of the lay of the battlefield before them and proceed accordingly. The absence of constraints evidenced by the troika’s supra-legal actions had to be coupled with the lack of countervailing inertia from any quarter within the monetary union or the EU itself. It is only the battle that is lost, a Pyrrhic (if even that) victory for those neoliberal factotums currently occupying the centres of political power; the war is now engaged and only fortunetelling adepts would venture a prognostication of its outcome, a subtle benefit of awaiting the final notes of the opera’s lead songstress. Now is the time to develop and reinforce the countervailing inertia to what has developed in the EU (and elsewhere) and plan its removal as well as reconstruction of edifices protecting from such malfeasance and misprision of the public interests. Sometimes living in interesting time can be – interesting.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Sounds like you ran into iBorg there – they are everywhere.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Several other points to consider. Greece has been a long term member of NATO, about the only one continuously contributing 2% GDP as required for membership. Inclusion in the EMU had benefited Greek access to European markets for domestic needs through the common currency, goods provided at less cost than were available through the drachma. This also increased the market for Greek export. The election that installed Syriza was clear that adhesion to the economic union was unquestioned, only austerity was held objectionable. The promise to negotiate was met with refusal to talk but that tactic was first experienced by Spanish PM Zapatero when he went to Brussels for economic help, the only leftist head of government at the time in the EU. Zapatero went with a public debt of about 35% GDP and a nearly balanced budget, there are charts to show what ensued with Spanish public debt after he returned with troika help – and there were few news cameras recording those proceedings, unlike Syriza. What is crystal clear is a €320 billion debt structure that cannot be supported, will certainly not support a €410 billion debt. What in god’s name are these imbecilic stupid fools trying to do?

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ V. Arnold

I think you will find that the business plan of modern financial thinking is the creation of revenue streams that provide income to financial investment. No longer is there an economic equilibrium between production and consumption, the producers being the consumers as envisioned in classical economic understanding; only revenue streams providing ROI for financially controlled economic necessities, food, water, energy, clothing, transportation, housing, the complete slate of whatever meets human needs, wants or desires. As long as a monopolistic hold over any economic production or service is allowed uncontrolled dominion over that economic good, no amount of political power will avail in changing the condition. For a while being distant from the predation will allow some measure of relief but at the end of the day, you will find yourself at the wall and can go no further. About the only solace there is, is knowing this powerful juggernaut cannot self correct, it cannot afford correction and uncorrected it will fail. At that point it will become vitally necessary to know and plan for a way to replace that edifice with one that can provide for human needs. If that is not dome this economic cancer will return.

[Formerly T-Bear]

There is a third option open to the Greek Parliament beside either accepting or rejecting Troika dictate, something that will probably give the Greek nation a better chance altogether, that of repudiating all debt former governments entered into which provided no benefit to the Greek Nation. What is the Troika going to do? They have strangled the banks with their abuse of power (nationalising the banks at this point removes banks as troika tools), they have brought the economy to the point of collapse in the attempt to politically dictate to a sovereign nation what it will and won’t do, the troika has blatantly in the light of day demanded possession of Greek wealth and income streams as well as lands. Repudiation sets off all the financial deceptions into collect mode (which the Troika also cannot control); this finely connived house of cards is irreparably damaged beyond the Troika’s ability to contain. It would be interesting to see just how deep the Troika’s economic knowledge actually is – my money is on quite shallow. The greatest benefit to Greece is that it opens the door to others with even more massive debts to take in alleviating their imposed austerity, a power card that trumps Troika.

At the same time take the Troika to the international courts to find what law they have operated upon to attack the Greek Nation as they have done; demanding immediate relief and restitution from those institutions abusing their positions for enough funds to restore circulation of the euro and the conduct of business, that restriction upon funds to avert economic panic is unsupported by any law and contrary to economic practice.

The end of the European Monetary Union is neigh, and the European Union, if it is lucky enough to survive, will be changed one way or another forever. Interesting times, indeed.

[Formerly T-Bear]

With Greece, why keep using the word negotiations, there were never negotiations, negotiations were never intended to happen. There were never even talks to be allowed, talks would have had the sides speaking with each other, not at each other. Only one side was prepared to talk and negotiate and now are not allowed to talk with anyone. One side was instructed to bring solutions to the table much in the manner a schoolchild is instructed to bring forth their homework and then met with flat refusal to even look at their paper. The troika is now a monster revealed for what it is for those with eyes to see, a monster of terror and pain straight from the depths of human depravity, irresponsive to naught else but whatever self-learned interior pathology the devious and cunning generate to deceive; a monster needing caging and everlasting restraint, put on display forever as example of the evil the species can obtain, maybe to frighten young students into studying their lessons and doing their work as well as the Greeks have done.

[Formerly T-Bear]

There was once a time when it was proudly proclaimed that people fleeing East Germany were “voting with their feet”; an idea which may become vogue again reference EU/EMU in its present incarnation. The original EU/EMU incarnation will never repeat, been there, done that, got the shreds of a t-shirt to show for the experience; will not fall for bait and switch again. Those who’s interests were against the original formation of the EU and its institutionalised control of economic factors have surreptitiously displaced those who held that heritage in trust. It is useless to rail against straw-men of sociopath or psychopath for that is merely the ability to avoid emotional hindrance to the decision making process, a quality that has, in general, led to the benefits the complexity of civilisation being enjoyed today. At one time an attempt to genetically breed such qualities was widespread in a class called aristocrats. But do whatever turns your pancakes.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Oh! Look! Straight from Al Jazeera’s front page:

Greek referendum is a Machiavellian plot

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/06/greek-referendum-machiavellian-plot-tsipras-150628060443154.html

Democracy is now a Machiavellian plot, brought to you by those who know democracy so well; another well formed opinion that. Pass the kool-aid, moar kool-aid for the masses…

[Formerly T-Bear]

Nicole,
Good to see your impressions here again. Ilargi is being overworked with the Greek hullabaloo; many hands make for light work.

One question, just how is the driving algorithm of the Fed intended to provide liquidity to equities, keeping those markets afloat – see just how connected US and European major markets are in time, supposed to provide volatility as well given HFT algorithms are also present? What happens when these algorithms contradict one another or is that getting into black swan territory?

Another question. Zero Hedge posted this:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-28/keynes-great-depression-and-coming-great-default
where the writer proudly asserts Keynes’ “General Theory of …” is unreadable (presumably because the writer has never attempted to read it) and proceeds to quote from Misses and Hayek, founders of the Chicago School of Economic Phrenology, Political Disinformation and Social Delusions [full title] upon which the neoliberal thought collective (h.t. to Philip Mirowski) has grown like a mushroom in old manure kept in the dark. Just how enlightening is the thesis in that article in your estimation? What purpose might it be serving or is it something to reenforce economic ignorance?

[Formerly T-Bear]

That’s got to be cute, cutting Emergency Loan Access to Greek banks. Is there any more sure fire way to destroy trust in banks than that, to make the banks themselves illiquid? There goes trust and confidence altogether, might as well get in the wrecking crew and tear down the buildings, they won’t be needed anymore, the barter and black economies will thrive. What happens when other economically stressed countries see what is happening in Greece? How much confidence and trust do they have in their banking systems then? Can you spell *contagion*? – ‘c’, ‘o’, ‘n’, ‘t’, ‘a’, ‘g’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘n’ just like that and spreads about as fast as fire in a desiccated forest in a high wind. What are they thinking? Who voted for the stupid in public office to begin with? Does holding public office necessitate passing an intelligence test before entry?

[Formerly T-Bear]

What has been exposed in the last fortnight is how completely controlled the core of the European Union, the European Monetary Union in particular, is by neofascist economic forces. Only one party was prepared to negotiate means to an agreed end, that of servicing, within capabilities, a standing debt. That was met with intransigence, intractable arrogance and jejune capacity to understand the events before themselves, a cohort of wilful ignorance, living in a economic cartoon fairytale of Disney-like construction. To see how totally unprepared these ‘negotiators’ were for the obvious consequences of their position is a classic lesson, on par with the classic lessons bequeathed by the ancient Greeks themselves. The Greeks are still giving the world an education, this time in economic realities.

Pandora’s box has been opened again. What shall escape to beset the world is beyond the capacity of economic theology to imagine, the political landscape is altered beyond recognition, old borders are no longer where they once were known to be, the lay of economic rivers of commerce have left their traditional banks and are now elsewhere, mountains of assets have been levelled, their useful minerals sold off to foreign interests for a handful of glister and a desolation remains to sustain the population shackled to multi-generational debt penury.

Mindful that independent countries today are the result of the existence of a functioning economic entity that has survived the tests of time, it is there the available answers guiding the path to the future lay. To recognise and revitalise those factors enabling the state and population to maintain their livelihood, for that is all that economics is about at its core, not the manipulations of financiers or their wet dreams of unlimited wealth and power. In crisis, Greece must reforge those tools to plant and maintain their economic gardens and put their efforts beyond the reach of thieves.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ diablo

This is ad hominem ad ignorantiam and it will only happen once.

To begin, you are applying an amerikkkan construct with your dichotomy of left/right. Would it surprise you to find out in the small village where I live there are some twenty political parties presented to the voters just for election to the city council? and about three thousand voters on the register? Your comments never consider spectrum of political opinion but usually some attack on target du jour, for some perceived misdemeanour you imagine they commit. Most of your pronouncements are fact free, speculative, judgmental or censorious, having no connection to any single or consistent school of thought. Your modus operandi is to set up straw-men and proceed to disparage your construct. A passage from Moon of Alabama puts it succinctly with a minimum of modification:

To “deny, disrupt, degrade/denigrate, delay, deceive, discredit, dissuade or deter” is exactly what Internet trolls are doing in the comment sections of blogs and news sites. … The more these [from: So The Spy Services Are The Real Internet Trolls] services grow and their methods proliferate the less possible will it become to have reasonable online discussions.

my emphasis and insertion of post title

If you had not noticed, your opinion was shown not to have substance and added nothing to the host’s post and was in general distracting from discussion at hand, your assumptions are those of sophomoric understanding of economic, political, historical or legal subjects, your education is obviously incomplete and sadly deficient, not your fault for sure but nonetheless affecting your ability to write coherently – look at the gibberish in your paragraph starting “How is …” and ending “… if they don’t wish to”, and they thought Sarah Palin did word salads and was grand-master of incoherency.

If you are going to write of economics and politics, both of which require a firm basis in history, sociology and the legal system, then you are needing to start studying and coming to some firm understanding of the nature of those things. This deficit is painfully obvious to anyone reading your diatribes and should be made known to you. If you are deluded about what your history was, you are deceived about where you are now and haven’t the foggiest chance of directing where you wish to go. There is an aphorism that might stand you in good stead:

It is far better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.

by the by, what you wanted was not Dr., the Latin is: advocatus diaboli, you can take it from there, if you’re able.

That was ad hominem.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Ilargi reply # 21817

Is it not 50% + 1 to enact in Parliament? Syriza was in coalition with another party for making a majority government. Surely there are enough extraneous sympathetic votes to maintain that majority position as well given most politicians are adept at reading their political auguries – this time the sacrifice being augured is their own future.

Greece is the keystone position now. Should that give way, the rest of the arch will follow. Either Italy or Spain following the Greek path will finish the present form of the EMU. France would finish the concept altogether. Once the EMU is destroyed, nothing like it will be possible again, or at least given the present state of economic knowledge. Whether a quantum jump is possible from the present conditions is questionable, it certainly is not from the present political environment and levels of public education required for reaching rational consensus. The problem is that of complex system dysfunction and collapse of complexity. Go figure a way out of that.

Trust was what was violated, unspoken assumptions of trust growing from the disaster of the Second World War. The grandchildren had no memory of those requirements fundamental to the structures they inherited. Instead they sold their birthright to the neoliberals for a handful of beans and promises and handed over the reins of political power in exchange. Whether this can be undone or not is the question.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Diablo

You have yet to tell us where your Dr came from or is that a figment of your imaginary world as well.

It is so convenient how you have ordered your world view as to what your opinion of left and right are about. Please inform of some examples please, if you can find any. YOur deposits here are not even worth the value of manure which can actually grow plants and other lifeforms.

You pretend to lecture the readers here about your acquaintance with power where obviously the only contact you have had with power comes from watching hollywood movies and listening to libertarian tracts on youtube. You don’t have the slightest idea of what life is like for Europeans, nor their education, or their social conditions, or their economy. All you have is some opinion based on some delusion you have. Please stop putting forth that you know anything. You know nothing. You are a charlatan. You are a fraud. Your opinions are without worth. You seem to want to prove your ignorance beyond all doubt. If that is your goal, go ahead and keep it up. It’s your call.

[Formerly T-Bear]

That NO will have to come from the Greek Parliament as a collective NO. The enormity for any single government minister including PM is just too great a responsibility but acting together Parliament has the gravitas to counter the troika institutions of the EU / EMU. Should that not happen, the probability Syriza continues holding office diminishes rapidly as anti-EU extremist likely replace forming a new government that the EU will have no ability to deal. At that point Greek participation in EU affairs is likely over as well as Greek membership in OTAN/NATO (without massive cash transfers or credible existential threats or combination thereof). The EU will be trading the difficult devil for the impossible devil, hear what LePen in France has to say, as a guide for the imagination. It’s not hard to see why the Greek people wish to remain in the EMU given the stabilising effect it has on national governments, particularly wayward ones, but there are limits to such acceptability which are likely passed at this point, the costs now far surpassing gain; but that is yet in the future should it come to pass. Interesting times these.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ diablo

You are certainly living up to expectations – a complete jerkoff, but then you always appeared to self pleasure.

Please list for us the riots you imagine happening all across Europe, if you can. Sure there have been a lot of protests, people assembling to state their grievances to their governments but seldom in a state of riot. Your limited experience and incapacity to adequately use the language may be where the fault lays. You are ignorant.

Your opinion about European stability reveals a profound ignorance coupled with an insipid lack of respect for what others have actually accomplished. About 500 millions of peoples live a far better life than you and your spawn will ever enjoy and damned few of them are living in a police state, surveilled at every moment, every communication over public means recorded, a record of where they are at any given time available to their owners and herders. You are that stupid that you think that is fine.

And learning the Pope about exponential growth, my how audacious, you who if statistics lend light are barely capable of balancing a checkbook every month, one of the few things your country is capable of leading the world in – innumeracy.

All you are capable of is rattling the letters on your keyboard. Yes you are that stupid.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Addendum link:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33209548

which identifies three universities issuing the report as well as a forth that had made the same report earlier as BBC’s sources – if links are needed for credibility.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Diablo

You are no Dr. you bring discredit to that honorific appellation, given to those who actually earn such through their intellectual efforts. You disgrace the intelligence of the human species.

The world as known is dying. For those who have eyes to see and minds to know, the evidence is mounting daily. But you insist on your mindless word games and spew your intellectual sewage at every opportunity, to mislead, to confuse, to dissemble, to obfuscate, to misdirect, to spread untruths which may be as little as hidden facts to the contrary of your opinions. You are a pure shit, one can only wonder how much the Koch brothers are subsidising your existence. Why don’t you take your bilge and spew it from your own site – the answer would be that there would be so little traffic as to make it worthless, so reveals your presence here.

It is notable that your efforts here at TAE, with precious few exception involve links to productions you have ‘found’ that support your ‘opinions’ though rarely found within accredited sources. These especially constructed tracts are almost always professionally produced, costing someone a dear penny, but curiously never having neither who produced nor who financed the production. That is the modus operandi of the Koch’s subvention against a once democratic state, a war they have won with the help of ignorant fools as yourself. Please tell us how it feels to have lived your life without an original idea ever crossing your mind? Is it pleasant? Or does it leave an empty feeling? Come on and tell us, you are so facile with rattling the letters on your keyboard, telling others of your opinion at every turn. You are still a shit.

It is curious your use of Dr. as if just the presence of that symbol of earned excellence would give your presentations a validity that would not be questioned – like Dr. Goebbels. What institute issued your Doctorate? What accreditation does that institute have? Or are those things made up as well? Do tell us about yourself, your accomplishments, your expertise, your raison d’être, or are you actually low scum, barely of stature to be accorded bipedal recognition, a fraud, a creature from the black cesspool of self deceit, a floating turd.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Don’t overlook the two times the Irish were polled about changes necessary to their constitution to accommodate both Nice and Lisbon Treaties and were obliged to vote again to obtain the correct result. At least the Netherlands and France were allowed to avoid the shameful necessity of reversing their votes, but Ireland is so small that doesn’t count.

Best of luck and fortune to Greece, may the wind be at your back and your road eased …

[Formerly T-Bear]

Should one be given to paranoid conspiracy theories, as many are, it would certainly seem likely such theory is at work. Taking the EU and its subset EMU as developing one of the world’s largest, if not the largest, and wealthiest markets, having a well functioning social safety policy in place and firmly ensconced in the modern traditions, that an ideological seed was implanted to cause it to implode. Who benefits? Why? How? and What can be done to derail those who are behind and those who support that drive to destroy what has been so carefully built from tradition and experience. Recent history has shown these forces at work in Chile, South and Central Latin America, in Indonesia, for Japan and the Asian Tiger Economies, Russia emerging from the end of CCCP, the ill-stared PIIGS, and now threatening the balance of EMU and the EU itself in destroying the very glue that holds any group together – their medium of exchange and economic production. Why such focus on precisely what destroys economies? Cui bono?

[Formerly T-Bear]

Raúl Ilargi

It is regrettable to see historical bunkum such as that “103 years later, …” tripe being repeated here. It is fine over at Zero Hedge where the audience would applaud such piles of steaming shite as long as some conspiracy theory could be attached – not a lot of bright sparks at that site.

This “103 years later, …” is nothing more than an unsubstantiated interpretation of second-hand information of an event held in private having no direct knowledge from any witness that can be verified. Damned thin ice to be constructing conspiracy edifices upon – but if it is repeated often enough, some fraction of fools will undoubtably believe every word, comma and period of such conjecture.

Those who subscribe to “103 years later, …” will be found to be sorely lacking in any idea how the banking system operates and why it is structured as it is. These nimble numb-brains will also be incapable of understanding money, what it is, how it works and in what varieties money can appear. About the only thing they can do is find some jackass spouting libertarian non-sense that they think (stretching that term to its fullest – believe, would be the more suitable term) they may agree with because ‘it sounds good’, just like they themselves believe, their only measure.

What is conveniently overlooked is the historical context which that meeting on Jekyll Island took place and the effort of private parties knowledgable of the banking process to safeguard the public interest; despite the oft repeated furore of the delusional ignorant to the contrary. These wilfully ignorant will deceitfully hide the history of what preceded that meeting of the most experienced as well as successfully knowledgable leaders of the banking community at that time, what they constructed was the most sophisticated and responsive organisations ever devised to accomplish economic stability – that was their fundamental interest as well. What the world has since done with those constructs is entirely another story, another history. You will cloud forever the actual origins of these institutions if you persist in repeating the disinformation contained in “103 years later, …” and will not find any path to where you are now, nor will you find solution pertaining to developing the future. Do as you will.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ bluebird, reply # 21484

No.
========
Will someone ‘splain to Ed: birds; bees; poker

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Ed reply # 21482

No Ed, if you don’t know what is the creation of western agit-prop, then it is likely you.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ The Greek One, reply # 21474

One only wanders what’s really on the European leaders’ minds when they push Greece that much and that hard, giving ultimatums that involve implementing twice the austerity they demanded from the previous Vidkun Quisling government… oops, I meant Antonis Samaras government. That’s right, the unrealistic “take it or leave it” ultimatum that came to pass and nothing happened, was not based on any of the previous negotiations whatsoever and demanded austerity measures that would kill the Hellenic Republic in a few weeks.

A form is beginning to take shape in the shadows of hitherto cryptic plans to radically reform the structure of the EMU; Greece will provide the crisis needed. Simple as that; just have to make it happen. The plans are already drawn up, diligently inspected for fault, approved and in place. These plans have no room for either democracy nor respublica considerations. There will be no alternative, there is no alternative. This will be THE power grab of all time. The Troika institutions are TBTF, are they not?

[Formerly T-Bear]

Would strongly disagree with the first, WaPo, entry. Contrary to Frenchman who flog popular, well selling books on economics, it is NOT inequality that drags down the economy, it is dire POVERTY that subtracts from whatever economy that produces inequality. No economy is without inequalities, it is the unrelieved, wanton disregard for the poor that become the rocks that sink such ill-designed economic ships. No chain is stronger than its weakest link; same can be said about economies. FDR and the New Deal knew that but their grandchildren have sold that producing farm for a handful of religious beans and promises from politicians. They can sleep under their crumbling bridges, it is too late for their education, let it begin now.

[Formerly T-Bear]

In 1959, our family was privileged to a three month summer tour of Europe. The Rome Treaty was about a year old then. Being 16 years, the curiosity was about everything and everybody; as all who can attest or still attest in the main of experiencing that age, there is a propensity to have more answers than one has had time to discover questions for. Those who I encountered had in general some reticence as to the viability of the Treaty, being a road they had never traveled before, caution held the day. With the unfolding of the modern version of Greek tragedy, indeed that caution was well conceived.
The wounds of war were then fresh and suppurative, the fine words and ideals of the Treaty were well enough, actions were then still a matter in the future. That Camelot age has given way to the new ideology, the high religion of the neoliberal thought collective (read: P. Mirowski, “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste”; as well as; C. Rubin, “The Reactionary Mind”) who have insinuated their beliefs into the operation of the original institutions devised to accomplish the socio-politico-economic juncture of sovereign states. Few if any so-called neoliberal programs or policies have ever been put to public referendum or even been exposed to public discussion or scrutiny in any meaningful way; but the control of the troika enforcing austerity upon the greater population of the EMU is firmly held in their grasp and shall not be relinquished until wage enslavement is firmly established throughout that block and those peripherally associated to it. Neoliberal theology does not self-correct, it denies error. Doing so, it cannot but fail. That is the future of the EU, unless fundamental changes are not immediately made. May you live in interesting times – indeed they are so.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Addendum to reply # 21094

In addition to creating ex nihilo a parallel currency to replace the disappearing €uro for marketplace transactions, the Greek government has also to ‘un-privatize’ Greek Banks through re-charterization of those institutions. A model exists in one state in the U.S. which has chartered their state banks and has utilised those institutions to house the states receipts and used to pay state disbursements. While those funds are idle as far as state needs are fulfilled, they act to increase the credit for use by the bank for local lending needs. The banks themselves are private but under state charter, regulation and control so that local people who know local needs and local trustworthiness in meeting contractual obligations are the distributors of credit to the community. Supposing stories of corruption may be inflated, such strictly regulated banks may provide an alternative to the existing banking structure in Greece, and a way to distribute the state’s economic resources to the general population.

Test: XxXx

[Formerly T-Bear]

Ending this with – < b > XxXx < / b > did not work for me again. The last time I edited the ‘b’ to ‘bold’ and was corrected. Next time I shall try ‘strong’ instead and then quit the attempt altogether. I recognise the exalted status possessed, by the by.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Oh! That Yves! I am not going to bother with an opinion of Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism Salon and Bordello and the pseudo-intelligencia that self-pleasure there. Life is too short for that carry-on.

[Formerly T-Bear]

In reply # 21094 see paragraph 2, line 2 through line 4 above. The brackets were substituted – intentionally – since there was nothing to embolden in the example. No fair having personal editing angels.

[Formerly T-Bear]

So much for [b] [/b] theory. Embolden doesn’t work atall. (smirchie)

Would that be ‘strong’ instead?

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ The Greek One, reply # 21086

Spain also was exposed to such recalcitrance, obstinance from the troika at the beginning of the Crisis when Zapatero was PM in the socialist government of the time. It was obvious from the radical shift of policy that Spain was not going to receive support unless specific policies were put in place, diametrically opposed to socialist philosophy and practice. These destroyed Zapatero’s political career and directly led to his retirement from public service – at least he did not have to commit seppuku for his neoliberal political transgressions of being socialist.

At that point had Spain instituted capital controls, allowing capital to leave only <b>after the obligations to repay the principle and interest issuing from the credit cycle born from the presence of capital in an economic entity, are completed</b>. This condition lays at the very heart of failure of neoliberal theology and its political policy spawn. Capital not meeting this requirement is economically irresponsible capital, (rather it is capital used for economic extortion – rent has nothing to do with the income due this form of capital and should be clearly designated as such – extortion). The trail of devastation caused by such capital and its effects upon the economic process litter the tale of recent economic failures, from Japan, Asian Tiger economies, Russia, the PIIGS (+ France, GB, Netherlands etc. waiting in the wings for their introduction) – vulture capitalism at its finest.

The great fraud of neoliberal economic theology is the held belief – TINA – There Is No Alternative. There is. Some of it must be resurrected from the grave so thoughtfully dug by the neoliberal thought collective, some will have to be retrieved from the befogged and addled forrest of recent historical facts, reinterpreting their importance, some will have to come from synthesis and creative economic thinking, something that was lost when John Maynard Keynes was buried. Always beware of any who claim to have all the answers – that usually means there are no answers remaining for anybody else.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Raleigh reply # 21053

By God, I think you’re on to something there. Reduce wage cost to restore competition for prices, drive the income of labour into the ground of bare subsistence or even below. What needs do labourers have to be buying anything they might produce, leave that for their betters to take care of.

It is absolutely brilliant idea to open employment to children who can easily be paid the least for their time and effort. Absolutely brilliant to offer opportunity to the most compliant and dependent and least likely to object segment of the population. And you so generously broaden your considerations to the womenfolk as well, pure genius that, taking advantage of social hierarchy of female submission that is fundamentalist bedrock conditioning; another segment not so likely to upset the applecart of your economics.

And lastly but not leastly the awesomeness of allowing the importation of compliant labour paid as poorly as is possible to compete with all those who so foolishly want to earn enough to afford to have a family; raise, rear and educate their children to be socially productive adults – how utterly foolish that idea actually is.

But wait! what about the great alarm and pandemonium about the disappearance of the all too godly middle classes, the most sacred scarecrow measure of economic wellbeing? From whence did these good-folk come? Are not the most of them descended from those who labour? Who have had the opportunity to educate themselves and increase their productive economic value? It would be interesting to know, don’t you think, just how much this class actually owns, what fraction, of the means of production, of the productive resources employed in the economy. It is widely proclaimed the extent this class has ‘invested’ in equities representing ‘ownership’, but in reality, how much direction of those assets they truly have – direction of what is owned is the mark of actual ownership, not the suggestion of ownership such ‘equities’ carry.

Once the dynamic of equilibrium was central to the understanding of economic process, but those days are now long forgotten; disequilibrium is the order of the day, theology has replaced knowledgeability, and the order of the day is koyaanisqatsi, and no one seems to notice – or even care.

[Formerly T-Bear]

You bet. It’s like waking up and finding yourself in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, and the only way out is through “The Castle” for which one must face “The Trial”. The presumption of ending well becomes vanishingly small, but it will make some sort of good motion picture for the survivors at the Thunderdome.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Well that modification worked like highly buffed shite

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ The Greek One, reply # 20905

When one relies on “Kathimerini” for their information, they need to buy a truckload of <bold>Greek</bold> sea salt and …

there, fixed. No Charge

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ GeoLib, reply # 20826

I would not pretend to speak for TAE, but your question is a good one that should have a response. MMT is part of the heterodox cathedral of economic ideas, the other being the so-named neoliberal or orthodox edifice, a theology having roots going back to mercantilist perceptions dating from about the beginning of the modern era (~1500 A.D.). Historically Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” began as a rational argument against obvious fallacies of mercantilism and began the heterodox economic tradition which passed through other (political-)economic observers e.g. Malthus, John Mill, Ricardo, John Stewart Mill, Jevons and Marshall with John Maynard Keynes as the latest master of heterodox economic philosophy. MMT grew out of the American academic (mis)interpretation of Keynesian economics (and great care must be taken to differentiate the American form from the original but that takes a thorough study of economic history). MMT is actually closer to the Keynesian original but carries some of the genetic markers of its American antecedents (IIRC Samuelson’s misunderstandings which led Samuelson into the orbit of neoliberal orthodoxy from the University of Chicago – free markets, invisible hands, etc., etc.). MMT provides economic pathways not available in the prevailing economic theology, for that is what now governs economic thought – beliefs and opinions only, reestablishing rational approaches to economic problems as was done by Keynes. MMT as it is now is incomplete but still offers a sounder economic outcome than that offered by the neoliberal orthodoxy. But it does require some real knowledge of economics to understand.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ The Greek One, reply # 20798

Being a resident of Spain, the drama being enacted has immediate effect upon the economic climate in this country. Both main political parties seem paralysed with the fear of loss of power, neither have the intellectual resources to appear with either answer or policy programme to address the economic depression the country finds itself; make no mistake about using the word depression as related to the economic conditions, depression is what pertains. Whatever statistical information produced by the government should be taken as suspect – automatically. The austerity policy being applied assures few to none of the thirty percent unemployed will ever see another job nor the sixty percent of youth entering the labour market will ever have the where-with-all to form families of their own through their own labour. For those of middle age who have been without employment for more than two years, the future has ceased to exist, the stresses of maintaining families will eventually destroy those families given the conditions. So far, survival is depleting the resources available to the affected extended families, how much longer this drain can be maintained is the great question being lived here.

The rational approach in the face of unemployment is to sharply curtail the working age by enabling early retirement making jobs available to those entering the employment market, the cost of supporting retirement is far less than the loss of job skills and training for those entering and in the midst of their job careers and the social costs that their families pay through economic impoverishment and lack of opportunities. Poverty begets poverty, a cycle that must be halted with the greatest urgency. For those companies using employees, positive tax incentives can be provided to encourage increased hiring opportunities, as well as schemes for reduced working hours on sustainable wage rates and taking on additional workers. The efficiency of production that leaves a large percent of the population unemployed must bear the taxes on income not being paid by the unemployed. Those companies involved in labour arbitrage, the employment of external labour to profit from low labour costs must face significant fees for the importation of their goods to the home market, or ending their profits altogether. Foreign companies using underpaid labour to produce their stocks for sale must be required to surrender excessive profits gained from their exploitation of labour, or through price advantages gained thereby. Entrepreneurial profit is taxed at a rate to cover the external costs created by enterprises, labour wages are to be protected. A policy that reflects gently upon enterprises having little or no control over their markets and progressively more sternly as the enterprise captures market share to the point of severity as monopolistic share of market occurs. As long as inflation marks the growth in goods and services of the economy, the economy is being well served. Inflation of wages is not a problem under the condition that productivity matches that inflation, even price inflation as related to cost inflation for either wages or commodities used in the production of those goods. Inflation turns bitter when it is the result of market control unrelated to the effects of production, the economic power of monopoly over price and supply. Monopoly has very limited uses and should only be allowed under tightly controlled conditions and stringent limits upon profits, the economics of scale being one significant consideration amongst numerous others of meeting social needs. The ills of capitalism are multitudinous and require constant control if capitalism is to serve rather than become the master, but that follows for any social devise ever invented by the species. Each generation must learn these things anew. How good has our learning been? How well will we instruct our children of these matters?

[Author]

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