Jul 022020
 
 July 2, 2020  Posted by at 10:44 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  39 Responses »


Marion Post Wolcott Unemployed coal miner’s mother in law and child. Marine, West Virginia 1938

 

Crisis at Houston Hospitals as Coronavirus Cases Surge (PP)
Coronavirus Immunity May Be More Widespread Than Tests Suggest (BBC)
Doctors Say Half Of ‘Cured’ COVID Patients Still Suffer (ToI)
House Votes To Block Trump’s Ability To Withdraw Forces From Afghanistan (Hill)
House Dems Introduce Resolution To Impeach AG Barr (SAC)
Freedom Rider: Russia, Afghanistan, and the Big Lie (BAR)
WaPo Admits ‘Russian Bounties’ Info “Deemed Sketchy” (ZH)
Afghan Bounty Scandal Comes at Suspiciously Important Time (MPN)
Biden Pulls Together 100s Of Lawyers As Bulwark Against Election Trickery (R.)
Storm Warning (Kunstler)
Top of the World (R.)

 

 

As the virus rages on into ever larger record numbers, today we are treated to the hilarious sight of two presidential candidates each accusing the other of being a Marxist. #ComradeTrump goes viral. One gets the feeling that maybe both parties hired the same PR firm. Or at least ones that use the same playbook. Which fails to mention that the Soviet Union dissolved some 30 years ago.

Or maybe those PR guys are all 80 years old, you know, same age as the candidates themselves? See, I’m thinking you must have been at least 15 years old when the wall came down, and therefore now be 45 years or older, to be scared by a portrait of Lenin or Stalin. And that would mean the PR fails to reach anyone younger than that.

Or, yeah, you can say he’s the second coming of Maduro, the man whose life his administration has been trying to turn into a living hell. But then you would fail to reach anyone with one single working neuron left. Or maybe I would just not be a good PR guy.

 

 

But at least we now know what that NYT and WaPo Afghan bounty story was planted for: the Democrat House gets to block Trump from bringing American troops home. While accusing each other of being extreme left, which will at some point force entire dictionaries to revise the meaning of such terms, they all move steadily towards the far right and the bidding of the war machine.

It’s theater, nothing in it is real, and you’re -literally- buying into it. Or wait, no, there is one thing that is real: people are going to get killed.

 

 

Both the world and the US set new highs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..an abrupt turn from three days earlier, when the hospital system sent a note to thousands of patients, inviting them to keep their surgical appointments.”

Note to staff at a Houston safety net hospital:
-50% of new COVID tests coming back positive
-No more ICU beds
-No more remdesivir
-No more convalescent plasma
-12 COVID patients in need of ICU care — stuck in the ER
-Tomorrow will be worse…

Crisis at Houston Hospitals as Coronavirus Cases Surge (PP)

At Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital on Sunday, the medical staff ran out of both space for new coronavirus patients and a key drug needed to treat them. With no open beds at the public hospital, a dozen COVID-19 patients who were in need of intensive care were stuck in the emergency room, awaiting transfers to other Houston area hospitals, according to a note sent to the staff and shared with reporters. A day later, the top physician executive at the Houston Methodist hospital system wrote to staff members warning that its coronavirus caseload was surging: “It has become necessary to consider delaying more surgical services to create further capacity for COVID-19 patients,” Dr. Robert Phillips said in the note, an abrupt turn from three days earlier, when the hospital system sent a note to thousands of patients, inviting them to keep their surgical appointments.

And at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, staff members were alerted recently that the hospital would soon begin taking in cancer patients with COVID-19 from the city’s overburdened public hospital system, a highly unusual move for the specialty hospital. These internal messages highlight the growing strain that the coronavirus crisis is putting on hospital systems in the Houston region, where the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has nearly quadrupled since Memorial Day. As of Tuesday, more than 3,000 people were hospitalized for the coronavirus in the region, including nearly 800 in intensive care.

“To tell you the truth, what worries me is not this week, where we’re still kind of handling it,” said Roberta Schwartz, Houston Methodist’s chief innovation officer, who’s been helping lead the system’s efforts to expand beds for COVID-19 patents. “I’m really worried about next week.”

Read more …

Here’s your daily dose of hope….

Coronavirus Immunity May Be More Widespread Than Tests Suggest (BBC)

People testing negative for coronavirus antibodies may still have some immunity, a study has suggested. For every person testing positive for antibodies, two were found to have specific T-cells which identify and destroy infected cells. This was seen even in people who had mild or symptomless cases of Covid-19. But it’s not yet clear whether this just protects that individual, or if it might also stop them from passing on the infection to others. Researchers at the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden tested 200 people for both antibodies and T-cells. Some were blood donors while others were tracked down from the group of people first infected in Sweden, mainly returning from earlier affected areas like northern Italy.


This could mean a wider group have some level of immunity to Covid-19 than antibody testing figures, like those published as part of the UK Office for National Statistics Infection Survey, suggest. It’s likely those people did mount an antibody response, but either it had faded or was not detectable by the current tests. And these people should be protected if they are exposed to the virus for a second time. Prof Danny Altmann at Imperial College London described the study as “robust, impressive and thorough” and said it added to a growing body of evidence that “antibody testing alone underestimates immunity”.

Read more …

…. immediately followed by something worse..

Doctors Say Half Of ‘Cured’ COVID Patients Still Suffer (ToI)

Recovered COVID patients are baffling doctors with complaints of freak pains, lungs that just won’t get back to normal, and a range of incapacitating psychological issues. “What we are seeing is very frightening,” Prof. Gabriel Izbicki of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center told The Times of Israel. “More than half the patients, weeks after testing negative, are still symptomatic.” Izbicki is working on a study that involves follow-up with patients who were in hospitals or coronavirus hotels, looking at the aftereffects of the virus and trying to understand why patients continue to suffer long after being confirmed negative. “There is very little research about the mid-term affect of coronavirus,” he said, adding that it is much needed to guide doctors.


In Bnei Brak, at Israel’s first community clinic, doctors have been seeing a spike in recent days in the patients with pains that appear to come from nowhere. “It can appear in the arms, legs, or other places where the virus doesn’t have a direct impact, and if you ask about the pain level on a 1 to 10 scale, can be 10, with people saying they can’t get to sleep,” said Eran Schenker, director of the month-old clinic in Bnei Brak run by Maccabi Healthcare Services. “It’s something which we’re starting to see much more in the last week.” A patient from the clinic spoke to The Times of Israel on condition that her name is not published. She was diagnosed in March and tested negative a month ago. But the woman, a Bnei Brak resident in her 40s, still has severe fatigue and anxiety, and can only walk for a few minutes at a time.

Read more …

TEXT gress to limit the powers of the presidency so of course preventing his ability to end a pointless war is the one time they actually decide to do it

House Votes To Block Trump’s Ability To Withdraw Forces From Afghanistan (Hill)

The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to put roadblocks on President Trump’s ability to withdraw from Afghanistan, including requiring an assessment on whether any country has offered incentives for the Taliban to attack U.S. and coalition troops. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment, from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), would require several certifications before the U.S. military can further draw down in Afghanistan. The amendment was approved 45-11. Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 House Republican, argued the amendment “lays out, in a very responsible level of specificity, what is going to be required if we are going to in fact make decisions about troop levels based on conditions on the ground and based on what’s required for our own security, not based on political timelines.”

“And that is crucially important, and I think it is our number one priority,” she added. The amendment comes as Trump’s withdrawal deal with the Taliban remains precarious as high violence levels persist in Afghanistan. The U.S. military has said it is down to 8,600 troops in line with the agreement to get to that level by mid-July. But military officials have insisted any further drawdown will be based on conditions on the ground that are not yet met, even as Trump pushes for a speedy withdrawal. [..] Among the amendment’s requirements is an assessment of whether any “state actors have provided any incentives to the Taliban, their affiliates, or other foreign terrorist organizations for attacks against United States, coalition, or Afghan security forces or civilians in Afghanistan in the last two years, including the details of any attacks believed to have been connected with such incentives.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) framed the measure as particularly important in light of the revelations. “There’s been bipartisan criticism of what a weak deal [Trump] got with the Taliban, a deal that is already falling apart,” Moulton said. “Now we learned that he was making this deal at the same time as there were bounties on the heads of American troops, American sons and daughters. We clearly need more oversight over what the president is doing in Afghanistan.”

Read more …

Comedy Capers.

House Dems Introduce Resolution To Impeach AG Barr (SAC)

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced a resolution to ‘investigate and consider’ impeaching Attorney General William Barr. The move comes just a few months after their failed attempt to impeach President Donald Trump. Congressman Steve Cohen, R-TN, brought the measure to the House floor with the support of 35 co-sponsors. The group alleges that “Attorney General Barr has undermined our judicial system and perverted the rule of law.” He added, “In the past few weeks alone, Barr has ordered the attack on peaceful protestors in Lafayette Park, in violation of their constitutional rights, and moved to drop charges against Michael Flynn, the President’s former campaign advisor, despite his guilty pleas. He fired without any explanation the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York who was overseeing investigations into the President’s associates and possibly the President himself.”


“The pattern here is unmistakable. Barr obstructs justice by favoring the President’s friends and political allies. He abuses his power by using the Department of Justice to harass, intimidate and attack disfavored Americans and the President’s political opponents. My oath to support and defend the Constitution compels me to confront this corruption. Congress is a co-equal branch of government and we must get to the bottom of this and hold Bill Barr accountable.” Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan criticized his colleagues’ move saying, “Are you kidding me?”, adding “Bill Barr is cleaning up the mess that Obama, Biden, and Comey created!”

Read more …

The black left doesn’t buy it either.

Freedom Rider: Russia, Afghanistan, and the Big Lie (BAR)

There is no end to the Russiagate fraud. All major charges have been disproved. No one was convicted of the dreaded “collusion” that was reported endlessly for the last four years. Damning information is now declassified and casts doubt on the veracity of the whole story. CrowdStrike, the Democratic National Committee cyber security firm, admitted under oath they had no proof of hacking by Russia or anyone else. Robert Mueller ended his two-year long, multi-million dollar investigation with nothing except convictions for process crimes. Why then did the New York Times print a story with an unnamed intelligence agency source claiming that the Russian government paid the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan? The charge is ludicrous on its face but the story is quite useful to people who want to hide their own criminality while simultaneously keeping Trump hamstrung in an election year.

Russia is the nation least likely to do business with jihadists. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, jihadists nearly tore Russia apart. Separatists from the Chechnya region terrorized the entire country which was weakened and divided after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Because of that experience Russia eagerly assisted the United States after the September 11 attacks. Far from impeding the U.S. presence, Russia and other former Soviet republics were steadfast participants in the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). NDN was a supply line carrying materiel from Russia, through central Asian nations and finally to Afghanistan. Russia allowed the use of its air space in troop transit flights. Far from being an enemy, Russia assisted the U.S. and its coalition in their fight against the Taliban.

Russia’s NDN cooperation lasted until 2015, when U.S. meddling in Ukraine poisoned relations between the two countries. Hostility towards jihadists remains a focus of Russian foreign policy decision making. The concern that ISIS might take control of Syria was the primary reason that Russia finally helped president Assad in 2015. Not only does this latest claim make little sense, but there is no source for this information. We are told that an anonymous intelligence official revealed the Russian bounty and that Donald Trump was aware of it but did nothing. Anonymous intelligence sources are the cause of much mischief. They will tell the public that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or that Muammar Gaddafi is planning a massacre. In both instances the rationale for lying was to get public approval for U.S. aggression. In this case keeping the failing Russiagate narrative alive is a motive for more disinformation.

The timing of this dubious reporting is significant. An appeal’s court recently ruled that a federal judge must dismiss Michael Flynn’s conviction for lying to FBI agents. Flynn was set up by James Comey and Barack Obama with some involvement or knowledge on the part of Joe Biden. The timing of this development could not have been worse. When Flynn’s charges are dismissed, the story will truly begin to unravel and the corporate media will lose its monopoly on information.

Read more …

But wait, just now the NYT “reports” they have tracked down an Afghani who paid someone with Russian dollars!

WaPo Admits ‘Russian Bounties’ Info “Deemed Sketchy” (ZH)

Congressional leaders have demanded answers, and those answers have come in the form of multiple US intelligence agencies and chiefs essentially throwing cold water on the NY Times Russian bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan story, as we’ve detailed. We expect this “bombshell” will be very short-lived, perhaps being memory holed by the weekend, akin to the fate of other Russiagate-related ‘anonymous sources say’ type stories. The Pentagon is the latest to say that DOD-wide there is currently “no corroborating evidence at this time to validate the recent allegations regarding malight activity by Russian personnel against US forces in Afghanistan,” according to a late Tuesday evening statement by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

And yet the Times is busy publishing photos of slain Marines to help bolster what’s increasingly looking like a propaganda hit piece ahead of the November election, for which there’s already been considerable backlash from the public. As of Wednesday it’s been revealed that a highly respected career intelligence officer previously made the decision to not brief President Trump on what the Washington Post now belatedly admits was widely “deemed sketchy” information the CIA had obtained in 2019 through either a foreign source or report. This line from the Post is certainly awkward for them and the Times:

“The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that White House officials were first informed in early 2019 of intelligence reports that Russia was offering the bounties to kill U.S. and coalition military personnel, but the information was deemed sketchy and in need of additional confirmation, according to people familiar with the matter.”

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“They are reporting the ‘fact’ that there was a rumor.”

Afghan Bounty Scandal Comes at Suspiciously Important Time (MPN)

Based on anonymous intelligence sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal released bombshell reports alleging that Russia is paying the Taliban bounties for every U.S. soldier they can kill. The story caused an uproar in the United States, dominating the news cycle and leading presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to accuse Trump of “dereliction of duty” and “continuing his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.” “This is beyond the pale,” the former vice-president concluded. However, there are a number of reasons to be suspicious of the new reports. Firstly, they appear all to be based entirely on the same intelligence officials who insisted on anonymity.

The official could not provide any concrete evidence, nor establish that any Americans had actually died as a result, offering only vague assertions and admitting that the information came from “interrogated” (i.e. tortured) Afghan militants. All three reports stressed the uncertainty of the claims, with the only sources who went on record — the White House, the Kremlin, and the Taliban — all vociferously denying it all. The national security state also has a history of using anonymous officials to plant stories that lead to war. In 2003, the country was awash with stories that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, in 2011 anonymous officials warned of an impending genocide in Libya, while in 2018 officials accused Bashar al-Assad of attacking Douma with chemical weapons, setting the stage for a bombing campaign. All turned out to be untrue.

“After all we’ve been through, we’re supposed to give anonymous ‘intelligence officials’ in The New York Times the benefit of the doubt on something like this? I don’t think so,” Scott Horton, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com and author of “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” told MintPress News. “All three stories were written in language conceding they did not know if the story was true,” he said, “They are reporting the ‘fact’ that there was a rumor.” Horton continued: “There were claims in 2017 that Russia was arming and paying the Taliban, but then the generals admitted to Congress they had no evidence of either. In a humiliating debacle, also in 2017, CNN claimed a big scoop about Putin’s support for the Taliban when furnished with some photos of Taliban fighters with old Russian weapons. The military veteran journalists at Task and Purpose quickly debunked every claim in their piece.”

Read more …

Ha ha ha. Lawyers For Honesty is a great name. Everyone knows how honest they are.

Biden Pulls Together 100s Of Lawyers As Bulwark Against Election Trickery (R.)

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Wednesday that his party has assembled a group of 600 lawyers and thousands of other people to prepare for possible “chicanery” ahead of November’s election. “We put together 600 lawyers and a group of people throughout the country who are going into every single state to try to figure out whether chicanery is likely to take place,” Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said on a video conference with donors to his campaign. “We have over 10,000 people signed up to volunteer. We’re in the process of getting into the states in question to train them to be in a polling place,” he said, in a time when the coronavirus pandemic requires extra precautions.


Biden’s remarks come as the candidate offers dire warnings about efforts by Republicans to cheat in the Nov. 3 election while also criticizing his election opponent, Republican President Donald Trump, for undermining confidence in the vote. A senior political adviser and top lawyer for Trump’s campaign, Justin Clark, said Biden is lying and stoking fear while Democrats are trying to “fundamentally change” how elections are conducted, an apparent reference to their support for widespread mail-in voting. Republicans have argued that mail-in voting and other changes being suggested by Democrats in the midst of the pandemic could create fraud. “They are inserting chaos and confusion into our voting process because it is the only way they can win,” Clark said in a statement, adding that the president is committed to “fair and free elections.”

Read more …

“Imagine how many mortgage, car payments, and small business loan defaults will crackle across the land, and how that will thunder through the banking system.”

Storm Warning (Kunstler)

While Mr. Trump seems to dimly apprehend the urgent need for economic restructuring, he’s able to express it only in messages that sound like a 1961 Frigidaire commercial, with overtones of Marvel Comics superhero grandiosity. The president may understand that a country can’t consume stuff without producing stuff, but he doesn’t get that it’s too late to bring back all that activity at the scale we used to run it when he was a young man in the 1960s. His answer to the call of restructuring — what the Soviets called perestroika before they fell apart — is to pile on more debt, that is, borrow more from the future to pay for hamburgers today.

That dovetails neatly with the needs of the financial community, led by the hapless “Jay” Powell at the Federal Reserve, who is on a mission to destroy the U.S. dollar in order to save the banking system and its auxiliaries in the stock markets. He literally doesn’t know what to do — except “print” more dollars to support share prices, a symbolic talisman of theoretical economics that has less and less to do with what people actually do on-the-ground in the hours when they’re not sleeping. It looks unlikely that the Fed will rescue either Wall Street or Main Street. The longer he props up the former at the expense of the latter, the more certain it is that it will provoke insurrection that goes well beyond the current hostilities.

The looting and arson of recent days hugely aggravated a central feature of it: the destruction of small business. In Minneapolis alone, the damage stands at $100-million. Things were difficult enough under the strictures of Covid-19, but this guarantees that many cities will not see the return of commerce — and there are only a few other reasons for cities to even exist. Not only did the Democratic Party fail to object to the mayhem, but the city governments they controlled abetted, incited, and applauded the anarchy. Meanwhile, last Saturday in Tulsa, Mr. Trump made the signal error of bragging on the latest highs in the stock markets. Hasn’t he learned by now what a flimsy representation of reality that is?

Evidently not. The air may be coming out of that lifebuoy in the next couple of weeks, and his election prospects will sink with it. This will happen as the nation approaches the dark moment when the postponement of debt repayments ends. Imagine how many mortgage, car payments, and small business loan defaults will crackle across the land, and how that will thunder through the banking system.

Read more …

What happens when you have no markets.

Top of the World (R.)

Tesla’s electrifying rise claimed its biggest victim yet. During morning trading on Wednesday, shares in the Silicon Valley upstart rose some 5% to briefly hit a market value of $210 billion, overtaking Toyota Motor as the world’s largest carmaker by market worth. Undeserved as that may be, it shifts Chief Executive Elon Musk’s performance bonus into overdrive. The maker of the Model 3 has long traded on a far higher multiple of earnings than its traditional, internal combustion engine-focused rivals. But after a 400% share-price turbo boost over the past 12 months – lapping Ford Motor, then General Motors then Volkswagen – Tesla now trades at 69 times estimated 2022 earnings, according to Refinitiv data. Toyota, by contrast, trades just below 10 times earnings for that calendar year.

Tesla’s current price requires the utmost faith in Elon Musk’s ability either to deliver millions more vehicles a year than the 400,000 he managed last year, or to roll out a large fleet of cheap-to-run robo-taxis. Neither looks likely any time soon. But the valuation also starts the clock on another huge payout for Musk. Shareholders two years ago approved a 10-year performance package that allows the boss to be given shares equal to 12% of the amount outstanding, worth in total as much as $60 billion. Getting them requires hitting both a market value target as well as either a revenue or adjusted EBITDA goal.

He was awarded the first of the 12 possible tranches a little over a month ago, based on a $100 billion market value and $20 billion of annual revenue. The shares had already zoomed past the second market-value target – $150 billion – on the way to its current level, though Musk has to wait for that to register on a six-month average basis.

Read more …

 

 

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• CNN headline yesterday: “Russian voters OVERWHELMINGLY back a PLOY by Putin to rule until 2036…”

• CNN headline today: “SOME Russian voters back a PLOY by Putin to rule until 2036..”

Isn’t that a cute change? And I’m thinking: yeah, because we know if they had the choice, they’d all vote for Joe Biden…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

Feb 192015
 
 February 19, 2015  Posted by at 1:20 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  2 Responses »


Russell Lee “Yreka, California, seat of a county rich in mineral deposits” 1942

The US Will Have To Bail Out Greece (MarketWatch)
Greece – It’s a Revolution, Stupid! (Mathew D. Rose)
Germany Rejects Greece’s Application To Extend Its Loan Agreement (CNBC)
Europe and Greece Are at War Over Nothing (Bloomberg ed.)
How I Became An Erratic Marxist (Yanis Varoufakis)
For Greece And Many Others, Economic Reform Kills Economic Health (Steve Keen)
February 24 To Be The First Crunch Day For Greek State Coffers (Kathimerini)
Greek Debt Payment Plan Offers Huge Haircut (Kathimerini)
Greek Philosophy: Conflict Of Ideas Driving The Crisis (CNBC)
Greece Runs Up The Austerity White Flag In Brussels (Guardian)
Besieged Ukraine Town Debaltseve Falls (Reuters)
‘Guantanamo of the East’: Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU’s Behest (Spiegel)
Ukraine Finance Minister’s American ‘Values’ (Robert Parry)
Are the World’s Biggest Banks Moving Money for Terrorists? (Bloomberg)

“The IMF looks to have abdicated all responsibility for fixing the mess.”

The US Will Have To Bail Out Greece (MarketWatch)

Fighting has flared up again in the Ukraine. The Egyptians are sending soldiers into Libya as another North African state collapses into chaos. The militants of Islamic State are spreading their influence across the region. You’d think Barack Obama might have bigger foreign policy issues to worry about than a small state of 10 million people on the eastern edges of the Mediterranean. But Greece may be about to turn from a European into an American problem. As the game of brinkmanship between the radical Syriza government elected last month and the European Union gets played out, it has become increasingly clear that both sides may have a strong interest in the talks failing. The IMF looks to have abdicated all responsibility for fixing the mess.

The worrying point is this: Both sides have an increasing interest in a catastrophic failure. But the U.S., with the U.K. perhaps in a subsidiary role, has an equally strong interest in a stable Greece. If a crunch comes, America will have no choice but to bail Greece out. How? It may well need to extend emergency loans, prop up its banks, and if necessary help it establish a new currency as well. On Monday, talks between Greece and the finance ministers of the eurozone ended chaotically. The Syriza government, led by the charismatic young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, is committed to ending the austerity regime imposed on Athens by the EU and the IMF and is refusing to borrow any more money under the terms of the bailout agreement.

The rest of the EU, led by Germany, is standing firm. It may be willing to make some minor concessions, such as rebranding the loans or extending their duration. But it does not look willing to compromise on the core issue — that Greece has to stick to the austerity plan, and keep tight controls on public spending. There may still be a deal to be struck. Greece after all only accounts for a small percentage of the total eurozone economy. Its debts amount to just 315 billion euros, hardly a massive sum in the context of an economic bloc with a total gross domestic product of €9.5 trillion. But the worrying point is this: Both sides have an increasing interest in a catastrophic failure.

Read more …

“The German government has never wanted democratic reform in Greece..”

Greece – It’s a Revolution, Stupid! (Mathew D. Rose)

I fear most people have become so fixated on the Greek debt and the fate of the Euro, that they have completely ignored the political dimensions of the current conflict in Europe, shich are no less dramatic. The ongoing dispute between the German and Greek governments is nothing less than a democratic revolution against German hegemony and the attempt of the Germans and their paladins in the EU to dictate Greek domestic policy. It is a struggle by the Greeks to re-establish national sovereignty. What is more, this is the first time in the history of the EU that a political party with true leftist credentials has led a member nation. For reactionary Germany, with its neoliberal agenda, that is intolerable. This conflict is profound, if not existential, and thus could well be intractable.

The Greek people have made a decision to liberate themselves from a repressive regime of austerity and its incumbent humanitarian disaster. The Germans on the other hand refer to the developments of the past five years in Greece as a success. Yes, it has been a success in the sense that the Germans and French were able to rescue their banks and leave the Greek people to foot the bill. It was even more successful in that Greece was stripped of its political and economic autonomy – with the assistance of the quislings Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos. The German government has never wanted democratic reform in Greece, leaving the perpetrators of the Greek financial crisis, the political and financial elites, unscathed.

Success has meant Greece being reduced to a vassal state, raising the market above all other values, where multinational corporations, including German companies, could take over profitable state assets cheaply and German tourists could enjoy cut-rate holidays or buy holiday homes at bargain prices. What occurred in Greece with the bailout is an occupation, not with troops and panzers, but by financial means. Following the recent elections in Greece, Germany and its EU compradors are making it clear who is in charge. The Germans are currently not offering any compromise, but iterate the same blunt demand: Greece has to accept what is being dictated; in other words, capitulate or be annihilated. This time it will not be the Wehrmacht und Luftwaffe that are to force the Greek nation into submission, but a weapon just as lethal: national bankruptcy.

Read more …

“The letter does not meet the criteria agreed by the Eurogroup on Monday..”

Germany Rejects Greece’s Application To Extend Its Loan Agreement (CNBC)

Germany has rejected Greece’s application to extend its loan agreement and renegotiate the terms of its bailout, raising the very real threat of Athens running out of money in the coming weeks. The Berlin government Thursday said Greece’s application for a six-month extension of its loan and a renegotiation of some its terms was “no substantial solution.” “In truth it goes in the direction of a bridge financing, without fulfilling the demands of the program. The letter does not meet the criteria agreed by the Eurogroup on Monday,” German finance ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said in a statement.

Earlier Thursday Athens had formally placed a request to prolong its “master financial assistance facility agreement.” In the proposal the left-leaning Syriza Party had offered a series of concessions to the previous hardline stance that it would unilaterally scrap the austerity measures imposed as part of the country’s €240 billion bailout. However, the Greek proposal Thursday had pledged to work with the EU and the IMF in reworking the terms of the bailout and to not make any unilateral decisions when it came to the terms of the austerity package.

The Eurogroup of finance ministers from the 19 countries that use the single currency is due to meet on Friday to discuss the Greek plan. There has to be unanimous agreement among the group for any policy decision to go ahea.d The current program – which included the EU and IMF as creditors – was due to expire in little more than a week. Without further funds, Greece would soon run out of money rasing the prospect of a default on its bonds and a possible exit from the euro zone.

Read more …

“The EU is staking the future of its monetary union not on principles but on semantics.”

Europe and Greece Are at War Over Nothing (Bloomberg ed.)

Even by the demanding standards of European dysfunction, the continuing standoff between Greece and the other euro countries is impressive. On substance, the distance between the two sides has narrowed almost to nothing — yet the stalemate and the risk of a new financial crisis drag on as if it were vast. The EU is staking the future of its monetary union not on principles but on semantics. Initially, the new Greek government was at fault for making reckless election promises and presenting these to its European Union partners as non-negotiable. It has since climbed down a long way – in particular, dropping its demand for big debt write-downs. Now it wants a new bailout with softer terms and a temporary arrangement to bridge the financing gap between the present deal and the new one.

Reportedly, it’s even willing to call this bridge an “extension.” With Germany’s government leading the demand for strict propriety, Europe’s response has been to say that the current program must be successfully concluded, perhaps with some flexibility, before anything else can be discussed. So here’s the puzzle. What’s the difference between an extension that’s a bridge to a new program and an extension with flexibility pending agreement on a new program? To the sane observer, too little to care. Yet because of this difference, whatever it may be, the euro system threatens to break apart. Funny, isn’t it, that Europe’s voters express growing disenchantment with the whole project?

The situation is all the more absurd because the details of any transitional provisions don’t much matter anyway. What’s crucial are the terms of the new longer-term agreement — which the EU is refusing to discuss until Greece capitulates. The need for a new deal isn’t seriously disputed. The existing bailout imposed too tight a fiscal squeeze, which held back growth. The country’s debt burden therefore failed to shrink as intended in relation to gross domestic product. The error has been widely acknowledged, including by the International Monetary Fund (one of the plan’s architects) and by other EU governments.

Read more …

“Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces..”Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces

How I Became An Erratic Marxist (Yanis Varoufakis)

In 2008, capitalism had its second global spasm. The financial crisis set off a chain reaction that pushed Europe into a downward spiral that continues to this day. Europe’s present situation is not merely a threat for workers, for the dispossessed, for the bankers, for social classes or, indeed, nations. No, Europe’s current posture poses a threat to civilisation as we know it. If my prognosis is correct, and we are not facing just another cyclical slump soon to be overcome, the question that arises for radicals is this: should we welcome this crisis of European capitalism as an opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we be so worried about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising European capitalism?

To me, the answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath, while extinguishing the hope for any progressive moves for generations to come.For this view I have been accused, by well-meaning radical voices, of being “defeatist” and of trying to save an indefensible European socioeconomic system. This criticism, I confess, hurts. And it hurts because it contains more than a kernel of truth. I share the view that this European Union is typified by a large democratic deficit that, in combination with the denial of the faulty architecture of its monetary union, has put Europe’s peoples on a path to permanent recession.

And I also bow to the criticism that I have campaigned on an agenda founded on the assumption that the left was, and remains, squarely defeated. I confess I would much rather be promoting a radical agenda, the raison d’être of which is to replace European capitalism with a different system. Yet my aim here is to offer a window into my view of a repugnant European capitalism whose implosion, despite its many ills, should be avoided at all costs. It is a confession intended to convince radicals that we have a contradictory mission: to arrest the freefall of European capitalism in order to buy the time we need to formulate its alternative.

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“I want you to bear this empirical reality in mind when you consider the pressure that is being applied to Greece to get it to “stick with the program..”

For Greece And Many Others, Economic Reform Kills Economic Health (Steve Keen)

A quick quiz: which four countries do you think have done the most to reform their economies over the last seven years? OK, who said Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain? No one? Actually, someone did: the OECD. Yes, I kid you not, according to the OECD, the country that has done the most to reform its economy over the last seven years—that is, from before the 2008 economic crisis until well after it—is Greece. Followed at some distance by Portugal, Ireland and Spain. I saw this in a tweet, and even though I am a total sceptic on the value of what conventional economists call “economic reform”, I still couldn’t believe this graphic: surely it was an Onion spoof? I simply had to go searching to see for myself.

And there it was, on page 111 of the OECD’s publication Going For Growth 2015, released on February 9 (in a slightly different form, and with New Zealand pipping in between Ireland and Spain—maybe this graphic was revised later). The top economic reformers were the basket cases of Europe and the world in general. Unemployment in Greece is 27%; in Portugal it’s 15%, Ireland 12%, and Spain 25%. Those are very, very sick economies. And yet they are also the OECD’s top reformers. You are, I hope, wondering “how come? Isn’t reform supposed to be good for you?” Well, that’s the fairy story—sorry, theory—purveyed and fervently believed in by mainstream economists: reform your economies according to our recommendations, and—whatever else happens—your economy will grow more rapidly and be more stable to boot.

Unfortunately for those purveying this fairytale, they also developed metrics by which the degree of reform could be measured, so that a decade later, we can compare the fairy story to the reality. And one quick look shows that we’ve been had. We were told to expect the beautiful Cinderella at the economic ball; instead we got one of her ugly step-sisters. I’ll cover at length someday soon why economic reform as recommended by mainstream economists will normally make your economy more dysfunctional and unstable. For now, I want you to bear this empirical reality in mind when you consider the pressure that is being applied to Greece to get it to “stick with the program” invented for it by the EU.

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“Finance Ministry officials assure they have identified resources they could tap if a small extension on Greece’s bailout obligations, up to the first week of March, is granted from the eurozone.”

February 24 To Be The First Crunch Day For Greek State Coffers (Kathimerini)

February 24 is expected to be the first crucial day for state finances, as projections of cash flows see state coffers starting to run dry on that date. Finance Ministry officials, however, assure they have identified resources they could tap if a small extension on Greece’s bailout obligations, up to the first week of March, is granted from the eurozone. The state of cash reserves – not robust before – has deteriorated further in recent days due to a shortfall in revenues, as a €1 billion hole in January revenues is putting the execution of the state budget in jeopardy and hampering the management of cash reserves. According to figures released yesterday by the Bank of Greece, in January the net cash result of the central administration posted a deficit of €217 million, against a surplus of €603 million in January 2014.

Budget revenues reached €3.1 billion, against 4.4 billion in January 2014, while expenditure dropped to €3.2 billion from €3.6 billion last year. Given these figures, the Finance Ministry estimates that cash reserves will run out next Tuesday. It has the option, however, of using the reserves of general government entities kept in commercial banks in order to cover short-term needs next week. However, the problem that cannot be addressed as things stand concerns needs for the first week of March. Unless something changes drastically to the country’s funding, Greece will not be able to fulfill all of its March obligations. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had called on the ECB to increase the limit of treasury bills to €23 billion from the current 15 billion in a bid to address this shortfall.

The additional funds would have covered the state’s short-term obligations while also providing a cushion until the Greek government is able to strike a deal with its eurozone partners. The request, however, was rejected, as the ECB deemed it an act of direct monetary funding: In practical terms the European Central Bank would have been financing the obligations of a state, which contravenes its regulations.

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“Depending on the number of installments, there will be a reduction to penalties and fines ranging from 30% to 90%..”

Greek Debt Payment Plan Offers Huge Haircut (Kathimerini)

A new repayment plan for expired debts to the state and social security funds announced by the government on Wednesday provides for a reduction to the fines and penalties levied against debtors as well as for a writedown of the original debt, reaching as much as 50% rate in some cases. The new scheme, which has already generated concern among Greece’s international creditors but also among consistent taxpayers, foresees the repayment of debts in up to 100 monthly installments regardless of their size. The minimum installment will be set at €20, while for debts up to €5,000 there will be no interest attached. Depending on the number of installments, there will be a reduction to penalties and fines ranging from 30% to 90%, and in cases of repayment in a lump sum the penalties will be written off entirely.

Crucially, for debts generated up until December 31, 2013, a part of the original debt can be written off, by as much as 50% in certain cases. The plan further waives the limit of 1 million euros for debts that can be negotiated for settlement, making repayment easier for major state debtors. In presenting the new scheme yesterday, Alternate Finance Minister Nadia Valavani stressed that this will be the very last opportunity given to taxpayers to settle their debts to the state. She added that at a later stage there will be another, more favorable plan, concerning only those who find themselves in financial hardship. Ministry calculations show that out of the €76 billion of outstanding debts by taxpayers and corporations to the state, no more than €9 billion can actually be collected.

Social security funds are anticipating a total of €1.2 billion from debt repayments this year thanks to the new plan, from total arrears of €20 billion. The bill in Parliament, which Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday would be put before Parliament on Thursday, has been postponed until next week. The official explanation cites a need for technical changes to be made to draft, though it has been suggested that the postponement of the process was decided in order to prevent a reaction from the country’s creditors in this week’s crucial negotiations.

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“Whether “doing what is right” in this case means “doing what Varoufakis wants” is, of course, open to debate.”

Greek Philosophy: Conflict Of Ideas Driving The Crisis (CNBC)

As European politicians ponder how to solve the current impasse over Greece’s debts to international creditors, some of the key players seem to be digging out their philosophy books.The country’s erudite Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, cited German philosopher Immanuel Kant in a New York Times editorial published Tuesday – a nice reminder of Europe’s shared cultural history – as he pled with those reading to help the Greek people escape the bonds of austerity. Kant “taught us that the rational and the free escape the empire of expediency by doing what is right,” he argued.

Whether “doing what is right” in this case means “doing what Varoufakis wants” is, of course, open to debate. Wolfgang Schaueble, the German finance minister, seemed to be adopting a rather dogmatic philosophy, by contrast. When asked about the potential for changes to the existing programme by German state television channel ZDF Tuesday night, he said: “It’s not about extending a credit programme but about whether this bailout programme will be fulfilled, yes or no.”

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I don’t think so.

Greece Runs Up The Austerity White Flag In Brussels (Guardian)

The white flag has been raised over Athens. Greece has bowed to the intense pressure of its eurozone partners and will stick to austerity. After defiantly saying for the past three weeks that it will end the country’s fiscal waterboarding, the Syriza-led government is suing for peace. That, bluntly, is the only way to interpret news that Greece has formally asked for a six-month extension to its bailout agreement. There is no longer the pretence that the bailout is to be replaced by a loan agreement with no strings attached. The hated troika of the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will be monitoring Greece’s economy for the next six months, something that has been anathema to Syriza until now.

The Greek government has some demands of its own. It wants to negotiate a new growth deal for the four years until 2019. It is asking for debt relief under the terms of the bailout agreement signed in November 2012. And it wants to be able to take steps to deal with the humanitarian crisis caused by the 25% collapse in the size of the economy over the past five years. None of these demands are unreasonable. Indeed, they are all entirely sensible. As Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research has noted, for every euro the Greek government has saved through spending cuts or tax increases the economy has contracted by €1.2. Austerity has resulted in Greece’s debt to GDP ratio going up, not down. A change of tack is overdue. It is unlikely, though, that Syriza will get much of what it wants. The rest of Europe does not really want to negotiate with Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis; it wants capitulation.

What’s more, it is in a position to get it. Tsipras has two big weaknesses. Firstly, Greece is suffering from capital flight and is dependent on emergency support from the ECB for its banks. This funding has just been increased by the ECB but not by as much as Greece would have liked. The life support could be cut off at any time. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, Greece has failed to deploy its most potent weapon: a threat to leave the euro. For all the talk in Brussels and Berlin that the single currency could withstand a Greek departure from the single currency, the threat of withdrawal would have put the frighteners on. Would the euro group really want to risk chaos given the shaky state of the economy? Would Angela Merkel want to go down in history as the German chancellor responsible for rolling back more than half a century of European integration?

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Curiously left out of the ceasefire deal.

Besieged Ukraine Town Debaltseve Falls (Reuters)

Ukraine pulled thousands of troops out of an encircled town on Wednesday after a massive assault by pro-Russian rebels, who ignored a new ceasefire to seize the strategic railway junction. The fall of the besieged town of Debaltseve was one of the worst defeats of the war for Ukraine’s troops, who proved unable to stop an advance by Moscow-backed rebels fighting for territory the Kremlin calls “New Russia”. President Petro Poroshenko told security chiefs on Wednesday night that six Ukrainian soldiers had been killed during the pullout from Debaltseve. “According to preliminary data, six Ukrainian heroes were killed during the withdrawal, more than 100 were wounded,” he said, according to Interfax news agency.

Twenty-two Ukrainian soldiers had earlier been killed in the town in the past few days, the Ukrainian military high command said, with more than 150 wounded. Poroshenko, who flew to the frontline, nevertheless tried to cast the battle in a positive light, saying that by holding out as long as they had, Ukraine’s troops had exposed “the true face of the bandits and separatists who are supported by Russia”. The Ukrainian troops had held out for three days beyond the start of a Europe-brokered ceasefire, forcing the rebels to disavow the truce to pursue their advance on the town. Ukrainian troops, their faces blackened, some in columns, some in cars, arrived in Artemivsk, about 30 km (20 miles) north of Debaltseve in government-held territory.

Fighting did not halt with the retreat. A Reuters correspondent near Debaltseve saw black smoke rising over the town and heard loud blasts hours after the withdrawal began. “One hundred and sixty-seven wounded have been taken to Artemivsk. They did not pick up a lot of bodies. I don’t know the total figure,” Semen Semenchenko, who heads the Donbass paramilitary battalion, said on Facebook.

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Bet you never knew.

‘Guantanamo of the East’: Ukraine Locks Up Refugees at EU’s Behest (Spiegel)

Hasan Hirsi has been learning German for the last year and a half, and recently even enrolled in a class that meets for five hours a day, from 1 to 6 p.m. Nevertheless, he still has no words to describe what happened to him before his arrival in Germany. Hirsi, a 21-year-old refugee from Somalia, is huddled on a worn sofa in an apartment in Landau, a small town in southwestern Germany, which he shares with three other Somalian asylum-seekers. He is wearing a gray hoodie and has short, black hair. A retiree from Landau who has volunteered to assist the refugees is sitting next to him. He wants to help Hirsi adjust to his new life in Europe.

But Hirsi is finding it difficult to forget the past. Indeed, he still has nightmares about Ukraine, a place where he became stranded for a lengthy stay on his way to Europe. He now refers to the country as “hell.” Staring at the floor, Hirsi says: “It is difficult.” He repeats the same word, “difficult,” in different languages. After fleeing from Somalia in the summer of 2008, Hirsi tried several times to reach Europe through Ukraine. He was detained once each by Ukrainian and Hungarian border patrols, and twice by police in Slovakia. Ukrainian security forces robbed, beat and tortured him, he says. After being apprehended, he spent almost three years in four different Ukrainian prisons – for committing no crime other thanseeking shelter and protection in Europe.

Most migrants reach Europe through Italy or Greece and many of them die on the way. A broad coalition, ranging from Pope Francis to German President Joachim Gauck, is demanding better protection for refugees on Europe’s southern border and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, describes the route across the Mediterranean as the world’s deadliest. But when it comes to the eastern route, and the fate of migrants like Hasan Hirsi, interest has thus far been limited. SPIEGEL and “Report Mainz,” a program on Germany’s ARD public television network, have now taken a closer look at the stories of refugees who were locked up in Ukrainian prisons for months during their journeys to Europe.

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Bad smell.

Ukraine Finance Minister’s American ‘Values’ (Robert Parry)

Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has become the face of reform for the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev and will be a key figure handling billions of dollars in Western financial aid, was at the center of insider deals and other questionable activities when she ran a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund. Prior to taking Ukrainian citizenship and becoming Finance Minister last December, Jaresko was a former U.S. diplomat who served as chief executive officer of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by Congress in the 1990s and overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine.

But Jaresko, who was limited to making $150,000 a year at WNISEF under the U.S. AID grant agreement, managed to earn more than that amount, reporting in 2004 that she was paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF’s public filing with the Internal Revenue Service. Later, Jaresko’s compensation was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two entities in 2006: Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF’s investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF) to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals. Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which “serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA,” according to WNISEF’s IRS filing for 2006.

U.S. AID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships – and even allowed WNISEF to spend millions of dollars helping EEGF become a follow-on private investment firm – despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies. For instance, WNISEF’s 2012 annual report devoted two pages to “related party transactions,” including the management fees to Jaresko’s Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF’s co-investments in projects with the EEGF, where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer. Jaresko’s Horizon Capital managed the investments of both WNISEF and EEGF.

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Interesting lawsuit.

Are the World’s Biggest Banks Moving Money for Terrorists? (Bloomberg)

Steven Vincent had just left a money exchange in the southern Iraqi city of Basra when a group of men in police uniforms drove up in a white truck and grabbed him and his translator. It was Aug. 2, 2005. Vincent, a freelance American journalist, had reported on the war for two-and-a-half years. British troops occupied Basra, but he operated without an embed arrangement. British and Iraqi authorities later found Vincent on the outskirts of the city shot dead. The Iraqi translator survived. Three days earlier the New York Times had published an op-ed article by Vincent, Switched Off in Basra, in which he described the infiltration of the local police by Iranian-backed Islamic extremists. Steven was executed for what he wrote, says his widow, Lisa Ramaci.

She’s set up a foundation in his name that donates money to the families of Iraqis injured or killed because of their work with U.S. journalists. And Ramaci did something else. In November she joined a lawsuit on behalf of relatives of U.S. soldiers and civilians who’ve died in Iraq as a result of violence linked to Iranian-backed militias and terrorist groups. The suit, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, seeks hundreds of millions of dollars not from death squads, whose members aren t likely to show up with lawyers in tow. Instead, it targets five of the largest banks in the world: HSBC, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Standard Chartered, and Royal Bank of Scotland. Defendants, the suit declares, committed acts of international terrorism. The suit, known as Freeman v. HSBC, takes its name from lead plaintiff Charlotte Freeman, whose husband, Brian, an Army captain, died in a Jan. 20, 2007, attack by Iranian-trained militants in Karbala, Iraq.

This far-fetched-seeming attempt to pin culpability for violent deaths on bankers relies on an intricate theory of causation: The European-based banks have handled hundreds of billions of dollars in international transfers for Iranian financial institutions. The Iranian financial institutions, in turn, have moved money for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite Iranian paramilitary organization, and for Hezbollah, the militant Shia movement based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. The Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah have trained and armed Shia groups in Iraq that have kidnapped, shot, and blown up Americans, including Vincent and Freeman. Can the global banking industry be held liable for the detonation of improvised explosive devices and destruction of lives? It may sound wild-eyed or quixotic, but that s what we re trying to do, says Gary Osen, the New Jersey lawyer who recruited the 230 plaintiffs for Freeman v. HSBC.

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