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Debt Rattle April 28 2026

Apr 282026
 
 April 28, 2026  Posted by at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  31 Responses »


Johannes Vermeer Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window 1657-59


• A Feral and Savage Party (James Howard Kunstler)
• No Conspiracy Required (Stephen Green)
• Obama Said This About the Latest Trump Assassination Attempt (Margolis)
• President Trump 60-Minutes Interview on Events During Attack at WHCA Dinner (CTH)
• Again, Fetterman Breaks Ranks After the Third Attempt on Trump’s Life (Manney)
• Melania Trump Deplores Jimmy Kimmel’s Disturbing Shooting Jokes (Salgado)
• How the GOP Should Respond to the ‘Both Sides Are Guilty’ Nonsense (Pinsker)
• The New York Times Explores the Case for “Microlooting” to Murder (Turley)
• Muslim Voters Are Reshaping U.K. Politics (JTN)
• Trump’s Prescription Drug Policies Make Small-Town Pharmacies Great Again (JTN)
• Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying the Hoax (Steve Cortes)
• The Siege of Iran, and Other Matters (James Howard Kunstler)
• Iran Offers New Proposal To Reopen Strait – Trump Open To Deal Via Phone (ZH)
• Bessent: IRGC Leaders ‘Trapped’ Like ‘Drowning Rats’ By US Blockade (ZH)
• Senator Chuck Grassley’s Office Requests Answers from DOJ and FBI (CTH)

 


 

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2048492303531364530?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2048439348463337953?s=20 https://twitter.com/CRRJA5/status/2048585821163254218?s=20 https://twitter.com/eagameover/status/2048427971476705443?s=20

 


 


“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” —Ian Fleming

• A Feral and Savage Party (James Howard Kunstler)

Don’t you love the way the news media pretends it can’t figure out the motive of Cole Tomas Allen, who tried to shoot-up Saturday’s White House correspondents’ gala. He was a creation of the very White House correspondents who ducked under their tables at the sound of his shots. Cole Tomas Allen had digested and internalized the “narrative” spewage of the Democratic Party’s propaganda department. MSNOW occupied his brain like a glistening parasite.


CBS tried to amplify the shooter’s own motive on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes show when Norah O’Donnell read out-loud from his manifesto, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” and asked President Trump “What is your reaction to that?” Mr. Trump did not fall for the ruse — which was just an opportunity to reinforce a well-worn scurrility. “You’re a disgrace,” the president replied, and Ms. O’Donnell just continued with the interview as if his answer never registered. There it is.

In fact, Cole Tomas Allen traveled all the way from Los Angeles to Washington for the rare chance to find Mr. Trump and most of his cabinet all together in one room where he might be able to kill as many of them as possible. He styled himself: “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen. “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done,” he concluded in his short manifesto, reportedly composed and sent out minutes before he left his room at the Washington Hilton to perform his rash deed.

That rage, you understand, was planted in his head by the likes of Norah O’Donnell of CBS news and the scores of reporters, editors, and news producers who had to abandon the festive menu starters of spring pea and burrata salad and crab terrine with a nice Veuve Clicquot when the shots rang out. The gala is a night when the Blob’s media errand boys and call girls like to treat themselves like royalty. (Meanwhile their hated enemies back in the truck stops of MAGAland get by on lowly chili-lime jerky and Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, washed down with Red Bull — good for five-hundred miles of hauling, at least.)

The former president can’t guess Cole Tomas Allen’s motives. He is a liar, a cad, and a fraud. As for political violence in general, you have not heard Mr. Obama complain about Antifa mayhem, BLM riots, tranny school murders, harassment of ICE officers, or any other violence approved by the Lefty-left. Mr. Obama is himself a bona fide seditionist. When he repeats the shibboleth “our democracy” he means simply the Lefty-left’s malevolent will to power — which is predicated on nothing more than feeding the Democratic Party’s never-ending rackets, doling out money to its captive clients for votes, solely to remain in power: Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. His mealy-mouthed sanctimony serves only his personal need to evade prosecution for his own crimes.

The only way Barack Obama can evade prosecution for RussiaGate and then for covertly running the “Joe Biden” White House from his HQ across town is if he is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the RICO cases to come. That will be enough for historians to understand what happened here in the early 21st century. And what about the other traitors, the long list of Blob apparatchiks who schemed to overthrow the executive from 2016 to 2021, and then labored to throw thousands in prison, ran a fake pandemic op, queered two elections, hijacked the courts, shut down opposing opinion, and poisoned the minds of several assassins?

Justice is coming for them. They know it, and their “resistance” seeks to turn feral and savage in the months leading to the midterm elections. It will start in a few days with “Mayday Strong” rallies and street marches. Their slogan, “It’s workers over billionaires,” is just another lie. The part they leave out is that these actions are funded by billionaires: George Soros, Neville Roy Singham, Hansjörg Wyss, et al. Don’t expect the action to remain “mostly peaceful,” either. The idea, of course is to get violent so as to goad President Trump into invoking emergency powers to put down an insurrection.

I doubt that President Trump will shrink from invoking the Insurrection Act, an amalgamation of laws passed by Congress starting in 1792–1795 with the Militia Acts, then the key 1807 law signed by President Thomas Jefferson, and major amendments during and after the Civil War, including the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. It is codified in Title 10 of the United States Code, Chapter 13, specifically §§ 251–255. It is a statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act (1878), which generally prohibits using federal troops for domestic law enforcement.

The Insurrection Act (with its predecessor statutes) has been invoked approximately 30 times in U.S. history by 16 presidents — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, Wilson, Harding, FD Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and Bush — in episodes ranging from the Whiskey Rebellion, the Southern Secession, many violent labor strikes, several race riots, and looting in natural disasters.

President Trump might have to use the Insurrection Act to stop what has been an ongoing coup against his elected administration by an opposition party that has turned criminal and traitorous. He may have to convene extraordinary military tribunals to adjudicate crimes that include those committed by the federal judiciary itself. If he does all this, it must include an executive order mandating common sense election procedure for the midterm: citizenship and photo ID required, paper ballots only, no vote-counting machines, voting only on one day deemed Election Day, and mail-in ballots limited only to military, people required to be out of the country, and the disabled. All this is looking increasingly unavoidable.

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“If the Democrats don’t knock this off, there really will be a civil war in this country, and it won’t end well for them, just like the last one they started in 1861.”

• No Conspiracy Required (Stephen Green)

“The Democratic Party has created monsters among them,” Jan. 6 criminal defense attorney Marina Medvin posted to X in the wake of yet another assassination attempt on President Donald Trump Saturday night. “The most interesting part” of attempted assassin Cole Allen’s manifesto and social media posts is that they’re “generally indistinguishable from most liberal social medial accounts belonging to Democrat voters in America.” Dems, you have a problem.


“The same week the New York Times published a cozy interview justifying the murder of people whose politics you don’t like, the same week we learned that the Unite the Right Charlottesville rally was funded by the Left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, President Trump survived his third assassination attempt,” Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote on Sunday. “A recent YouGov poll says it all: 25% of very liberal Americans consider political violence justified—compared to 3% of very conservative Americans. Another 17% of liberal Americans say it’s justified, compared to just 6% of conservatives.”The left has worked hard at normalizing political violence — and Allen’s murderous intent is the left’s new mainstream. Let’s start with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, widely believed to have 2028 presidential ambitions, speaking last week:

As John Bulkeley warned, “If the Democrats don’t knock this off, there really will be a civil war in this country, and it won’t end well for them, just like the last one they started in 1861.” Speaking of war, here’s Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doing just that.

Barring some big change before the midterms, Jeffries will be the next House Speaker. Maybe you remember James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by four-term incumbent John Cornyn. Writing for the New York Times last month, pseudo-conservative David French praised him as “one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.” Here’s Talarico’s pastor on Sunday:

Please note that the pastor did not go on to chide people for having mixed feelings about an assassination attempt, but instead doubled down on the very rhetoric that Allen echoed on BlueSky and in his manifesto. In church, if you can believe it. Finally, here’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, calling first lady Melania Trump “an expectant widow” right to her face.

One more? OK, one more:

And don’t even get me started on the mainstream media… but if CNN’s Jake Tapper is at all unusual, it’s only because he’s so high-profile.

As I’ve written here for two years, there’s no conspiracy required to produce a left-wing assassin like Tyler James Robinson or Ryan Routh. They just amp up the rhetorical pressure, 24/7/365, until somebody pops. Lee Harvey Oswald was a weird teen, easy to pull out of the crowd. He embraced “theoretical Marxism” in high school and soon after earned the name “Oswaldovich” from his fellow Marines. But he seems to have required renouncing his citizenship and a two-year stint in the Soviet Union to turn him into a lefty assassin. If his manifesto is anything to go by, all Cole Thomas Allen had to do was watch CNN and read the New York Times.

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“Allen’s manifesto made it clear he has fallen for the lies of the Democrats, radicalized by their rhetoric — including Barack Obama’s.”

• Obama Said This About the Latest Trump Assassination Attempt (Margolis)

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting at the White House Correspondents Association dinner at the Washington Hilton, where 31-year-old Cole Allen of California tried to assassinate President Donald Trump and other administration officials, there was a lot of confusion. Early reports suggested that the shooter had been killed. Those reports turned out to be false. During that time, many people on the left were trying to distract from the obvious, that someone had tried to assassinate Trump again. Left-wing influencers started chiding conservatives, pointing out the obvious. They claimed we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Of course, they also claimed the shooting was staged, but that’s a whole other story.


And then there’s Barack Obama. “Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it’s incumbent upon all of us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy,” Obama wrote on X. “It’s also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day. I’m grateful to them – and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay.”

There’s just one huge problem with Obama’s statement. We already knew the shooter’s motive at this point. Obama posted his statement at 5:15 p.m. EDT on Sunday, and the shooter’s manifesto and its contents were first published late Sunday morning. So by the time Obama decided to weigh in, the manifesto had been in the public domain for several hours, and his anti-Trump motives were already widely reported.] Here’s what Cole Allen’s manifesto said:

“I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. (Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.) […] Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Allen made clear that Secret Service agents were only to be engaged if necessary — and even then, he claimed he preferred to incapacitate rather than kill. Hotel security, Capitol Police, and National Guard personnel were to be avoided unless they intervened, and he explicitly stated that hotel employees and guests were not targets. In short, there is no doubt he came there to kill Trump and other Trump administration officials. And Obama’s response was to tell the public the motive remained unclear.

There’s a pattern here worth naming. When political violence touches conservatives, the motive becomes suddenly complex, nuanced, perhaps unknowable. The calls for unity arrive with a side of fog. Meanwhile, the very writings that explain everything are either broadcast for maximum damage or quietly tucked away to avoid inconvenient conclusions.

No one can honestly believe that Obama was clueless. So why keep pretending that the motive is some unsolvable mystery? The answer is the same reason some on the left rushed to claim the assassination attempt was staged. They understand how damaging this is, so the instinct is to downplay it, muddy the waters, and dodge any real reckoning with the kind of radicalism that keeps surfacing on their side. Allen’s manifesto made it clear he has fallen for the lies of the Democrats, radicalized by their rhetoric — including Barack Obama’s.

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He shows himself in total control. This is obviously not the first time he thinks about it. How could it be?

Donald Trump came out of this weekend a lot bigger than he went in. A lot.

• President Trump 60-Minutes Interview on Events During Attack at WHCA Dinner (CTH)

President Trump details his experience at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where a gunman charged toward the ballroom. President Trump says he wasn’t worried and praised the actions of law enforcement.


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“Fetterman cut through the noise and picked action over argument. While others kept talking, he picked a solution.”

• Again, Fetterman Breaks Ranks After the Third Attempt on Trump’s Life (Manney)

If the man wasn’t a bloody lefty, I’d create a chorus of people asking him to flip to the Republican side. When compared to other Senate freshmen, he’s ranked the second most leftist. Alas, I believe him to be the maverick that the media’s favorite maverick, John McCain, thought himself to be. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) didn’t hedge after the chaos at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when a gunman, Cole Allen, rushed a Secret Service checkpoint and opened fire. The shooter has now been identified as 31-year-old schoolteacher Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., who sprinted past security checkpoints inside the hotel armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and two knives. He never made it into the ballroom.


Gunfire was exchanged during the incident, but Allen was not hit, and police arrested him. A Secret Service agent was struck but was wearing protective gear. No other injuries were confirmed among the attendees. In seconds, a routine political event turned into a live test of how much risk members of the Trump administration accept when they gather away from the White House. Fetterman saw enough, telling fellow Democrats to drop the reflex of opposing anything “Trump” and back a practical fix: build a secure, bulletproof ballroom on the White House grounds. A hardened, on-site venue would let presidents host large events inside a controlled perimeter instead of relying on facilities that weren’t built for modern threat levels.

President Donald Trump drove the point home within hours, saying the shooting proved why a protected ballroom isn’t optional; it’s basic security. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and senior officials moved off the stage as agents contained the threat. One Secret Service agent took a round to his chest and, thanks to his vest, survived. Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., never reached the main seating area, but the gap between “contained” and “catastrophic” was very thin. Fetterman’s position isn’t a one-off; he votes with his caucus most of the time, yet he breaks from it on national security when it counts. He backs Israel, supports Trump’s effort to block Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and, last year, defended the ballroom plan as appropriate and in line with the White House’s long history of upgrades.

Private donors would fund the ballroom, which removes the usual fight over money. For years, security professionals have warned about concentrating the president, vice president, cabinet, and lawmakers at off-site venues like the Washington Hilton. A single breach threatens multiple layers of leadership at once. A White House ballroom keeps those events inside a fortified perimeter designed for current threats, not assumptions from the past 30 years. You can’t put it more plainly than Fetterman did on X.

His point isn’t partisan; it’s operational: protect the office, reduce exposure, and control the environment. Washington typically defaults to posture over progress when leaders dig in, defend their side, and stall anything tied to the other party. Fetterman, however, did the opposite; he looked at what happened and backed a fix already on the table. Allen’s “alleged” attack didn’t create a new problem; he exposed one that’s been tolerated and kicked down the road for years.

How many times will it take for people filled with common sense to look at the critics of the ballroom, smack ‘em in the head, and, in the most sarcastic tone possible, exclaim: It doesn’t bear repeating, but for some dunderheads, it does: a secure, on-site venue won’t solve every risk, but it closes obvious ones. The presidency demands more than ceremony and tradition; it demands infrastructure that matches the reality of modern threats. Fetterman cut through the noise and picked action over argument. While others kept talking, he picked a solution.

Read more …

‘Political Sickness:’

• Melania Trump Deplores Jimmy Kimmel’s Disturbing Shooting Jokes (Salgado)

After vile “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel referred to First Lady Melania Trump as an “expectant widow” in a series of grossly inappropriate jokes before the Saturday assassination attempt on Trump administration officials, the first lady responded with dignity but without holding back on emphasizing just how dangerous the rhetoric is.


Just days before Cole Allen opened fire at the April 25 White House correspondents’ dinner, the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! chortled, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” That ugly display was part of Kimmel’s Thursday parody of the then-upcoming correspondents’ dinner. And the shooting highlighted vividly how irresponsible or downright bloodthirsty the media is for their constant pro-assassination rhetoric. No wonder the first lady wants ABC to take him off the air.

Melania posted on X Monday, “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.” That is exactly what we see across the political left in America now, a sickness that has pervaded not only their politics, but their minds and their morals as well.

Then, Melania continued by challenging the networks that platform such incredibly dangerous rhetoric. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” she said. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

Jimmy Kimmel was also despicable about the Charlie Kirk assassination. He falsely claimed that Kirk’s murderer was MAGA (actually, Tyler Robinson was an LGBTQ leftist) and smirked that the right was trying to score political points off the tragedy. The problem is that he is mainstream for lefties. He might be a little more candid about his unholy glee when Republicans die or are in danger of death, but his mainstream media pals agree with him.

Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, was at the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday and understandably was extremely traumatized after the near-deadly incident, considering how recent her husband’s assassination was. But Kimmel thinks it is all a great big joke. While ABC is not a public broadcasting station that essentially receives a form of government subsidy, and therefore the government cannot challenge Kimmel’s employment directly, it is entirely reasonable for Melania to ask why the Walt Disney Company keeps funding this hideous human being’s show.

Why is Kimmel even still on the air? At the very least, Donald Trump needs to stop going on mainstream media like CBS News’ 60 Minutes and legitimizing these poisonous propagandists. The president and his wife are absolutely right that the media is fueling violent hatred, and therefore, Republicans should allow these same media stooges to fall into the complete irrelevancy they have so richly earned.

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Don’t get ahead of yourself: Only one man should decide and proclaim how the GOP should respond: the President.

• How the GOP Should Respond to the ‘Both Sides Are Guilty’ Nonsense (Pinsker)

If you’re an absent-minded married shlub, you’ve probably played the “golly gee, both sides were wrong, let’s move on” card, too. It goes like this:

Wife: Scott, why haven’t you taken out the garbage yet? I asked you two days ago. It’s starting to stink.

Me: But that was in the past! We need to look to the future. Let’s not dwell on the blame-game, honey — we’re better than that.

Wife: What are you talking about? Just take the garbage out, please.

Me: Look, we both contributed to the garbage. You threw away plenty of stuff, too. Probably more than me.

Wife: I can hear the garbage truck coming! Take it out to the street before it’s too late!

Me: Really, we’re both at fault: You asked me to do something — and somewhere along the way, there was a communication breakdown. So instead of pointing fingers, let’s be grownups and admit we were both wrong. Mistakes were made, but life goes on. That’s why pencils have erasers. Right?

Wife: [sighs] Never mind, I’ll do it.

Me: Thanks, honey. While you’re up, can you grab me a beer?

Yeah: It doesn’t work when you’re married any better than it’ll work for the Democrats. On the heels of yet another assassination attempt, the American people are beginning to recognize the media’s Political Violence Blame-Game Template. After all, it’s really not that complicated: When there’s no political violence: Blame Donald Trump and the GOP for inciting this awful, terrible epidemic of violence that doesn’t exist (yet).When a Democrat is the victim: Blame Donald Trump and the GOP for “extremist language” and racist/fascist “dog whistles” that are an “existential threat to democracy.” Demand greater civility in political discourse — while threatening to jail Republicans who appear “threatening” to liberals. (The only long-term solution to political violence, of course, is to remove Republicans from power.)

When a Republican is the victim: Blame both sides. (“It’s everyone’s fault! How the heck did things spiral out of control?”) Neither party has a monopoly on unstable nutjobs, but according to opinion polls, one side is a helluva lot more likely to support political violence than the other. Spoiler alert: It’s not the GOP.

For the Babylon Bee, the parody writes itself:

The assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner will likely dominate the headlines for the next several days. Unlike most Black Swan events, this one will have extra-long legs because:

1) All the D.C. journalists who witnessed it are highly incentivized to continue talking about the most exciting moment of their careers. Like I wrote yesterday, if reporters like Brian Williams can’t resist bragging about fake bullets, you better believe they’re gonna be talking nonstop about the real thing.

2) There’s a legitimate mystery to investigate: Who, what, when, and how was Cole Allen, the (alleged) “Friendly Federal Assassin” radicalized? On the surface, he seems like your normal, typical, nondescript leftist. As far as we know, this wasn’t a kid who was in and out of mental hospitals. So, was he radicalized by TikTok and Reddit? By the Epstein conspiracy? A hate-merchant like Hasan Piker? What pushed him over the edge?

Which means, the mainstream media will play the “both sides are equally guilty” card, but its attention will be diverted: Journalists can’t investigate Allen, beat their chests and brag about their (remarkable) bravery, AND be laser-focused on blaming both sides. Not enough oxygen in the room. Too many competing storylines to juggle. And therein lies the GOP’s opportunity. Because the media’s attention will be divided, the GOP will have a free hand to publicize its own message to the masses — and counterprogram the mainstream media. But we’ll have to be picky: With all the competing storylines, only one or two “talking points” will break through.

This means that we can’t say EVERYTHING we think about Cole Allen and left-wing political violence. We must be selective: It’s all about bang-for-the-buck. So how should the GOP counterprogram the Dems? Conservatives tend to favor intellectual, evidence-based arguments over raw emotions. It’s why we rely so heavily on statistics. Already on social media, we’re seeing swaths of posts about polling data — such as the one embedded above — that make a compelling mathematical argument about left-wing America’s sick tolerance of political violence.

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“Margaret Cho this week declared that “we need a feral, bloodthirsty, violent Democrat.”

• The New York Times Explores the Case for “Microlooting” to Murder (Turley)

“It is so hard to live ethically in an unethical society.” That lament heard this week from New York Times opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman could well be the Democratic Party’s epitaph. Spiegelman was interviewing two left-wing influencers about how everything from shoplifting to murder may be excusable today in light of the unfairness they see in society.


The podcast, a product of the nation’s newspaper of record, reveled in the moral relativism that has taken over the American left. It featured the ravings of the antisemitic Marxist streamer Hasan Piker, who calmly explained how the murder of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson was perfectly understandable. His rationalization came from Marxist revolutionary Friedrich Engels, who had called capitalism “social murder.” If capitalists are “social murderers,” then why not kill them? The logic is liberating and lethal for some on the left looking for a license for violence.

Mind you, this same newspaper had once condemned and effectively banned a U.S. senator for writing an op-ed advocating the use of the military to quell violent protests during the summer of George Floyd’s death. The Times even forced out its own opinion editor for having the temerity to publish such an opinion. But glorifying murder? The suggestion of open hunting season on corporate executives did not appear to shock or repel Spiegelman. After all, we are living in “an unethical society.” She explained that many felt that the murder of Thompson, the father of two, meant that “finally, someone can actually do something about health care.”

Even liberal comedians are practicing a literal version of slapstick. Margaret Cho this week declared that “we need a feral, bloodthirsty, violent Democrat.” To be far, Spiegelman did concede that it might seem a bit “scary” for some to start murdering our way to social justice. She also explained that shoplifting can be justifiable because people are “stealing from Whole Foods — not just for the thrill of it, but out of a feeling of anger and moral justification.” New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino also contributed to the podcast, titled “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” She immediately threw in her own experience with “microlooting” and explained why it is arguably moral: “I have, under very specific circumstances. I will say, I think that stealing from a big-box store [isn’t] significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest.”

She detailed her own past thefts and added, “I didn’t feel bad about it at all, in part because the store was a corporation. And it certainly felt, in a utilitarian sense, I was like, this is not a big deal. Right, guys?” Not in the confines of the New York Times, where apparently you are entitled to all goods that are fit to pilfer. The bizarre exchange highlighted the moral chasm that is opening its maw on today’s political left. In my book “Rage and the Republic,” I write about how rage helps people excuse any offense or attack. It dismisses the humanity of others and provides a license to hate completely and without reservation. It is not really murder or theft if there are no real humans on the other side, is it?

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And the country.

• Muslim Voters Are Reshaping U.K. Politics (JTN)

The growing numbers of Muslims in the United Kingdom, along with their organized and issue-driven politics, has made them an increasingly consequential – if not outsizes – part of the country’s electorate – representing new challenges for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left government and efforts to maintain a unified stance on key issues.Recent elections have shown the country’s estimated 4 million people, or roughly 6.5% of the country’s overall population, have been enough to determine electoral outcomes in specific districts and nudge national parties to re-calibrate their platforms.


U.K. foreign policy – particularly when it concerns heavily Muslim parts of the world such as Gaza and Iran – has become especially prickly, according to surveys. Changes among Muslim voters have also fragmented the traditional Labour Party coalition, and according to some reports, have accelerated a shift toward “transactional politics.” “The size of the Muslim population and even more so, the areas where it is concentrated are helping to leverage influence in key areas,” political scientist Rana Dancyger told Just the News. “They do not vote as a bloc, but their influence is large enough that their priorities must be taken into consideration.”

Census data shows that the U.K.’s Muslim population is concentrated in urban constituencies such as Birmingham, Bradford, parts of London, and cities in the north. The Muslim Council of Britain has for years identified dozens of constituencies in which Muslim voters could play a decisive role in tight races. That played out in 2024, the last national vote, where Starmer’s Labour Party lost significant support among constituencies with large Muslim populations, meaning hundreds of thousands of voters shifted away over protests on specific issues including the government’s policies on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, where roughly 99% of the population Muslim. And likewise with Iran, who’s at war with Israel and the United States, and whose population is 99% Muslim.

It didn’t hurt Labour in the final tally, in which Starmer and his allies swept the Conservatives out of office for the first time in 16 years. But the shift helped to fuel growth for more extreme parties, such as the Liberal Democrats and the right-wing Reform UK party. The shift has forced Starmer’s government into a delicate balancing act, as positions that in the past would have been framed through political alliances – such as support for Israel or backing Israeli and U.S. policies toward Iran — now carry clear domestic consequences.

Even within the Labour Party itself, Muslim members of parliament, other government officials, and activists, have become more vocal in criticizing government policies, making it increasingly difficult for Starmer to maintain a unified message. One survey warned that the historic ties between the Labour Party and Muslim representatives could be “at a breaking point,” adding to Labour’s woes stemming from weak economic growth and indirect ties to scandals involving the Epstein files in the U.S.

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Wonderful.

• Trump’s Prescription Drug Policies Make Small-Town Pharmacies Great Again (JTN)

President Donald Trump recently announced a substantial deal with drug manufacturer Regeneron to lower drug prices and onshore nearly $10 billion to $27 billion in U.S. manufacturing, further expanding access to domestic medicine, the absence of which has caused headaches for America’s thousands of community and rural pharmacies. “Seventeen of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, representing 80% of the branded drug market, have now agreed to sell their drugs to American patients at the lowest price anywhere in the world. This will result in the largest drop in prescription drug prices in the history of the United States of America,” Trump told the press Thursday during the announcement in the Oval Office.


Earlier in April, the Trump administration imposed a timed 100% tariff on patented pharmaceutical ingredients and products from most countries, which has accelerated the return of drug manufacturing to the U.S., producing stability and economic wins for independent pharmacies that have long struggled with supply-chain fragility. Key policy drivers include the April 2 Presidential Proclamation imposing 100% ad valorem tariffs on patented pharmaceuticals and ingredients (effective July 31 for major companies and September 29 for smaller companies). Companies with secretary of Commerce-approved onshoring plans qualify for a transitional 20% rate, which escalates to 100% on April 2, 2030, while MFN pricing agreements can yield 0% tariffs (with their own sunset provisions).

Complementary actions streamline FDA approvals and inspections to accelerate domestic manufacturing.The data have shown dramatic early results. In 2025 alone, drugmakers announced more than $370 billion in new U.S. manufacturing commitments – the largest reshoring wave in industry history – creating tens of thousands of jobs and dozens of new or expanded facilities. Major players have pledged over $480 billion total (e.g., Eli Lilly’s $27 billion for four new sites, Johnson & Johnson’s $55 billion including multiple plants, AstraZeneca’s $50 billion with a major Virginia facility, and similar multi-billion-dollar moves by Novartis, Roche, and others.)

The investments are generating roughly 44,000 direct manufacturing and support jobs while reducing reliance on overseas APIs, where 70–80% of U.S. generics and many branded drugs historically originated from China and India. For rural and small-town pharmacies, the re-shoring translates into tangible long-term gains. Independent operators – who often operate on razor-thin margins and serve Medicare/Medicaid-heavy populations – have faced chronic shortages, stock outs, and price volatility from global disruptions. Domestic production ramps are already easing those pressures by shortening supply chains, cutting transit risks and enabling faster replenishment.

Early signs that these policies are improving the industry, all the way down to small pharmacies, include stabilized generic supply in key categories (like antibiotics and diabetes treatments) and renewed local economic activity as new plants (many in heartland or Southern states) boost regional wages, supplier networks, and tax bases that indirectly support pharmacy viability. The administration’s parallel Rural Health Transformation Program further amplifies this by aligning pharmacies with goals like “sustainable access” and “make rural America healthy again,” positioning independents as frontline partners in expanded care delivery.

Read more …

“The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.”

• Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying the Hoax (Steve Cortes)

For years, Democratic politicians and their allies in the legacy media have spread the damnable Charlottesville Hoax: the propaganda myth that President Trump praised bigots who rioted in 2017 in the Virginia town. Of course, the opposite is true, as Trump actually said: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Now, we learn that the entire hoax of Trump and Charlottesville is, itself, built upon another grand lie. The media and people like Joe Biden have continually pushed the narrative that some big, organic gathering of hateful Americans descended upon Charlottesville and represented some larger threat to the republic itself. But it now turns out that the “Unite the Right” rally was organized and financed by the highly partisan, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a sweeping 11-count indictment, the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche charge the advocacy group with criminal defrauding of donors and “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” The charges contained in this indictment are akin to the fire department becoming an aggressive criminal arson enterprise, setting fires all across a town, and then demanding more budget and authority to fight the very infernos it set ablaze.

So…the end result is that America endured years of propaganda that convinced a large segment of the population – in contravention of the facts – that their president supported violent hate merchants. Even worse, masses of unskeptical Americans, who consume only legacy media content, believed that the entire America First populist movement was based on bigotry, rather than patriotism.

Now, nearly a decade later, the truth is revealed about the deception that lay beneath that grand lie. There was a layer of duplicity here that is almost difficult to fathom. Only true Marxists could excuse this level of propaganda. The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.

Read more …

“What matters now is ending the war as quickly and decisively as possible. . . After that, people can wrestle over the “moral and constitutional” quandary to their heart’s content.” —Brandon Smith

• The Siege of Iran, and Other Matters (James Howard Kunstler)

Other matters first, then Iran. The fall of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in an eleven-count fraud and money-laundering indictment is a watershed moment for exposing the bad faith business model of the Lefty-left: pay for the creation of imaginary monsters so you can pretend to be the defender of your fake victim-clients, the sundry “oppressed minorities” yearning to breathe free.


The money was paid to various manifestations of “white supremacy,” ranging from the good old Ku Klux Klan (more venerable in America’s memory than Frankenstein) to the avant-garde Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, affiliated with the Aryan Nation. And, turns out, the SPLC also engineered the Fine People Hoax in Charlottesville, 2020, that loomed so large in “Joe Biden’s” supposedly victorious campaign for president. The Left’s moral center-of-gravity is a black hole of grift and subterfuge.

Of course, this SPLC farrago might raise some questions about many other Lefty-left NGOs that infest our political landscape, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Black Lives Matter (BLM), and Al Otro Lado in California, which launders taxpayer money into all manner of freebies for illegal aliens — all of these orgs accused of rank improprieties. CAIR, which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, was declared a terrorist or transnational criminal organization by Texas and Florida. BLM grifters in Atlanta and Oklahoma City were indicted for wire fraud and money laundering.

Between the zillions of dollars flooding the USA from foreign dark money pass-thrus like the Soros family’s Open Society Foundations, the checkbook of Shanghai American expat Neville Roy Singham, The Tides Foundation, The Hopewell Fund, et cetera, ad infinitum, plus the taxpayers of California, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota, vast fortunes are pumped into civic mischief and chaos creation here, including all the riots of recent years. Is it not time, a least, to revoke the 501(c)(3) tax exemption status of all these nefarious outfits? Should be easy. (Paging Treasury Sec’y and IRS chief Scott Bessent!)

Next up: The Democratic Party’s savage stupidity played out this week in Virginia with a big election win for a shamelessly impudent Congressional redistricting scam that would sculpt away all but one GOP district of eleven on the Virginia map. NGOs poured a ton of money into the op. The ballot proposition was worded artfully “to restore fairness in upcoming elections,” which, as always with the Lefty-left, was the exact opposite of what it was designed to do.

Within hours, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley, Jr., ruled the proposition void and blocked Virginia from certifying the referendum. The case now speeds to the Virginia Supreme Court where the prop is expected to fail on at least four counts of blatant affront to the state’s constitution. Virginia’s new governor, former CIA analyst Abigail Spanberger, ran in 2025 on the explicit promise that she would not advocate a Congressional redistricting measure. This is exactly what Democratic Party bad faith looks like.

You’ve noticed, no doubt, that bad faith is not solely owned by the Democratic Party. We watch in wonder and nausea the bewildering psychodrama of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refusing to allow procedure that would get the Save Act passed (common sense election reform). Nor will Thune allow confirmation votes to proceed for nominated DOJ US attorneys and other jobs submitted by the executive branch. He shows every sign of wanting his party to lose. . .which means, allowing the Democratic Party to continue queering elections, including the crucial midterms. . . which means he wants our country to fail.

Seems like nobody knows what to do about Sen. Thune and his dishonorable cohorts in the chamber. If the president knows, he isn’t saying just now, and that would be consistent with his mode of fighting battles. But remember, Nicolás Maduro has been in US custody for months, and you can be sure he’s been debriefed on the subject of Dominion and Smartmatic voting machine shenanigans that originated in Venezuela years ago in order to ensure his own election. The FBI is also sitting on 2020 election evidence harvested out of Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona (perhaps other states, too). The truth about 2020 will come out, probably sooner than later, and when it does, Senator Thune will be sufficiently humiliated to drive him out of his post. He appears to be too dumb to realize that.

Now, as to Iran: The country’s putative “leadership” marinates in rage, impotence, and factional squabbling as the ceasefire dwindles. They can make some more mischief in the Persian Gulf, perhaps, but in a matter of days Iran’s oil industry will be permanently wrecked, its economy strangled, and its ordinary citizens in a desperate fury to make it all stop. If that doesn’t force a deal — no nukes, hand-over the 1000 pounds of Uranium, let in the neutral inspectors, etc. — then it’s onto the bridges and power plants. There really is no other way now. Show a little more patience. Won’t be long. The world will be a better place when this is over.

Read more …

Trump demands NO NUKES; not maybe, not halfway.. They can anwser yes or no. New proposals are useless.

• Iran Offers New Proposal To Reopen Strait – Trump Open To Deal Via Phone (ZH)

Running a little ahead of schedule, Sunday evening brought this week’s infusion of pre-Monday-open optimism about prospects of ending the US-Israel war on Iran. Axios’ Barak Ravid, a veteran of Israeli intelligence who routinely posts anonymously-sourced scoops, reported that Iran has presented a new proposal for opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the shooting — though Iran’s concept includes a potential non-starter via a proposed postponement of nuclear negotiations. No details were reported, beyond the notion of either an extended ceasefire or permanent end of the war that would accompany a full reopening of the strait.


Earlier on Sunday, President Trump said face-to-face discussions with the Iranians weren’t essential to ending the war. “If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone. We have nice, secure lines,” he told Fox News. “They know what has to be in the ` agreement. It’s very simple: They cannot have a nuclear weapon; otherwise, there’s no reason to meet.” Sunday’s micro-dose of hope capped a weekend in which negotiations were perceived as grinding to a clear stalemate marked by a lack of warfare but also a continued choking of traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, Trump’s lead negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, were poised to travel to Islamabad for another round of negotiations with the Iranians when Trump nixed their trip at the last minute.

Iranian Foreign Minister Shuttles Between Pakistan, Oman, Russia
Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Araghchi has “conveyed written messages regarding Iran’s red lines to the American side through Pakistani intermediaries.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been on the go. On Saturday, he left Pakistan after meeting with Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. On parting, Araghchi said he’d had a “very fruitful visit,” while cautioning it’s unclear “if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.” Then he was off to Oman for talks centered on re-opening the strait — which lies between the two countries — then back to Pakistan. By Monday, Araghchi was in St Petersburg, Russia for discussions with President Putin. Commenting on the relationship via X, Iran’s envoy in Russia said:

“Iran and Russia are present in a united front in the campaign of the world’s totalitarian forces against independent and justice-seeking countries, as well as countries that seek a ` world free from unilateralism and Western domination.”Trump: Iranian Oil Infrastructure In Peril From Limited Capacity Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the US blockade on traffic to and from Iranian ports is putting major pressure on the country’s export infrastructure: “When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships, which has happened to them — they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth.”

“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was.” That approximate scenario has also been outlined by the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “Once the tanks are filled, Iran would have to shut down its oil fields, which risks long-term damage to the fields,” AEI’s Annika Ganzeveld told the New York Post. A worst-case scenario doesn’t only imperil Iran’s economy, but also threatens to put more upward pressure on global energy prices. Analysts differ on how much time Iran has before a forced shutdown of production — with estimates ranging from mere days to seven weeks.

Read more …

NO nukes and NO control of the Strait.

• Bessent: IRGC Leaders ‘Trapped’ Like ‘Drowning Rats’ By US Blockade (ZH)

In the early evening of Monday, well after markets closed, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued the following on X (below), describing IRGC leaders as now “trapped like drowning rats” amid the enduring US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which will soon result in gasoline shortages and anger – and potential protests leading to uprising (according to US desires and aims). Also here is where things stand on the stalled negotiations, and an early hint of the potential White House reaction, per WSJ:


Iran has presented regional mediators with a new offer to stop its attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full end to the war, including the U.S.’s lifting of its naval blockade of Iranian ports and the postponement of nuclear negotiations, according to officials familiar with the matter. nThe proposal, presented by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his tour of the region and Pakistan over the weekend, is designed to break the deadlock in the conflict and set talks back in motion, the people said. President Trump and his national-security team are skeptical of Iran’s offer, U.S. officials said. Trump previously said negotiations could happen over the phone instead of in person.

And: “Trump held discussions with aides Monday morning about the offer. While he didn’t reject it outright, officials said Trump sounded notes about Iran not dealing in good faith or being willing to meet his key demand: ending nuclear enrichment and vowing never to make a nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile..

Rubio: ‘Will Not Tolerate’ Iran Control of Strait
The latest via WSJ on what Iran is proposing, centered on immediately lifting the US naval blockade on Iranian ports: Iran has presented regional mediators with a new offer to stop its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full end to the war and a lifting of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, according to officials familiar with the matter. The proposal, presented by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his tour of the region and Pakistan over the weekend, is designed to break the deadlock in the conflict and set talks back in motion, the people said. It would see discussions about Iran’s nuclear program shelved. Washington hasn’t responded to the proposal, one of the people said. Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told Fox News on Monday that the US will not tolerate Iran controlling or establishing a toll system in the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio further asserted that the strait would remain open either through international pressure or a coalition-led effort. Just days ago Iran began declaring that the first toll passage funds had been successfully transferred to the Central Bank of Iran, after Trump stated the US won’t allow a toll system. Rubio further said the US will not normalize the Iranians being essentially a gatekeeper, with countries seeking permission from Iran.

https://twitter.com/Martin_Sedi/status/2048783696749355471 Read more …

A theme that will grow in importance as we go along,

“Inside Chuck Grassley’s office there is an investigative team that every GOP senator and congressman will admit consists of the very best researchers and knowledgeable staff..”

• Senator Chuck Grassley’s Office Requests Answers from DOJ and FBI (CTH)

First, it becomes very important for people to understand some of the inside baseball in Washington DC circles in order to hold context for what has been made public today by the office of Senator Chuck Grassley. Inside Chuck Grassley’s office there is an investigative team that every GOP senator and congressman will admit consists of the very best researchers and knowledgeable staff officials on how the Deep State operates. Grassley’s office is the venue, the vehicle or vessel, for those investigators to operate; Chuck Grassley is not organizing this group – he facilitates it.

Just as Robert Mueller served as the figurehead holding the legislatively authorized power of the special counsel—while the actual investigative work was carried out by his team—Chuck Grassley similarly acts as a symbolic leader, with the real action happening within the organization he oversees. Mueller at 75-years old (2019) was to the special counsel as Grassley at 93-years old (2026) is to senatorial inquiry.

That said, today the office of Senator Chuck Grassley sent a dispatch of connected information about Hillary Clinton from DOJ/FBI files retrieved over the past several years as part of a longer-term investigation. Grassley’s office released the FBI Washington Field Office’s 12-page “electronic communication” (EC) that opened a preliminary investigation into the Clinton Foundation. [SEE HERE] They also released a trove of documents showing overwhelming evidence of pay-to-play criminal activity by the Clinton family and emphasize lack of response from the DOJ which highlights both politicalization and weaponization of information by the Department of Justice and FBI.

The FBI and DOJ buried the investigations of Hillary Clinton, yet the evidence of corruption was simply overwhelming. With time running out on their ability to retain the venue, in essence Grassley’s office is urgently asking the DOJ and FBI, how could this not have been prosecuted?

Chuck Grassley, who turns 93 in September, has served in the U.S. Senate for 45 years. Grassley has spent more than 50 years in Congress overall, having served in the U.S. House from 1975 to 1981 before being elected to his first term as senator. In 2022, Grassley was elected to an eighth term, winning against Democratic challenger Michael Franken with 56% of the vote — a smaller margin of victory than in many of his previous elections. He will be 95 by the time his current term ends in 2028.

Currently, Grassley serves as president pro tempore of the Senate, in addition to being the Senate Judiciary Committee chair. I strongly doubt there will be another Grassley term in office and given the stakes of the 2026 midterm election it looks like the people in his office are trying to push out as much information as possible while it can still do some good. I would bet you a donut this is the correct context to view this information flow.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/RMXnews/status/2048534614755467353?s=20 https://twitter.com/Gitmo99/status/2048574878026985630?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle July 4 2015

Jul 042015
 
 July 4, 2015  Posted by at 11:29 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


NPC George W. Cochran & Co., 709 14th Street NW, Washington DC 1920

• Stop Lying To The Greeks — Life Without The Euro Is Great (MarketWatch)
• This Euro Is Destroying The European Dream (Guardian)
• Whatever Happens To Greece, The Euro Is Unsustainable (Kohler)
• NSA Leak: Both Merkel And Schauble Saw Greek Debt As Unsustainable in 2011 (ZH)
• Varoufakis Prepares For Economic Siege As Companies Issue Private Currencies (AEP)
• Yanis Varoufakis, Are You Staying Put? ‘We Have A Duty To The People’ (Mason)
• Yanis Varoufakis Accuses Creditors Of Terrorism Ahead Of Referendum (Guardian)
• IMF Backs (Ever So Peculiarly) Syriza Government’s Debt Assessment (Varoufakis)
• The Real Losers From A Greek Exit Won’t Be In Greece (MarketWatch)
• ECB Said to Extend Backstop to Bulgaria Amid Greek Fallout (Bloomberg)
• Hopeful Start to Greek Debt Negotiations Quickly Soured (NY Times)
• How Europe Played Greece (Alex Andreou)
• Greek Banks Prepare Plan To Raid Deposits To Avert Collapse (FT)
• Europeans Tried To Block IMF Debt Report On Greece (Reuters)
• Angela’s Ashes: How Merkel Failed Greece and Europe (Spiegel)
• Greece (Steve Randy Waldman)
• Greek Mass Psychology Of Revolt Will Survive Financial Carpet-Bombing (Mason)
• Greek Economy Close To Collapse As Food And Medicine Run Short (Guardian)
• US Shale Drillers’ Safety Net Is Vanishing (Bloomberg)

Biggest economic failure in European history.

• Stop Lying To The Greeks — Life Without The Euro Is Great (MarketWatch)

Will the euro-fanatics please stop lying to the people of Greece? And while they’re at it, will they please stop lying to the rest of us as well? Can they stop pretending that life outside the euro — for the Greeks or any other European country — would be a fate worse than death? Can they stop claiming that if the Greeks go back to the drachma, they will be condemned to a miserable existence on the dark backwaters of European life, a small, forgotten and isolated country with no factories, no inward investment and no hope? Those dishonest threats are being leveled this week at the people of Greece, as they gear up for the weekend’s big referendum on more austerity.

The bully boys of Brussels, Frankfurt and elsewhere are warning the Greek people that if they don’t do as they’re told, and submit to yet more economic leeches, they may end up outside the euro … at which point, of course, life would stop. Bah. Take a look at the chart. It compares the economic performance of Greece inside the euro with European rivals that don’t use the euro. Those other countries cover a wide range of situations, of course — from rich and stable Denmark, to former Soviet Union countries, to Greece’s neighbor Turkey, which isn’t even in the EU. But they all have one thing in common.

During the past 15 years, while Greece has been enjoying the “benefits” of having Brussels run their monetary policies, those poor suckers have all been stuck running their own affairs and managing their own currencies (if you can imagine). And you can see just how badly they’ve suffered as a result. They’ve crushed it. Romania, Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Croatia — you name it, they’ve all posted vastly better growth rates than Greece. The data come from the International Monetary Fund itself. It measures growth in gross domestic product, per person, in constant prices (in other words, with price inflation stripped out). Greece adopted the euro in 2001.

And after 14 years in the same club as the big boys, they are back right where they started. Real per-person economic growth over that time: Zero. Meanwhile Romania, with the leu, has only … er … doubled. Everyone else is up. The Icelanders, who suffered the worst financial catastrophe on the planet in 2008, have nonetheless managed to grow. Yes, all data points have caveats. Each country has its own story and its own advantages and disadvantages. But the overall picture is clear: The euro has either caused Greece’s disastrous economic performance, or at least failed to prevent it.

Read more …

Amen.

• This Euro Is Destroying The European Dream (Guardian)

On Sunday the Greeks vote while the rest of Europe holds its breath. No matter how clunky the wording on the ballot paper, everyone knows what’s at stake. This is a moment of great peril, not only for the euro but for the European project itself. If Greece votes no, it’s hard to see how it can stay in the euro, which will represent the most grievous blow in the 16-year history of a currency whose momentum was always meant to be irreversible. If yes wins, and Syriza duly falls, the victory for the European powers could prove to be pyrrhic. Too many will believe that Brussels, and more pointedly Berlin, engineered the toppling of a democratically elected government.

Once Alexis Tzipras had, admittedly, put a gun to his own head by calling Sunday’s vote, the EU in effect told the Greek nation that the leaders they had chosen just six months ago were unacceptable and had to be removed. The moment will be cited ever after as proof that the EU’s approach to democracy is akin to Henry Ford’s view of consumer choice: you can have whatever colour you like, “so long as it is black”. For things to have reached such a pass – in which Greeks are being asked to select yes for organised penury or no for the chaotic variety – is surely an indictment of the single currency. Any scheme that can result in such a crisis – to say nothing of the stagnant growth, unemployment and poverty that have plagued much of the eurozone since the crash – is bound to be branded an unambiguous failure.

What’s more, it is now acting as a repellent for the European idea itself: witness the rise of populist anti-EU parties in Spain, Italy and beyond. That prompts a question, one that will only get sharper whether the Greeks leave the euro and descend into economic mayhem or stay and suffer back-breaking debt repayments. Is the disaster of the euro strangling the larger European project it was meant to serve? Could it be time to kill off the euro in order to save the European Union?

Read more …

It’s dead in the water.

• Whatever Happens To Greece, The Euro Is Unsustainable (Kohler)

The latest Greek crisis should end next week after the people surrender this weekend, but Europe’s foundations will continue to weaken: this won’t be the last existential crisis for the euro. Unless greater fiscal and political union accompanies the monetary union, it will eventually, noisily, fall apart. But this crisis, at least, is almost over. The Greeks would vote ‘yes’ on Sunday to almost any question they are asked to get access to what’s left of their euros. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will then agree to Germany’s demands for reform against the overruled objections from his party, German cash will start flowing again through the ECB, and Greece’s banks will reopen to sighs of relief all round. Most importantly, funds will be released to repay the IMF.

The eurozone’s mistake was letting the IMF get involved in 2010. The incompetence, or negligence, of its then managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who acted against the advice of many of his member countries (including Australia) and half of its staff, set up Greece for failure. The IMF’s refusal to restructure Greece’s debt in 2010, and instead to insist on crushing austerity in return for more cash, was a terrible mistake. The Eurogroup attempted to repair the situation in 2012 with the restructure that replaced almost all of the private lenders, but the damage to the Greek economy had been done. Ironically, the IMF has changed its mind and is now arguing that Greece needs some debt relief.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis declared this week that he would rather cut off his arm than sign another “pretend and extend” agreement that did not include debt relief, and that he’d resign if the people voted ‘Yes’. Meanwhile the IMF issued this review of Greece’s debt and commented that it needs €60 billion over three years, plus debt relief. The IMF’s central position in the 2010 bailout inserted a hard-line outsider into what had been a cosy arrangement — the 15-year-old European Monetary Union, in which Germany props up the southern countries with loans and they stagger on, burdened with debt, propping up Germany’s export machine. Greece’s failure to make its IMF loan repayment on Tuesday was a disaster for everyone: the IMF, Greece, Germany and the ECB. It is a mistake that should never have happened.

The IMF now has the largest and most prominent delinquent debtor in its history; Greece sits on the edge of catastrophe and Germany, the ECB and the EU are complicit in the threat to the euro itself. They accepted the IMF’s money and conditions in 2010 and now, in reality, it is they who are refusing to repay.

Read more …

“..why is Syriza getting hell for pushing what both Germany in 2011 and the IMF now admit has to happen in order to have a viable Greek nation>”

• NSA Leak: Both Merkel And Schauble Saw Greek Debt As Unsustainable in 2011 (ZH)

Several days ago, we posted a NSA cable leaked by Wikileaks, in which then French finance minister Moscovici (currently a European commissioner) was admitted that the French economic situation was “worse than anyone [could] imagine and drastic measures [would] have to be taken in the next two years.” It has not improved since then. Overnight, in another perhaps even more relevant to the current quagmire in Greece leak, Wikileaks has released another intercepted NSA communication between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her personal assistant which reveals that not only Merkel, but Schauble, were well aware that even with a debt haircut (which took place in 2012 but only for private creditors and whose impact was promptly countered with the debt from the second bailout) Greek debt would be unsustainable.

Technically, she did not use that word: she said that “Athens would be unable to overcome its problems even with an additional haircut, since it would not be able to handle the remaining debt.” She was right. And yet here she is, telling Tsipras and the Greek people that all Greece needs is to comply with the existing program when she knows well by her own admission that Greece is insolvent in its current state – precisely what Syriza is arguing and demanding be part of any deal. Because why bother making a deal if Greece will once again be in default a few months down the line, just as Varoufakis said earlier today. But where it gets really humorous is where the cable notes that even “Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble alone continued to strongly back another haircut, despite Merkel’s efforts to rein him in… with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde described as undecided on the issue.”

Fast forward to today and now Lagarde is decided, and the IMF admits a 30% Greek haircut is necessary. So, one wonders, why is Syriza getting hell for pushing what both Germany in 2011 and the IMF now admit has to happen in order to have a viable Greek nation. Unless, of course, they don’t want a viable Greek nation, and instead want a vassal state that is constantly on the brink of collapse and thus creating enough systemic risk to constantly push the EUR lower. Because, just in case anyone has forgotten, the real issue here is not the fate of Greece or even the rest of the PIIGS, but how can Germany continue enjoying a currency that is substantially weaker than what a far stronger, and export-crushing Deutsche Mark would be at this very moment.

Read more …

Ambrose’s bromance with V. grows.

• Varoufakis Prepares For Economic Siege As Companies Issue Private Currencies (AEP)

Greece has stockpiled enough reserves of fuel and pharmaceutical supplies to withstand a long siege, and has set aside emergency funding to cover all the country’s vitally-needed food imports. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, said the left-Wing Syriza government is still working on the assumption that Europe’s creditor powers will return to the negotiating table if the Greek people don’t agree to their austerity demands in a referendum on Sunday. “Luckily we have six months stocks of oil and four months stocks of pharmaceuticals,” he told The Telegraph. Mr Varoufakis said a special five-man committee from the Greek treasury, the Bank of Greece, the trade unions and the private banks is working feverishly in a “war room” near his office allocating precious reserves for top priorities.

Food has been exempted from an import freeze since capital controls were introduced last weekend. Grains, meats, dairy products, and other foodstuffs should be able to enter the country freely, averting a potential disaster as the full tourist season kicks off.
The cash reserves of the banks are dwindling fast as citizens pull the maximum €60 a day allowed under the emergency directive – already €50 at many banks. “We can last through to the weekend and probably to Monday,” Mr Varoufakis said. Despite assurances, the crisis is likely to escalate fast if there is no resolution early next week. Businesses in Thessaloniki and other parts of the country are already creating parallel private currencies to keep trade alive and alleviate an acute shortage of liquidity. [..]

The Greek crisis is likely to come to a head one way or another soon after the referendum. The ECB is expected to restore emergency liquidity for the Greek banking system almost immediately if there is a “yes”, an outcome likely to trigger the downfall of the Syriza government and the creation of a national unity administration. The ECB has given strong hints that it will tighten the tourniquet yet further if there is a “no” vote – probably by raising collateral requirement – pushing Greek banks that it also regulates towards the abyss. This is a legal minefield since the ECB has a treaty duty to uphold financial stability. Syriza has said it will consider legal action at the European Court of Justice if this occurs.

Mr Varoufakis warned that the EU institutions are courting trouble if they respond to a democratic vote by the Greek people in such a way. “I find it hard to believe that Europe will continue to insist on an impasse because their own money will go up in smoke,” he said. The eurozone has well over €300bn of exposure in one form or another. Apart from normal bail-out loans, the ECB itself has €27bn of Greek bonds and has extended roughly €120bn in liquidity support through ELA funding for the banks and Target2 payments support. “They are very vulnerable. Target2 becomes a real loss if a country leaves the euro,” he said.

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Mason tries to sound tough.

• Yanis Varoufakis, Are You Staying Put? ‘We Have A Duty To The People’ (Mason)

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis tells Paul Mason that Syriza has been offered a deal from Greek creditors that the government would sign – but he won’t say where it is.

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And he’s right.

• Yanis Varoufakis Accuses Creditors Of Terrorism Ahead Of Referendum (Guardian)

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, has accused the country’s creditors of terrorism, in an interview published on Saturday. “What they’re doing with Greece has a name: terrorism,” Varoufakis told Spain’s El Mundo. “What Brussels and the troika want today is for the yes [vote] to win so they could humiliate the Greeks. Why did they force us to close the banks? To instil fear in people. And spreading fear is called terrorism.” The escalation of his rhetoric comes as Greece prepares to vote on Sunday in the referendum that could decide the country’s continued membership of the eurozone.

The Greek economy is on the brink of collapse after the capital controls imposed before the referendum left the country with shortages of food and drugs, the tourist industry facing a wave of cancellations and banks with barely enough money to survive the weekend. Holding political rallies and publishing new opinion polls are banned 24 hours before the vote, the result of which remains too close to call. Polls have narrowed in recent days after warnings from the European commission and Greece’s eurozone partners that a no vote would lead to Greece’s ejection from the single currency. A GPO poll put the yes voters on 44.1% and no on 43.7%, while an Alco survey found 44.5% would vote yes, with 43.9% intending to vote no.

Many voters have switched to the yes camp since capital controls were imposed this week limiting daily cash machine withdrawals to just €60. Greeks queued once again on Saturday morning to make withdrawals as fears mounted about the state of the country’s economy. Banks said they had a €1bn cash buffer to see them through the weekend – equal to just €90 (£64) a head for Greece’s 11 million people. However, they will need immediate help from the European Central Bank on Monday whatever the result of the referendum.

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Should have been done in 2010.

• IMF Backs (Ever So Peculiarly) Syriza Government’s Debt Assessment (Varoufakis)

Debt relief ought to be at the centre of negotiations over a New Deal for Greece. That has been our government’s mantra from 26th of January, our first day on the job. Exactly five months later, on 26th of June, the IMF has conceded the point (as evidenced earlier today by the NYT) – on the very day Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for a referendum so that the Greek people could reject an IMF-led proposal that offered no… debt relief. The IMF’s latest debt sustainability analysis (DSA) is a fascinating read. For the first time, the IMF recognised that, in its fifth review assessment, there was a low probability that Greece’s public debt would prove sustainable.

Here is an extract from the IMF’s own report confessing that, to portray Greek public debt as sustainable (without substantial debt relief), its researchers had to make the assumption that “…Greece would go from having the lowest average total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the euro area since it joined the EU in 1981 to having among the highest TFP growth, and that it would go to the highest labor force participation rates and to German employment rates.” Pigs would, of course, sooner fly!

When asked how productivity growth would do the ‘pole vault’ from the euro area’s lowest to the euro area’s highest levels, with employment recovering fully (and in the absence of credit and investment), the IMF’s standard answer is: “To achieve TFP growth that is similar to what has been achieved in other euro area countries, implementation of structural reforms is therefore critical.” But, Chapter 3 of the IMF’s April 2015 World Economic Outlook report tears this assumption to pieces. Indeed, the IMF’s own research shows that labour market reforms have a negative impact on total factor productivity while product market reform has a neutral one.

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Damn right.

• The Real Losers From A Greek Exit Won’t Be In Greece (MarketWatch)

Another weekend, another Greek knife’s edge. As the markets close ahead of the weekend, they will be prepared for another couple of days of drama in the epic saga of the Greek debt crisis, looking to see whether the country will vote for or against the latest bailout package in a referendum scheduled for Sunday, and whether that in turn is the trigger its final exit from the euro. We will find out by Monday morning. One thing should be clear, however. Sooner or later, Greece is going to get out of the single currency. And there is a paradox in that which most commentators have so far missed. When the moment comes, the Greeks themselves will be just fine. But the collateral damage will be huge.

Most countries that tumble out of dysfunctional currency unions are back on their feet very quickly. Its victims? It will be a black day for the IMF, for the EU, for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and for the gold bugs. Their standing may never recover from the blow that a “Grexit” will deliver. The situation in Greece has descended so deep into chaos that it is anyone’s guess what will happen next. It might still be in the euro next week. It might have re-launched the drachma, or a parallel euro. Heck, who knows, perhaps it will have adopted the dollar or the ruble as its currency? Everyone in Athens, Brussels and Berlin seems to be flying blind at this point, and if there is a plan somewhere no one can find it right now. Anything might happen.

Even so, if there is a Grexit, and that seems the most likely option with the banks already closed, and the country already in default, then in fact the country will recover fairly quickly. The Gr-covery will not be long in coming (after which, there should be a ban on smart-alec words starting with “Gr” — they are getting Gr-iresome). Most countries that tumble out of dysfunctional currency unions are back on their feet very quickly. Take Argentina for example. After the dollar peg ended in 2002, between 2003 and 2007 it averaged growth of 8.5% a year. Greece might not quite manage that, but with wage costs equal to Eastern Europe after devaluation, and with all the infrastructure that comes from being in the EU for 30 years, it should do just fine.

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Nothing for Greece, but loans for Bulgaria, which is nowhere near the eurozone economically. Hmm…

• ECB Said to Extend Backstop to Bulgaria Amid Greek Fallout (Bloomberg)

The ECB is set to extend a backstop facility to Bulgaria and is ready to assist other nations in the region to ward off contagion from Greece, according to people familiar with the situation. The ECB would provide access to its refinancing operations, offering euros to the banking system against eligible collateral, the people said, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is confidential. The ECB and the Bulgarian central bank declined to comment. Eastern Europe is at risk of tremors from Greece via ties ranging from trade to finance, with lenders from the debt-ridden country owning almost a third of banking assets in Bulgaria. The possibility of Greece abandoning the euro after shutting banks and imposing capital controls has left eastern European currencies among this week’s worst emerging-market performers.

“The threat of ‘Grexit’ has understandably cast a dark cloud over the outlook” for the region, London-based Capital Economics Ltd. said last week in a note. “Ties with Greece are sizable in a few places, including Bulgaria and Romania.” Bulgaria and its banks have been a main focus of concern for European Union officials looking at potential fallout from the Greek crisis in the region, according to people familiar with their thinking. Yields on euro-denominated Bulgarian government debt due 2024 were little-changed at 3.14% Friday, having risen during the past week on Greek concerns.

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Decent background.

• Hopeful Start to Greek Debt Negotiations Quickly Soured (NY Times)

Last Friday morning, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, gathered his closest advisers in a Brussels hotel room for a meeting that was meant to be secret. All the participants had to leave their phones outside the door to prevent leaks. A week of tense negotiations between Greece and its creditors was coming to an end. And it was becoming increasingly clear to the left-leaning prime minister that he could not accept the tough economic terms that his lenders were demanding in exchange for new loans. As Mr. Tsipras paced and listened on the 25th floor of the hotel, his top aides argued that neither Germany nor the International Monetary Fund wanted an agreement and that they were instead pushing Greece into default and out of the euro.

The night before, at a meeting of eurozone leaders at the EU headquarters, Mr. Tsipras had asked Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany about including debt relief with a deal, only to be rebuffed again. This is going nowhere, the 40-year-old Greek leader said in frustration, according to people who were in the room with him. The more we move toward them, the more they are moving away from us, Mr. Tsipras said. After hours of arguing back and forth about possible responses, Mr. Tsipras made a decision to get on a plane and go home to call a referendum, according to the people who were in the room. This decision by Mr. Tsipras to ask his people to back or reject, as he had recommended, the latest set of austerity measures for Greece sent shock waves through Europe.

Just days before the Sunday vote, the outcome remained too close to call. Many here, however, now think that a “no” vote would ultimately lead to Greece’s exit from the euro. This referendum will be one of the most important votes in Greece since it became an independent nation in 1830. Why Mr. Tsipras took such an extreme step remains puzzling. But a close look at the events of the last week — based on interviews with some of the participants and others briefed on the discussions — reveals an accumulation of slights, insults and missed opportunities between Greece and its creditors that led the prime minister to conclude that a deal was not possible, regardless of any concessions he might make.

Greece’s creditors see it differently, of course. In their view, Mr. Tsipras, who swept into power on a wave of anti-austerity support, was only interested in a deal that would go light on austerity measures and deliver maximum debt relief. He could not and would not comply with any agreement that required more sacrifices from the Greek people. Still, for a week that ended with so much enmity, its start was auspicious.

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Logically, a NO vote in Athens July 5 should mean the end of Merkel, Hollande, Juncker, Dijsselbloem, Schultz, Schäuble, etc. But it won’t, will it?

• How Europe Played Greece (Alex Andreou)

Do these things, they said, for all our sakes and you will return to prosperity with our help. They lied. “They have decided to strangle us, whether we say yes or no”, said a Greek woman to me yesterday. “The only choice we have is to make it quick or slow. I will vote “oxi” (no). We are economically dead anyway. I might as well have my conscience clear and my pride intact.” Her view is not atypical among friends and relations I have canvassed in the last few days. Trust has evaporated. Faith in European Institutions is thin on the ground. Lines have been crossed. At times of financial strain, a country’s currency issuer, its central bank, should act as lender of last resort and prime technocratic negotiator. In Greece’s case, the European Central Bank, sits on the same side as the creditors; acts as their enforcer.

This is unprecedented. The ECB has acted to asphyxiate the Greek economy – the ultimate blackmail to force subordination. The money is there, in our accounts, but we cannot have access to it, because the overseers of our own banking system, the very people who some months ago issued guarantees of liquidity, have decided to deny liquidity. We have phantom money, but no real money. There is a terrifying poetry to that, since the entire crisis was caused by too much phantom money in the first place. EU Institutions are now openly admitting that their aim is regime change. A coup d’état in anything by name, using banks instead of tanks and a corrupt media as the occupiers’ broadcaster. The rest of Europe stands back and watches. Those leaders who promised the Syriza government support before the election, have ducked for cover.

I understand it. They sympathise, but they don’t want to be next. They are honourable cowards. They look at the punishment beating being meted out and their instinct is to protect their own. Many people within Greece have the same reaction. “[Tsipras] is an idealist”, a friend wrote, “but I don’t know whether idealism has the power to change reality. Life has shown me the opposite to be true. I will vote “yes”, with tears in my eyes. I will be another Brutus.” This tacit collusion, both within Greece and around Europe and the World, with the economic waterboarding being administered to a country on its knees, is made possible by a single politically expedient narrative: That Greece deserves to suffer and should just pay its debts. It is the single most common comment I have had on social media. And the most bitter to swallow.

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Vehemently denied by V.

• Greek Banks Prepare Plan To Raid Deposits To Avert Collapse (FT)

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said. A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in 2013, when customers’ funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000. It would be implemented as part of a recapitalisation of Greek banks that would be agreed with the country’s creditors — the EC,IMF and ECB.

“It [the haircut] would take place in the context of an overall restructuring of the bank sector once Greece is back in a bailout programme,” said one person following the issue. “This is not something that is going to happen immediately.” Eurozone officials said no decision had been taken to wind up any Greek banks or initiate a bail-in of depositors, a process that would be started by the ECB declaring the banks insolvent or pulling emergency loans. Greece’s banks have been closed since Monday, when capital controls were imposed to prevent a bank run following the leftwing Syriza-led government’s call for a referendum on a bailout plan it had earlier rejected. Greece’s highest court rejected an appeal by two citizens on Friday who had asked for the referendum to be declared unconstitutional.

Depositors can withdraw only €60 a day from bank ATM cash machines, while requests to transfer funds abroad have to be approved by a special finance ministry committee in co-operation with the Greek central bank. Two senior Athens bankers said the country had only enough cash to keep ATMs supplied until the middle of next week. This followed the ECB’s decision this week not to increase Greece’s allocation of emergency liquidity assistance after the bailout programme ended on June 30.

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“..a dispute between Brussels and the IMF that has been simmering behind closed doors for months.” What’s Lagarde’s role in all this?

• Europeans Tried To Block IMF Debt Report On Greece (Reuters)

Euro zone countries tried in vain to stop the IMF publishing a gloomy analysis of Greece’s debt burden which the leftist government says vindicates its call to voters to reject bailout terms, sources familiar with the situation said on Friday. The document released in Washington on Thursday said Greece’s public finances will not be sustainable without substantial debt relief, possibly including write-offs by European partners of loans guaranteed by taxpayers. It also said Greece will need at least €50 billion in additional aid over the next three years to keep itself afloat. Publication of the draft Debt Sustainability Analysis laid bare a dispute between Brussels and the IMF that has been simmering behind closed doors for months.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras cited the report in a televised appeal to voters on Friday to say ‘No’ to the proposed austerity terms, which have anyway expired since talks broke down and Athens defaulted on an IMF loan this week. It was not clear whether an arcane IMF document would influence a cliffhanger poll in which Greece’s future in the euro zone is at stake with banks closed, cash withdrawals rationed and commerce seizing up. “Yesterday an event of major political importance happened,” Tsipras said. “The IMF published a report on Greece’s economy which is a great vindication for the Greek government as it confirms the obvious – that Greek debt is not sustainable.”

At a meeting on the IMF’s board on Wednesday, European members questioned the timing of the report which IMF management proposed at short notice releasing three days before Sunday’s crucial referendum that may determine the country’s future in the euro zone, the sources said. There was no vote but the Europeans were heavily outnumbered and the United States, the strongest voice in the IMF, was in favor of publication, the sources said.

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According to Der Spiegel, Merkel’s big mistake is not taking a harder line with Greece. Oh, and Tsipras is a radical idiot.

• Angela’s Ashes: How Merkel Failed Greece and Europe (Spiegel)

Angela Merkel relishes her reputation as queen of Europe. But she hasn’t learned how to use her power, instead allowing a bad situation to heat up to the boiling point. Her inability to take unpopular stances badly exacerbated the Greek crisis. Angela Merkel was already leaving for the weekend when she received the call that would change everything. The chancellor had just had a grueling day, spending all of it in meetings with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras – sometimes as part of a larger group, and others with only him and French President François Hollande. They discussed debt restructuring and billions of euros in additional investments. When it comes to issues important to him, Tsipras can be exhaustingly stubborn.

In the end, though, Merkel was left with the feeling the EU summit was the milestone that could quite possibly mark a turn for the better. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, had pulled Merkel aside in Brussels and whispered to her that Tsipras was seeking allies in the opposition, with whom he could push a reform program through Greek parliament even without the consent of the radical wing of Syriza, if necessary. “Can you help me?” Tsipras had asked Schulz. Schulz has good connections in the Social Democratic PASOK Party. But when Merkel returned to Berlin, she received a call from Tsipras. He told her that he was not interested in a deal, but that he intended to hold a referendum in Greece first. A short time later, he tweeted: “With a clear ‘NO,’ we send a message that Greece is not going to surrender.”

Merkel is known for not being easily fazed. She has made it this far in part because she has firm control of her emotions. And she remained silent throughout the weekend. But at a Monday meeting of leading members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she hinted at the depth of her disappointment in Tsipras. His policies are “hard and ideological,” she said, adding that he is steering his country into a brick wall “with his eyes wide open.” Merkel had always described Tsipras as a man who, while leading a crazy organization, was quite open and accommodating in person. She had hoped that Tsipras would ultimately help reason prevail. Now, though, it appears that he has handed Merkel the greatest debacle of her tenure as chancellor.

In the end, of course, it will primarily be the fault of the radical Greek government if the country is ejected from the euro zone. How should one deal with a prime minister who conducts negotiations using the language of military mobilization? “We have justice on our side. If we can overcome fear, then there is nothing left to fear,” Tsipras tweeted on Monday. But the divide that is now opening up in Europe also has something to do with Merkel’s leadership style – and with her idiosyncrasy of allowing things to drift for extended periods. This method works when it comes to negotiating a compromise, and when everyone involved is interested in a favorable outcome. But it reaches its limits when someone like Tsipras is determined to carry things to the extreme.

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“Throughout the crisis, European elites have faced a simple choice: Acknowledge and explain to electorates their own mistakes, or revert to a much older playbook and manufacture scapegoats. Such tiny, tiny people.”

• Greece (Steve Randy Waldman)

The fact of the matter is no country, not Germany, not France, would voluntarily put up with the sort of “adjustment” that has been forced on Greece, for the good reason that gratuitous great depressions are not actually helpful to an economy. Creditors have had five years to mismanage Greece and they’ve done a startlingly effective job. Syriza has had five months to object. However much you may dislike their negotiating style, however little you think of their competence, Greece’s catastrophe was not Syriza’s work. If creditors respond to Syriza’s “intransigence” with maneuvers that cause yet more devastation, that will be on the creditors. Blaming victims for having insufficiently perfect leaders is standard fare for apologists of predation.

Unfortunately, understanding this may be of little comfort to the disemboweled prey. Europe’s creditors are behaving exactly as one might naively predict private creditors would behave, seeking to get as much blood from the stone as quickly as possible, indifferent to the cost in longer-term growth. And that, in fact, is a puzzle! Greece’s creditors are not nervous lenders panicked over their own financial situation, but public sector institutions representing primarily governments that are in no financial distress at all. They really shouldn’t be behaving like this.

I think the explanation is quite simple, though. Having recast a crisis caused by a combustible mix of regulatory failure and elite venality into a morality play about profligate Greeks who must be punished, Eurocrats are now engaged in what might be described as “loan-shark theater”. They are putting on a show for the electorates they inflamed in order to preserve their own prestige. The show must go on. Throughout the crisis, European elites have faced a simple choice: Acknowledge and explain to electorates their own mistakes, which do not line up along national borders of virtue and vice, or revert to a much older playbook and manufacture scapegoats. Such tiny, tiny people.

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They’re really fed up with Europe.

• Greek Mass Psychology Of Revolt Will Survive Financial Carpet-Bombing (Mason)

When Times correspondent George Steer entered the city of Guernica in April 1937, what struck him were the incongruities. He noted precisely the bombing tactics “which may be of interest to students of the new military science”. But his report begins with a long paragraph describing the city’s ceremonial oak tree and its role in the Spanish feudal system. Sitting in Athens this week, I began to understand how Steer felt. Sunday’s referendum will take place under a kind of financial warfare not seen in the history of modern states. The Greek government was forced to close its banks after the European Central Bank, whose job is technically to keep them open, refused to do so. The never-taxed and never-registered broadcasters of Greece did the rest, spreading panic, and intensifying it where it had already taken hold.

When the prime minister made an urgent statement live on the state broadcaster, some rival, private news channels refused to cut to the live feed. Greek credit cards ceased to work abroad. Some airlines cancelled all ticketing arrangements with the country. Some employers laid off their staff. One told them they would be paid only if they turned up at an anti-government demonstration. Martin Schulz, the socialist president of the European parliament, called for the far-left government to be replaced by technocrats. And the Council of Europe declared the referendum undemocratic. With ATM cash limited to €60 a day, one shopkeeper described the effect on her customers: on day one, panic buying; day two, less buying; day three, terror; day four, frozen.

The words you find yourself using in reports, after looking into the eyes of pensioners and young mothers, make the parallel with conflict entirely justified: terror, fear, flight, panic, uncertainty, sleeplessness, anxiety, disorientation. If the effect was to terrorise the population, it has only half worked. The pollsters are simply finding what Greek political scientists already know: society is divided, deeply and psychologically, between left and right.

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Draghi should be dragged before a court for this. How about The Hague?

• Greek Economy Close To Collapse As Food And Medicine Run Short (Guardian)

Greece’s economy is on the brink of collapse after the capital controls imposed ahead of Sunday’s referendum left the country with shortages of food and drugs, the tourist industry facing a wave of cancellations and banks with barely enough money to survive the weekend. Banks said they had a €1bn cash buffer to see them through the weekend – equal to just €90 (£64) a head for the 11 million-strong population – and would require immediate help from the ECB on Monday whatever the result of the referendum, in which the two sides are running neck and neck. Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, was fighting for his political life on Friday night, using a rally to say that a no vote would enable him to negotiate a reform-for-debt-relief deal with the country’s creditors.

The survival of the Syriza coalition, formed just over five months ago to repudiate five years of austerity programmes, was in doubt as Greece started to suffer shortages of basic provisions, including the sale of vital drugs in pharmacies nationwide. Food staples, such as sugar and flour, were also fast running out on Friday as consumers started to feel the effect of the restrictions. “We have shortages,” said Mary Papadopoulou, who runs a pharmacy in the picturesque district of Plaka beneath the ancient Acropolis. “We’ve run out of thyroxine [thyroid treatment] and unless things change dramatically we’ll be having a lot more shortages next week.”

Greek islands, where thousands of holidaymakers headed this week, have also been hit, with popular Cycladic destinations such as Mykonos and Santorini reporting shortages of basic foodstuffs. More than half of Greece’s food supplies – and the vast majority of pharmaceuticals – are imported, but with bank transfers now banned, companies are unable to pay suppliers. Queues were reported at every cash machine in Athens on Friday night and business groups warned that the economic shutdown in the week since Tsipras called the referendum had already caused lasting damage to the economy. “Imports, exports, factories, firms, transport – everything is frozen,” said Vasilis Korkidis, who heads the national Confederation of Hellenic Commerce. “The only sectors in demand are food and fuel.”

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Crazy that there still is one.

• US Shale Drillers’ Safety Net Is Vanishing (Bloomberg)

The insurance protecting shale drillers against plummeting prices has become so crucial that for one company, SandRidge Energy Inc., payments from the hedges accounted for a stunning 64% of first-quarter revenue. Now the safety net is going away.
The insurance that producers bought before the collapse in oil — much of which guaranteed minimum prices of $90 a barrel or more — is expiring. As they do, investors are left to wonder how these companies will make up the $3.7 billion the hedges earned them in the first quarter after crude sunk below $60 from a peak of $107 in mid-2014.

“A year ago, you could hedge at $85 to $90, and now it’s in the low $60s,” said Chris Lang, a senior vice president with Asset Risk Management, a hedging adviser for more than 100 exploration and production companies. “Next year it’s really going to come to a head.” The hedges staved off an acute shortage of cash for shale companies and helped keep lenders from cutting credit lines, many of which are up for renewal in October. With drillers burdened by interest payments on $235 billion of debt, $89 billion of it high-yield, a U.S. regulator has warned banks to beware of the “emerging risk” of lending to energy companies.

Payments from hedges accounted for at least 15% of first-quarter revenue at 30 of the 62 oil and gas companies in the Bloomberg Intelligence North America Exploration and Production Index. Revenue, already down 37% in the last year, will fall further as drillers cash out contracts that paid $90 a barrel even when oil fell below $44. West Texas Intermediate for August delivery added 78 cents to $57.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:45 a.m. New York time. Hedges purchased from banks or other traders allow drillers to lock in a sale price. Some guarantee a specific value. Others ensure a minimum payment regardless of how much the market moves, but require the oil company to pay some of it back if the price exceeds a certain threshold.

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