EU Austerity – on the semi-periphery

Dimitri Lascaris explains the Syriza move

Posted on 2015/08/21 - 2015/08/21 by jd

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Dimitri Lascaris ‘…And there are various aspects of the Greek constitution that are triggered by this decision. Essentially the Greek constitution, as I understand it, provides that if an election is called within one year of the formation of the government then it must be held within 30 days of the calling of the election, first of all. And secondly, the opposition parties must first be given an opportunity before the election is actually held to form a government. That means that New Democracy, the neoliberal party that was last in power and that was displaced from power by Syriza, would be given the opportunity to form a government with other parties. And the leader has said that he’s going to do that. He’s going to try to do it. And if he fails, then it would go to the third-largest party, which is the neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn. They would be, then be afforded an opportunity to form a government.

I think there’s very little prospect of either of them being able to form a coalition government that would command a majority

[….] In the interim, a new government must be put in place, a caretaker government, until the election is held. And under the Greek constitution the prime minister of that government must be the president of the Greek supreme court, a 65-year-old jurist by the name of Vassiliki Thanou. And she is a vocal opponent of the bailout…’

Source: The Real News Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Tenders His Resignation

https://youtu.be/MLbZ4lCXvXI

Paul Mason explains: Capitalism is failing, and it’s time to panic —video

Posted on 2015/08/13 - 2015/08/13 by jd

‘Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster.’

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Yanis Varoufakis and Brecht’s Threepenny Opera

Posted on 2015/07/31 - 2015/07/31 by jd

varoufakis

Stern.de: You talk as if you were in the midst of warfare.

Varoufakis: It was a war. A financial war. Nowadays you don’t need tanks to defeat someone. You have your banks. It’s a bit like in Brecht’s ‘Threepenny Novel’ where it says: “The days of crude violence are over. You no longer have to send out murderers if you can simply send a bailiff.”

via Yanis Varoufakis: "They bury the values of democracy" – Ausland | STERN.de.

https://youtu.be/bl1HLS9DWXI?t=1h15m54s

Remember when debt relief was political?

Posted on 2015/07/12 - 2015/07/12 by jd

It always has been political.

New York Times March 1991:
‘Western governments have agreed to forgive about half the $33 billion that Poland owes them…’

via POLAND IS GRANTED LARGE CUT IN DEBT – NYTimes.com.

The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Doesn’t Work

Posted on 2015/07/09 - 2015/08/13 by jd

It is a testament to the power of global state ideology and its media system that this paragraph’s contents are not more widely known – especially considering the source!

‘…"If the income share of the top 20% (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20% (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth," the report says.

The paper looks at 159 advanced and developing economies between 1980 and 2012, investigating how income is distributed in each society and its level of national growth. It finds that when the income share of the top 20% increases 1%, economic growth is then down 0.08% in the following five years. At the same time, a 1% increase for the bottom 20% leads to increased GDP of 0.38% in the following years…’

via The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Don't Work | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.

An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel – Austerity Has Failed

Posted on 2015/07/08 by jd

In the 1950s, Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth and peace. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed program of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.

To Chancellor Merkel our message is clear; we urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.

via Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel | The Nation.

The diplomatic beatings administered to Syriza

Posted on 2015/06/23 by jd

Aditya Chakrabortty writes…

‘…The diplomatic beatings administered to Syriza since it came to power this year can only be seen as Europe trying to set an example to any Spanish voters who might be tempted to support its sister movement Podemos. Go too far left, runs the message, and you’ll get the same treatment.

Whatever the founding ideals of the eurozone, they don’t match up to the grim reality in 2015. This is Thatcher’s revolution, or Reagan’s – but now on a continental scale. And as then, it is accompanied by the idea that There Is No Alternative either to running an economy, or even to which kind of government voters get to choose.

The fact that this entire show is being brought in by agreeable-looking Wise Folk often claiming to be social democratic doesn’t render the project any nicer or gentler. It just lends the entire thing a nasty tang of hypocrisy.

via Greece is a sideshow. The eurozone has failed, and Germans are its victims too | Aditya Chakrabortty | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Goldman Sachs restricts workday to 17 hours a day

Posted on 2015/06/18 - 2015/06/18 by jd

Go home before midnight, and don’t come back before 7am. Goldman Sachs – one of Wall Street’s toughest firms – has told interns they have got to work hard, but not too hard.

The new rules, introduced for this summer’s crop of investment banking interns, have been introduced “to improve the overall work experience of our interns”, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. All of its summer interns across the world were informed of the new working hours rule on their first day in the office earlier this month.

Wall Street’s shift to caring capitalism comes in the wake of the death of a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern who had regularly pulled all-nighters in a desperate bid to impress his bosses.

Moritz Erhardt was found dead in the shower at his London accommodation after working 72 hours straight. An inquest found he died of an epileptic seizure that could have been a triggered by his long working hours.

via Goldman Sachs restricts intern workday to 17 hours in wake of burnout death | Business | The Guardian.

Goldman Sachs only wants for their own employees what they also impose on entire nations…

Euronews video: 2011

IMF study disproves the Trickle Down theory (2015)

Posted on 2015/06/18 - 2015/06/18 by jd

even the communists at the IMF agrees…

‘First, we show why policymakers need to focus on the poor and the middle class. Earlier IMF work has shown that income inequality matters for growth and its sustainability. Our analysis suggests that the income distribution itself matters for growth as well. Specifically, if the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth. The poor and the middle class matter the most for growth via a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels…’
— http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf

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Video: WikiLeaks to offer $100,000 bounty for missing TPP trade treaty chapters

Posted on 2015/06/02 - 2015/06/02 by jd

Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

more info: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-issues-call-for-100-000.html

wlogo-sm

V Is for Varoufakis — His family’s history

Posted on 2015/05/22 - 2015/05/22 by jd

‘… Yanis Varoufakis traces his political consciousness to his childhood in “the junta era” — the years when Greece was ruled by dictatorship. “It was very hard to avoid being political,” he said. “It was all around you.” His father, he said, was raised as “a liberal enlightenment person, not a left winger,” but when he immigrated to Greece from Cairo in the late 1940s, the royalist-communist civil war was underway. One day, the police roughed him up but said they would release him if he signed a denunciation of communism. “He said, ‘Look I am not a Buddhist, but I would never sign a denunciation of Buddhism,’ ” Varoufakis said. “He read Rousseau at 13 years old, and he knew about civil liberties.” He ended up in a concentration camp with communists — and joined the Communist Party, which made finding work nearly impossible. Eventually, he got a low-paying job as a personal assistant to the owner of a steel company, and today, at age 90, he is its chairman. Varoufakis’s mother, a biochemist, made “a pittance,” he said, because she was a woman. She became involved in the feminist movement in the 1970s. Varoufakis was also a political activist from a young age. When he began his career as an academic at the University of Essex, he said, his slogan became “subvert the dominant paradigm,” which some of his students later put on a T-shirt.
Varoufakis left England in 1988 to teach at the University of Sydney, where he began a series of conversations about the global economy with the economist Joseph Halevi, the two of them among academics in their field who contested the notion then popular that the world had entered a new phase of “perpetual growth,” what the former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the “great moderation.” After the crash, Varoufakis decided to put those ideas into a book for a popular audience titled, “The Global Minotaur,” which presented the world, and Europe, as perilously yoked to the fluctuations of the American economy. When the crisis finally reached Greece, Varoufakis began working with the British economist Stuart Holland and, later, the American economist James Galbraith, on a pamphlet titled, “A Modest Proposal,” which identified four major crises in Europe — in banking, public debt, underinvestment and social welfare — and proposed solutions to each. “Europe is fragmenting,” they wrote. “As this happens, human costs mount, and disintegration becomes an increasing threat. . . . The fallout from a eurozone breakup would destroy the European Union, except perhaps in name. And Europe’s fragmentation poses a global danger.”
via A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy? – NYTimes.com.

read ‘A Modest Proposal’ @ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/

In one paragraph: Why the SNP won in the 2015 UK elections

Posted on 2015/05/10 by jd

‘…The swing to the SNP is political pragmatism at its best – the Scots electorate – a politically savvy bunch at the best of times – are simply ensuring they have the best representation at Westminster you can possibly have; a bloc that will fight to get what they were promised [by the Conservatives, Labour and LibDems] at the referendum…’
via The UK is now a failed state – Al Jazeera English.

Representative Parliamentary ‘Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor’

Posted on 2015/05/09 by jd

Giles Fraser writes about this week’s UK election:

‘…What difference did my vote make? Why indeed do people vote, and care so passionately about voting, particularly in constituencies in which voting one way or the other won’t make a blind bit of difference? And why do the poor vote when, by voting, they merely give legitimacy to a system that connives with their oppression and alienation? The anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee suggests a fascinating answer: elections are like religious rituals, often devoid of rational purpose or efficacy for the individual participant, but full of symbolic meaning. They are the nearest thing the secular has to the sacred, presenting a moment of empowerment.
But is this empowerment illusory? Is, as Banerjee asks, “the ability to vote … a necessary safety valve which allows for the airing of popular disaffection, but which nevertheless ultimately restores the status quo. In such a reading, elections require the complicity of all participants in a deliberate mis-recognition of the emptiness of its procedures and the lack of any significant changes which this ritual brings about, but are a necessary charade to mollify a restless electorate.”…’

via Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Who was the woman that threw confetti at Mario Draghi?

Posted on 2015/04/16 - 2015/04/17 by jd

So it seems that the confetti terrorist that attacked the European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi is a one-woman splinter group of Femen.

At last!, Femen does something worthwhile!

‘…She had no need for violence at Wednesday’s ECB protest.“I got in like anybody else – there’s this airport control thing, but I didn’t carry any weapons except for confetti in my bag” [….] “The confetti attack was not a Femen protest – I’m sorry ladies. I consider myself a freelance-activist”, she wrote, accompanied by the hashtag #exfemen, indicating she’s no longer part of the group….’
via Who is the woman that threw confetti on Draghi?.

Mario Draghi Attacked by Protester at ECB Press Conference

Posted on 2015/04/16 - 2015/04/16 by jd

‘April 15 — European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was attacked by a protester yelling “end the ECB dictatorship” during a press conference today. The event resumed a few minutes later.’

UPDATE: Who was the woman that threw confetti at Mario Draghi?
http://redjade.noblogs.org/20150416/990

David Harvey Interview: Syriza and Podemos

Posted on 2015/03/20 - 2015/03/20 by jd

Sounds like Hungary.

il manifesto: In the book you predict a new cycle of revolts. Yet an appraisal of the last few years would have to say that the Arab Spring has proven a disaster, while Occupy has not been able to transform itself into an effective political force. Do you think the answer is something like Podemos, which has been able to give political expression to the 15-M movement?

David Harvey: Syriza and Podemos have opened up a political space, because something new is happening. What is it? I can’t say. Of course there will be those on the anti-capitalist left who accuse them of ‘reformism’. That may well be true, but they have also been the first forces to put forward some policies, and once we’ve started down that road then that will open up new possibilities. Finally breaking with the mantra of austerity and smashing the power of the Troika would, I believe, create the space for new perspectives, which could then further develop. I think that at this stage, this kind of parties we are seeing in Europe is the best thing that we can hope for, beginning to define the Left alternatives that we are currently lacking. They will probably be populist – with all the limits and dangers that populism entails – but as I have said, this is a movement: it opens up spaces, and what we can use these spaces for depends on our capacity to ask, ‘OK, now that we’ve got this far, what should we do now?’

via VersoBooks.com.

German WWII war reparations for Greece?

Posted on 2015/03/18 by jd

‘In an op-ed for Spiegel Online, Gesine Schwan, a former presidential candidate, said Germany "needs to clean before its own door" when it comes to its Nazi past, noting that victims and descendants have longer memories than perpetrators and descendents.

"It looks awkward when well-off Germany demands the repayment of debts from poor Greece but is itself not prepared to even speak about the repayment of a forced loan by Nazi Germany on Greece," she wrote.

[….] Greece is seeking compensation on three accounts – general war reparations, a claim resulting from a massacre of 214 people in the Greek village of Distomo in 1944 and the repayment of the forced loan that the Nazis got from the Greek central bank in 1943. The total amounts to hundreds of billions of euros.

Germany, for its part, says it has honoured its obligations, having paid Greece 115m Deutchmarks in 1960. It also argues that the matter was closed by the 1990 ‘two plus four treaty’ signed by West and East Germany, as well as the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the US.

But this has been disputed in a 2013 report by the German parliament’s research service which argued that these agreements do not necessarily fully close the matter…’

via Prominent German politicians side with Greece on war reparations.

European Commission tells Greece not to pass anti-poverty law

Posted on 2015/03/17 - 2015/03/17 by jd

‘Declan Costello, director at the EC’s directorate for economic and financial affairs, has ordered the radical left-led coalition governemnt in Greece to stop. A planned law to allow tax arrears to be paid in instalments, set before the Greek parliament on Thursday, has also been vetoed [….] Mr Costello’s letter effectively says that if the Greek parliament votes on the new law tomorrow, it is a violation of the compromise deal signed by finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on 20 February in Brussels…

via Don’t pass new anti-poverty law, commission tells Greece | Paul Mason | Paul Mason.

Eight Lessons from Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos

Posted on 2015/03/14 - 2015/03/14 by jd

Lesson 1: Clearly identify the enemy.
Lesson 2: Against the oligarchs and the “totalitarianism of the market” which serves as a cover for their interests, we, the forces of democracy, have to fight back.
Lesson 3. Inequality is objectionable, but more fundamental is people being denied the things that they need.
Lesson 4. Draw a link between what working people need and what society as a whole needs.
Lesson 5. Have a program. Say what you will do—don’t get dragged into debates about how you will do it.
Lesson 6. A program needs spokespeople, and it really helps when those spokespeople are or will be in government.
Lesson 7. Like Greeks, Americans think that their political system is broken—and they want an alternative.
Lesson 8. No mourning for golden days.

via 8 Lessons American Progressives Can Take From Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos – In These Times.

Ukraine Must Accept Deep Cuts, ‘Reforms’ in $17.5 Billion IMF Loan Deal

Posted on 2015/03/12 - 2015/03/12 by jd

Who could have predicted that price of ‘Western Democracy’ was anti-democratic neo-liberalism?
/snark

‘In other Ukraine news, the International Monetary Fund has agreed to extend a $17.5 billion loan package to Kiev in a bid to help prevent economic collapse. The credit will be provided in return for deep structural reforms and cuts to government spending.’
via Ukraine Accepts Deep Cuts, Reforms in $17.5 Billion IMF Loan Deal | Democracy Now!.

Video + Statement: Greek Anarchists occupy Syriza’s headquarters

Posted on 2015/03/09 - 2015/03/09 by jd

Greek Anarchists have occupied Syriza’s headquarters in Athens as an act of solidarity with an ongoing hunger strike.

The statement from the occupation:
‘Today Sunday 8 of March we occupy the central offices of the government SYRIZA in Koumoundourou Street.
We stand in solidarity with the hunger strikers, political prisoners in Greece, and we ask that their demands are satisfied.
1. Abolition of the Anti-terrorist Law Α’, article 187, Law 2001 (criminal organization)
2. Abolition of the Anti-terrorist Law B’, article 187A, Law 2004 (terrorist organization)
3. Abolition of the “hoodie law” (acts committed with concealed physical characteristics)
4. Abolition of the legal framework for type C prisons
5. The immediate release from prison of Savvas Xiros (convicted for his participation in the R.O. 17 November) on health grounds
6. Against the criminalization of the family relations of the members of the R.O. Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.
via Anarchists occupy Syriza’s headquarters.

The success of European Capitalist-Feminism

Posted on 2015/03/07 - 2015/03/07 by jd

And notice also that this is being implemented during an economic crises and Capitalism is under no threat of collapse because of this new policy.

Just saying.

‘…Germany on Friday became the latest and perhaps most significant country so far to commit itself to improving the representation of women on corporate boards, passing a law that requires some of Europe’s biggest companies to give 30 percent of supervisory seats to women beginning next year.

[….] In passing the measure, Germany joined a trend in Europe to legislate a much greater role for women in boardrooms. Norway, Spain and France have set their boardroom quotas for women at 40 percent. Belgium, Iceland, Italy and the Netherlands have also set quotas.

[….] Under the new measure, some 100 of Germany’s best-known companies must give 30 percent of their supervisory board seats to women starting next year. A further 3,500 companies have a deadline of Sept. 30 to submit plans to increase the share of women in top positions…’

via German Law Requires More Women on Corporate Boards – NYTimes.com.

Hack the Euro

Posted on 2015/03/05 by jd

Hacked Euro Banknotes Depict Bleak Images of Economic Instability.

Yes, Syriza did sell out – for up to 4 months

Posted on 2015/02/24 - 2015/02/24 by jd

‘Eurozone finance ministers agreed to consider extending financial assistance to Greece, which is formally known as the Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement, for up to 4 months….’
via Eurogroup Summery Statement 20/02/2015

and read…

‘…The Greek authorities reiterate their unequivocal commitment to honour their financial obligations to all their creditors fully and timely.
The Greek authorities have also committed to ensure the appropriate primary fiscal surpluses or financing proceeds required to guarantee debt sustainability in line with the November 2012 Eurogroup statement. The institutions will, for the 2015 primary surplus target, take the economic circumstances in 2015 into account.

In light of these commitments, we welcome that in a number of areas the Greek policy priorities can contribute to a strengthening and better implementation of the current arrangement. The Greek authorities commit to refrain from any rollback of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions….’
via Eurogroup statement on Greece – Consilium.

The Syriza backdown

Posted on 2015/02/23 by jd

The always informative euro|topics website offers a synopsis (greek word!) from four different european newspaper of the Syriza back down in the face of the German economic strangulation of Greece…

‘The left-wing Syriza alliance and the right-wing populist Independent Greeks party have forged a coalition in record time. What these unequal partners have in common is their rejection of austerity. Can Prime Minister Tsipras convince the EU to ease the pressure on Greece?…’

via Athens rebels against austerity dictates
— EuroTopics.