Brussel’s worst nightmare is coming true. The one thing the Trioka has fought so hard to do is kill any democratic vote by the people in any country about the Euro. This is now not about the terms of austerity which they still cannot understand is DEFLATIONARY and supports debt holders at the expense of society because politicians borrow forever, waste money, and the hand the bills to the people – TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
They are trying to scare the Greeks that they will be the loser, when in fact it is really the other way around. Protests in support of a NO vote (GRexit) are not only crowding the streets in Athens, they are coming out in Britain in support of Greece. What comes to mind is Mel Gibson’s classic movie – Brave Heart when he, playing Willian Wallace the hero of Scotland, is being disemboweled and his last words are – FREEDOM!
The break down in negotiations followed a rejected extension proposal put forward by Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Meanwhile, the Greek parliament voted on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ proposed a referendum to secure popular support for their staunch negotiation position. The government won approval for the vote, which will be held on Sunday July 5th. This vote may decide the fate of Greek’s future in the Eurozone not whether to accept the terms.
Yet it is true that Greece is holding a referendum on a proposal that no longer exists according the Trioka. What makes sense here is that the people are entitled to vote. This is what everyone forgets. We are supposed to be in a “free society” and politicians believe only in their power rather than the will of the people. Even the trade deal handed to Obama is of the same nature removing the right of the people to even participate.
This is the Crisis in Democracy I have warned about since the mid 1980s. It never matters what form of government we adopt. It ALWAYS, and without exception, expands its rights against the people and that sets in motion the perpetual cycle of civil unrest and revolution. This is why there has never been a single form of government which has ever endured throughout time.
It is time for Greece to yell FREEDOM, for the brain-dead concepts of the Trioka cannot even see any solution. All they see is their own power and jobs. They assume they will be fine as long as they suppress the people and strangle the economy by authoritarianism. They fail to see that their collapse is INEVITABLE for they cannot sustain a system that is economically impracticable any more than Communism was sustainable. They can tell the press to stop calling them the Trioka, but that is who they remain – the three headed monster of old.
Methinks Mrs Nora may be able to help out the Greeks. Help them find themselves at the bottom of an even deeper hole.
+1
“Good” Armstrong makes an appearance.
It’s very hard to take someone seriously when they can’t spell, or use grammar or punctuation correctly.
Martin Armstrong’s Mistake du Jour: it’s ‘troika’, numbnuts. Spelled T-R-O-I-K-A. Troika.
They leave, they starve.. They stay, they starve.
Should have been ants not grasshoppers.
Yawn.
by Karl Denninger
To Greeks: Don’t Believe The BS
As I have repeatedly pointed out there is no mechanism available to force a nation out of either the Euro or EU.
That simply does not exist.
The rhetoric that if you vote against “austerity” and paying back the debt you are inherently voting to leave the EU is false. That lie is being promulgated by people who you ought to declare are acting in treason against your nation and issue arrest warrants for them.
However, this does not mean that defaulting is “cost free” or will be easy. It will not. Defaulting will force you to deal with the following facts which you cannot avoid whether you default or not:
The government cannot spend more than it taxes. Not now, not ever. Period. Deficit spending is exactly identical, mathematically, to a tax of the exact same amount in that when you issue currency to fund a deficit you are diluting the purchasing power of everyone who holds it. In the EU, however, you cannot employ that mechanism freely because you are not your own currency issuer (as the United States is.) If you return to the Drachma, however, you still cannot freely spend more than you take in via taxes because doing so is exactly identical to taxing the same amount. In other words having the Euro means you must honestly deal with your budget issues rather than trying to lie about them.
The people of your nation must decide how much government you want, and then you must pay for it in the present tense. This is the inescapable conclusion of the fact above. Your nation, like so many others, has lied about this for decades. You must stop, and you must stop now. Neither I or anyone else can tell you how much government you “should” have; that’s a political decision for all of you to make as Greek citizens.
So what does defaulting do for you?
Simple: It removes from your balance sheet the arguably-illegal debt that was taken on in your name and forces those who hold it to eat it. This will make the issuance of future debt by anyone else in the EU more expensive, but it should be expensive to borrow; borrowed money is a tool that has as its only legitimate purpose short-term, existential threat-related needs such as repelling an invasion by a foreign power.
Yes, on the 5th you should vote to reject the so-called “program” and deliver to your government a mandate to repudiate all of the debt contracted since you entered into the EU. All of that was entered into under false pretense with explicit conspiracy between your former government, EU government organs and international banking institutions including the ECB.
You must also pry loose the documentation that Bloomberg, along with others, has requested on these schemes and scams and then issue indictments against those who caused your nation to fall under this burden. These acts were arguably criminal frauds and must be prosecuted. It is utterly essential that those who commit such acts not get away with it, as the only deterrence available against future frauds is the certainty of punishment when caught committing them.
This transition will be very difficult for you to stomach, for you have been lied to for a very long time. You have been told you can spend more than you make on an indefinite basis. This is a pernicious and outrageous lie but arithmetic cannot be bargained with; it just is. The fundamental nature of exponents means that any such attempt is doomed to spectacular failure and the only means to prevent it is not to engage in such foolishness.
A “Yes” vote on the 5th will be a vote for economic slavery. You must not engage in such as your children, grandchildren and those not yet born not only have no obligation to allow you to get away with that you have no right to attempt it. Instead you must vote NO and then live within your means, holding the political debate on what sort and size of government you wish to have, funding each and every obligation it contracts with current taxes.
Throw off the previous frauds, to be certain, for you must do that in order to recover as a people and economy.
But you must, at the same time, stop lying to both yourself and others.
Godspeed.
Denninger is an idiot. “You have been lied to” does not absolve them of being complicit and stupid and equally guilty.
Greeks allowed their country to be corrupt to the bone. They still allow it. They do not pay their taxes, they fight for their age 55 retirement, they allow protected industry, they do nothing about the miles and miles of red tape, they employ vast numbers of govt drones, etc., but Denninger would have us believe that the Greeks are so fucking stupid they were totally unaware of what was going on. Bullshit. They knew. And they know. That is why 80% want the Euro, and 80% want no strings attached to borrowing as much as they want.
The key bit is “their government borrowed the money”. Well, fuck me, their government is them. If they allowed uncontrolled government, then tough titty.
But “you have been lied to” absolves them of any responsibility, and they should go punish those responsible. What a load of shit. The Greek people are responsible.
Yes, they should vote no, because that is their only chance to ever resurrect an honest society. Nor that I think it will happen if they vote no. I think they will spiral into a generation long depression. They are incapable of being honest. They will not make the necessary changes – cut pensions, increase the retirement age, get rid of the protected guilds, slash government drones.
If they leave the EU they will not do these things. Unemployment will soar to 40 or 50 percent.
They are fucked until they decide that work and thrift are the answer.
He did acknowledge their complicity in the last two sentences, tho.
Stiglitz writes in the Guardian “the economics behind the programme that the “troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) foisted on Greece five years ago has been abysmal, resulting in a 25% decline in the country’s GDP.” I can think of no depression, ever,” he says, “that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences: Greece’s rate of youth unemployment, for example, now exceeds 60%.”
He continues:
We should be clear: almost none of the huge amount of money loaned to Greece has actually gone there. It has gone to pay out private-sector creditors – including German and French banks.
Nuff’ said.
Russia – bullshit.
The money was loaned originally by the private banks, and blown on government drones and welfare and early retirement, etc.
Then the private banks were paid back via the money from the other sources – IMF, ECB, etc.
But the original money that was loaned was blown by the Greeks. Who were unable to pay back the private banks, so the other banks then stepped in, loaned Greece the money to pay the private banks, and continue to roll over those loans so that Greece does not default on those loans.
Except now, the loans are no longer being rolled-over, and as a result Greece has “defaulted”.
Your implication/statement that Greece did not get the money, and blow it, is total bullshit.
Llpoh, just curious, no dog in this. Isn’t what’s about to happen in greece what needs to happen just about everywhere? I always think miami is run the same way greece has been run, and it just won’t be paid back. Does it matter why at this point? Shouldn’t all this debt destruction have happened in 2008?
Star, the old adage neither a borrower nor lender be should be in effect.
Govts need to stop borrowing to fund welfare. Totally stop it. Now.
Banks should stop loaning money in high risk situations. High interest rates need to be demanded, not the paltry amounts currently on offer.
If you borrow, I believe you got to pay it back. If it takes fifty years, tough fucking shit. Default because it is too hard is bullshit.
If you make bad loans, you suffer the consequences. Such is life.
But there needs to be enormous pain for not repaying loans. Just walking away – not an option in my book.
Printing money non- stop needs to stop.
Everything needs to stop now.
But I am not going to advocate defaulting on obligations. That is not my way.
But still I know that more is owed than can ever be paid.
So I can only forecast catastrophe.
I’m with you, but. Take ft.lauderdale, where I live.we had 2 referendums, 2 years apart. Do we want to build a new half billion dollar courthouse? Better than 2/3rds no, both times. They’re building it anyway. They break ground on libraries, stadiums, parking garages, the police borrowed 300 million to pay their pensions. We aren’t voting for this stuff
You are voting for the asshats that vote for that stuff. Tar and feather them sems like the appropriate solution. Where is the mass outrage?
People get the govt they deserve. And want, generally.
Who should feel the enormous pain for this? Me? I’ve had ventures go bad. I’ve had a quarter million dollars in credit card debt. Nobody ever lost a dime. I have no idea what my credit score is, it’s irrellevent to me. Same guys have funded me for years, they’ve seen how i handle problems, they weren’t losing sleep when I owed them
BTW – I did not mean “you” you. That is the royal you.
You know better. But the rest do not, it seems. So they get what they get. And need to pay the price for the stupidity.
Unfortunately you – and by this I mean you individually and specifically – get to carry the can for their stupidity too. It comes with living in a society. Jointly and severally liable. Total bullshit, but there it is.
Isn’t that swell? I would suggest that you move to somewhere where the people are smarter, but I know of no such place in general.
Which is why I yanked up roots, and am well underway to getting down to zero – save for property tax and sales tax – taxes paid.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. There is no honor nor intelligence left in the system.
Run for your lives while you still can.
Star – and that is why I say folks have to pay off their debt – in ifs, ands, or buts. You did it. I did it, my business partner did it.
These were not situations where folks were held up at gunpoint, or where there was no other choice. Yes, people were eager to loan it to them. Caveat emptor has to be the way of the world.
These motherfuckers AGREED to borrow the money. They said they would pay it back. So pay it back. We are not talking about Africa, for fuck sake, we are talking about a first world nation that freely entered into the fucking agreements. Honor and integrity means they have to pay it back. But they do not have those qualities.
The world is fucked. When societies start repudiating their agreements then it is time to bend over and kiss your asses goodbye.
But public debt wrung up against the will of the voters? Sure, the goverment drones who have been helping themselves need to feel the pain badly. It’s coming. Greece is a good start, as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t feel any guilt about the coming defaults. They need to happen .american globalization has corrupted the world. And no, we vote asshats out regularly. Doesn’t seem to help
I’m five years behind you, age wise and escape wise. I think about it every day. I research, I plan, I dream. The coming default epidemic should blow right by me. I have no debt. I hold little paper. Deflation would benefit me greatly at this point
But llpoh, look at who the lenders are. The banks, who just printed that money out of thin air. It’s counterfeit. Unearned, nobody ever worked a day for it.To pay it back is to launder it, and unjustly enrich the banks. My sympathies are with the taxpayers, not the griftets
Star – they are all guilty. Replacing one asshat with another is not voting them out.
The people need to drag folks like you, the Admin, Stuck, SSS, me kicking and screaming into the various offices. Then such as us need to repudiate the welfare state, the ridiculous pension s being promised, etc.
Anyone wanting to be a politician should not be allowed to be. It should be like paying taxes – forced on you at gunpoint.
Llpoh says:
Star – they are all guilty. Replacing one asshat with another is not voting them out.
The people need to drag folks like you, the Admin, Stuck, SSS, me kicking and screaming into the various offices. Then such as us need to repudiate the welfare state, the ridiculous pension s being promised, etc.
_____________________________________
and with that, I find myself wondering if you would accept money from Sheldon Adelson. Really.
“U.S. stocks traded higher Tuesday, despite Greece getting closer to a default, as investors become mildly optimistic the country would reach an 11th-hour deal with its creditors after European Union authorities made a last-minute offer to Athens. All 10 sectors in the S&P 500 traded higher, led by gains in the energy, financial and materials sectors.”
heh heh heh heh fuckity fuck fuck fuck-me-in-the ass
Another fine day of playing Kick-the-can-down-the-road …. the game that can seemingly last forever.