StephenKMackSD's Blog

More predictable hysterical chatter ! Is your strategy to flood the internet with your ‘journalism’, masquerading as thoughtful observation and comment? The picture that accompanied your tweet, of the lonely despairing pensioner was a propaganda coup de théâtre!

A partial description of that strategy:

The Left as the perpetual villain, Syriza and it’s operatives, while the apologists for the snake oil of the ‘Free Market’ @EconEconomics: the  apologists for the Neo-Liberal canard of a ‘Democratic Europe’, engage in continual acts of self-absolution!

The euro the instrument of Anti-Keynesianism:

But Mundell, a can-do Canadian-American, intended to do something about it: come up with a weapon that would blow away government rules and labor regulations. (He really hated the union plumbers who charged a bundle to move his throne.)
“It’s very hard to fire workers in Europe,” he complained. His answer: the euro.

The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government’s control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession.

“It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians,” he said. “[And] without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business.

He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace – or the plumbing.

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-euro-is-a-big-success-no-kidding/

Germany as ‘serial defaulter’:

‘Yet the eurozone, too, deserves substantial blame for the outcome. One would never guess from its rhetoric that Germany was a serial defaulter in the 20th century.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fcb2fb16-1e5c-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3fY0Kfkxz

Like the effective propagandists you recycle your ‘reportage’, so as not to waste your talent and resources! Those Oxbridgers don’t come cheap! Call your strategy mendacious and utterly shameless! Yet the negotiations continue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/business/greece-debt-plan-at-next-crucial-stage-as-finance-ministers-meet.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Or this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/world/europe/in-athens-greeks-muse-on-tsiprass-abrupt-reversal.html

Political Observer

http://www.economist.com/node/21656878?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/greektragedy

Even if the contents of Ms. Nemtsova’s carefully constructed bill of attainder are true, the critical reader has the historical  facts of the Ukrainian Coup, as an object lesson of EU and US NGO’s as subversive operatives, in the installation of Yats, and then Poroshenko and his ‘anti-communist law’!

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/06/ukraine-anti-communist-laws-stir-controversy-150601054437645.html

Recall Ms. Nuland passing out cookies to the Revolutionaries? A Madame Defarge, awaiting victory and political ascent?  Putin’s Witch Hunt has no basis in fact or history, just an exercise in self-interested paranoia mongering, as an internal propaganda weapon? In terms that some Americans might comprehend, a political disciple of McCarthy or Nixon?

Michael Weiss and his allies and confederates have completely colonized this publication, making it an auxiliary to the imperatives of Nuland/Pyatt/Power/Rice quartet of Neo-Cons/R2PZealots and former proteges of the unlamented  professional bully Richard Holbrooke. Under the leadership of  this trio of Black Widows plus a capon, and the feckless Obama, WWIII is just offstage waiting  for it’s cue! The present Proxy War in the Ukraine is just a series of preliminary skirmishes until the main event? Who in this generation has any inkling of what Spain was about? This collection of political romantics, like their intellectual precursor Leo Strauss, are about the claim of being the natural inheritors of the mantle of the Platonic Guardians: mythical political aristocrats, yet not a Scipio among them! The War with Russia is a fact, and the actions of Putin, Obama and his technocrats only confirm this dismal fact.

Political Observer,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/09/putin-s-witch-hunt-targets-foreign-agents-and-intellectuals.html

 ‘Ryan admitted, though, that he didn’t know the exact context for Bush’s remarks.’

Ryan is a political propagandist who disguised his Budget Proposals as actual Budgets, and political hacks like Douthat fell all over themselves, in calling this merde ‘policy entrepreneurship’!

“Absolutely, we can deliver 4 percent growth if we get the fundamentals right,” Ryan said. He listed tax reform, regulatory reform, health care reform, and the federal debt as the “basics and fundamentals” that could achieve unprecedented levels of growth well into the 21st century.

Just call this chatter about ‘reform’ more neoliberal rationalism, in sum meaning class warfare, or the active destruction of what remains of The New Deal, as roadblock to the radiant future of American Corporatism! That Corporatism is something that both the Republicans and New Democrats are adept at defending, note President Obama’s making alliance with the Republican on the TPA/TPP,  confecting  a propaganda  under the rubric of  Free Trade. A corrupt, mendacious political class explained/defended by an equally mendacious, careerist Fourth Estate

Political Cynic

Mayor Emanuel is a Neo-Liberal, although not in the sense that President Obama is. The Mayor does not hide his particular brand of that odious utopianism, as the timid president did  behind the fading rhetoric of of 2008.The President has proven himself a dedicated Corporatist by failure to prosecute Wall Street crooks and his actions on TPA and the secret TPP, with the aid of his Republican confederates. Emanuel is Bloomberg without the personal wealth but with plenty of monetary support from his Capitalist allies. He parades his brand as toughness in the face of a failed Capitalism, Austerity being the only answer for the problem of the bloated pensions of teachers i.e. Public Sector Unions are a caustic manifestation of greed. Mrs Thatcher confected a whole political mythology around the theme of greedy unions!  In the world of the Charter School fiasco, teachers pensions are anachronistic grabbing of advantage, that the rest of the populous of Chicago doesn’t have, which translates into very effective propaganda,  given the utterly dismal state of the whole economy.

Ms. Green fails to exercise even the most basic due diligence of a journalist, to provide essential historical background to her ‘reportage’!

Political Observer

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/rahm-emanuel-chicago-education-reform/397673/#disqus_thread

Mr. Luce strikes a less strident note than Mr. Barber did on July 5th in the Financial Times. In fact Mr. Barber’s essay reflects a case of full blown political hysterics, doom saying garnished with pertinent historical references. Everything but Munich!

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9ca83260-21a2-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf79.html#axzz3ewPJZsh5

The very notion that the US is a ‘helpless bystander’ strains credulity to the point of fracture! American agents of change Victoria Nuland, Jeoffrey Pyatt, Samantha Power and their confederates have spent billions, on fomenting a bogus revolution in Ukraine, and have spent more on propping up it’s bogus government and it’s Nazi allies! They even enlisted Lawrence Summers:

‘Reform-minded Ukraine merits debt reduction’

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ff3634fc-fa44-11e4-a41c-00144feab7de.html#axzz3ewPJZsh5

Add to this toxic mix the American NGO’s Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe and The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies etc., and what we have is American myopia i.e. too busy provoking the Russian Bear,with the connivance of the EU, and not enough on the ‘vulnerable Balkans’ as strategically important.

Is the the Dream of Europe collapsing? Are Spain and Italy next to rebuke the neoliberal rationalism of Austerity, which even the IMF admits was a ‘mistake’?

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jun/05/imf-underestimated-damage-austerity-would-do-to-greece?CMP=share_btn_tw

‘ The International Monetary Fund admitted it had failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece as the Washington-based organisation catalogued mistakes made during the bailout of the stricken eurozone country.

In an assessment of the rescue conducted jointly with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European commission, the IMF said it had been forced to override its normal rules for providing financial assistance in order to put money into Greece.

Fund officials had severe doubts about whether Greece’s debt would be sustainable even after the first bailout was provided in May 2010 and only agreed to the plan because of fears of contagion.

While it succeeded in keeping Greece in the eurozone, the report admitted the bailout included notable failures.

StephenKMackSD

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3101c64a-2178-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf79.html#axzz3ewPJZsh5

There must be a clear commitment to break with the habits of the past 40 years, and resist the temptation to blame other for Greece’s woes.

The government in Athens must also accept that its democratic legitimacy cannot, by its very nature, take precedence over the democratic legitimacy enjoyed by its European partners.

The Greeks are not yet asking for debt forgiveness, but an end to utterly failed Austerity: the ‘strong medicine’ of the IMF, that is prescribed regardless of circumstance, or more pointedly as the cure for the Welfare State as a spent force, in light of the economic revelation of neoliberal rationality. Austerity is the weapon of choice for the Political Romantics who call themselves Economists!  And these Economists lend their withered prestige, as bankrupt servants of a Capital, that has put itself and the rest of us in the economic funk that is our present condition. Greed, mendacity and a winner take all mentality presently rule the political/economic state of ‘The West’.

Headline: Greece Fallout: Italy and Spain Have Funded a Massive Backdoor Bailout of French Banks

by Benn Steil and Dinah Walker
July 2, 2015

http://blogs.cfr.org/geographics/2015/07/02/greecefallout/

With the help of an Economic Science that has forgotten/discarded it’s root in Political Economy, and it’s deep, unbreakable connection to Mr. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. For that see the Penguin Classics edition of the 250th anniversary edition of Theory, with an introduction by Amartya Sen.

http://www.penguin.com/book/the-theory-of-moral-sentiments-by-adam-smith/9780143105923

Regards,

StephenKMackSD

Spoken like a true  Economic Moralist: Neo-Liberal!  See this essay by Ms. Tett at The Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/927efd1e-9c32-11e4-b9f8-00144feabdc0.html
A telling excerpt from Ms. Tett’s essay via Benjamin Friedman:

‘Last summer I found myself in that spot for a conference, having dinner with a collection of central bank governors. It was a gracious, majestic affair, peppered with high-minded conversation. And as coffee was served, in bone-china crockery (of course), Benjamin Friedman, the esteemed economic historian, stood up to give an after-dinner address.

The mandarins settled comfortably into their chairs, expecting a soothing intellectual discourse on esoteric monetary policy. But Friedman lobbed a grenade.

“We meet at an unsettled time in the economic and political trajectory of many parts of the world, Europe certainly included,” he began in a strikingly flat monotone (I quote from the version of his speech that is now posted online, since I wasn’t allowed to take notes then.) Carefully, he explained that he intended to read his speech from a script, verbatim, to ensure that he got every single word correct. Uneasily, the audience sat up.

For a couple of minutes Friedman then offered a brief review of western financial history, highlighting the unprecedented nature of Europe’s single currency experiment, and offering a description of sovereign and local government defaults in the 20th century. Then, with an edge to his voice, Friedman pointed out that one of the great beneficiaries of debt forgiveness throughout the last century was Germany: on multiple occasions (1924, 1929, 1932 and 1953), the western allies had restructured German debt.

So why couldn’t Germany do the same for others? “There is ample precedent within Europe for both debt relief and debt restructuring . . . There is no economic ground for Germany to be the only European country in modern times to be granted official debt relief on a massive scale and certainly no moral ground either.’

Or this from Martin Wolf at the same publication:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fcb2fb16-1e5c-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3ewPJZsh5

While giving Syriza a dressing down, he also has something important to say about Germany:

‘The Syriza government has failed to put forward a credible programme of reform that might solve the multiple problems of the Greek economy and polity. It has instead made populist gestures. It is, in brief, a dreadful government produced by desperate times.

Yet the eurozone, too, deserves substantial blame for the outcome. One would never guess from its rhetoric that Germany was a serial defaulter in the 20th century. Moreover, there is no democracy, including the UK, whose politics would survive such a huge depression unscathed. Remember, when Germany last suffered a depression of this magnitude, Hitler came to power. Yes, Syriza is the outcome of infantile and irresponsible Greek politics. But it is also the result of blunders committed by the creditors since 2010 and, above all, insistence on bailing out Greece’s foolish private creditors at the expense of the Greek people.’

‘Germany was a serial defaulter in 20th Century’

‘Democracy doesn’t relieve you from the responsibility of paying your debts; you default, you face consequences.’
Sir, the historical record is clear: The Germans exercise a self-serving amnesia, when it come to their own dismal record of living up to their responsibilities, when it comes to debt. Better to call that record egregious ! Germany is the most powerful political actor in the EU!

Regards,

StephenKMackSD

As Xenos points out quite convincingly Strauss’ esoteric re-reading of the Tradition was an attempt at self-rescue, from his demonstrable philosophical propinquity with Schmitt. The American context necessitated a revisionism that showed Strauss as heroic philosophical trailblazer, rather than a fellow traveler of Schmitt. Or just another apologist for Platonic oligarchy, although Strauss and his epigones consider themselves natural aristocrats as successors to the Guardians of Platonic Myth.

Regards,

StephenKMackSD

Besides the usual, even obligatory, Left bashing, what leavens this serio-comic chatter, what rhetorically frames this essay is A Clockwork Orange and the ideas of the prominent Panglossian Steven Pinker. The Clockwork Olive is Mr. Ferguson’s attempt to meet the descriptive standard he set with Chimerica, but it all falls flat. Although it does meet the New York Times standard, to be read with bemusement/consternation or even a mild peal of laughter, that dies as quickly as it was born,with that very bitter cup of single origin coffee.

Popovers are meant to consumed right  from the oven, otherwise they become  soggy, rubbery and almost inedible, but a muffin will last a few hours, if handled properly. I’m thinking Mr. Ferguson’s essay is like that popover, that didn’t get eaten at breakfast. The good cook will cover it with Chicken a la King and eat it for lunch, rather than let it go to waste. As the French have known for centuries a sauce can mask a multitude of sins. Regrettably Mr. Ferguson is not Escoffier!

Political Observer

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/48df30c2-2182-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3etmY4ARG