Has the EU come to it’s final crisis point? Mr. Rachman’s exercise in political melodrama makes the argument that it is a real possibility, no matter the actions of it’s partners. Such political fatalism is tantamount to nihilism. Coming from two of the major advocates of Neo-Liberalism, The Financial Times and Mr. Rachman, as the answer to all questions of human endeavor, this is a startling admission of abject failure. Or just the growing pains of a misbegotten European Project? Recall Oskar Matzerath from Gunter Grass’ Tin Drum? Not an exact fit, but revelatory!

It’s all up in the air, and that makes Mr. Rachman and his employers very uncomfortable. This sentence gives  readers a clue as to the end game: a Greek alliance with Russia, endangering the almost cemented New Cold War and Greece as floodgate of unwanted immigrant populations. Call this fear mongering, although carefully hidden in plain sight.

From that position it could block and disrupt EU policy on a range of issues, from sanctions on Russia to illegal immigration. (Greece is one of the main entry points for illegal migrants from Europe.)

Mr. Rachman then brings to the fore the practice of Greek Clientelism and lack of competitiveness, as dangers to Greek economic rehabilitation, although Austerity has been a total failure. Where to turn for an alternative? Perhaps, the Greeks can move to the Corporatism that has become the model adopted in America, as the TPA and TPP and it’s various legislative successors, all shrouded in utmost secrecy as a condition of there passage, has become ascendent.  Only by discarding the trappings of Democracy can we realize the blessings of neoliberal rationalism.

The problems of clientelism and lack of competitiveness run too deep.

Political Observer

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a3a91496-18b8-11e5-8201-cbdb03d71480.html#axzz3dnFHmjfa

Mr. Luce’s column reminds me of the essays that George F. Will writes in Republican primary season: he gives his seal of approval to each candidate, in turn. With a quick precis of the positions of each candidate that meet Mr. Will’s exacting ideological standards. Yet these essays evoke a sense of embarrassment in the reader, as Mr. Will presents himself to his readers as the natural inheritor of the mantle of Edmund Burke, and this political gush of enthusiasm, for candidates, is so outside of his carefully cultivated personae it takes on a kind of unintentional comic tone.

The assured tone of Mr. Luce demonstrates a more empirical stance. He provides the necessary statistical data, some speculation on the shopworn character on Jeb and Hillary, some interesting political background and more speculation on certain political possibilities, call it political metaphysics, yet here are two sentence that seems to break the Luce spell on the reader:

‘Choosing a president “without training wheels”, as Mr Bush suggests, might sink a bid if the poll were held in Washington. But it worries ordinary voters less.’

One does not in any way picture Mr. Luce in the company of ‘ordinary voters’, so again we have to place this in the arena of political metaphysics,or more precisely in it’s sub-genre of political clairvoyance.

Political Observer

“Larry Summers takes the view that both sides need to offer each other “political
concessions” to reach a deal to avert the worst. Thus, he says the Greeks should
concede on these pension, VAT, and wage issues to give Mrs Merkel cover to offer
some commitment to debt reduction in return. And, he goes on, the IMF should not
fuss to much over the numbers in this deal; it is “all high European politics now”.
But if these pension, VAT, and labor reforms are, as evident, not potential-growth
enhancing but immiserating, they are not “tough for Greece to swallow” but rather
they are technically incoherent and so will not work. They “blindly” concern the
supply-side when demand is the issue, and they aggravate demand problems. And if
the corresponding debt reduction commitment is insufficiently clear or deep to
radically dislodge the primary surplus targets, this “high political” deal will certainly
be no means to avert disaster. It will only stoke the latent explosiveness of Greece.
So, instead, rather than compound the dire consequences arising from 2010 onwards
occasioned by serially faulty IMF numbers on Greece, it is time to insist that IMF
numbers do, finally, add up. And in that context, creditor proposals should be
rendered technically coherent by withdrawal of these three unsubstantiated reform
red lines and by immediate deep public debt write-offs to avert need for any further
increases in primary surpluses.
Too much of a political “victory” for Syriza? Perhaps, but the creditors have only
themselves to blame that after a long series of appalling decisions on their part, they
have allowed this to become the only way left to avert the worst for Greece and for
the Euro, and therefore for Europe and the World.”
Peter Doyle
Washington DC
June 21, 2015
p.t.d.y@outlook.com

Click to access grk-pensions-taxes-labor-re4m-copy.pdf

Regarding your essay:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/20/everything-you-need-to-know-about-why-greece-might-leave-the-euro/
Call this wise cracking merde about a serious subject! Or call it a breezy, mocking political travelogue: didn’t Milton Friedman say I can look with equanimity on the misfortunes of others? The Financial Times has done a better job of fear mongering, as the Guardians of Neo-Liberal Rationalism. And by all means don’t mention the co-conspirators, with a former Greek government to coverup the true extent of Greek debt, Goldman Sachs, like a good corporate lap dog!  Your just a pretender, an instrument of Mr. Bezos’ attempt to rescue the grey Post from it’s stodgy reactionary readership, and the predations of Katharine Weymouth.
Your style, an amalgam of Luce’s Time Magazine pablum, you recall Hank’s American Century? And the un-mourned stylistic pizazz of Helen Girley Brown, with just a touch of Arianna Huffington’s ersatz ‘Progressivism’. The rumor is that McDonalds will offer your essay as a two page coloring books, with a set of crayons, and a discount coupon from Amazon, for a week’s supply of Soma, you recall it from Huxley’s Brave New World? Mr. Bezos is nothing if not a marketing genius, comparable to Edward Bernays?
Sincerely yours,
Myra B.

On the question of the IMF, we have an answer from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Headline:

IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors

Sub-headline:

The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to let Dominique Strauss-Kahn hijack the institution to save Europe’s banks and the euro when the crisis erupted, dooming Greece to disaster.

Mrs Lagarde must stop playing the role of a diplomat. She must take off her European hat and speak instead for the organisation she leads and for the world.

She must confront the EMU creditors head on and in public. She must tell them, in blunt language, that they share much of the blame for the current impasse.

She must make it clear to them that Greece needs sweeping debt relief – as a matter of economic science, whatever the morality – and that the refusal of the creditors to face up to this elemental fact is now the chief impediment to a solution. And she should tell them that the IMF will no longer play any part in their deceitful charade.

If she does not do so, and if the lack of leadership by Europe’s political class leads to a catastrophic denouement on every level, then let it be on her head too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11654639/IMF-has-betrayed-its-mission-in-Greece-captive-to-EMU-creditors.html

‘Previous rescue attempts provide a lamentable example. The first, in 2010, allowed no space for debt forgiveness. Instead, over €200bn was invested in making Greece’s creditors whole. Athens avoided default but its economy gained no relief. The austerity insisted upon by its creditors drained demand from an economy already in freefall.’

An answer from James K.Galbraith:

Headline:

Bad Faith. Why Real Debt Relief Is Not On The Table For Greece

The original crime in the Greek affair, Legrain said, was committed in May 2010, when it became clear that the country was insolvent. At that time, the IMF staff was convinced that Greek debts must be restructured, and that debt relief was not only necessary but also just, given that reckless borrowers are always matched to reckless lenders, and that lenders are compensated, in part, for the risk of loss.

Restructuring did not happen. Instead, a trio of Frenchmen — at the IMF, at the European Central Bank and at the Elysée, and backed by Angela Merkel — decided to pretend that Greece’s problem was merely temporary, that there was a larger financial crisis to be warded off, and that the largest bailout in history should be directed not to save Greece, but to off-load the exposure of French and German banks onto all the European states, with Germany’s taxpayers taking the largest share.

Why did the IMF get into the act, making its largest loan in history (32 times Greece’s quota) over the reservations of its staff and the objections of many non-European members? Because the Managing Director at the time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, wanted to become President of France.

At the same time, the European Central Bank under Jean-Claude Trichet bought up some 27 billion euros in Greek bonds, thereby raising their price. Why did Trichet do this? To support the original lenders, once again in large part the French banks.

In so doing, the European powers were able to avoid imposing losses on the large banks. And by his actions, Trichet locked the ECB into a refusal to accept losses on Greek bonds as he stretched, if not broke, the legal mandate of the European Central Bank.

http://www.socialeurope.eu/2015/06/bad-faith-why-real-debt-relief-is-not-on-the-table-for-greece/

Headline:

The time has come for Tsipras to accept the deal from Europe

Sub-headline:

The offer from Greece’s creditors is better than the alternative

After all the usual FT agitprop, carefully disguised as neoliberal rationalism/apologetics we are left with this act of public shaming, redolent of the old school tie:

‘Without friends or finance, the Greek prime minister is left with just three possible cards to play: one technical, a second principled and the last utterly dishonourable.’

StephenKMackSD

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ab4be6da-15a0-11e5-8e6a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dQDmHp3u

Headline:

‘Time to concede with honour and end crisis’

Sub-headline:

‘Grexit is a soluble problem merely cloaked in an aura of impossibility’

The Greeks have the temerity to challenge the neo-liberal rationalism of Austerity and to declare that they wish to remain in the EU. But to moderate the Greek bailout would be an admission of it’s unworkability, of it’s utterly draconian character. Even Martin Wolf’s essay brims with a kind of anguish, not to speak of hand wringing, while still maintaining his Neo-Liberal piety.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a614c36c-141f-11e5-9bc5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dKbDFy7T

What the editors of The Financial Times ask for is a noble surrender of the Greeks, Mr Tsipras,  Mr. Varoufakis and Syriza. Yet this essay is awash in the rhetoric of the self-exculpatory i.e. of a declaration of the ‘we are blameless’, from an organization that has championed, apologized for the ascent of that neo-liberal rationalism, and it’s motley assortment of political/economic actors. Call it disingenuous, there are stronger words!

The questions abound: What does the future hold? Will Mr. Jack Lew intervene, on behalf of President Obama and the American National Security State, to counter a possible move by the rapacious Mr. Putin? To express it New Cold War paranoia terms. The Financial Times’ call for surrender is not an invitation to negotiate.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ac17b378-141a-11e5-abda-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dKbDFy7T

Political Cynic

Lawrence Summers tells us on May 17,2015 that ‘Reform-minded Ukraine merits debt reduction’

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ff3634fc-fa44-11e4-a41c-00144feab7de.html#axzz3cwwSYOV5

Before this on January 26, 2015 the FT publishes this ‘News story’ titled ‘IMF pressed to increase lending to Ukraine’

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/26cbe0b2-a413-11e4-b01e-00144feab7de.html#axzz3cwwSYOV5

Again we read this ‘News story’ ‘Greece defies creditors’ demands for decisions on reform’

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0c45e4ee-10d9-11e5-8413-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3cxkeA0z6

While Rome burns, there is this from Forbes dated June 14, 2015  by Tim Worstall titled

‘Finland’s Problem Is The Same As Greece’s; Neither Should Be In The Euro As Krugman Says’

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/06/14/finlands-problem-is-the-same-as-greeces-neither-should-be-in-the-euro-as-krugman-says/

Should this be an indication of where the EU is headed? And need we wait to see the entrance of Spain’s Podemos into the melodrama, to see that the fissuring of the EU is upon us? While the pseudo-economists, political romantics, and neoliberal rationalists converge, in this publication, in their savaging of the Greeks and their utter lack of Corporatist Virtue?

Political Observer

Here is the crux of the matter according to Lexington on ‘Obama’s agenda in the balance’, after Mr. Shakespeare’s Drawbridge nonsense, which simply demonstrates lazy thinking, and or political desperation, which grabs ahold of the latest intellectual gimmick:

‘… a majority of Mr Obama’s own party bowed to those voters who think that increased trade with Asia is something to fear, and that working Americans cannot trust their government to put their interests ahead of those of big corporations.’

This quote is an utter political distortion in service to the Corporatist Agenda that The Economist is advocate/apologist for! I tweeted my congressman Rep. Scott Peters numerous times before the vote. What sane political actor votes for ‘secret law’? That will remain secret for five years? Even the congresspeople, who might take the opportunity to view the pertinent documents, are constrained by law not to take notes, or to discuss what they have viewed with anyone! Surely one of the writers/editors at The Economist must recall Mr. Jean-Francois Revel’s famous polemics: ‘The Totalitarian Temptation’ of 1976 or How Democracies Perish of 1983? I still have my copies. Is there no one at this publication with even a modicum of historical memory?

We can thank WikiLeaks as reported in the New Republic for some very valuable information on these ‘trade deals’ and what they actually are.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121967/whats-really-going-trade-services-agreement

But wait, here come the real culprits, call them the ‘usual suspects’ in The Economist’s world view :

But regardless of what members of Congress believe personally, trade unions and left-wing grassroots campaign groups have done an effective job of intimidating House Democrats into a defensive crouch on trade, threatening to punish members who defy them by withholding campaign funds and help from grassroots activists.

Union bosses, populist Democrats and some populist Republicans crowed with triumph after Friday’s votes, saying that TPA had to be stopped to prevent more jobs from being outsourced to Asia, and—in the words of Richard Trumka, the president of the vast AFL-CIO union—to “send a message that our government belongs not to the highest corporate bidders but to the working people who make our country run.”

At The Economist it is perpetually 1952 in America! It’s hard to be patient with the rest of the essay’s meander through the thickets of American politics. But never fear the Chinese and their exploitation of America’s democratic weakness is  ever present! Another thought: it is arresting to think that the political magpie Ross Perot was right about NAFTA, and that the perpetually priapic Bill Clinton was it’s front man. But to think that stolid Neo-Liberal Obama is finished with ‘Trade Deals’ is hopelessly naive!

Political Cynic

After the provocative, even taunting essay titled ‘Greeks chose poverty, let them have their way’ at the Financial Times of June 9, 2015 by technocrat Francesco Giavazzi. And Anatole Kaletsky’s essay of June 11,2015, ominously titled ‘A Greek suicide?’ that assures the reader that the Greek default, as a blackmail tactic of Syriza, will not be effective at Project Syndicate:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greek-default-political-suicide-by-anatole-kaletsky-2015-06

We are back to the old reliable, with this report from The Financial Times of June 12,2015 by Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Michael Hunter in London, under the headline ‘Greece defies creditor’ demands for decisions on reform’: I can see the news boys in caps, plus fours and argyle knee socks, proclaiming this headline at the top of their voices, above the traffic noise, circa 1926!

Back is the screeching hysteria and resort to political/economic melodrama, that is about to reach it’s denouement. Except that it has been a series of those denouements, from the very beginning of the ‘Crisis’. The future of the EU hangs in the balance, why even American technocrat Mr. Lew has expressed deep concern about an ‘accident’! The Neo-Liberal order experiences a rift that could become a lasting feature? The possibility of permanent ‘crisis’ endangers the whole of the endeavor begun by the eminence grise of the EU Jean Monnet?

But not to forget the Yanis Varoufakis’ transcript of a speech at the Social Europe web site, published on June 11, 2015. Mr. Varoufakis’ transcript is well worth your time and consideration.

Political Observer

‘If you were in charge of NBC News and Williams were caught telling exaggerated or made-up stories on your watch, what would you do?
I would do what Roger Ailes would do. Through Roger’s eyes, the issue is: What does my audience want? So, why should I have to run my business on the basis of what media people say I should do — people who don’t want me to succeed?’
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/michael-wolff-thinks-we-could-all-learn-from-fox-news.html?_r=0

Mr. Wolff is a Murdoch biographer and sycophant! He defines journalism according to Roger Ailes as ‘What does my audience want?’ This rhetorical gambit takes the onus off Mr. Wolff, as if he were ‘reporting’ on the Ailes comment, instead of assenting to the wisdom of a carefully manipulated crowd: The ‘News’ as the product of carefully massaged propaganda, that takes as it’s purpose mendacity and the malicious, as tools against the predations of ‘Liberalism’ as re-imagined by Ailes and company. Fair and balanced? Or just call it an exercise in careerist cynicism?

Political Observer