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Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking
Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking
Regardless of what the Greek people choose, at least the choice will be theirs, along with the consequences.
What is representative democracy but organized bribery on a mass scale?Politicians seeking control of the spigots of state wealth and power promise endless swag to voters. Those who promise the most swag and do so with the most inspirational Soaring Rhetoric ™ win elections and gain control of the spigots of state wealth and power.
What are promises of endless swag but lies cloaked in magical thinking? The magical thinking has many manifestations: the aptly named Laffer Curve, used to justify cutting taxes to the already-wealthy; entry into the Eurozone, a magical land of unicorns and endless prosperity, based not on hard work and the creation of value, but on membership alone; the blowing of serial asset bubbles in real estate and stocks (works equally well in Asia and the West), and various iterations of Manifest Destiny: it’s our right to grow rich, preferably on the labor and resources of others.
Representative democracy offers choices with no consequences: no matter which politico and party is elected, the promises of endless swag remain unchanged.
In contrast, direct democracy offers choices with consequences: voters make a choice of policies that, whether intended or not, have consequences.
This forces voters to actually ponder consequences rather than indulge politico promises of endless swag in return for supporting a corrupt, predatory, parasitic status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Even direct democracy is easily corrupted by magical thinking. The actual consequences may be ignored in favor of magical-thinking dreams of only good consequences and no trade-offs or sacrifices, all powered by the magic of debt.
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And So It Begins – Greek Banks Get Shut Down For A Week And A ‘Grexit’ Is Now Probable
And So It Begins – Greek Banks Get Shut Down For A Week And A ‘Grexit’ Is Now Probable
Is this the beginning of the end for the eurozone? For years, European officials have been trying to “fix Greece”, but nothing has worked. Now a worst case scenario is rapidly unfolding, and a “Grexit” has become more likely than not. On Sunday, the European Central Bank announced that it was not going to provide any more emergency support for Greek banks. But that was the only thing keeping them alive. In order to prevent total chaos, Greek banks have been shut down for at least a week. ATMs are still open, but it is being reported that daily withdrawals will be limited to 60 euros. Of course nobody knows for sure if or when the banks will reopen after this “bank holiday” is over, so needless to say average Greek citizens are pretty freaked out right about now. In addition, the stock market in Greece is not going to open on Monday either. This is what a national financial meltdown looks like, and the nightmare that has been unleashed in Greece will soon start spreading to much of the rest of Europe.
This reminds me so much of what happened in Cyprus. Up until the very last minute, politicians were promising everyone that their money was perfectly safe, and then the hammer was brought down.
The exact same pattern is playing out in Greece. For example, just check out what one very prominent Greek politician said on television on Saturday…
“Citizens should not be scared, there is no blackmail,” Panos Kammenos, head of the government’s coalition ally, told local television. “The banks won’t shut, the ATMs will (have cash). All this is exaggeration,” he said.
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Greece Rejects “Totally Unaccepetable” IMF Counterproposal Demanding Pension Cuts, VAT Hike
Greece Rejects “Totally Unaccepetable” IMF Counterproposal Demanding Pension Cuts, VAT Hike
As reported earlier and as tipped here on Monday, markets will have to call off the party for now because the focus of the Greek debt deal negotiations has now shifted back to Brussels after all eyes had turned briefly to Athens on Tuesday following reports which indicated a deal in principle had been struck. Here’s what we said less than 24 hours ago:
The IMF demands no tax hikes and pension cuts. Instead it will get almost exclusively tax hikes, amounting to 92% of the proposed measures, and just a few cuts, few of which actually impact Greek pensions. In short: the proposal is not only unsustainable, it is also unenforceable, something which the Germans – already facing a third Greek bailout – will be quick to point out.Which is why tomorrow, after Tsipras is finished with the meeting with the Troika, he will have a new homework assignment: revise the “final final” proposal and come up with much less in tax hikes, much more in spending cuts: something which the already furious hard-line elements within Syriza will have a field day with.
And that is precisely what happened. As WSJ reports, creditors have decided to stick to their “red lines” after all:
Significant divisions remain between Greece and its international creditors over measures Athens must implement before receiving desperately needed bailout aid, according to a document seen by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday ahead of a crucial meeting of eurozone finance ministers.Key points of disagreement are corporate taxation, the overhaul of Greece’s pension system and value-added taxes, according to the document. For instance, Greece had planned to increase corporate taxes to 29%, but in the document creditors limited increase to 28%. That may cause new budget shortfalls that need to be plugged with other measures.
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“The Collateral Has Run Out” – JPM Warns ECB Will Use Greek “Nuclear Option” If No Monday Deal
“The Collateral Has Run Out” – JPM Warns ECB Will Use Greek “Nuclear Option” If No Monday Deal
(via Corriere)
Although estimates vary, Kathimerini, citing Greek banking officials, puts Friday’s deposit outflow at €1.7 billion. If true, that would mark a serious step up from the estimated €1.2 billion that left the banking system on Thursday and serves to underscore just how critical the ECB’s emergency decision to lift the ELA cap by €1.8 billion truly was. “Banks expressed relief following Frankfurt’s reaction, acknowledging that Friday could have ended very differently without a new cash injection,” the Greek daily said, adding that the ECB’s expectation of “a positive outcome in Monday’s meeting”, suggests ELA could be frozen if the stalemate remains after leaders convene the ad hoc summit. Bloomberg has more on the summit:
Dorothea Lambros stood outside an HSBC branch in central Athens on Friday afternoon, an envelope stuffed with cash in one hand and a 38,000 euro ($43,000) cashier’s check in the other.
She was a few minutes too late to make her deposit at the London-based bank. She was too scared to take her life-savings back to her Greek bank. She worried it wouldn’t survive the weekend.
“I don’t know what happens on Monday,” said Lambros, a 58-year-old government employee.
Nobody does. Every shifting deadline, every last-gasp effort has built up to this: a nation that went to sleep on Friday not knowing what Monday will bring. A deal, or more brinkmanship. Shuttered banks and empty cash machines, or a few more days of euros in their pockets and drachmas in their past – – and maybe their future.
For Greeks, the fear is that Monday will be deja vu, a return to a past not that distant. Before the euro replaced the drachma in 2002, the Greeks were already a European bête noire, their currency mostly trapped inside their nation, where cash was king and checks a novelty.
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Troika Exploits Greek Bank Run As Varoufakis Slams “Pernicious” Banking Sector “Leaks”
Troika Exploits Greek Bank Run As Varoufakis Slams “Pernicious” Banking Sector “Leaks”
As expected, no progress was made between Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis and EU finance ministers at Thursday’s Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg. Varoufakiswarned his counterparts that Europe was very close to “accepting” a Greek “accident”, something the FinMin said EU officials have a “moral duty” to avoid before “uncontrollable events” occur. Varoufakis also implicitly accused the troika of attempting to incite a bank run.
While it wasn’t entirely clear what Varoufakis meant by “uncontrollable events,” it seems likely he’s referencing the fact that while politicians may be able to push back their own self-imposed deadlines as many times as they wish even to the point of rendering the entire effort “ridiculous”, — to use German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s words — the reality on the ground in Greece is that the economy is collapsing on itself and deposit flight is now running above at €750 million euros each day. Put simply: an acute crisis of confidence among the Greek populace now risks plunging the country into a state of emergency.
In an attempt to address the quickly deteriorating situation, Brussels looks set to impose capital controls as early as this weekend and has scheduled an emergency summit on Monday. EU finance ministers will reportedly hold another meeting ahead of the summit. WSJ has more:
Eurozone leaders will try to clinch a deal on Greece’s flailing bailout at a hastily called crisis summit Monday, after finance ministers failed again to bridge the gap between Athens and its lenders.
The summit—eight days before Greece’s eurozone rescue runs out—will be one of the last chances to avert the specter of further economic meltdown for Greece and a messy exit from the eurozone.
After five months of fraught negotiations, “it is time to urgently discuss the situation of Greece at the highest political level,” said Donald Tusk, who presides over meetings of European leaders.
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LEAKED (Denied then Confirmed): ECB Not Sure If Greek Banks Can Open Monday
LEAKED (Denied then Confirmed): ECB Not Sure If Greek Banks Can Open Monday
There seems to be a growing willingness in the Eurozone to get this over with, to let Greece default and go from there – with all the options that this might entail. But even if a last-minute bailout agreement materializes, one thing stands out in this sea of chaotic uncertainty: Greek banks are toast.
The top four – National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank, Alpha Bank, and Eurobank Ergasias – account for 91% of Greek banking assets. They’ve already been bailed out twice. Their shares are penny stocks. They have two toxic problems: liquidity and solvency. Either one can topple them.
Liquidity is a problem because the Greeks have zero trust in their banks and have been yanking their euros out with increasing desperation. They won’t ever forget what happened to depositors in Cyprus. Deposits have plunged about 20% since November, to €130 billion. According to Reuters, “banking sources” said that just during the first three days of this week, Greeks have pulled €2 billion from their accounts – about €667 million a day, compared to prior weeks when they’d withdrawn €200 to €300 million a day.
Meanwhile, funding from central banks has jumped to over €120 billion: €40 billion from the ECB directly; and €83 billion via the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) through the Bank of Greece. Thus, deposits and central-bank funding are rapidly approaching a dreadful level: parity.
“There’s a real possibility they’ll fold, not just Greece but the banks themselves,” Fitch Managing Director James Longsdon told CNBC.
And ELA, the lifeblood of Greek banks, is conditioned on two things: available collateral and solvency.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
An Affirming Flame
An Affirming Flame
According to an assortment of recent news stories, this Thursday, June 18, is the make-or-break date by which a compromise has to be reached between Greece and the EU if a Greek default, with the ensuing risk of a potential Greek exit from the Eurozone, is to be avoided. If that’s more than just media hype, there’s a tremendous historical irony in the fact. June 18 is after all the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where a previous attempt at European political and economic integration came to grief.
Now of course there are plenty of differences between the two events. In 1815 the preferred instrument of integration was raw military force; in 2015, for a variety of reasons, a variety of less overt forms of political and economic pressure have taken the place of Napoleon’s Grande Armée. The events of 1815 were also much further along the curve of defeat than those of 2015. Waterloo was the end of the road for France’s dream of pan-European empire, while the current struggles over the Greek debt are taking place at a noticeably earlier milepost along the same road. The faceless EU bureaucrats who are filling Napoleon’s role this time around thus won’t be on their way to Elba for some time yet.
“What discords will drive Europe into that artificial unity—only dry or drying sticks can be tied into a bundle—which is the decadence of every civilization?” William Butler Yeats wrote that in 1936. It was a poignant question but also a highly relevant one, since the discords in question were moving rapidly toward explosion as he penned the last pages of A Vision, where those words appear.
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The Logic of Interventionism, or How to Wake up in a Prison
The Logic of Interventionism, or How to Wake up in a Prison
Archaic Financial Freedom
The mainstream press is still full of articles about the alleged evils of cash, which we regard as a typical “trial balloon” launched by the powers-that-be. The way this works is that they get a repressive measure they indent to implement out there, not only to propagandize in its favor, but also to gauge the reaction of the serfs. Is there an outcry? Does anyone care? If not, they quietly go forward with putting the measure into practice. If there is a great deal of pushback, they will simply wait for a better opportunity. A useful emergency always comes along after all. The Charlie Hebdo attack in France is a pertinent recent example: Under the false pretext that this is needed to “fight terrorism”, all cash transaction exceeding €1,000 have been banned in France.
German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has recently published an article about the “hoarding of cash” by citizens of Switzerland and the euro zone. With interest rates either at zero or negative, the cash currency component of the money supply has increased significantly, as more and more citizens prefer to hoard money under the proverbial mattress. The new European “bail-in” regime, so vividly demonstrated in Cyprus, is a major motive as well. Most recently, Greek citizens have resorted to withdrawing their deposits, with mainly small savers withdrawing cash (large depositors are more likely to simply transfer money to other parts of the euro area that seem safer).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany, France Call for Fiscal and Political Union. Public Ignorance Vital for Success of EU Power Grab
Germany, France Call for Fiscal and Political Union. Public Ignorance Vital for Success of EU Power Grab
Since Europe’s sovereign debt problems exploded onto the scene in 2010 the European Union has masterfully exploited the crisis to strengthen its grip over the old continent. It has stripped once-proud, independent nations of the last vestiges of their economic sovereignty. It has also pulled off the long-cherished dream of banking union, which was quietly consummated last fall.
Now, with the help of Berlin and Paris, it is looking to complete the coup. And this time not in the shadows, but in broad daylight.
The first move was to prep the masses. In an article published in The Guardian,Emmanuel Macron, France’s Minister of the Economy, and Sigmar Gabriel, the German Vice-Chancellor, outlined the broad strokes of the plan, calling for greater fiscal and social harmonization in the Eurozone while conceding that other EU countries like Britain should be allowed to settle for a less integrated Union based on the single market — at least temporarily:
Our common goal is to render it unthinkable for any country in pursuit of its national interest to consider a future without Europe (meaning, one assumes the EU) – or within a lesser union.
Straightening A Crooked Brussels
“The euro was built on a Franco-German understanding but also on a typically European compromise,” they write. “This gives France and Germany a particular responsibility to straighten what is crooked” — an eminently fitting phrase.
“A new, staged process of convergence is needed,” the authors add. This would involve not only structural reforms (labor, business and the environment) and institutional reforms (functioning of economic governance) but also social and tax convergence – all in the name of addressing the “critical flaws in the architecture of monetary union.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Greece: Out Of Cash, Out Of Time, Out Of Options
Greece: Out Of Cash, Out Of Time, Out Of Options
On Friday Greece is due to pay at least a quarter of the €1.5bn due to the IMF in June.
…
The creditors say they will only disburse the money if the Greek government enacts various key economic reforms and does not roll back reforms the last government agreed with the lenders and if the Greek government undertakes to run large enough budget surpluses every year in the future that Greece might have a chance of paying back the money the creditors have lent it.The Greek government says there is no possibility of it ever paying back all the money it has been lent and the creditors need to accept that, write off some of the debt, and not insist that Greece runs large surpluses (predicated on the fantasy of paying back the debt) or cuts back on pensions or enacts other similar measures that run contrary to the Greek voters’ will (as expressed in the last election).
Most commentary still appears predicated on the idea that there will be some last-minute deal – either because the creditors will back down and give Greece some more money without requiring it to be paid back or because the Greek government will back down if it understands that not doing so would ultimately mean leaving the euro.
I, on the other hand, don’t believe either side is particularly interested in achieving a deal.
The Eurozone does not want to make any compromise with the current Greek government because:
(a) they don’t believe they need to because Greek threats to leave the euro are empty both because internal polling suggests Greeks don’t want to leave and because if they did leave that doesn’t really constitute any threat to the euro;
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Euro-sclerosis
Euro-sclerosis
There appears to be little or nothing in the monetarists’ handbook to enable them to assess the risk of a loss of confidence in the purchasing power of a paper currency. Furthermore, since today’s macroeconomists have chosen to deny Say’s Law1, otherwise known as the laws of the markets, they have little hope of grasping the more subtle aspects of the role of money in price formation. It would appear that this potentially important issue is being ignored at a time when the Eurozone faces growing systemic risks that could ultimately challenge the euro’s validity as money.
The euro is primarily vulnerable because it has not existed for very long and its origin as money was simply decreed. It did not evolve out of marks, francs, lira or anything else; it just replaced the existing currencies of member states overnight by diktat. This contrasts with the dollar or sterling, whose origins were as gold substitutes and which evolved in steps over the last century to become standalone unbacked fiat. The reason this difference is important is summed up in the regression theorem.
The theorem posits that money must have an origin in its value for a non-monetary purpose. That is why gold, which was originally ornamental and is still used as jewellery endures, while all government currencies throughout history have ultimately failed. It therefore follows that in the absence of this use-value, trust in money is fundamental to modern currencies.
The theorem explains why we can automatically assume, for the purposes of transactions, that prices reflect the subjective values of the goods and services that we buy. This is in contrast with money that is not consumed but merely changes hands, and both parties in a transaction ascribe to money an objective value. And this is why the symptoms of monetary inflation are commonly referred to as rising prices instead of a fall in the purchasing power of money.
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Greece – Stumbling Toward Default
Greece – Stumbling Toward Default
Good Cop Under Fire
On June 5, Greece has to pay €240 million to the IMF. A week later another €270 million are coming due. All in all, Greece has to pay back €1.5 billion in IMF loans over the month of June. All indications are that the Greek government doesn’t even have the €240 m. that are coming due next week. In light of this, its intransigence in the negotiations with the euro-group may be slightly bewildering, but as we have pointed out already when it became clear that Syriza would likely win the Greek parliamentary elections, the situation always was akin to a Mexican standoff.
Image credit: António Jorge Gonçalves
Some in the group leading the negotiations are now accusing the EU Commission and its president Juncker of giving the Greeks “false hope” by making it appear as though they will be bailed out no matter what:
“Some euro zone countries are accusing the European Commission of giving Greece false hope of new loans for less reform effort, but they still want Brussels to find a way to keep a defiant Athens in the euro.
After four months of talks with scant progress, hawkish governments privately blame Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici for muddying their message by playing “good cop”.
Greece is now close to default and still resisting unpopular labor and pension reforms that are conditions for more aid. Some governments believe the creditors would get faster results if the institutions representing them — the Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — presented a more united tough front.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Mario Draghi’s Slippery Downward Slope
Mario Draghi’s Slippery Downward Slope
Mario Draghi made another huge faux pas Thursday, but it looks like the entire world press has become immune to them, because it happens all the time, because they don’t realize what it means, and because they have a message if not a mission to sell. But still, none of these things makes it alright. Nor does Draghi’s denying it was a faux pas to begin with.
And while that’s very worrisome, ‘the public’ appear to be as numbed and dumbed down to this as the media themselves are -largely due to ’cause and effect’, no doubt-. We saw an account of a North Korean defector yesterday lamenting that her country doesn’t have a functioning press, and we thought: get in line.
It’s one thing for the Bank of England to research the effects of a Brexit. It’s even inevitable that a central bank should do this, but both the process and the outcome would always have to remain under wraps. Why it was ‘accidentally’ emailed to the Guardian is hard to gauge, but it’s not a big news event that such a study takes place. The contents may yet turn out to be, but that doesn’t look all that likely.
The reason the study should remain secret is, of course, that a Brexit is a political decision, and a country’s central bank can not be party to such decisions.
It’s therefore quite another thing for ECB head Mario Draghi to speak in public about reforms inside the eurozone. Draghi can perhaps vent his opinion behind closed doors, for instance in talks with politicians in European nations, but any and all eurozone reforms remain exclusively political decisions, even if they are economic reforms, and therefore Draghi must stay away from the topic, certainly in public. Far away.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Not Tell Greece How To Run A Democracy?
Why Not Tell Greece How To Run A Democracy?
I know I’ve talked about this before, but it just keeps coming and it keeps being crzay.Bloomberg ‘reports’ that the ‘German Finance Ministry’, let me get this right, “is supporting the idea of a vote by Greek citizens to either accept the economic reforms being sought by creditors to receive a payout from the country’s bailout program or ultimately opt to leave the euro.” And that’s it.
They ‘report’ this as if it has some sort of actual value, as if it’s a real thing. Whereas in reality, it has the exact same value as Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis suggesting a referendum in Germany. Or Washington, for that matter. Something that Bloomberg wouldn’t even dream of ‘reporting’ in any kind of serious way, though the political value would be identical.
Apparently there is some kind of consensus in the international press – Bloomberg was by no means the only ‘news service’ that ‘reported’ this – that Germany has obtained the right to meddle in the internal politics of other eurozone member nations. And let’s get this one thing very clear: it has not.
No more than the Greek government has somehow acquired the right to even vent its opinions on German domestic issues. It is a no-go area for all European Union countries. More than that, it’s no-go for all nations in the world, and certainly in cases where governments have been democratically elected.
So why do Bloomberg and Reuters and all the others disregard such simple principles? All I can think is they entirely lost track of reality, and they live in a world where reality is what they say it is.
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“Stop Being So Negative”: Putting It All Together
“Stop Being So Negative”: Putting It All Together
Putting it all together
Considering:
1) governments are unable to eliminate deficits
2) global government debt is increasing exponentially
3) 0% interest rates are allowing governments to borrow more to pay off old loans and fund deficits
4) Global growth is declining despite money printing and bailouts And, we’ve saved the latest and greatest fact for last: as stunning as 0% interest rates sound, the mathematically-challenged-fantasyland called Europe has just one upped everyone by introducing NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES.
As of writing, over 25% of all bonds issued by European governments has a guaranteed negative return for investors.
Germany can borrow money for 5 years at an interest rate of NEGATIVE 0.10%. Yes, instead of Germany paying you interest when you lend them money, you have to pay them interest.
These same negative interest rate conditions exist across many of the Eurozone countries, as well as Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.
Since the majority of the investment industry unequivocally supports world central banks, it has convinced itself that negative interest rates are actually good for the worldís economy and it will help the world along its sunny path to economic freedom.
Call us dumbstruck, dumbfounded or just plain dumb. But, our every analysis of these policy moves always brings us to the same conclusion ñ thereís a pretty big adjustment in financial markets on the horizon.
6 years ago, we were told that bailing out the banks and auto companies would save the world.
As this worked so well, we were next told that the world needed 0% interest rates. As this worked so well, we were next told we needed money printing.
As this worked so well, we were next told that Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece needed a bailout.
As this worked so well, next the IMF issued a report recommending a Global Wealth Tax of 10% be applied to help governments resolve their debt problems.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
