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Late Friday night a solid blow was struck for sound money, free markets and limited government by a most unlikely force. Namely, the hard core statist and crypto-Marxist prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras. He has now set in motion a cascade of disruption that will shake the corrupt status quo to its very foundations.

And just in the nick of time, too. After 15 years of rampant money printing, falsification of financial market prices and usurpation of democratic rule, his antagonists—–the ECB, the EU superstate and the IMF—-have become a terminal threat to the very survival of the kind of liberal society of which these values are part and parcel.

In fact, the Keynesian central banking and the Brussels and IMF style bailout regime—which has become nearly universal—-eventually fosters a form of soft-core economic totalitarianism. That’s because the former first destroys honest financial markets by falsifying the price of debt. So doing, Keynesian central bankers enable governments to issue far more debt than their taxpayers and national economies can shoulder; and, at the same time, force investors and savers to desperately chase yield in a marketplace where the so-called risk free interest rate has been pegged at ridiculously low levels.

That means, in turn, that banks, bond funds and fast money traders alike take on increasing levels of unacknowledged and uncompensated risk, and that the natural checks and balances of honest financial markets are stymied and disabled. Short sellers are soon destroyed because the purpose of Keynesian central banking is to drive the price of securities to artificially high and unnatural levels. At the same time, hedge fund gamblers are able to engage in highly leveraged carry trades based on state subsidized (free) overnight money, and to purchase downside market risk insurance (“puts”) for a pittance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

I Fear The Greeks, Even When They Bring Gifts

June 28, 2015

I Fear The Greeks, Even When They Bring Gifts

Just another normal morning at the Automatic Earth. Shaking off the local drink – when in Rome.. – and perusing a thousand views and pieces, many on the inevitable topic of ‘Da Referendum’. And I got to say, I can’t even tell whether it’s just me, but there is this huge divide between what a simple vote can and should be, and how it is perceived and presented.

And no, it’s not my ouzo-riddled stupor, it’s what common sense I have left that has me wondering what causes the divide. Case in point, Bloomberg has a piece called “Tsipras Asking Grandma to Figure Out If Greek Debt Deal Is Fair”. The implied connotation being that asking grandma about anything other than knitting patterns and souvlaki recipes is asking for trouble. What does she know? Politics should be decided by politicians. Well, and bankers of course. And Bloomberg editors. Did I mention economists?

Tsipras Asking Grandma to Figure Out If Greek Debt Deal Is Fair

Economists with PhDs and hedge-fund traders can barely stay on top of the vagaries of Greece’s spiraling debt crisis. Now, try getting grandma to vote on it. That’s what Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is doing by calling a snap referendum for July 5 on the latest bailout package from creditors.

The 68-word ballot question namechecks four international institutions and asks voters for their opinion on two highly technical documents that weren’t made public before the referendum call and were only translated into Greek on Saturday. Worse, they may no longer be on the table. IMF chief Christine Lagarde told the BBC late on Saturday that “legally speaking, the referendum will relate to proposals and arrangements which are no longer valid.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Greek Butterfly Effect

June 28, 2015

The Greek Butterfly Effect

Many times nothing happens for a long time. Then all of a sudden everything happens at once. Like a dam break. It builds slowly and then it bursts. Example: Who would have ever thought the Confederate flag would be taken down across the South during the same week that a rainbow flag is symbolically hoisted across the entire country? Just because things seem unthinkable doesn’t mean they won’t happen.

Take the global debt construct as another example. For decades the world has immersed itself in ever higher debt. The general attitude has been one of indifference. Oh well, it just goes higher. Doesn’t really impact me or so the complacent rationalize.

When the financial crisis brought the world to the brink of financial collapse the solution was based on a single principle:

Make the math workable.

In the US the 4 principle “solutions” to make the math workable were to:

1. End mark to market which had the basic effect of allowing institutions to work with fictitious balance sheets and claim financial viability.

2. Engage in unprecedented fiscal deficits to grow the economy. To this day the US, and the world for that matter, runs deficits. Every single year. The result: Global GDP has been, and continues to be overstated as a certain percentage of growth remains debt financed and not purely organically driven.

3. QE, to flush the system with artificial liquidity, the classic printing press to create demand out of thin air.

4. ZIRP. Generally ZIRP has been sold to the public as an incentive program to stimulate lending and thereby generate wage growth & inflation. While it could be argued it had some success in certain areas such as housing, the larger evidence suggests that ZIRP is not about growth at all.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Troika Offers Greece Third Bailout Program, Prepares Emergency Plan If No Deal

June 26, 2015

Troika Offers Greece Third Bailout Program, Prepares Emergency Plan If No Deal

On the heels of Thursday’s failed Eurogroup meeting and heading into what is again being presented as an all or nothing, “Lehman weekend” for Greece and its creditors, reports suggest the troika has offered Greece a third bailout program:

GREEK CREDITORS OFFER EU15.5B OVER NEXT 5 MONTHS: HANDELSBLATT
ECB, IMF, EU OFFER GREECE 3RD AID PROGRAM: HANDELSBLATT
GREECE’S CREDITORS PROPOSE EU15.5B TIED TO AID DEAL: OFFICIAL

Here are the details, according to Bloomberg (citing an unnamed EU official):

EU creditor proposal foresees EU8.7b in EFSF funds: official

Creditor proposal foresees EU3.3b in SMP profits: EU official

Creditor proposal foresees EU3.5b in IMF funds: EU official

If true, this would mark a dramatic about-face for the IMF which had suggested it would not be interested in participating in a third Greek program. Similary, lawmakers in Berlin have voiced their opposition to a third bailout program for Athens as the German public has grown tired of throwing money at the Greek ‘problem.’

European finance ministers will meet again on Saturday. Angela Merkel, who met with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and French President Francois Hollande on Friday, has indicated that a deal must be struck before the market opens on Monday. Here’s a bit of color from Reuters:

The leaders of Germany and France discussed extending Greece’s bailout programme and providing financing with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday on the eve of a decisive meeting of euro zone finance ministers, a French source said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does The IMF Actually Want To Cause A Greek Debt Default?

June 24, 2015

Does The IMF Actually Want To Cause A Greek Debt Default?

When it comes to geopolitics, there are often wheels working within wheels that are working within wheels. Once in a while we get a peek behind the scenes, but for the most part the machinations of the global elite remain shrouded in mystery most of the time. And sometimes the global elite appear to be doing things that, on the surface, do not seem to make much sense at all. What is going on in Europe is a perfect example of this. If everyone was negotiating honestly, I believe that a Greek debt deal would have been reached by now. As this endless crisis has stretched on month after month, it has become increasingly apparent that more is going on here than meets the eye. In particular, the IMF has been standing in the way of a deal time after time. So what do IMF officials want? Are they looking for the “unconditional surrender” of this new Greek government in order to send a message to other governments that would potentially defy them? Or could it be possible that the IMF actually wants a Greek debt default for some other insidious reason?

When the latest Greek proposal was embraced with enthusiasm by EU officials, many hoped that this meant that the crisis would soon be resolved. But it turns out that there is still one very important player that is not happy, and that is the IMF. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…

But the IMF is still unhappy with key aspects of Greece’s new economic proposals and German officials were irritated by the speed with which the commission welcomed them, warning that much work needs to be done.

Greece’s plan calls for reducing the deficits in its pension system and government budget by relying heavily on raising taxes and social-security contributions, whereas the IMF wanted bigger spending cuts.

The Washington-based IMF has said Greece’s economy is already too heavily taxed and that too many additional tax increases would hurt economic growth, making it harder to pay down Greece’s debt.

“It is still short of everything that should be expected,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Monday, suggesting Greece will have to modify its proposals significantly to win the IMF’s backing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten Dollar Decline?

June 24, 2015

Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten Dollar Decline?

While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government.

The timing of these actions is quite curious, coming as the Greek crisis in the EU seems to be reaching a tipping point and Greece, having perhaps abandoned the possibility of rapprochement with Europe, has been making overtures to Russia to help bail it out of its mess. And with the IMF’s recent statement pledging its full and unconditional support to Ukraine, it has become even more clear that the IMF and other major multilateral institutions are not blindly technical organizations, but rather are totally subservient lackeys to the foreign policy agenda emanating from Washington. Toe the DC party line and the internationalists will bail you out regardless of how badly you mess up, but if you even think about talking to Russia you will face serious consequences.

The United States government is desperately trying to cling to the notion of a unipolar world, with the United States at its center dictating foreign affairs and monetary policy while its client states dutifully carry out instructions. But the world order is not unipolar, and the existence of Russia and China is a stark reminder of that. For decades, the United States has benefited as the creator and defender of the world’s reserve currency, the dollar.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

History in Free Verse

June 23, 2015

History in Free Verse

History might not rhyme, exactly, but it’s not bad for free verse. Greece is this century’s Serbia — a tiny, picturesque backwater nation blundering haplessly into the center stage of geopolitics. And the European Union is, whaddaya know, Germany in drag, on financial steroids.

Nobody knows what will happen next in the struggle to wring some kind of debt repayment promises out of poor Greece. Without “restructuring” — a virtual national bankruptcy proceeding — there can be no plausible promises of repayment. Both sides seem to have exhausted their abilities to juke their way out. The European Union and its wing-men at the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can only pretend to kick that fabled can down the road because it has turned into a cement-filled 50-gallon drum. The Greek government can only pretend to further dismantle its civil service and pension systems lest angry citizens toss it out and replace it with a new government, perhaps an ugly and pugnacious one made up of Golden Dawn party Nazis.

In the background, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and perhaps even France wait without peeping to see if Greece is allowed to restructure, because you can be sure they will demand the same privilege to debt relief. But that’s hardly possible because the ECB has been engineering a shift of debt-holding away from the big corporate banks — which made all the stupid loans — to the taxpayers of their member states, especially Germany, which stands to be the biggest bag-holder when a contagion of serial default seeps across the continent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF Violates IMF Rules, to Continue Ukraine Bailouts

June 21, 2015

IMF Violates IMF Rules, to Continue Ukraine Bailouts

The IMF, whose bailout operations are absorbed by the taxpayers in the member countries whenever a particular bailed-out nation defaults, announced on Friday, June 19th, that it will “continue to support Ukraine through its Lending-into-Arrears Policy even in the event that a negotiated agreement with creditors in line with the program cannot be reached in a timely manner.” Though this new “Lending-into-Arrears” policy violates two IMF rules, it was justified by the IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde on the basis of the Ukrainian government’s “continued efforts to reach a collaborative agreement with all creditors.”

In other words: a statement by Ukraine’s government that it wants to reach an agreement with its private creditors is being used by the IMF as if it were an excuse to extend into the indefinite future the IMF’s continued taxpayer-guaranteed financing of (‘lending’ to) the Ukrainian government, despite the fact that the IMF is violating two of the IMF’s own most-basic rules restricting its lending-authority — these rules are lending-restrictions whose purpose was to reduce the riskiness of the IMF’s lending, and so to minimize the amount that the IMF will be taking from taxpayers to fund its losses:

1: The IMF does not lend to nations at war — but Ukraine continues being at war against its former Donbass region despite the Minsk II ceasefire agreement; ceasefire violations, especially by the Ukrainian side, continue regularly.

2: The IMF does not lend to nations that are likely to default — but every independent source categorizes Ukraine as being virtually certain to default, and the only actual question regarding Ukraine is: when? The IMF’s answer: we’ll keep lending, building Ukraine’s public debt even higher, until our aim is achieved, and then we won’t — and that’s when the default will occur — the default will happen when we decide it will happen. It will happen when we will stop lying and saying that it won’t happen.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bank Of Greece Pleads For Deal, Says “Uncontrollable Crisis”, “Soaring Inflation” Coming

June 17, 2015

Bank Of Greece Pleads For Deal, Says “Uncontrollable Crisis”, “Soaring Inflation” Coming

The situation in Greece has escalated meaningfully since last week. After the IMFeffectively threw in the towel and sent its negotiating team back to Washington on Thursday, EU and Greek officials agreed to meet in Brussels over the weekend in what was billed as a last ditch effort to end a long-running impasse and salvage some manner of deal in time to allow for the disbursement of at least part of the final tranche of aid ‘due’ to Greece under its second bailout program. Talks collapsed on Sunday however as Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, under pressure from the Left Platform, refused (again) to compromise on pension reform and the VAT, which are “red lines” for both the IMF and for Syriza party hardliners.

By Monday evening it was clear that both EU officials and Syriza’s radical left were drawing up plans for capital controls and a possible euro exit with Brussels looking to Thursday’s meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg for a possible breakthrough. That seems unlikely however, given that Athens is sending FinMin Yanis Varoufakis whose last Eurogroup meeting ended with his being sidelined in negotiations after putting on a performance that led his counterparts to brand him an amateur, a gambler, and a time waster. For his part, Varoufakis says no new proposal will be tabled in Luxembourg as Eurogroup meetings aren’t the place for such discussions, which is ironic because Jean-Claude Juncker said something similar not long ago when the Greeks were trying to get a deal done at the very same Eurogroup meetings.

Perhaps realizing that pinning everyone’s hopes on a Thursday breakthrough is a fool’s errand, the EU will reportedly convene a high level, emergency meeting over what we’ve suggested may be a “Lehman Weekend” for the market.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What’s Next in the Greek Farce and Why

June 17, 2015

What’s Next in the Greek Farce and Why

The Man They Hate with a Passion

Euro area politicians and IMF bureaucrats really hate Yanis Varoufakis’ guts with a passion. The media are full with denunciations of the man as “unprofessional”, negotiators of the euro-group let it be known (anonymously, natch) that “it got to the point where eyes roll”, that they were “sick and tired of being lectured about austerity and the effects of the crisis”, in short, it was “impossible to do business with him”.

Why do they hate him so much? Allegedly ,“any sympathy for Greece was eroded by his failure to draft concrete proposals.” Typical Mediterranean lazy bum is the message, in other words. Big on vacuous emoting, but doesn’t want to waste time on doing his homework (plus, he wears no tie…you have to be clad in the technocratic uniform if you want to be taken seriously).

varoubike The eurocrats really hate this one. They’re probably all trying to channel Tony G when they meet Varoufakis.

Photo credit: Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

Forgive us if our BS meter starts twitching when they are quoting unnamed officials with such pronouncements all over the mainstream press and are hammering the message home with unwavering regularity on Europe’s state-controlled TV stations. The reality is probably this: they hate him because he isn’t one of them.

Varoufakis is no politician, and apparently has no intentions of becoming one. His economic views may be a bit blue-eyed given his alliance with a bunch of lefties, but where and when has he said anything about the Greek situation that was not substantially correct?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Mocks G7 As “Gathering Of Debtors”, Warns “Confrontation Will Be A Disaster For Europe”

June 16, 2015

China Mocks G7 As “Gathering Of Debtors”, Warns “Confrontation Will Be A Disaster For Europe”

Vladimir Putin didn’t get an invite to the Angela Merkel-hosted G7 Summit in Bavaria last week, which means the Russian President not only missed out on two days at the scenic Castle Elmau, but also on lederhosen shopping with US President Barack Obama who, judging from eyewitness accounts and a variety of amusing photo ops, channeled his inner Clark Griswold upon touching down in the Bavarian town of Krun. The G7 isn’t pleased with Russia’s ‘behavior’ in Eastern Europe and so, Moscow has been expelled from the cool kids club until such a time as the Kremlin agrees to uphold Western democratic values.

(Obama in Krun)

But the G7 is an equal opportunity exclusionist which means it’s not just former superpowers that aren’t welcome, but rising superpowers as well, which means you won’t be seeing Xi Jinping at the table either.

But “Big Uncle Xi” (as he is affectionately known in China) likely isn’t losing any sleep because in the eyes of Beijing, the G7 — much like the IMF and the ADB — is a relic of a global economic and political order that is well on its way to obsolescence if it isn’t there already.

(Xi Jinping; illustration: The New Yorker)

The Global Times (which, it should be noted, is owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily) has more on why the G7 is largely irrelevant in the modern world.

Via The Global Times:

The G7 summit concluded in Germany last week. Chinese scholars and media barely showed any interest to this outdated informal institution, except for a Declaration on Maritime Security issued by G7 foreign ministers. The declaration expressed their concerns on “unilateral actions” in the South China Sea, with China as the obvious target.

Judging from the agenda and outcomes of this year’s G7 summit, it has run counter to the global trend of peace, development and cooperation and become mere of a geopolitical tool.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Starvation Is The Price Greeks Will Pay For Remaining In The EU

June 16, 2015

Starvation Is The Price Greeks Will Pay For Remaining In The EU

Syriza, the new Greek government that intended to rescue Greece from austerity, has come a cropper. The government relied on the good will of its EU “partners,” only to find that its “partners” had no good will. The Greek government did not understand that the only concern was the bottom line, or profits, of those who held the Greek debt.

The Greek people are as out to lunch as their government. The majority of Greeks want to remain in the EU even though it means that their pensions, their wages, their social services, and their employment opportunities will be reduced. Apparently for Greeks, being a part of Europe is worth being driven into the ground.

The alleged “Greek crisis” makes no sense whatsoever. It is obvious that Greece cannot with its devastated economy repay the debts that Goldman Sachs hid and then capitalized on the inside information, helping to cause the crisis. If the solvency of the holders of the Greek debt, apparently the NY hedge funds and German and Dutch banks, depends on being repaid, the European Central Bank could just follow the example of the Federal Reserve and print the money to secure the Greek debt. The ECB is already printing 60 billion euros a month to save the European financial system, so why not include Greece?

A conservative might say that such a course of action would cause inflation, but it hasn’t. The Fed has been creating money hands over fists for seven years, and according to the government there is no inflation. We even have negative interest rates attesting to the absence of inflation. Why will creating money for Greece create inflation but not for Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and JPMorganChase?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe Warns Of “State Of Emergency” As Greek Stalemate Drags On

June 15, 2015

Europe Warns Of “State Of Emergency” As Greek Stalemate Drags On

Talks between Greece and creditors collapsed on Sunday after Athens once again refused to compromise on a the pension cuts and VAT hike the troika insists are necessary if the country is to receive the final tranche of aid from its second bailout program.

We noted yesterday that the charade is hardly over as Greek PM Alexis Tsipras knows he can continue to bluff for a few more weeks. Even in the event Greece misses its June 30 payment to the IMF, Christine Lagarde would need to muster the political will to send a failure to pay notice to the IMF board, at which point Athens would be formally in default and cross acceleration rights for the country’s other creditors would trigger. But Lagarde has considerable discretion on the default notice and can delay it for at least 30 days. Between this and the fact that a critical payment to the ECB is still more than a month away, we suggested that the brinksmanship was far from over and that the new ‘deadline’ would be Thursday’s meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg.

On Monday the usual back-and-forth between the IMF, Greece, and EU officials continued with IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard insisting that Greece must implement changes to pensions and the VAT in order to hit (reduced) budget surplus targets while EU creditors should reshuffle Greece’s payment schedule, reduce interest rates on the country’s debt, and, if push comes to shove, writedown Greek bonds:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Snowden, Putin, Greece: It’s All The Same Story

June 15, 2015

Snowden, Putin, Greece: It’s All The Same Story

Through the last decades, as we have been getting ever more occupied trying to be what society tells us is defined as successful, we all missed out on a lot of changes in our world. Or perhaps we should be gentle to ourselves and say we’re simply slow to catch up.

Which is somewhat curious since we’ve also been getting bombarded with fast increasing amounts of what we’re told is information, so you’d think it might have become easier to keep up. It was not.

While we were busy being busy we for instance were largely oblivious to the fact the US is no longer a beneficial force in the world, and that it doesn’t spread democracy or freedom. Now you may argue to what extent that has ever been true, and you should, but the perception was arguably much closer to the truth 70 years ago, at the end of WWII, then it is today.

Another change we really can’t get our heads around is how the media have turned from a source of information to a source of – pre-fabricated – narratives. We’ll all say to some extent or another that we know our press feeds us propaganda, but, again arguably, few of us are capable of pinpointing to what extent that is true. Perhaps no big surprise given the overdose of what passes for information, but duly noted.

So far so good, you’re not as smart as you think. Bummer. But still an easy one to deny in the private space of your own head. If you get undressed and stand in front of the mirror, though, maybe not as easy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF To Tsipras: “Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?” (But Who Has the Gun?)

June 13, 2015

IMF To Tsipras: “Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?” (But Who Has the Gun?)

In the wake of the IMF walking out of negotiations with Greece, the Financial Times says the Pullout is Amid an “Air of Unreality”.

What’s Unreal?

Sure, everyone expected Greece to buckle. But what if Greece did buckle for the nth time? Greece was eventually going to default anyway.

There is not now, nor was there ever, anything “unreal” about the inevitable default.

Earlier today German officials said “European taxpayers have been generous” to Greece. What a hoot. Now, that’s “unreal”.

What’s also “unreal” is forcing €330 billion worth of debt on a tiny country, pretending that it can be paid back.

This alleged “generous” bailout did nothing but bail out banks while forcing a hellacious depression on Greece. Taxpayers have not foot the bill yet, but they will, thanks to bondholder and bank bailouts.

Some blame Greece. And to be sure Greece made mistakes. But the real culprits are the ECB’s one size fits Germany interest rate policy, the stupidity of the eurozone agreement itself, the lack of a fiscal union, etc.

Everyone knew Greece lied to get into the eurozone. They let Greece in anyway. Isn’t that “unreal”?

“Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?”

The Guradian reports the IMF walkout this way: IMF to Alexis Tsipras: ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’

“You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” The lines spoken by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry sprang to mind when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it had called its Greek negotiating team home from talks in Brussels.

The IMF’s message was short and brutal. There were still major differences between Greece and its creditors. There was no progress in narrowing those differences. The two sides were well away from an agreement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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