{"id":4815,"date":"2015-01-25T07:45:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T12:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4815"},"modified":"2015-01-25T07:45:25","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T12:45:25","slug":"troika-punches-panic-button-on-greece-and-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4815","title":{"rendered":"Troika Punches Panic Button on Greece and Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/01\/24\/troika-punches-panic-button-on-greece-and-spain\/\" target=\"_blank\">Troika Punches Panic Button on Greece and Spain<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>After four years of inflicting economic pain and misery on Europe\u2019s semi-bankrupt periphery, the Troika (IMF, ECB and European Commission) is suddenly in a lather over the potential political consequences of its disastrous economic policies: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t like extreme forces to come to power. I would prefer if\u00a0<em>known faces<\/em>\u00a0show up,\u201d said European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker regarding the upcoming Greek elections.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a press conference in Pekin, the IMF\u2019s Chief Economist Oliver Blanchard warned that unemployment in Spain remains too high, fueling a surge of support in \u201cpopulist movements\u201d and \u201cpolitical parties that do not want to form part of the euro.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blanchard\u2019s words were a barely veiled reference to the phoenix-like rise of Podemos, a stridently anti-establishment but far from Eurosceptic political party. In recent polls of voter intentions for the upcoming municipal elections (March) and general elections (September), the new party, now in its second year of existence, has consistently commanded between 25% and 30% of the votes \u2013 more than either of the two main parties.<\/p>\n<p>The fear among the political elite, both in Madrid and Brussels, is palpable. In the last few days, Prime Minister Rajoy dispatched his Vice-President, Soraya S\u00e1enz de Santamaria, and Minister of Industry, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Soria, on a vital mission to persuade Spain\u2019s biggest media conglomerate, Grupo Planeta, to adopt a more critical tone in its reporting on Podemos. In return the government will offer the broadcaster more licenses for more channels.\u00a0<em>Bienvenido a Espa\u00f1a!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Troika Punches Panic Button on Greece and Spain After four years of inflicting economic pain and misery on Europe\u2019s semi-bankrupt periphery, the Troika (IMF, ECB and European Commission) is suddenly in a lather over the potential political consequences of its disastrous economic policies: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t like extreme forces to come to power. I would prefer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2869,233,282,2535,284,1167,1820,418,434,2868],"class_list":["post-4815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-ec","tag-ecb","tag-european-central-bank","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-greece","tag-greek-elections","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-troika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4816,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}