If politics were just war by another name, then economics would be the favored armory of both sides. Europe has gone one step further last week, almost unimaginably bringing back the era of fascism as it contends with the unwieldy agglomeration of financial contradictions that the euro project has now become.
The birthplace of democracy, Greece, has gone back to a managed dictatorship after the collapse of the democratically elected George Papandreou government on Sunday, to be replaced by a national unity government with a technocrat at its helm. Reading between the lines, the idea isn't hard to understand: a pliant government in Athens that is helmed by a eurocrat, unable to ask any questions of Brussels and unwilling to concede over any objections from the population of Greece.
The apparent crime of the Greeks was to ask their prime minister for a referendum on the latest series of proposals from European authorities on a new bailout for their country (see The men without qualities, Asia Times Online, October 29, 2011). This set off panic in stock and bond markets mid-week and prepared the stage for an ugly showdown as well as unprecedented developments....
Read the Rest at Asia Times,
by Chan Akya
Calling like it is. This version of "capitalism" is incompatible with democracy and the leaders are well aware of it, as this latest move proves beyond any doubt.
Greece is still a democracy, but its days may be numbered.
ReplyDeleteMostly good article, but there are problematic parts:
ReplyDeleteTo cut the eurozone's structural drag, countries will have to improve competitiveness. This can only be done if structural constraints on growth are removed, the main one of which is the overly generous social programs. Alternatively, Europe can choose to maintain social safeguards but will have to forsake a strong currency. Inflation would then do to the European lifestyles what common sense alone couldn't establish.
This is nonsense. Nonsense which the Bad Guys have been working overtime to brainwash people with. Europe's "overly generous social programs" are not drags or constraints on growth, but enormously valuable aids to growth & their economies. Before Europe rolled all their little problems into a big one & got a little pregnant with the Euro, the biggest problem was that it was not spending enough on such programs, causing unemployment.
Yes, prosperity from high social spending, or any reason can cause currency weakness. So what? Modern governments are obsessed with intervening into things which are impossible to control, better left alone, and where "the market" works - foreign exchange & trade. And religiously avoid "intervening" - really repairing the results of its "intervention" - where it should, where "the market" can not work - in eliminating unemployment.
Forsaking "strong currencies" is a very good idea. The increase in real wealth & exports from a well-run economy with a naturally depreciating currency should more than offset the inflationary effects of currency weakness. What Chan Akya calls "common sense" here is the opposite. Calling it that is a testament of the effectiveness of decades of propaganda for preposterous beliefs.