Bill Mitchell — Some Brexit dynamics while across the Channel Europe is in denial

It is Wednesday and I am going to stick to my decision to ‘not publish a blog post’ on Wednesdays unless there is some new data (such as the quarterly release of the Australian National Accounts). I want to use this time to attend to other writing obligations. But a few snippets won’t hurt, will they? The first, looks at some extraordinary denial from the European Union bosses. The second, looks at evidence that the Brexit environment is already providing positive dynamics for British workers in low-wage areas of the labour market. And that is being presented by the Remainers as something negative! We move into 2019, just as we left 2018!...

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Some Brexit dynamics while across the Channel Europe is in denial
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — Jean-Claude Juncker in denial and somewhat delusional

Last week (September 13, 2017), the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, presented his State of the Union Address 2017 in Strasbourg before the European Parliament. My only query arising from the speech was which Member State has left, given that the President began his speech by thanking “the 27 leaders of our Member States” (joke). He opened by saying how unity among the Member States had “showed that Europe can deliver for its citizens when and where it matters”. I wonder which Planet he was referring to. I thought Europe was on the Mother Earth and it certainly hasn’t been delivering for its citizens, if the usual measures are considered. Juncker’s speech just continues what I considered to be ‘Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale’, which was the subtitle of my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale. It is amazing that the denial continues after 10 years and that guys like Juncker can still command an audience and a salary.…

Translation of the speech: The European elite is doing very well. The little people don't count. Welcome to capitalism, which is the system that favors capital formation and the accumulation of capital as foundational and the ultimate criterion.

Capitalism is oppsed to socialism as the priority of all the people, and environmentalism as the priority of land. These are means for increasing capital under capitalism, and their use is based on the priorities of capital.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Jean-Claude Juncker in denial and somewhat delusional
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Reuters — Europe must not bow to U.S. spending demands on NATO: EU's Juncker

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday that Europe must not cave in to U.S demands to raise military spending, arguing that development and humanitarian aid could also count as security....

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies on Wednesday that they must honor military spending pledges to make sure the United States does not moderate its support....

Reuters
Europe must not bow to U.S. spending demands on NATO: EU's Juncker

Sputnik International National Borders Politicians' 'Worst' Invention - EC President

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker stated that borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians.

Nationalism, internationalism, and globalism. These will be key issues in the coming century. IN the long run there will be one people, one planet, the issues are getting from here to there considering hysteresis and path dependence, as well as cognitive-affective-volitional bias. The solution involves a shift in culture that manifests in institutional change.

This can be the result of imposition by elites, natural development that shifts the real forces (foundations, factors) of production that determine the possibilities for social relations, or revolutions. Imposition by elites will meet fierce resistance and set the natural process of development back, which could led to revolutions.

The transnational corporate totalitarianism as neoliberal neo-imperialism that "liberal" elites are foisting on their peoples and the world is not going to work, at least without severe repression of dissent and surveillance-police states that contradict the globalist program of eliminating national borders.

Sputnik International
National Borders Politicians' 'Worst' Invention - EC President

Alan Tovey — Juncker tells China to cut steel production or be frozen out of global trade club

What you fall back on when you can't compete.

If the West want a "liberal" free market and free trade policy, then it has no choice but to cut wages to Asian levels. 

Liberalism is the great thing since sliced bread — when it's you that winning.

As a matter of history, pretty much the same thing happened post-WWII. Japan rebuilt its destroyed steel industry, and the US was left with outdated plants that could not compete. Then Japan was the bad guy.

The Telegraph
Juncker tells China to cut steel production or be frozen out of global trade club
Alan Tovey

RT — Turning point? EU Commission head says relations with Russian ‘must be improved,’ US ‘can’t dictate’

Sanctions and refugees fleeing MENA chaos biting? Imperial overreach?

RT
Turning point? EU Commission head says relations with Russian ‘must be improved,’ US ‘can’t dictate’

Raúl Ilargi Meijer — The EU Uses Every Crisis To Grab More Power

Disaster Capitalism is alive and well.

The Automatic Earth

The EU Uses Every Crisis To Grab More Power

Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Jean-Claude Junker hurls insults at Greece

Telegraph — George Osborne spearheads assault to stop Greece 'suicide'

Elite freak out underway as Sampson Syriza pulls down the pillars. Shades of Lehman looming.

George Osborne on Monday led attempts to strong-arm Greece into voting for a bail-out package as he warned that a Greek exit would threaten Britain’s financial stability.
Britain joined Germany, France, Italy and the European Commission in telling the Greek people that refusing austerity measures in next Sunday’s referendum would catapult them “from the eurozone and from Europe".

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, warned the Greeks – who are on Tuesday night expected to default on a €1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – not to “commit suicide” by rejecting the proposed €12 billion loans-for-reforms package. The threat comes despite voters being asked only whether they support the bail-out.

Some £36 billion was wiped off the value of major British companies on the FTSE 100 as markets slid around the world, while Greeks queued in their thousands at cash machines, petrol stations and supermarkets for a third day....

Hold strong Syriza. Democracy is working.

Best line:

Greece on Monday published the ballot paper for Sunday’s vote, with No, or Oxi, at the top. The word carries powerful resonance in Greece from the day in October 1940 when it refused Mussolini’s ultimatum.

If this weren't so pitiful, I'd be laughing. The eurocrats are getting what they deserve. And no, they are still not willing to compromise one inch. That's the real neoliberalism on display. It's like catching a monkey by putting a banana in pot. The monkey grasps the banana and won't let go, so it is caught by its own greed.

The Telegraph
George Osborne spearheads assault to stop Greece 'suicide'

Matthew Holehouse, Brussels, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Justin Huggler, Berlin and Steven Swinford

Amazing what some backbone will achieve. Euro "bullies" now backtracking, lying, throwing love...

Amazing what some backbone will  achieve. Now the bulliies are getting nervous. Juncker lying and backtracking. IMF's Lagarde throwing some "love."

EU President Jean-Claude Juncker says he never wage and pension cuts. #Bullshit!

#Juncker wage cuts never on the table

— Kathimerini English (@ekathimerini) June 29, 2015

Begs Greek people to vote "Yes" on referendum to stay in the Eurozone. #ScaredShitless

Here's Lagarde:

But as far as we are concerned, Greece is a member of the euro zone. When they are prepared to talk, and to continue negotiations, we stand ready to do that. we have constantly in the last few days showed a lot of willingness to progress, flexibility in what they can adjust to. And we stand ready to continue to doing that. 

Willingness to progress? Flexibility? What a fucking joke.

Too bad Tsipras didn't do this right from the start.

RT — Grexit not an option, will let Anglo-Saxons crush euro - Juncker

The president of the European Commission has issued a bleak warning: financial experts based in London are waiting to crush the Euro if Greece leaves the Eurozone. 

Speaking to students at the University of Leuven in Belgium, Jean-Claude Juncker said the single currency used by 19 states in the European Union is under threat from the “Anglo-Saxon world” – a term used to describe bankers in London and Wall Street.
Juncker added Greece would not be forced to leave the currency as the financial hole it would leave would be too big.

“Grexit is not an option,” he said. 

“The world wants to know where we’re going. They want to know that the monetary union is irreversible, it is a currency that is made to last.” 

He added: “If we were to accept that Greece could leave the Eurozone, we would put ourselves at risk because some, notably in the Anglo-Saxon world, will try everything to break down the euro area piece by piece, bit by bit.” 

Juncker’s comments have proved embarrassing to officials, as it suggests there is an active plot being prepared in UK banks to subvert the euro, and will doubtless lead to renewed criticism of the head of the European Commission.

RT
Grexit not an option, will let Anglo-Saxons crush euro - Juncker

Bill Mitchell — Eurozone unemployment – little to do with international competitiveness

The so-called ‘Informal European Council’ released a document on February 12, 2015 – Preparing for Next Steps on Better Economic Governance in the Euro Area: Analytical Note – which has been used as a background paper to batter the Greeks into submission in the latest round of the Eurozone crisis. It was published under the authorshop of Jean-Claude Juncker (President of the European Commission) with “close cooperation” with Donald Tusk (President of the European Council), Jeroen Dijsselbloem (President of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers) and Mario Draghi (ECB boss). All that is missing is the Madame from the IMF to complete the Troika. This is a very dishonest document, deliberately framed to advance the austerity agenda and damage the living standards of some of the nations within the monetary union. It is hard how any serious economist would put their name to this sort of analysis.....

Well, we know that these people are not serious economists but serious politicians flogging an ideology they can't admit has resulted in failure. Perhaps, Christine LaGrande's signature isn't on this because she recognizes it. But if she doesn't speak up, silence is consent.

The Eurozone is now locked down in a straitjacket of economic austerity, driven by an economic ideology that is blind to the evidence of its own failure.

The concern:

The Keynesian era emerged out of the Great Depression, which taught politicians that without major government intervention, capitalism is inherently unstable and prone to delivering lengthy periods of unemployment.
Full employment came only with the onset of World War II as governments used deficit spending to prosecute the war effort.

Failing to recognize this and imposing fiscal austerity in the face of economic and financial crisis that is morphing into social unrest and political crisis, Europe is now sliding into instability and toward war, with a hot war raging on its eastern border with Russia. Is history rhyming? How many times do we have to run this?

Bill runs through the history.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Eurozone unemployment – little to do with international competitiveness
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Sputnik — UK Slams EU President for Proposing Anti-Russian European Army

Sending shock waves throughout Europe, the president of the European Commission argued on Sunday that the European Union should establish its own army to counter Russia. The proposal has already received strong dismissals from British leaders, who say the idea has “no prospect,” and accuse its enthusiasts of living in a “fantasy world.”

“Our position is crystal clear,” a UK government spokesperson said, “that defense is a national – not an EU – responsibility and that there is no prospect of that position changing and no prospect of a European army.” 

This was in response to the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who proposed such an organization on Sunday. 

“A common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union,” Jean-Claude Juncker told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag on Sunday. 

Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg, has long supported the idea of a joint European army. He argues that such a military would help establish a unified foreign policy for the region, and help strengthen the notion of Pan-European nationalism.....

This brings up the push for European federalism in order to deal with the euro crisis and preserve the EZ. Are Europeans ready for all that federalism implies, including a European military.

Sputnik
UK Slams EU President for Proposing Anti-Russian European Army