Tag: EU

German nationalism rises

Seriously, who thought flooding Germany with foreign invaders was a good idea?

President Joachim Gauck on Thursday condemned a recent rise in “vile” attacks on refugee shelters in Germany and warned that xenophobic attitudes were taking root in the country.

The comments by the head of state underline growing concern about hostility towards immigrants in Germany, which last year saw the emergence of the grassroots anti-Islam group PEGIDA.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been 150 attacks on refugee shelters — nearly as many as in the whole of 2014.

“We are seeing xenophobic attitudes taking root and that some people aren’t even shying away from carrying out attacks,” Gauck said in a speech in Berlin.

“I’m referring to what we have recently experienced again with these vile attacks on refugee homes. It’s unbearable.”

When your citizens are actively attacking “refugee shelters”, that’s probably a very good sign that you should stop letting refugees enter the country and start sending those that are already there back to their home countries.

It’s the invasion that is are unbearable, that’s what is causing the vile attacks. If the German head of state was truly concerned about xenophobia and hostility towards immigrants, he should shut down immigration into Germany.

When politicians are too clever by half

Apparently Greek Prime Minister Tsipras planned to sell Greece out all along, but he failed to anticipate either the rapaciousness of the Euro-creditors or the national pride of the Greek people:

 Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe’s creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras never expected to win Sunday’s referendum on EMU bail-out terms, let alone to preside over a blazing national revolt against foreign control. He called the snap vote with the expectation – and intention – of losing it. The plan was to put up a good fight, accept honourable defeat, and hand over the keys of the Maximos Mansion, leaving it to others to implement the June 25 “ultimatum” and suffer the opprobrium.

This ultimatum came as a shock to the Greek cabinet. They thought they were on the cusp of a deal, bad though it was. Mr Tsipras had already made the decision to acquiesce to austerity demands, recognizing that Syriza had failed to bring about a debtors’ cartel of southern EMU states and had seriously misjudged the mood across the eurozone.

Instead they were confronted with a text from the creditors that upped the ante, demanding a rise in VAT on tourist hotels from 7pc (de facto) to 23pc at a single stroke. Creditors insisted on further pension cuts of 1pc of GDP by next year and a phase out of welfare assistance (EKAS) for poorer pensioners, even though pensions have already been cut by 44pc. They insisted on fiscal tightening equal to 2pc of GDP in an economy reeling from six years of depression and devastating hysteresis. They offered no debt relief. The Europeans intervened behind the scenes to suppress a report by the International Monetary Fund validating Greece’s claim that its debt is “unsustainable”. The IMF concluded that the country not only needs a 30pc haircut to restore viability, but also €52bn of fresh money to claw its way out of crisis.

They rejected Greek plans to work with the OECD on market reforms, and with the International Labour Organisation on collective bargaining laws. They stuck rigidly to their script, refusing to recognise in any way that their own Dickensian prescriptions have been discredited by economists from across the world.

“They just didn’t want us to sign. They had already decided to push us out,” said the now-departed finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

So Syriza called the referendum. To their consternation, they won, igniting the great Greek revolt of 2015, the moment when the people finally issued a primal scream, daubed their war paint, and formed the hoplite phalanx.

Mr Tsipras is now trapped by his success. “The referendum has its own dynamic. People will revolt if he comes back from Brussels with a shoddy compromise,” said Costas Lapavitsas, a Syriza MP. “Tsipras doesn’t want to take the path of Grexit, but I think he realizes that this is now what lies straight ahead of him,” he said.

I was wondering why the Greek government seemed to be so paralyzed; they should already have the drachma ready to go. Instead, they’re just doing nothing, as far as anyone can tell.

This is why representative democracy is a complete failure. The elected representatives are less courageous and less decisive and less willing to act in the national interest than the people.

UPDATE: Zerohedge notes that IT HAS BEGUN. Businesses are listing prices in drachma.

The EU doubles down

It’s not a huge surprise. They have never had any respect for democracy anyhow:

The European Central Bank has tightened liquidity conditions for the Greek banking system following the landslide victory for the Leftist government in Sunday’s referendum.

The central bank continued its freeze on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) after Germany issued a humiliating ultimatum to Greece, warning that the country would be cast adrift and left to go bankrupt unless it agreed to much deeper concessions than anything offered so far.

Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice-chancellor, said the landslide rejection of EU austerity demands in the Greek referendum changed nothing, demanding that the Left-wing Syriza government must accept further belt-tightening without any prospect of debt relief if it wishes to remain in the eurozone.

“The final bankruptcy now appears imminent,” he said. The Greek leaders have been told that they have a deadline of Tuesday afternoon to come up with far-reaching proposals.

And before any morons pop up and start blathering about “those lazy Greeks should pay their debts”, understand that it is mathematically impossible for them to do so. Not difficult, not hard, impossible. It is never going to happen. And note that the IMF, which has been continuing to loan them money, has known this since 2011.

Keep in mind that the USA was actually more indebted than Greece until just a few years ago. The difference is that the USA can always print more credit dollars. The Greeks cannot, not until they get rid of the Euro and go back to the drachma. The core problem is not that the Greeks were profligate, although they were, but that they chose to join the EU and the Euro.

Don’t forget that wherever there are large sums of money involved, there is always quite a bit going on behind the scenes:

“the European Central Bank said it can’t release files showing how Greece may have used derivatives to hide its borrowings because disclosure could still inflame the crisis threatening the future of the single currency.”

Considering the crisis of the (not so) single currency is very much “inflamed” right now as it is about to be proven it was never “irreversible”, perhaps it is time for at least one aspiring, true journalist, unafraid of disturbing the status quo of wealthy oligarchs and central planners, to at least bring some closure to the Greek people as they are swept out of the Eurozone which has so greatly benefited the very same Goldman Sachs whose former lackey is currently deciding the immediate fate of over €100 billion in Greek savings.

Because something tells us the reason why Mario Draghi personally blocked Bloomberg’s FOIA into the circumstances surrounding Goldman’s structuring, and hiding, of Greek debt that allowed not only Goldman to receive a substantial fee on the transaction, but permitted Greece to enter the Eurozone when it should never have been allowed there in the first place, is that the person who oversaw and personally endorsed the perpetuation of the Greek lie is none other than Goldman’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International from 2002 to 2005. The man who is also now in charge of the ECB.

Mario Draghi.

A man of honor

It would be remarkable if the USA had a single political leader who cared as much about his nation and as little about his career as Greece’s newly ex-finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned after successfully leading Greece’s campaign to reject the Eurogroup’s ultimatum:

The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage.

Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great capital bestowed upon our government by the splendid NO vote be invested immediately into a YES to a proper resolution – to an agreement that involves debt restructuring, less austerity, redistribution in favour of the needy, and real reforms.

Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today.

I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum.

And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.

We of the Left know how to act collectively with no care for the privileges of office. I shall support fully Prime Minister Tsipras, the new Minister of Finance, and our government.

The superhuman effort to honour the brave people of Greece, and the famous OXI (NO) that they granted to democrats the world over, is just beginning.

I don’t agree with Mr. Varoufakis on much, but his defense of Greece’s national sovereignty in the face of tremendous pressure from the banks and the European political class was as magnificent as it was astonishing. I hope that he soon realizes that Greece no more needs the European Union or the Euro weighing it down than it needed to pay the odious debts demanded by the Eurogroup.

The Eurofascists lost

Live updates here:

BREAKING: Greek interior ministry projection says ‘no’ camp will get more than 61 percent of vote.

17 25 31 40 50 percent reported, 61 percent NO, 39 percent YES. Now, the bankers will double-down, threaten, and promise economic apocalypse if they aren’t bailed-out. Or bailed-in. They always do. But the people are finally beginning to realize that the bankers are serving only themselves.

But how is that possible? After all, we were told that the Greeks are desperate to stay in the EU and in the Euro. June 28: In a poll conducted by Alco for the Greek newspaper ‘Proto Thema’, 57%
of the participants said they would vote yes in the upcoming referendum,
favoring a deal.

What an amazing 18-point turnaround in only one week! Or, you know, perhaps the media is not to be trusted.

UPDATE: Heh. Glenn Reynolds is the master of pith:

TIME.com @TIME
‘No’ campaign likely to win tight referendum vote in Greece

Instapundit.com ‏@instapundit
Not that tight.

Why Greece should vote “NO”

The depths of dishonesty and economic depravity to which the EU and the IMF have been willing to descend are simply astonishing:

If you haven’t been following developments in the Greek-EU standoff, you’re really missing out. This might be the best story of the year. And what makes it so riveting, is that no one thought that little Greece could face off with the powerful leaders of the EU and make them blink. But that’s exactly what’s happened. On Monday, members of the Eurogroup met with Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to decide whether they would accept Greece’s terms for an extension of the current loan agreement. There were no real changes to the agreement. The only difference was semantics, that is, the loan would not be seen as a bailout but as “a transitional stage to a new contract for growth for Greece”. In other words, a bridge to a different program altogether.

In retrospect, Varoufakis’s strategy was pure genius, mainly because it knocked the EU finance ministers off balance and threw the process into turmoil. After all, how could they vote “thumbs down” on loan package that they had previously approved just because the language was slightly different? But if they voted “thumbs up”, then what?

Well, then they would be acknowledging (and, tacitly, approving) Greece’s determination to make the program less punitive in the future. That means they’d be paving the way for an end to austerity and a rethink on loan repayment. They’d also be conceding that Greece’s democratically-elected government had the right to alter the policies of the Eurogroup. How could they let that happen?

But, then again, how could they vote it down, after all, it was basically the same deal. As Varoufakis pointed out in a press conference on Monday:

    “We agree to the terms of our loan agreements to all our creditors”. And we have “agreed to do nothing to derail the existing budget framework during the interim period.”

See? It’s the same deal. This is the conundrum the Eurogroup faced on Monday, but instead of dealing with it head-on, as you would expect any mature person to do, they punted. They put off the loan extension decision for another day and called it quits. Now maybe that was the smart thing to do, but the optics sure looked terrible. It looked like Varoufakis stared them down and sent them fleeing like scared schoolchildren.

Now, remember, Monday was the absolute, drop-dead deadline for deciding whether the Eurogroup would approve or reject the new terms for Greece’s loan extension. That means the Eurogroup’s task could not have been more straightforward. All they had to do was vote yes or no. That’s it.

Instead, they called ‘Time Out’ and kicked the can a little further down the road. It was not a particularly proud moment for the European Union. But what’s even worse, is the subterfuge that preceded the meetings; that’s what cast doubt on the character of the people running EU negotiations. Here’s the scoop: About 15 minutes before the confab began, Varoufakis was given a draft communique outlining the provisions of the proposed loan extension. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the document met all his requirements and, so, he was prepared to sign it. Unfortunately, the document was switched shortly before the negotiations began with one that backtracked on all the crucial points.

I’m not making this up. The freaking Eurogroup tried to pull the old switcheroo on Varoufakis to get him to sign something that was different than the original.

Once you know someone is dishonest, don’t work with them. You know, you absolutely know, that they will screw you over without hesitation every time they have both motive and opportunity.

Even if the Eurozone were a benefit to its members – and there is copious evidence, from Romania to Iceland, proving that it most definitely is not – the fact that the IMF-ECB-EU Commission triumvirate would try to play such a childishly stupid game with the fate of nations on the line should be sufficient to convince every citizen of every nation in Europe that both the EU and the Euro are disasters that cannot possibly function as advertised.

The thing is, a “YES” vote won’t save Greece, the Euro, or the European Union anyhow. It would be just one more futile kicking of an increasingly immobile can and extend the financial raping of the Greek people a little longer.

Is Grexit finally here?

The surprise call for a sudden referendum seems to indicate that Tsipras and Syriza want to make sure that the public shares the blame for Greece crashing out of the Euro.

In the aftermath of yesterday’s “nuclear option” announcement by Greece, when in a dramatic after-midnight speech Greek PM Tsipras announced that Greece would hold a referendum next Sunday, the day after the US independence day, the same Greek government made it very clear how it wants the Greeks to vote.

First, it was the Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, head of the Left Platform movement of Syriza, who said in comments broadcast on state-run ERT TV that a no vote by the Greek people in July 5 referendum “will open the road for a new future for the country” adding that “the dilemma facing Greeks is “whether to live better or not. Greek people are aware of difficulties of a new starting point, they’re ready to support new national effort.”

Then the alternate health and social security minister Dimitris Stratoulis doubled down telling ERT-TV that Greeks are being given the opportunity to decide the way forward and “I’m optimistic” that they will give a “resounding” no to the “provocative” demands of the country’s creditors. The only issue is the question being put to the people in the referendum.” It got better when he said that “Greeks are being asked to vote whether the country should be a colony, or not, of creditors.”

Well, if that’s how the referendum question is indeed phrased then yes, it is clear how the Greeks will vote.

As was to be expected, the Greek opposition parties, except for the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, expressed horror at the referendum. Conservative main opposition leader Antonis Samaras accused Tsipras’ radical left government of advocating an exit from the eurozone and the European Union. “Mr Tsipras has led the country to an absolute impasse,” he said. “Between an unacceptable agreement and leaving Europe.”

Why? Because they know that despite the referendum move, which is clearly just a last ditch attempt by Tsipras to save his political career by punting the decision straight to the people, if there is a “Yes” vote to the proposed bailout, then Syriza is out and new elections have to follow.

As for the reason why Tsipras had to punt, it is a simple one: at the core of the ongoing Greek negotiation debacle is the inability of the local people to decide what they want: according to various recent polls 80% of Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone and keep the Euro currency, the problem is that 80% also want an end to austerity. Two conditions which are mutually exclusive. It is no surprise then that Tsipras had no clue how to proceed based on his mandate.

Getting out of the Euro and the EU is absolutely the right move for the Greeks, but they’re afraid to go ahead and do it. But given the unacceptable price of the status quo, which is unemployment levels higher than anything the USA saw in the Great Depression, it looks as if they may be forced to do the right thing.

Holiday

And not the fun kind, in Greece:

Bank of Cyprus, Cyprus’s largest lender, is preparing for an extended bank holiday in Greece as continuing deposits outflows may force authorities to take this type of step and impose capital controls.

“We are preparing to facilitate our customers with operations in Greece with additional liquidity,” a Bank of Cyprus source with knowledge of the situation said on condition of anonymity. “This is something we don’t want to see happening”.

The source said that in recent days the bank saw an increase in deposits inflows, both from Cypriot and Greek depositors, amounting “hundreds of million euros”. Reuters reported on Thursday that European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure told euro area’s finance ministers that he was not sure whether Greek bank will be able to open on Monday.

The Bank of Cyprus source also said that the bank cannot be ruled out that a bank holiday in Greece could also affect the Cypriot banking system via the units of Greek banks operating on the island in the form of deposits outflows. The source was not in position to name the amount in additional liquidity the bank will need in the case of a bank holiday in Greece nor the number of its customers that would be affected.

“In that case, a bank holiday in Greece could also prompt Cypriot authorities to also impose a bank holiday in Cyprus,” the Bank of Cyprus source said.

To say nothing of Spain, then Italy…. I strongly suspect we are witnessing the slow unwinding of first the Euro, then the European Union. As untenable as the Euro now is, the EU is even worse off due to its immigration policies that nearly everyone except the EU Commission, the media, and the invaders hate.

UPDATE: Phoenix Capital Research explains that the Greek bailouts had little to do with Greece per se:

The Greek situation actually had nothing to do with helping Greece. Forget about Greece’s debt issues, or protests, or even the political decisions… the real story was that the bailouts were all about insuring that the EU banks that were using Greek bonds as collateral were kept whole by any means possible.

Back to the drachma

This may be one of the few times I will ever actively endorse the radical wing of a hard left party, but Syriza’s radicals are absolutely doing the right thing with regards to the EU and the Euro:

The radical wing of Greece’s Syriza party is to table plans over coming days for an Icelandic-style default and a nationalisation of the Greek banking system, deeming it pointless to continue talks with Europe’s creditor powers. Syriza sources say measures being drafted include capital controls and the establishment of a sovereign central bank able to stand behind a new financial system. While some form of dual currency might be possible in theory, such a structure would be incompatible with euro membership and would imply a rapid return to the drachma.

The confidential plans were circulating over the weekend and have the backing of 30 MPs from the Aristeri Platforma or ‘Left Platform’, as well as other hard-line groupings in Syriza’s spectrum. It is understood that the nationalist ANEL party in the ruling coalition is also willing to force a rupture with creditors, if need be.

“This goes well beyond the Left Platform. We are talking serious numbers,” said one Syriza MP involved in the draft. We are all horrified by the idea of surrender, and we will not allow ourselves to be throttled to death by European monetary union,” he told the Telegraph.

Syriza’s Left Platform has studied the Icelandic model, extolled as a success story by the International Monetary Fund itself.

“The Greek banks must be nationalised immediately, along with the creation of a bad bank. There may have to be some restrictions on cash withdrawals,” said one Syriza MP.  “The banks will go ape-shit of course. We are aware that there will be a lot of lawsuits but at the end of the day we are a sovereign power,” he said.

Syriza has a strong ideological motive to strike at the financial elites. They view the banks as the nerve centre of an entrenched oligarchy that has run the country for more than half a century as a family business. Forcing these institutions into bankruptcy provides cover for a socio-political purge, best understood as a revolution.

Without national sovereignty, absolutely no other political position or policy matters. Golden Dawn, ANEL, and the other Greek parties should support the Syriza radicals in this. As should nationalists in Spain and Italy. I would love to see Italy back on the lira. Heck, I still have some.

The banks remind me a little of the SJWs in science fiction.

The creditors argue that ‘Grexit’ would be suicidal for Greece. They have been negotiating on the assumption that Syriza must be bluffing, and will ultimately capitulate. Little thought has gone into possibility that key figures in Athens may be thinking along entirely different lines. 

That was fast

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a faster government U-turn:

Breaking: David Cameron climbs down on ‘back me or resign’ Downing Street has forced into a climb-down over whether Government ministers will have to resign if they want to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, reports our Political Editor Peter Dominiczak.

Number 10 insisted that David Cameron “has not set out” whether “collective responsibility” will apply at the in-out referendum, which could be held next year.

Mr Cameron’s spokeswoman insisted that the Prime Minister had only said that members of the Government would have to resign during the renegotiation phase leading up to the announcement of a referendum if they wish to campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

Mr Cameron has not made a decision about whether ministers would have to quit if they campaign for a British exit, Downing Street claimed. It appears to leave open the possibility of ministers being able to campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

It sounds rather like the Prime Minister learned that he was about to lose most of his ministers and find himself facing a vote of no confidence only weeks after his big electoral victory.

I don’t think the usual kabuki is fooling anyone this time around. The EU isn’t going to cut Britain any slack, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter because they could take it back anytime in the future. Sovereign or slave-state, that is the only relevant question.