What is this myth? Well, simply put the myth goes like this: every time the EU faces a crisis, some kind of crisis, any crisis, it muddles, it procrastinates, it comes very close to the brink of disaster, but in the end, at the very last moment, it pulls back and solves the problem.

That has indeed been a feature of the EU. I dare say when the problems were of a different nature and easier to solve than the current crisis deriving from the bursting of the global financial bubble on the one hand and of an extremely badly designed common currency on the other.

There are many analysts, politicians, commentators throughout the whole of the EU who resort to this facile conclusion with a shrug. “Oh well, that is how the EU works. But don’t worry. In the end they will get it right.”

Another reason why it is taken for granted that the crisis will be solved, is, to put it crudely, that the Euro “is too big to fail” and it is. But does any of the above constitute any guarantee that “they” will get it right? And why?

First of all who are “they”, the ones we expect will get it all right in the end? In times gone by the President of the Commission was very instrumental in shaping EU policy and thought. In days when people such as Jacques Delors was the President. Unfortunately the current President of the Commission and the newly designed President of the EU are both nothing but superfluous rubber stamps.

The leaders of the major member nations were also part of the EU “they”, leaders such as Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl who knew they had to work together and knew how to do it. Unfortunately today, despite many hypocritical protestations the “they” has been reduced to “she”. The German Chancellor. A simplification perhaps, but short hand for the German government.

So we are all expecting The Frau to fix things at the last moment. But the disastrous results of the German imposed policy in this EU crisis has clearly demonstrated that she does not get it right and may well not be relied upon to get it right in the end either. For very many reasons.

The main reason at the moment is that she is facing reelection in 2013. And for her and her party (major player in this Wolfgang Schauble) their top priority is not Europe, not even the long term prospects of the German economy, but getting back into the seat of power.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that in the pressing case of the unsustainability of Greek debt, they do not want to take any action towards what Christine Lagarde has termed a “real fix”. Firstly they do not want to admit that their policy has not worked. They don’t have to admit it was disastrous, but they do not even want to hint that well, perhaps now, we could do something a little differently.

No! More and worse of the same! Squeeze the secondary Greeks until their worthless pips squeak! They do not want to admit to the electorate that far from “giving” their hard earned money to the lazy Greeks, they have turned this whole crisis into a nice little (albeit short term) earner for Germany. Not only is she receiving revenue from the relatively high interest rate charged on loans to Greece, but she is also profiting very nicely thank you very much, from the negative interest on her own bonds. A development due directly to the crisis in the south.

I heard an estimate this morning from a MP of the Free Democrat party of Germany’s financial gain. It was over 80 billion. But since The Frau has acted as a rabble rouser, vilifying the lazy Greeks and slovenly south, telling her electorate that they are the hard working ones paying for this, she can hardly own up to the truth now.

And that is how she plans to run her reelection campaign. On disinformation and populist impulses. But the German election will not be held till November of the coming year. Well past the “last minute” when the EU is supposed to get it right before everyone is washed overboard. Germany included.

I do not think disaster may be deferred indefinitely. Her favourite solution has been scotched. That is of getting rid of Greece altogether. This has been deemed too costly and too dangerous, so the next best solution has been opted for. Keep the moribund Greece on painful life support (as painful as possible to act as an example to others) and then see what to do about it after the election.

However this rather facile approach has not taken into account two factors. The first that the Greeks and other southerners have reached breaking point form austerity. A point China has made a dire warning about. And the second that the IMF cannot sit by and watch as The Frau drags the whole of the global economy dangerously down so she can win her election.

Christine Lagarde is reported to have said, in connection with the Greek debt situation, and German smug complacency in NOT dealing with it:

“It aint over till the fat lady sings.”

And she is getting ready for her aria.

A Greek singer in an Italian Opera. Coincidence.

“Avanti a lei, tremava tutta Le’Europa”. Perhaps.

Christine Lagarde was perfectly right when she said about the Greek catastrophe, “what we need is a real fix, not a quick fix”. Unfortunately the European Nomenclature so admirably being led by Germany has no intention of really fixing any problem. The Frau’s chosen method, eagerly taken up by the Eurocrats, Olli Rehn and Jean Claude Juncker, is of simply kicking the can down the road, burying their heads in the sand and hoping the problem will just go away.

And why is this? Imbecility? Inadequacy? Foolishness? Lack of Knowledge? No. None of this. It is out of extremely short sighted self interest and a certain arrogant bloody mindedness. They know best. They won’t discuss it and the more their plans fail the more they insist on the same plans out of a total inability to admit they might have been wrong.

So Greece, since its leadership has no voice and no… yes, none of those either, will again be subjected to another disastrous Quick Fix. Schauble is already smirking over how he is fixing this one. Greece will get her tranche and possibly all the tranches that were to be payable within 2012, BUT at the cost of having automatic cuts and tax hikes imposed by a bunch of technocrats. That is through abolishing what is left of Greek democracy. The Greek economy has already been destroyed.

What will be gained by that? Well, the illusion that Germany, and the other European lenders, will not only not lose any money but will continue to rake in all the billions in interest from Greece. And secondly, but more important perhaps, that time will be gained till the German elections, after which Greece may be disposed of as useless baggage.

Now this is a dangerous little game since it cannot see further than Schauble’s nose. If Greece is not given the Real Fix right now, the disease will continue festering. Greece will certainly go completely bust and no “targets” will ever be attained. Besides, how much more can you cut wages and pensions and hike taxes? Already there really is not much left to take.

So far from continuing the lovely little gravy train of lending Greece more and more merely so she can pay you exorbitant interest while her economy collapses, you will end up with a destroyed country in Europe that cannot pay anything back any more because it no longer even has an economy. You will keep the Euro teetering along for another year. Problems in the whole of Europe will start going from bad to worse. Europe is already in recession with the smug AAA rated countries Holland and Austria, say, so dismissive of Greece, also falling into recession.

The German inspired policy is catastrophic. The level of competence of the EU Commissioner responsible Olli Rehn is appalling. The so called heads of the EU Rompuy and Barroso are complete nonentities who do as the Great Frau tells them regardless of the consequences. Consequences they do not even bother to think about. (Or even care about, provided they keep all their perks.)

Can disaster be averted? Of course it can. easily. Will disaster be averted? No. Not at this juncture. If the IMF does ratchet up the pressure as well it might, then Germany will fudge and fumble and procrastinate till it gets what it wants. Nothing to be really done till The Frau gets re elected.

An extremely ingenious German plan as always. Will it work? It may, in that it may well achieve its single object of reelecting the Mighty Frau. But since from the beginning of this crisis and as results clearly show, the German leadership* has grossly misjudged and mismanaged the whole situation, this time will be no exception either.

By continually kicking the can down the road at the expense of the peripheral and now core countries, the German leadership has not gained time, it has lost time and time is running out dangerously. And since the German Elections will be held in about a year, I would say there is not enough time for little Wolfie’s brilliant scheme to work.

The only thing Wolfgang can count on with certainty is the idiocy and complete and utter servility of the Greek government which he can do absolutely as he likes with. But then again, though he imagines he will give the Greek government time by granting, or appearing to grant, the loan installments, the consequences for Greece are so horrendous that I do not think the current parody of a Greek government has much more time left either.

* I feel I should clarify that when I say “Germany” I do not of course mean the entire German nation, but merely the bigoted, dogmatic leadership currently in power.

“Employers’ group slams strike

Today’s strike action has been criticised by a European employers organisation, which fears the walkout will damage Europe’s already-weak economy and deter potential foreign investors.

Philippe de Buck , the chief of Eurobusiness ? the Brussels-based EU employers’ federation ? said:

If you start striking at national level and in companies you only will harm the economy, and it is not the right thing to do today… It costs billions [of euros].”

Well good heavens! They are quite right! Any right to strike should be abolished in Europe at once! How on earth are we going to become competitive? It’s not enough to impose below subsistence levels wages. It’s not enough to impose a completely flexible market whereby virtuous employers can fire the lazy rotten vermin at will. No!

Now we must abolish the right to strike. The Brussels based employers federation is quite right. Strikes cost billions of Euros and are therefore quite intolerable!

Now to whom do they cost these billions of Euros? In Greece alone (a tiny country, by now under 2% of the total EU economy) the brilliant austerity policy imposed to put its economy “on track” has already cost ordinary Greeks, workers, professionals (even businesses you know) billions and is set to cost many more billions. So why are the European employers getting their collective knickers in a twist?

And lest these wise employers haven’t realised, the growing number of unemployed in Europe are unlikely to be moved by such pleas. Imagine! Billions being lost! The homeless, the hungry and those out of work with families to care for, really can’t be expect to see your (il)logic.

We all know how history repeats itself as farce. I wonder what kind of farcical instrument will substitute for the Guillotine. After all, by this point in time we are all so much more humanitarian. Aren’t we?

Are we?

Creating humanitarian crises in the richest continent in the world does not convince one that there are any humanitarian sentiments left in Europe, and particularly not in the ruling classes. The ruling classes being the “captains” of finance capitalism and their loyal servants, the politicians.

Whether history repeats itself or not, whether it repeats itself as farce or not, it does appear to move in cycles. What comes round, goes round. So when these wise people of business start screaming against strikes, they should perhaps remember what eventually happens to all oppressors. Throughout history.

“Allons Enfants de la Patrie! Le jour de gloire est arriv?. Contre nous de la tyrannie |: L’?tendard sanglant est lev? 😐 Entendez vous dans les campagnes …”

This was composed and acted on in the heart of Europe and changed the world. Open your eyes and look at what is going on in the real world, not your natty little models! Forget your petty competitiveness and accounts. Forget the number crunching which abolishes people altogether as a concept, replacing them with ideas such as expensive factors of production that have to be cut.

Yo will only end up cutting yourselves. Badly.

Jean Claude Juncker has been quoted as saying, “We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get reelected if we do it.” Yesterday’s Eurogroup meeting was exceptional in just one way. It threw the disarray out into the open, albeit with a ridiculous squabble over whether the Greek debt/GDP ratio could be reduced by 2020 as originally ordained or should be given another two years to become what they define as “sustainable.”

No one appears to have argued, at least not publicly, that all this is nothing but ludicrous nonsense. That any such target is completely arbitrary and anyway bound to fail, since the only thing these wise people forming the Eurogroup and troika fail to address is Greek GDP.

Apparently all were very delighted with the Greek government for having passed the measures and budget imposing further debilitating austerity, with automatic adjustments every month when these impossible and arbitrary targets are not met. Very good! They said. Bravo! They said. Greece is on the right path! They said.

Did not even one of these… dumbos even realise that this very policy is precisely what will lead to Greek GDP disappearing completely? And where would that put their fine equations and the ridiculous squabble over the 120% debt/GDP target being reached in 2020 or 2022? I have already used the Alice In Wonderland image to describe the goings on and decision making processes of the EU and Eurozone, but this surpasses all madnesses, even those of the mad hatter in this philosophical tract!

The German Economy is slowing down dangerously. And why is that? Oh, they say vaguely. It is because of the recession in Europe. An impersonal cause. Something perhaps like Hurricane Sandy that just happened. An act of God. Here we go back to The Frau as God theory. Because it is precisely because of the German inspired punishing austerity policy being imposed on Europe with troikas and Quislings, that not only the European Economy is in recession but the global economy too has come under threat.

Back to Alice In Wonderland logic. Almost three years into the worst and most vicious austerity/IMF plan ever imposed, Greece still has a primary deficit and an impossible actual deficit (including interest and debt repayments), its debt burden has soared and is set to soar even further. Well, when 100 billion is written off in exchange for a further loan of 130 billion, that is, I would say, inevitable.

So the Greek programme is “off track” we are told. Precisely what track it was supposed to be on with a policy that completely strangles the economy is a metaphysical question. The more the economy is strangled the more remote any target of debt repayment becomes. Yet the Eurozone insists. Austerity, austerity, austerity! And claps with joy when the Greek Quisling proudly announces he has passed laws that will bring about the complete and utter catastrophe of his country’s economy.

Now, the IMF, not renowned for its sane economic policies either, says, look guys, this debt business has got entirely out of hand. You have to cut it down significantly by giving yourselves the cut you so relished giving the private sector. But no! They shriek. No! We can’t do that! We won’t do that! Against the rules! Shrieks Draghi, while insisting on redeeming all Greek bonds the ECB holds at face value, even though the bank acquired them at around 30% of their value. If the Greeks can’t pay, never mind, we shall lend them the money to pay us….! (More debt reduction logic form the ECB!)

And NO! Shrieks The Frau. I have elections next year. I can’t tell the volk that I have just flushed all their hard earned money down the drain! Nor can I tell them that I never flushed their hard earned money down the drain, but have merely been making a killing through the high interest rates.

So what to do? Here is the modern day Gordian Knot. Greece is totally and utterly insolvent. However, the Official sector insists it must be paid back at full face value. No cuts, no discounts. Oh and Greece will continue to apply inhuman austerity, lest it manages to grow somehow and make some money to pay us back eventually. No, that is out of the question.

So, no haircut of Official sector debt and no growth to be tolerated. Deficits and debt will only spiral, so the only thing Greece can do is default on its debt and exit the Euro. But No! The cry goes up. Greece may  not be allowed to default and it is not allowed to exit the Euro either! This will cause one hell of a domino reaction, tantamount to a nuclear chain reaction for the fictional financial capitalist economy, so No! They cannot do that either.

So what can they do? Shift the goal posts from 2020 to 2022? And what is supposed to happen by then? Other than complete melt down. Well actually, as far as The Frau is concerned, it is only for a year longer that she wants to string Greece along in this state of limbo, till she wins the next election. Then she can turn around and give Samaras a taste of his own medicine telling him, as he told her, “Well, you know dear, I really did not mean any of that rubbish I kept telling you to keep you in line, and you can just go hang now!” As Samaras told the Greek electorate.

So this is an impossible situation. A situation everybody knows how to solve, as Juncker himself admits, but no one wants to out of sheer myopic, egotistical and idiotic short term self interest. But the knot needs to be untied. What to do?

Alexander the Great under a similar situation knew exactly what to do. He took out his sword and chopped the knot in two in one decisive stroke. Samaras (and his acolytes) is no Alexander the Great. He is a pitiful Quisling, also interested more in his own short term self interest than in anything else.

But the Gordian Knot will be chopped into two. And soon. Not by Samaras of course, but by events overtaking both him and his idol The Frau. It would be so much nicer if they could negotiate all this rationally. But rationality is something the Eurozone has always been sorely lacking in, it would appear.

Which is one reason the IMF may well be using all this just to get the hell out of Europe and devil take the hindmost.

In the Biblical sense of the first shall come last and the last first. Both of these countries begin with G.

News for the day, The Frau is making a repeat performance of her extremely successful visit to Athens last month. She is visiting Lisbon, again for a few hours, as she did Athens, to receive homage and obeisance from her new vassals. Prime Minister Coehlo is expected to show the same servility and obsequiousness that Samaras did in Athens.

The Frau’s excuse for these flying visits of the Conqueror to her prostrate acquisitions is that she wants to show her support for the governments carrying out her policy of the destruction of Europe (beginning from the south). Well, what is ‘support” meant to mean exactly? It appears the People of Portugal are no more likely to come out cheering for their oppressor than the Greeks were. Quite the contrary in fact.

So just what are these little shows in aid of then? Well apart from boosting the Oppressor’s ego and feeding the power trip of the conqueror, I would say the idea is to give a pat on the back to her Quislings. Samaras was ecstatic over the visit. His propaganda machine tried to portray his little stroll down the completely empty “government row” street as it were, as a sign that he had succeeded in turning the crisis around.

Unfortunately for him, this was not The Frau’s object at all. The Crisis must be deepened till the Greek people are not only on their knees, as they are already, but utterly destroyed as will happen if Samaras’ measures and budget actually do get implemented. But she dangles the carrot of the loan installment before him and he runs after it like a dumb hungry dog who does not realise he is being drawn into a death trap.

After all, even if these billions are granted… not one cent will go to improving the Greek economy in any way. It will all go towards propping up the European zombie bank system and, of course, increasing Greek debt, not reducing it.

And after having basked in Samaras’ utter adulation, The Frau is off to Portugal to enjoy more obsequious hero worship from the Portuguese Prime Minister. While the protesting people of Lisbon are sanitarily cordoned off from her view. As happened in Athens.

Now, there is an interesting quote in The Guardian today:

“Merkel is traveling with a retinue of around 100 German businesspeople ? a sign that Europe’s biggest economy wants to help weaker nations grow their way out of the crisis.“

Now that would be oh so nice if it were true. As evidenced by the harsh, inhuman policy The Frau imposes, by the billions in cuts and the catastrophic budget Samaras was forced to enact on pain of losing her horrid little victor’s smile, the last thing this German policy wants to do is “help weaker nations grow out of the crisis”. Wishful thinking!!! Her whole policy is designed to be brutally recessionary and it is achieving its aims perfectly!

Which is why The Frau has chosen to parade around her vassal states for brief six hours trips.

Now why the retinue of so many businessmen? Apart from being part of the show, it could also be so they can inspect their pickings when labour in Europe will have been reduced to something like what the southern states of the US achieved with their imports of labour from Africa before the American Civil War.

She may like to recall, however, that it was the southern slave owing confederate states who actually lost the war. To a certain extent perhaps out of their own sheer arrogance too.

“Germany ‘to study French economy’

Eyebrows must have been raised in Paris this morning after it emerged that Germany’s council of economic wise men are drawing up a report on the French economy.

It’s a Reuters exclusive: Worried Germany seeks study on French economy – sources.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has asked a panel of advisers to look into reform proposals for France, concerned that weakness in the euro zone’s second largest economy could come back to haunt Germany and the broader currency bloc.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters this week that Schaeuble asked the council of economic advisers to the German government, known as the “wise men”, to consider drafting a report on what France should do.

Interesting timing, given that the French economy now appears to be shrinking (see 8.51am). President Hollande did announce new measures to stimulate growth this week but refused to go as far as a leading French industrialist, Louis Gallois, had wanted — seemingly fearing a public backlash.

Hard to believe that the French people would be more open to advice from Germany….”

This comes from The Guardian’s Eurocrisis blog. Well, well well… “advice from Germany” is it? Or The Frau getting too big for her boots?

It is beginning to become apparent that The Frau and her side kick little Wolfie (the guy with an enormous chip on his shoulder) have come to believe in their own supremacy  and divine right to lord it over the whole of Europe. All the same I do not think that the rumour going round that The Frau has a picture of Hitler at her bedside she enjoys jeering at and saying, “look you bozo, this is the way it is done!”, is unfounded.

Now in his attempt to persuade the Greek people that they must docilely agree to ruin their country because… no, not because there is no alternative, but because that is The Will of The Frau, Antonis Samaras told us that he even talked with God. Implying thereby that this was the will of God.

Well now, since this pathetic figure playing at being PM of Greece believes that The Frau is in fact God, he can be forgiven his misunderstanding. Always the mistress tactician, she no doubt assured him that all he had to do would be to drain the Greek economy of the very last dregs of its life blood, make a good swathe of the population go hungry, another good number die prematurely and so on, and she would hand him his “tranche” of 31 or so billion.

Now before we even tackle the question of what good could this money do anyway, if it is to go to the banks at the cost of destroying what is left of the Greek economy, we should perhaps address The Frau’s tactical deceit. She didn’t mean a word of it. All she wanted was… the usual. To gain time while fighting it out with the IMF. As to the loan installment. Oh well, we can’t release any of that till we have dealt with the overall debt. And perhaps we will not pay out any more at all.

Poor Antonakis. He believed The Frau. He worships the ground she treads on. It’s not so much that he is dumb, though he must be that too, it’s just that he wanted to be PM of Greece ever since he was a toddler and just does not want to relinquish the post. The Frau, therefore, is his only means of doing so. Though maybe, just maybe he has got that wrong after all.

Still, who cares about Greece? The problem is that Antonis Samaras appears to have done lethal, perhaps, disservice to the European Union as a whole. His servile worship of The Frau, actually taking her for God, has made the simple woman’s head turn. She actually believes it now. She actually believes she can dictate what the hell she likes to the whole of Europe. And has made her opening bid for total European hegemony with France now.

She and little Wolfie are on this great power trip. It looks as though they are really getting off on this illusion that Europe is theirs to boss around as they like. And Antonis Samaras must take much of the blame for creating this illusion in them.

The Frau is obviously getting a great kick out of this. However, since she seems to approach economics in a quasi religious moral vein, perhaps she should hark back to her Daddy the Pastor’s teaching and remember. Lucifer came to a vile end because he too believed he was God. Just like The Frau now.

Antonis Samaras prostrated himself before her and accepted absolutely everything and anything she demanded of him. Like Abraham who agreed to kill his own son because God demanded it of him. So can you blame the wretched Frau?

What Samaras should have done is remind her not of Abraham’s servility to God, but the ancient Greek philosophy of Hubris, Nemesis, Catharsis. But of course he has forgotten everything Greek since the only thing that matters to him is pleasing The Frau. Whatever that might mean for the Greek people.

But remember Antonaki, this kind of Hubris is always followed by Nemesis. And not just for The Frau and little Wolfie either.

Frau Merkel is reported as having said she wants the UK to stay in the EU. She was also broadcast saying (among many other admonitions) that the Greeks should not strike every time a company is privatised. She also wants a fiscal union on her terms. Which are, everybody surrenders their sovereignty to… Brussels, well that means Me of course. She also does not want the banking union unless it is on her terms exclusively which is what all this newspeak over “quality not speed” is all about.

She is becoming more and more brazen and cynical by the day. She has dropped the “we would like” euphemism, for the explicit “I want”, “I do not want”. Which I certainly hope prompts a Nigel Farage type response of “Who are you?’, “Just who do you think you are?”, now that she is dropping her guard and taking her mask of collectivity off.

As I said in yesterday’s post: “some animals are equaller than others”. It is the Germans who are the Orwellian Pigs in the European Union. So I suppose David Cameron should be very careful, lest he incur The Frau’s wrath. As to Greeks going on strike! Small wonder The Frau’s lackey, the confidence inspiring Samaras just pushed through Parliament the most horrific austerity measures that will lead to utter destitution and the total collapse of the Greek economy.

That should teach them not to do everything The Frau wants without a word. Now, you may well say that the Portuguese did do that, but still The Frau’s Vampire Economics did not work as planned. So now she wants them to implement even greater austerity, under the definition of stupidity theory of do the same thing again and expect to achieve different results.

Still, in her authoritarian manner, and already drunk with power, The Frau may have overlooked something. The German Economy is doing far worse under her Vampire Economics, in that production and exports are going down. She is also overlooking something else. When (when not if) the exits start, Brexit, Grexit, Italexit and so on, far from hurting the exitters it will bring the moribund EU down which will, in the end, hurt her more than it hurts us.

Oh, and talking of her little flap over Britain and the EU Budget. What does she have to say about Cameron’s objection, that you can’t insist on drastic cuts everywhere else and expect to increase the EU budget when everyone is struggling to cut their own costs?

Not to mention the vastly overpaid European mechanism form the Commissioners to everyone else in this bloated Eurocracy. People like Olli Rehn and Jean Claude Juncker who are terribly good at telling everyone else that they must impose debilitating austerity and starve to death in order to balance their books, but are not so good when it comes to their own books. They have in fact owned up to a certain amount of mismanagement of European funds.

But when it comes to themselves and their perks, then the answer is, raise the EU budget and get the Brits to fork up while they are winding down their Health Service. If you think that makes no sense, just ask Olli Rhen (notorious for getting all his forecasts completely wrong). He’ll tell you it makes perfect sense. After all, they must continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Perhaps it is time the EU should start thinking about how to dismantle this horrific monstrosity that what was once a vision has now turned into.

All Constitutions Are Equal But Some Constitutions Are Equaler Than Others, to paraphrase a quote from George Orwell’s exquisite “Animal Farm”. In today’s version of this excellent political analysis (because that is what it is) the Pigs are… No, not Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, but Germany. In “Animal Farm” the Pigs are the ones who lord it over everybody else and consider themselves equaler than others. Just as Germany considers herself Equaler than others in the EU.

Germany makes a big fuss over her Constitution, and rightly so. The whole of Europe spent this summer biting its nails waiting for the German Constitutional Court to rule over the legitimacy of the ESM. Had they ruled against, it would have been scotched.

Now, Greece’s Constitution has been consigned to the dustbin of history. The Greek Constitutional Court has decreed that a great many of the stipulations in the special package being voted on today are Unconstitutional. Does that make any difference? Not a jot. The Greek Constitution can just go hang. The Greek government is bound hand and foot to do what the troika insists it should. It has even gone as far as saying that the small formerly left wing DIMAR party should also vote for these measures. And that’s an order!

Anthony Verias has tweeted the following: “I’m surprised to find out #Greece even HAS a constitution; thought it was just the name of a square in #Athens #7ngr“

He is right. Yet Constitution Square, Syntagma in Greek, was given that name because the people thronged in the Square in front of what was then the Royal Palace and is now the Greek Parliament, or Vouli, demanding a Constitution to replace the absolute Monarchy of a Bavarian King. Which they succeeded in doing.

Perhaps it is time we pulled our ripped up Constitution from the dustbin of History and also took out some pages from our History which we should act on.

The Gallois report in France. Predictable. We have lost our competitiveness over the past ten years, so in order to regain it… what else? Shock tactics! Slash wages, hike taxes on the poorest, do away with all that soppy welfare and healthcare and yes! We’ll be back in business! Who exactly will be back in business? Well those who do business of course. The rest can go hang.

In Greece, for all the protests and marches and staggering measures about to be voted in, there is STILL a large proportion of quivering, cringing people who agree with Antonis Samaras. We MUST stay in the Euro. AT ALL COSTS! If we don’t, the sky will turn red, the sea will foam like blood and so on.

These are the people who lap up the media propaganda like milk. Oh! They say, we shall have to do this to get the 30 billion or so tranche!!! The same old nonsense we have been fed every time an installment was due. The trouble is no one can see logically any more. Okay, so the banks will be “recapitalised” for what that is worth. What about deposits? Well, when you are plunging an economy already in free fall into a further recession of probably double digits, then who is going to deposit what where? The banks will go down the tubes anyway. 30 billion or no 30 billion.

Unfortunately, because of this blinkered attitude, and the lie that There Is No Alternative! Shrieked as shrilly as the first time the phrase was coined, Greece is set for total melt down. The strikes and the marches will be to no avail at this point in time. The so called left wing DIMAR party may make a token show of not voting for the rescission of labour laws demanded by the troika, but only because they know there are enough votes without them.

And then of course they will vote for the budget incorporating the worse, most inhuman and most ineffective austerity ever imposed on a country in peace time. Quite how they square that with their consciences is a wonder.

But back to France. The report says competitiveness has gone down “over the last ten years”. That bit is passed over as the attack on labour and human rights sets in with a vengeance. However, quite coincidentally, the past ten years have been the years of the Euro.

France has not lost its competitiveness vis a vis Germany, any more than Italy or Spain has, because of labour laws or wage levels. No. And everybody knows that. they have lost their competitiveness because they have been locked into the latter day Gold Standard called the Euro.

For all Germany’s empty talk of wanting to save the Euro, the truth is that Germany wants to give nothing up and force all the rest to relinquish their sovereignty to her. In other words to set up a German Economic zone where she alone will call the shots in a mixture of punishing morality and stark, unabashed self interest.

The Euro has been a disaster, as some had predicted from the outset. Now in the laboratory of the real world the Euro experiment has failed appallingly. It is time the destruction were stopped.

There is no doubt that breaking the Euro up is an extremely difficult project. But either Europe tackles these difficulties and arranges say for floating Euro parities, say Italian Euro, French Euro or something like that, or else Europe will have ceased to exist in The Frau’s five years.

Yes, the dear lady did say that. We need another five years of this debilitating austerity, for the rest of you, and then everything will be in order again.

Is The Frau another King Canute or is it just that she has decided to defy gravity?

I belong to the post war generation (aka the notorious baby boomers, if only just) who grew up in admiration of the age of reason, of the enlightenment, and perhaps more relevant Keynesian Economics and Nye Bevan’s creation of the NHS out of the debris and bomb sites of London.

Heady stuff that. Anything, we were told even approaching 10% unemployment was anathema and something never to be repeated. Because it was that kind of thing that brought about Adolf Hitler and his German Nazi Party. All this was Received Wisdom. Not in a dogmatic way, but in the way of the progress of medicine say, where blood letting is no longer used because it has been empirically proved that instead of curing, it ultimately kills the patient.

Today, however, in Europe, we are slap bang back into an Age of Unreason and quasi religious dogmatism when it comes to Economics. And to paraphrase Marx, whether we like it or not, Economics is politics and determines how we live and whether we sink or swim as society, as nations and, yes, as a global entity perhaps above all.

Today the powers that be or the “deciders” as George W. Bush famously dubbed himself, appear to have all been sucked up by a crazy religious dogma. The crisis created by deregulation of the global financial system and the “Greed is Good” dogma, has made mush of their collective little mind.

At the moment Greece is being forced into further and even more vicious austerity measures. An austerity that will not only completely ruin the Greek economy but perhaps even demolish the Greek state. Now, though there is no way those force feeding the Greek government with this poison do not know this, they continue to insist on it with religious fanaticism.

A sort of witch’s trial going on here. We shall throw the wench into the water with her hands tied. If she floats and avoids death this way it means she is a witch and will therefore be burnt at the stake. If, however, she sinks and drowns it will mean she is innocent and not a witch. She will not be burnt at the stake. But she will already be quite dead from drowning.

And this is exactly what goes under the name of the troika are doing to Greece. Why? Well, because what I have dubbed Nonsense Economics for so long, is really not even that. It is Vampire Economics. It is as if medicine had receded centuries back, to blood letting.

The so called “policy” being forced on Greece has already drained the economy of billions and thrown it into free fall. But since the “cure” prescribed has not only not worked, but has sent the patent into the intensive care unit, the doctors/deciders think that the only thing they can do is apply more of the same medicine. And not only that, but in a far greater dose. A lethal dose.

This latest austerity package to be voted in by the Greek Parliament this week, is tantamount to the vampire sucking out the very last dregs of blood from the moribund corpse he has at his disposal. So an Economics that can do nothing other than suck the very life blood out of an economy can only be described as Vampire Economics. An Economics, that we know from history, will only lead to tragedy. And soon.

Professor Varoufakis has a very interesting piece describing this so called policy and proposing not only viable but sensible alternatives.

Unfortunately the Greek lackeys supposedly governing the Greek state are just as imbued with this Vampire Economics that it has a mantra: Nobody has proposed anything else! Or a Greek version of the abhorrent Thatcherite TINA (there is no alternative). Mind you, they do not even bother to listen to any alternatives. Again much like Thatcher who was convinced that she alone was right. A tragedy in itself.

But this is, of course, complete and utter nonsense, not only because there are alternatives (and Professor Varoufakis proposes a very good one) but also because it is implied that the “policy” they are imposing is, itself, a viable alternative, even if a harsh one, when in reality it is nothing of the sort.

In fact, to stick to the medical terms, this last brilliant brain wave being put the Greek Parliament for a vote, is tantamount to pulling out the life support mechanism form the moribund corpse in intensive care that is Greece.

May God forgive them for their sins!  Because the people won’t! (Since we are in religious mode)