Parina

Literature, economics and more...

Month: November 2013

The Former European Consumer is Now Excelling as Acrobat

The formidable and infinitely wise policies (not economic  policies, but ones of attrition rather) concocted and brutally imposed by the insidious Berlin-Brussels axis of evil on what was once an advanced humane society (to a great extent) have turned the members of this society into the world’ greatest acrobats!

Well, though they were once considered citizens, which became a dirty word, they were subsequently transformed into consumers (not least by the so called centre left, social democrat parties) and then again changed fundamentally into acrobats, since they are being deprived of the wherewithal to consume .

This is the result of mixing and imposing all the worst traits of free market neo liberalism with all the worst traits of a command economy while banishing all and any good traits of either. For instance, you impose (and that is the operative word) what is known as a flexible labour market. That is you rescind all laws protecting labour and related rights, slash wages and return working hours and such to Dickensian times in the spirit of a free market economy.

Okay, so that’s supposed to make you what is metaphysically know as “competitive”. At the same time, however, you impose such taxation on everything that leads to loss of property, pauperisation and… well yes, a drastic drop in consumption and deflation.

Now in a very succinct and interesting piece published in Professor Varoufakis blog it is explained simply how the Irish Success Story, being so wantonly trumpeted,  is nothing of the kind. How the overall economy remains in a mess with unemployment, a growing debt to GDP ratio and all the rest of it. And that is the state of the Troika’s poster boy.

As for the Troika’s dunce pupil, Greece, the situation has become impossible. Lots of talk about how things have improved, how interest spreads have indeed fallen, how a primary surplus has been achieved and other such. Well, I don’t know if these selective (and not necessarily accurate) figures constitute an “improvement” in any way. What I do know is that there is no longer a functioning economy in Greece. The market has collapsed, the banks do not function, GDP has been slashed by a quarter and recession is continuing, labour has returned to the very dark ages, unemployment has soared and deflation has set in.

What we do know and can see is that this toxic mixture of all the evils of a command economy with all the evils of free market neo liberalism inspired by Germanic flair hasn’t worked, isn’t working and will not work. The time when the whole edifice will collapse into a pile of smoking rubble reminiscent of what the Germans had reduced Europe (including Germany) to at the end of the second world war is near, but we do not know how near.

There is the date of the Euro elections, but whatever the result of these, it has become quite clear that though the Brussels-Berlin  Nomenklatura can see their wizard plans are a complete failure, they have no intention of trying to change things at all.

So although the European Citizen knows we are headed straight for a collapse of this catastrophic situation imposed by obsessive, warped and German inspired ideology, he does not know when this will happen. So while he is being impoverished, punished, having his property expropriated, his life expectancy reduced, his infant mortality rise, and all the other great achievements the Greek PM (for one) is being commended for by The Frau, he is trying to hang on in the hope that he will survive till D Day.

However, in such a pernicious environment, when new taxes and new slashing of all benefits and welfare and whatever else was to the benefit of the Citizen, this is proving more and more difficult. In short, the European Citizen has been reduced to a circus act. He is on a high wire, with no safety net underneath, trying to keep his balance because one small slip and he will fall into the shark infested raging sea underneath.

The hope is that he will manage to cross the wire and set foot on safe ground. The fear is that The Frau and her coterie will succeed in destroying everything completely before he can reach base. The good news is that base is in sight, not all that far off. The bad news is that his position is so precarious and The Frau and her coterie so evilly single minded and obsessed with their own certainty (and so loath to admit any failure on their part) that they will do everything in their power to prevent this.

A bit of deja vue here when it comes to the German policy of the irrational, isn’t there?

Berlin 1945

Poppy Day

I couldn’t help noticing on BBC World that everyone was sporting the red poppy, symbol of the end of the First World War, on the 11th your of the 11the Day of the 11th month. (And the idiotic human tragedy of those who got killed before the clock struck 11. But then the whole was was a monument of human idiocy.)

Now the question arises, was it politically correct to be commemorating a war where… dare I even say it? The enemy was Germany? Oh dear! Surely we must not mention such terrible facts! We are allies and partners with Germany…  Well…

Next year marks the centenary of the beginning of the First World War which plunged Europe into a blood bath of pain, devastation, horror and despair over the next forty years or so and then exported the savagery to the world at large with cold wars and the like.

Culminating in what is euphemistically being called the Eurozone crisis, having graduated from the sovereign debt crisis, but which is really no less than a deep crisis of civilization and values. A “rebalancing” a favourite word of the vicious tyrants ordering the death and destitution of millions. Rebalancing away from human values and in favour inhuman ones supposedly benefiting the 0.1% and worse.

Joshka Fischer, the former German Foreign Minister of Yugoslav war of succession infamy said a while ago that he hoped Germany would not cause the destruction of Europe for a third time in 100 years.

It does appear that The Frau and her policies have let him down on this.

I therefore congratulate the BBC for sporting The Poppy. One should not forget even though one may forgive. But forget, never.

Does "Europe" Have A Future?

Europe as in the European Union, the Eurozone. There is a lot at stake and its unraveling would be a horrendous task. Not that history is not replete with “horrendous” tasks, such as the French Revolution say or any other of these historical world changing events. Are we in for one now?

If you really want to know, bring out St John’s Book of Revelation or, even better Nostradamus’ quatraines. (It has never ceased to amaze me how all these esoteric ramblings have been and are being interpreted any way one wants. But be that as it may.)

Oscar Wilde once famously commented that the US and England had very much in common apart from the language.

Professor Yannis Varoufakis has contributed with the following comment:

“A continent which began uniting under many different languages and cultures ended up divided by a common currency.”

He also reminds us of Gandhi’s famous dictum when  asked what he thought of Western civilization, ??it would be a very good idea.?

This comment no longer even arouses a smile for the witticism. Europe, as part of what used to be known as “Western Civilization”, if not the very mother of western civilization, no longer has any claim to civilization at all.

So what kind of future lies in store for the razed ground that is Europe today?

Russel Brand

I am sure most people concerned with the downward spiral of what used to be our civilization have heard of and heard Russel Brand. Following criticism and comments after his interview on BBC with Jeremy Paxman, he has written a very interesting article published in the Guardian today.

Among other things he says: we are living in a time of huge economic disparity and confronting ecological disaster. This disparity has always been, in cultures since expired, a warning sign of end of days. In Rome, Egypt and Easter Island the incubated ruling elites, who had forgotten that we are one interconnected people, destroyed their societies by not sharing. That is what’s happening now, regardless of what you think..

This is a young man full of fire, addressing us in a direct, from the heart way in everyday language and feeling. Saying things we all know are true but which many of us fear to confront or cannot confront owing to the brainwashing we are daily subjected to and the toxic Thatcher mantra of TINA. Others because they are still hanging onto morsels of power and privilege which the do not realise are also up for grabs.

For those of you who may have missed it, this is the interview that had made waves:

Oh and as a perfect example of what Russel Brand is ranting about we have the Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras who in the process of depriving the middle and weaker sections of society of all they ever had, to satisfy the bankers as represented by the troika had the gall to tell us that

We can’t give up now! We have climbed the Kilimanjaro and are only a few meters away from the top!

As a reader of this blog, Chrys, has pointed out, he omitted to say we are a few meters from the top and once we get there it will be a terrible precipitated fall down all the way into the abyss thereafter.

© 2025 Parina

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑