Almost a year ago the historian Mark Mazower wrote a very prescient article entitled Democracy’s Cradle, Rocking the World which was published in the New York Times. He describes how Greece has been in the vanguard or the catalyst, for the major sea changes in the history of Europe since its inception as a nation state in 1821.
The Nonsense Economics imposed so harshly and totally undemocratically on Europe, but firstly and worse of all on Greece, is finally coming to a head. The Frau’s total intransigence and absolute ignorance of how economies really work rather than the way she would like them to work, has exacerbated what started out as a sovereign debt crisis. Through her blinkered blinders she has managed to plunge the whole world into a full blown calamity, way beyond a mere sovereign debt crisis, by putting the very existence of the Europe Union as an entity in severe danger with appalling knock on effects for the global economy as a whole.
Tiny little insignificant Greece, whose problems could originally have been solved by less than Germany’s spare beer money, held an election. The result was a resounding shout of No More Nonsense Economics that have reduced us to a pulp! Inevitably, this led to a hung Parliament (given the electoral system rigged by the former major governing parties in their favour.)
When the new fragmented Parliament found it impossible to form some kind of a coalition government obliging the country to go back to the polls, all hell broke loose. Stock markets throughout the world fell, often drastically, the euro exchange rate plummeted before gaining a little of the lost ground, panic broke out. Some analysts, such as Simon Jenkins in the Guardian are not talking about if but when Greece will leave the Euro.
Others again are screaming that the cost of such a Grexit would be a horrendous and unsustainable shock for the European perhaps even global economy. A fear echoed in Christine Lagarde’s statements and of course in the crescendo of bullying and terrorization Greek voters are being submitted to (again!), not least by people like Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister and soon to be President of the Eurogroup. (Unless sense prevails, but that seems to be too much to ask from the current hijacked EU.)
Pandemonium, panic, chaos. Catastrophe? Sorry for reverting to Greek, but we do seem to have the best words for all this.
The problem is really quite simple. It’s a matter of a disastrous nonsense economic policy being imposed by entirely undemocratic means. Threats and bullying. An economic policy tantamount to putting leeches on a comatose body to drain it of the last drops of blood it has retained.
How else would you describe a policy and “bailout” where Greece has just been given a tranche of 4 billion Euro with which it is to pay the ECB, at an interest of 4%!!! So the ECB lends us so we can pay it back, and increases our debt rather then helps diminish it, by extorting a high interest rate! Am I wrong to call this whole catastrophic rigmarole Nonsense Economics?
Greece’s utter weakness, a virtually failed state, whose economy has been ground into a pulp by this idiotic dogmatic approach, has been turned into strength. A powerful warning that the global vessel is about to crash headlong into the rocks. All we can hope for is that Mark Mazower will be proved right and that the alarm bells set off by Greece and the live example of where these Nonsense Merkelesque economics do lead, that is a headlong smash into the rocks ahead, may prove strong enough to change the course of history once again.