Well, that’s what the German newspaper Handesblat says. Quite extraordinary. The most mendacious, deceitful, spineless, unintelligent, destructive Prime Minister there ever was, man of the year?

A politician who railed against the memorandum imposed austerity, who repeatedly warned of the dangers, who repeatedly said it was the wrong medicine and that it would only lead to recession and unemployment, only to do a complete about turn the very moment he was vindicated!

Things turned out exactly as he had warned. Yet that was the very moment he chose to change course completely and adopt these very policies he had so derided, with a vengeance. Man of the year! And to add insult to injury when asked in Berlin in a press conference, how can he explain this complete change, he answered “Me Culpa.”

He had been sinning when he had been warning of the disaster to come through following these dastardly policies. But disaster did come. He had been right. Why did he suddenly grovel in front of Merkel to such a sickening extent?

That last bit does go some way to explaining why a German newspaper decided to dub him man of the year. The newspaper said he was the man who realised what was good for his country and set about doing it! Well now, a little detail here. Not what was good for his country but what was considered good for the German Chancellor. Which is hardly the same thing.

Still, the way it was put is telling.

Look here Tony Baby (says the new iron chancellor) you better shut up and do what you’re told, if you know what’s good for you!

And courageous gentleman that he is, he flopped, and grovelled and cowered.

Still it does explain why Handesblat put it like that. “He knew what was good for his country.” No… not his country, whose economy is already in free fall and set to collapse under Samaras’ even more horrendous and totally inhuman policies. Well, the paper could hardly have put it the way it was really said! Nor could it have commended him for doing something for “his own good” when that is tantamount to the destruction of his country.

Still, we did get the gist of it.

Bravo Tony! Congratulations! You made it to teacher’s pet after all.

Charles Robertson of Renaissance Capital is quoted as saying that Greece will leave the Euro next year to be followed by Spain in 2014. He says:

“Is an economic policy that has produced 25% unemployment in Spain and Greece, and is forecast to make this worse, a morally acceptable policy choice?

How does an electorate react to such a socially damaging manmade disaster? History is unequivocal. The electorate will reject the policy. Taking the Great Depression template for countries leaving the gold standard, we should expect Greece to leave the euro in 2013 and Spain to follow in 2014-15. The former might see markets decline by 10-20% over one quarter. The latter is a Lehmans II event, likely to trigger a 50% fall in markets before a strong rebound.”

I believe he is right. There is no way Greece, Spain and possibly even Italy can stay in the Euro, nor should they.

It is just a blood curdling realisation that the German led Eurozone should have been and remains so utterly indifferent to human suffering merely to impose changes it deems to be in its own favour and hang all the people made to suffer.

What makes this comment particularly pertinent in my view is the phrase “such a socially damaging manmade disaster”, which is precisely what it is and precisely why not only the German government, Merkel and Schauble in particular, but ALL the Euro apparatchiks from Barroso and Rompuy to  Olli Rehn and Juncker, should be held to account in an International Court of Human Rights.

They have gone against all notions of humanity in forcing the Greeks, the Spaniards, The Portuguese and others to suffer and die (yes there is a death rate on their hands too), simply because they need to fix some meaningless numbers, which never get fixed the way they want them anyway, to the detriment of basic human dignity and rights.

And this indictment applies equally to the likes of Samaras and Stournaras (and the ones that went before). In his arrogance Stournaras has warned that his beautiful plans for… recovery? Well, not even that. May not work if the Greeks do not  accept to suffer even more, lose their jobs and their very livelihoods. The kind thing to say would be that he is living in cloud cuckoo lane. The more realistic thing would be to say that he is totally in sync with this “morally unacceptable policy” imposed by Germany that can only lead to catastrophe.

This has been hubris at its highest. Playing God with people’s lives and livelihood as if human beings do not matter. Only equations.

Since Greece is only being derided and blamed and portrayed as a sub human species, all those above mentioned, and others who fit the description should remember. It was the Greeks who first pointed out that Hubris was followed by Nemesis and only then can Catharsis come.

Stournaras in particular who is an educated Greek (and has in fact been through Oxford who know more about this stuff than  even the Greeks), should perhaps forget his neo liberal free market fantasies for a moment, and take a look at the ancient texts I am sure he is familiar with. It may just save him a lot of humiliation, if not worse.

As I have said elsewhere with regard to Stournaras who has become obnoxiously uppity of late,

Remember Yanni, though art mortal.

The infamous Lady was once asked what her greatest achievement was. She immediately replied, “New Labour”. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the more recent history of the British Labour Party, New Labour was Tony Blair’s creation.

And what Thatcher implied by her statement was that she had turned Labour into just another free market neo liberal party, perhaps with a veneer of a social conscience which never amounted to much. Tony Blair was supposedly a Socialist and he spoke of “consumers” of education and “consumers” of health care. (He also rushed straight into the role of George W. Bush’s poodle, whole heartedly endorsing war on Iraq and lying to the British Parliament to do so.)

Now, if it were only Tony Blair we could, perhaps, shrug him off as an aberration. However, the most pernicious free market neo liberal attack on its very civilization in Europe, has been carried out by self proclaimed Socialists and even left wingers. (Of course this begs the joke of their not knowing their left from their right.)

Zappatero in Spain, Papandreou in Greece, probably the harshest of them all. And now, to continue the good work, Fotis Kouvelis of the so called united left (descended from the so called Euro Communists), has joined PASOK, the erstwhile socialist party of Papandreou, in a coalition with the right wing Samaras party, to stick the knife even further up… I mean into all social benefits, healthcare, in short the welfare state.

Bravo Margaret. Your achievement was not confined to New Labour alone.

So what is the answer? Vote in hard line right wing parties just in case? That usually leads to disaster but does appear to be gaining in the public mood. Now in Greece, that would again be Papandreou’s great achievement too. No wonder he is lecturing in Harvard about Creating a New Europe.

One can only shudder at the kind of Europe he has in mind!

Rumour out today, that after the German Elections (to be held in about ten months’ time) The Frau plans to seal her assured triumph by taking up a commanding European position.

Now, if the rumour had been that after the elections The Frau plans to take up a European position, this would have indicated that she does not expect to win her forthcoming elections and, being gracious, is prepared to settle for the inept Herman Van Rompuy’s position. (Who will not be asked, but be ordered to leave forthwith, to accommodate The Frau.)

However, since the rumour states specifically that she intends to take up a European position after she wins the election, she has obviously decided on the full establishment of the fourth German Reich (which as all but set up anyway.)

So she intends to take on the Mantel of Empress of All the Germanies (including Austria and whatever else can be defined as such, probably at a stretch the Netherlands. And I don’t want to hear any objections after the way they have pandered to her every whim so far) and all the minor Vassal States of Europe.

All the stupid Treaties and Charters will be ceremoniously burned, and the Wise One, as The Frau will be henceforth designated, will rule her dominions by fiat.

Now, is there anyone in Europe left who does not want the Mayan prediction to come true?

The Fate of the European Treaties and European Law

In today’s news we have the following item:

“Another Greek development — the EU’s task force dispatched to Greece has warned today that Athens has fallen behind its target of recovering ?2bn of outstanding tax receipts during 2012.

By the end of October, the taskforce said, Greece had only recovered ?1bn. Just 88 audits of large taxpayers had been conducted, against a target of 300, and just 467 of “high-wealth individuals”had been probed, versus a target of 1,300.

Despite the slippage, commissioner Olli Rehn declared that Greece was making progress, saying:

‘Greece is tackling deep-rooted structural problems with determination and resolve, as has been recognized by the Eurogroup.

The Task Force is working hard to help Greece implement essential reforms to boost its competitiveness, create a fairer and more effective tax system, and generate sustainable growth and employment.'”

How dare they spew out all this utter nonsense! Progress indeed! What, Mr Rehn would you call failure to achieve anything then?

“Reforms to boost its competitiveness”. This is short hand for Greece has not only slashed wages and incomes but  has also abolished just about all labour rights. Has that helped “competitiveness”? Well, what would you say? With the unemployment rate rising exponentially, reaching the 25% mark? Not only no new businesses setting up shop but established ones racing for the door? As to all the other factors of competitiveness, nothing has been tackled, such as the prohibitive taxation system, exorbitant transportation costs (owing to hikes in indirect taxes on fuel and toll taxes) not to mention a total dearth in liquidity.

The creation of a “fairer and more effective tax system” This one is as close to hubris as a minor appratchik can get.  Fairer? I am spluttering here. The new tax law provides for a hike in taxes on the middle incomes down. Punitive taxation for anyone who dares to have children, such taxes on Free Lancers as to be a complete disincentive. As to the brackets, exorbitant. 21% the lowest. So a more unfair tax system has never been devised. As to effective? Where? How? Through shielding all tax evaders in every way?

Now “generating sustainable growth and employment.” Well Mr Rehn, your own forecasts, those of the troika and the puppet Greek government have already stated quite the contrary. Recession is expected to continue in 2013, at a rate of 4.5% and unemployment is expected to reach the 30% mark. And yet again, we must point out, so far all such troika forecasts have been perpetually lower than what really happened.

As Commissioner for Economic Affairs (or whatever title they give this non job), Mr Rehn has presided over the worst economic catastrophe since the EZ was set up. Failure to diagnose the real problem and the consequent failure to provide an effective programme to solve the crisis has led to the whole of the EZ falling into recession. As to the peripheral states, their economies have not just fallen into recession but have collapsed.

And the worst failure of all on Mr Rehn’s part is that though all the plans and policies have failed miserably, all he can do is pile on more of the same and worse. And then cheer from the sidelines that Samaras and the task force are doing an excellent job!

If he had any shame he should resign on the spot. If he had any decency he would not come out with such false, misleading statements. If he had any humanity he should at least acknowledge the humanitarian crisis he and his ilk have engendered. And if he had any values he would not stand for the destruction of healthcare in peripheral countries like Spain and Greece, and soon to be elsewhere too.

It would appear he has none of these. And it would appear that none of the other powers that be currently lording it over the EU have either. Too happy to bask in their comfort, cut off from reality, or worse, not giving a damn about people, especially lesser mortals such as the Mediterranean south. Shame on you Olli Rehn. Shame on all the EZ assorted wheelers and dealers.

This is not the Europe we believed in. This is not the Europe we want. This is not the Europe of the Enlightenment, of the values of the French Revolution, of the social contract or the rights of man. This is a Europe of extreme right wing neo liberal dogma.

And Mr Rehn would serve both Europe and himself better, if he at least kept his mouth hermetically shut, instead of hemetically opening it to utter such hubris.

Maggie Thatcher “The Milk Snatcher” as she was dubbed for abolishing the half pint of milk given to every primary school child in England since the war. She was a junior Minister in Ted Heath’s government at the time. But this showed real promise, of the hard headed, cost cutting, welfare snatching that the economy, she was so convinced, really needed.

Now where did she get her economic dogma? Keith Joseph? Freidrich Hayek? Well no, not really. For a fake construct like Maggie Thatcher that would be too much to absorb intellectually. No. She got all her “economic” thinking and practice from, who else? Her Dad. The grocer.

She had such an impact on changing the whole of global economics to the heartless (milk snatching from the weak) to rewarding “hard work” (tax breaks for the rich at the expense of those struggling to make ends meet) that she has left us with that ingrained legacy. Corner grocery book keeping. Probably on the back of a grubby scrap of paper. History is beginning to reassess her (not kindly), nevertheless she has indelibly marked current “economic” practice in this way.

You only have to look at how the EZ brilliant minds and the IMF are dealing…. well not dealing but exacerbating, the current European crisis. Static numbers and “targets”: You have to reduce your deficit, so how do you do this? Simple really! Any corner grocer can tell you that much! You slash your costs and raise taxes. There now.

It remains amazing, and I am sure it will be the subject of many a Ph.D. thesis in the future, how the combined strength and glory of European if not global leaders clean forgot, or had no idea in the first place, how an economy really works. Do I really need to point out that the more you cut costs while at the same time hiking all taxes (direct and indirect) all you do is trigger a recession and thereby fall short of expected tax revenue? Oh no. That did not arise in daddy’s corner grocery shop. So Brussels, the euphemism for Berlin and all the others never let this simple fact of economic life bother their dear little heads.

Now, going from bad to worse we have Frau Merkel and her upbringing not only in East Germany but with a Pastor Dad. It does not appear that she had any trouble with the established order of her youth and appears to have been a party member. But be that as it may. I have no doubt this was innocent enough in that she did not bother, or was intellectually unable, to think about these things.

But getting back to Daddy dearest. A Protestant Pastor, preaching fire and brimstone for sinners! That is her way of dealing with economic problems, along with corner grocery shop accounting. We have a problem. Whose fault is it? (Not how did it happen?) The Greeks! because they were profligate and lazy and borrowed too much! Answer. They must be punished for their sins! They must be made to suffer and feel the pain they justly deserve from deviating from the word of God!

What about economic recovery though? No. They do not deserve it! The programme imposed on them is not even meant to lead to any kind of economic recovery. It has been devised to punish them and and teach them some discipline and make them follow my rules. Which are the only rules. Carved in stone. Like the ten commandments.

Well, we have seen and are seeing the destruction wreaked by these two Daddies’ daughters so influenced by their admired fathers. A destruction that is far from having been completed and promises to perhaps bring the whole temple crashing down. Like Sampson. (Sorry about that but Merkel’s Bible study is contagious.)

However, the irony is that, firstly in Thatcher’s case, for all her talk of hard work, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, doing away with the molly coddling of the welfare state and standing on your own two feet, she herself chose the easy way out. She married a rich husband, as a substitute for the welfare state, and her own son Mark*, appears to have made his way in life through dodgy deals, rather than hard, honest work.

As for The Frau, for all her ideas of punishing the sinful! The only “sinners” she can see and goes about punishing without any mercy whatsoever, are what, in the gospels are called, the meek of the earth. The poor, the destitute, the down trodden. Those who cannot fight back.

With such a moral, Protestant stand, one can’t help wondering why she is doing all this merely to prop up and “save” the practitioners of usury. Why outrageous profiteering at the expense of the meek never comes in for her opprobrium. Why the lying and outright deceit of her favourites, such as Antonis Samaras, never comes in for even a slap on the wrist. Oh no. Moral judgement is reserved only for those who get in her way. And those who are too weak to fight back.

In short. The classic case of the bully. In both cases. We may snigger and laugh at Thatcher’s false, contrived upper class accent, at Merkel’s appalling sartorial sense and plodding inelegance. However, the fact remains, that these two women, so devoted to their fathers’ practices, have managed between them to abolish all sense of human values, compassion and social justice.

* From Wikipedia on Mark Thatcher

Business career

In 1998 South African authorities investigated his firm for allegedly running loan shark operations. A company owned by Thatcher offered unofficial small loans to hundreds of police officers, military personnel and civil servants. Those who defaulted were pursued by debt collectors and charged 20% interest rates, according to the Star of Johannesburg.^[8]According to The Daily Telegraph of 26 August 2004: “In 1998, he was at the centre of a scandal after he lent huge sums of money at exorbitant interest rates to more than 900 local police officers and civil servants in Cape Town. He admitted lending the cash but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He is also thought to have profited from contracts to supply aviation fuel in various African countries.”^[11]

Other embarrassments include allegations of U.S. tax evasion (a criminal case was eventually dropped) and a racketeering case in Texas which was settled out of court. TheSunday Times, quoting “city sources”, said he had amassed a personal fortune of £60 million, most of which is in offshore accounts, attributed to shrewd investments and a series of “astute deals in Africa”.^[8]

As the crisis has gone from bad to worse, one thing that has become very clear, is that it is not only the Monetary Union that is fatally flawed, but also the decision making process. As we have witnessed, it is not a process at all. It is a mess. A mess which always ends up in the same way. Do nothing much. Put it off for the next summit.

But what about these gentlemen in the picture and the whole of the commission and other “dignitaries” such as the head of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers?

There is the President of the Commission, which has been well served by people like Jacques Delors who had a vision, who knew how to get things done and who had clout. Today what do we have? A bunch of inept nonentities who do nothing at all. Or worse, are ignored when they try.

Take poor old Herman Van Rompuy, Mr “Who are you?” in Nigel Farage’s memorable mordant designation. He keeps scuttling around, wasting his time drawing up plans for the way forward, and how to effect full fiscal and monetary integration and all sorts of lovely things like that. Which are immediately thrown unread into the trash can by the Real Leader (what is the word for leader in German again?).

So, the whole of the EU paraphernalia are from useless to dangerous. A bunch of appointed, very well paid apparatchicks who make no contribution at all to any of the decisions that have to be made. As a result, what do we get?

Endless meetings and summits where Ministers and Prime Ministers and Heads of State all gather physically in Brussels to hash out whatever it is on the agenda. The hang around for hours and hours, enjoying good dinners with very good wines, we re told, and in the most successful of cases, end up agreeing to some fudge in the wee hours of the morning. A time when no one’s mind is really fully functional any more. And this shows in the way the decisions unravel.

How is it possible, at this stage in history, with all the technology now available, with all the experience of history at everyone’s fingertips, that such an important decision making body should be so clumsy, so crude and, in the end so utterly inefficient?

The summit meetings or meetings of Ministers should be nothing more than rubber stamps for negotiations and agreements that have already been reached or hammered out at lower levels. Instead we are treated to a performance of wrangling and in fighting over unprepared matters where the Euro apparatchicks are totally irrelevant.

So it is hardly surprising they are all upbeat, telling us the worse of the crisis is over, things getting better, next year will see growth and all the other claptrap.

Claptrap designed to hide the truth of the matter. Which is that in the absence of any real European institutions, the country with the most money (and least diplomacy) has decided to run the show to its own advantage. And not only does no one object, but no one even notices or minds. The Eurocrats are quite happy to be ridiculed and ignored and even reviled, as long as they remain appointees and do not have to be elected.

The other leaders, inevitably, all follow their own national interests. And how else could that be when it is top dog who is doing it worse than all the others?

And everybody acknowledges out loud, with a shrug of “so what?” acceptance, that no decisions on any of the important matters, like the banking union or Greece, can even be contemplated before the German elections lest Frau Merkel lose these elections.

So the whole of the EU has accepted to have as its only priority at this stage, the election prospects of one woman.

Does this make any sense? Does it inspire confidence in the future of Europe?

Samaras is in seventh heaven! He got the tranche! Grexit is dead! (He thinks). But then the poor man never did seem to be all that bright.

In his euphoria he did not realise that of this installment, as the amount was agreed by the so called second memorandum, some 11 billion has already gone since it has been spent on buying up bonds (which was not in the original agreement). So at this juncture only 16 bill will go to recapitalising the banks and not the expected 24.

And that is not all. As Prof Varoufakis has pointed out, the Greek banks have been using their bonds to enhance liquidity. They deposit their bonds with the ECB and get 70% of face value. So another trickle of liquidity for the parched Greek economy has just been plugged up.

In the light of Stournaras’ and Samaras’ moronic joy and jubilation, and damning of the Cassandras and declaring the Grexit dead, the Guardian has this to report:

EU diplomats, based in Athens, however, have a more reserved outlook. One cautioned against Greece over-interpreting the decision as a ?vote of confidence in its efforts when it?s more about the EU not wanting Greece to go under.?

Foreign observers worry that, as had been the case before, Athens will see the disbursement as an excuse to relax implementation of long-overdue structural reforms.

The Samaras/Stournaras regime has no intention of implementing any real structural reforms such as the civil service, the stream lining of how it functions and so on. It has no intention of dealing with the taxation system. It’s sole intention is to keep its clientele in the public sector and make the country pay for it in blood through this new lethal tax law to be passed in exchange for the loan installment.

Now, rumour has it that the only reason Stournaras is hell bent on draining the Greek economy of a further 3 billion of money it no longer has, is so that it can keep paying for the public sector employees the troika had wanted it to get rid of. Well, why else has there been not a word from the troika concerning this matter any more? But only insistence on inflicting the vicious taxation on the Greek people, to the detriment of any hope of limiting the rate of recession.

The troika no longer seems all that concerned over Tax dodging in Greece either. There is no provision for revenue from catching tax dodgers in the budget. Oh, and the idea of getting paid for use of TV stations etc has completely disappeared too. Why is that? To keep the propaganda machine rolling in the memorandum’s favour, it would appear. Why else would the nasty troika shrug this one off so easily too?

So the whole sorry shambles is merely more avoiding the problem, not fixing it. The “EU does not want Greece to go under“. Yet. And that is all. The EU, well okay Germany, wants to fudge the issue (and she has successfully done so) till after the German elections when Merkel will have been safely reelected as Chancellor, through deceit and subterfuge.

If we get that far, Greece that is, and it just might, then we shall see whether the Grexit is really dead or not. Till then, the economy will be going from bad to worse, loan tranche or no loan tranche. The automatic adjustments, that is extra taxation levies and cuts to pensions, will set in as targets are not met. And they will not be met. Because they are designed to be impossible.

However, this is where Keynes’ “unpredictable” sets in. You cannot forecast the economy, or the markets (as he found out from personal experience) because the unpredictable of its nature is, by definition, unknown. And between now and the German elections anything could happen. And probably will.

As to predicting the Debt/GDP ration in 2020, and saying well yes, okay, it won’t be 120%, but 124% (such precision!), I have gone blue in the face saying why it is all nothing but arrant nonsense for many different reasons. And I am far from the only one!

Meanwhile the troika are quite happy to let the Samaras/Stournaras regime keep milking the Greek people for everything they have, each to satisfy their owned warped little agenda.

But in Greece we do know about goats. When you keep trying to milk a goat that has no milk left, all you achieve is to draw blood from its udder.

And that is where Stournaras is. He is preparing to draw blood from the Greeks.

I wonder how far he will manage?

In the news a crime was reported, last night. It sounded very strange. A ninety year old man killed his eighty year old wife and then committed suicide. He left a note explaining why.

A crime of passion? At ninety? Did he discover some indiscretion from decades ago or what?

This morning we were told the contents of his suicide note. The couple decided to go this way, because they could not bear to burden their children any more.

Yesterday, on the way home at the electric train station, an announcement:

“Owing to a suicide, the trains do not run between station A and station B.”

Just like that. Impersonal. Matter of fact. “Owing to suicide.”

That is the state of Greece today.

“According to calculations by Goldman Sachs, France today is just as overpriced as Spain. Both countries must be around 20% cheaper to make their economies competitive and to achieve debt sustainability. But to be 20% cheaper, the real devaluation process won’t be easy.

This is why France must undergo a slump of a decade in which its inflation rate would be lagging by 2% behind the average of the remaining eurozone. In spite of all that, France has not come yet under a bailout program.”

So said Hans-Werner Sinn, a German economist and president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.

France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece… in fact just about every non northern member of the Eurozone has lost its competitiveness over… the last ten years!

While Germany’s competitiveness has soared over this same period. Coincidence? German hard workers as against southern shirkers? They love that one, but…. no.

It is the Euro, stupid! To paraphrase Clinton. The Euro is the Elephant in the room no one wants to acknowledge. For various reasons. Germany since it has been not only a net beneficiary economically of this flawed currency, but because it has also acquired political clout and absolute hegemony in Europe.

By signing up to this extremely badly designed, totally premature common currency, the countries of the Eurozone found themselves back in the dark ages of the gold standard and all the woes that that entailed. Breaking out of the Gold Standard was what helped stagnating, recessionary economies break out of the trap. A trap the Eurozone countries now find themselves in.

The Gold Standard was just as sacred as the idea of the Euro is today. It was just as taboo if not more to suggest leaving the Gold Standard as it is today to mumble that maybe the Euro should be dismantled!

No! Never! No way! Heresy! All we have to do is ruin the economies of the south, of France, okay maybe even Belgium and the Netherlands later on and…? Well, there you are.

In the end the Gold Standard was abolished.

In the end the Euro as it is now will become a bad chapter of history.

But instead of shilly shallying and ignoring the root problem of Europe while ruining everything Europe ever stood for, spreading pain and destitution, might it not be more sensible for the powers that be to start working out a sensible way to acknowledge the elephant in the room and devise a way to get it out quietly?

How about that Olli Rehn, and HVR? Rather than chortling Thatcher’s greatest clanger of “There Is No Alternative” (which isn’t even original for you) and insisting that the ONLY way to solve Europe’s problems (and perpetuate their parasitical jobs) is by inflicting more and more pain through austerity which will only lead to complete and total collapse! And not only of the Economy.

And if you can’t think that far ahead because it is too strenuous for you all, you can always resign and hand over to more capable people. Who will no longer be restricted by taboos.