Well, we all know very well by now what Einstein’s definition of stupidity was. Doing exactly the same thing over again and expecting it will have different results this time.

Whish is EXACTLY what prime Minister Antonis Samaras is doing with the zeal of a neophyte. Well he did tell The Frau that no one is free of sin! We don’t know if he submitted to flagellation for this sin when the Frau summoned him to an unexpected one on one meeting after his confession to sin. It does not seem unlikely.

Anyhow, he has now set about mimicking the abysmally failed George Papandreou down to a tee. First of all, he has been unable to resist the hollow triumphalism his predecessor used to relish in. Till the yoghourts started to fly. So after grovelling at The Frau’s feet even more than Papandreou, he has returned in triumph declaring that he has saved Greece from the Drachma! Just like Papandreou kept saving us from bankruptcy. (Samaras can’t even do that any more because we are bankrupt and likely to remain so if he has his way.)

So first, the irresistible urge to take on the mantel of saviour just as he is ruining the country and its future. Just like Papandreou. Next, through his public admission of sin he has taken it upon himself to implement the whole disastrous Papademos-Venizelos agreement with the troika. Slash another 11,5 billion… no actually 13,5 billion… well, er… it seems more likely to be 15 billion… okay lets make it an even 20 billion… off GDP over the next two years.

Yes. That’s it. Now, he doesn’t even tell us what he expects to happen to the Greek economy once he’s done that. All he’s done is reiterate the Papandreou mantra. We MUST pass these abominable measures through, otherwise we won’t get our fix!! Desperation! Fix being the next installment of the loan to pay the banks. Just the way Papandreou used to.

Then we get the weary mantra: We won’t be able to pay public employee salaries and pensions! Another complete crib from Papandreou’s text book. Again, he fails to point out that all this will only lead to even greater recession, to even greater unemployment and through the consequent mathematical certainty to failure to meet those “targets” set by the troika for the deficit and debt. Which will ultimately result in there being no pensions or public employee salaries at all.

So more cuts will be demanded by the troika (who only set these targets because they know damn well there is no way they can be met… or they should do!) which will lead where? If we are extremely lucky back to the Drachma! But I repeat, ONLY if we are lucky!

So just as Papandreou never saved Greece from bankruptcy, but instead did all he could to achieve that result, so Samaras is not only not going to save us from the Drachma but is taking us straight there with his policy of grovelling to the troika which is what Papandreou did before him!

Added to this he uses the same defence as Papandreou. There is nothing else we can do! We have to implement the troika’s destructive policy because otherwise they won’t give us out fix! In other words “There is no alternative”. Hmmm. We have heard that somewhere before, haven’t we? It is always used when governments decide to ruin everything worth preserving in a civilized polity.

But of course there are alternatives. And of course there are solutions. There will be pain, but pain with results at the end of the road. Unlike the Papandreou  tried and failed formula which Samaras is mimicking, as I said before, with the zeal of a neophyte.

Poor Tony.

First of all we would like to express our deepest appreciation of the new Prime Minister Mr Samaras. He has told the whole world officially what we knew all along, that is that he was bullshitting the Greek electorate through all that crazy anti Memorandum rhetoric. He didn’t mean a word of it and has in fact proved far more amenable and servile to us than even Venizelos, god bless him, has been.

Now, as to progress on achieving targets. We are delighted to say that we can add to this prevailing up beat mood over Greece. One of our major targets, abolishing the welfare state is well on the way to full achievement. By the devilish plan dutifully carried out by our minion Loverdos, all health care funds were merged into one, and this new single fund has managed to handle the situation in an easier way.

It no longer pays for any services at all, whereas before, not all the funds obeyed this stricture. Now, not only has free medicine been abolished through the pharmacists’ inability to carry on with this service, given that they are no longer reimbursed by the state, so all Greeks have to pay for all medicines prescribed from now on.

But that is not all. The doctors of the Social Security services have also been obliged to suspend their services till they get paid all the arrears (which are months). Needless to say we shall make sure that no one gets paid so we have thereby abolished just about all health services in Greece.

The cuts we have enforced have also had another very beneficial result. Policing and army services have dwindles enormously. In this way, there will be an abundance of illegal migrants from Asia who will be willing to work for a pittance when we have bought up the country’s assets and introduce slave labour conditions. Which, we have to add, we are already well on the way of achieving. So the outlook is good.

We haven’t got very far with asset stripping, but we are not worried about that since it can wait till after the Grexit, when Greek Assets will be more like freebies rather than even dirt cheap as they are at the moment.

Our proposal is that we push through with all these further 20 billion in cuts which will mean that the Greek people have nothing left at all, hence to resistance left in them either. This will be easy. Samaras is already begging us for more punishment and anyway, we have already told him that if he pushes through the cuts we might consider giving him the extensions he wants.

Now if he complains, all we shall say is what he said in Germany, no one is free of sin! In other words we did not mean a word of it either! Bullshit goes both ways you know, matey.

Now all this will take us through to around the end of October. Our report will be favourable in general only it will point out all the delays, particularly in asset stripping… we mean privatizations of course, and failure to reduce debt to GDP levels and the deficit. This really is the nastiest one of all, if we may say so, since the whole policy we impose is designed  to increase the deficit and debt. And if their new wonder boy Stournaras can’t even see that, too bad.

We shall not agree to disbursement of the delayed installment till the figures have improved (ha, ha, ha! Sorry. It’s so lovely I just can’t help laughing). Greece will not default at once because it will have grabbed some of the exorbitant taxes it has imposed, enough to keep it going for a month or so. Or in any case, it can always delay payments to its public employees, even though that is the last thing they would want to do. Well, it may in fact be the last thing they do after all.

So it is our firm belief that Greece will last one way or another till the beginning of November. The American Elections will be held, and then we can kick Greece summarily out of the Euro after we have completely ruined her economy.

We deserve, we believe, congratulations.

Signed: the Troika of IMF, EU, ECB Gauleiters.

Apparently it’s true! Mitt Romney wants to take the dollar back to the Gold Standard! After the shock and the disbelief you start wondering whether he might not be high on some kind of drug or something.

Angela Merkel has now decided to turn the EU into a political union. That is to centralise all power in Berlin… whoops sorry I meant Brussels! Now, after having made the idea of a united Europe obnoxious, though it used to be the vision and the goal of the European Ideal, she now intends to push it through on her own terms.

That is Europe should be turned into a larger, but more centralised, German Federation. Not only does she wish to retain all the benefits to Germany of the Euro (which are many and even more under crisis situations) without giving up anything in return, but she positively wants to take over the running of a politically unified Germany… I mean Europe.

Stands to reason. She is the only one who knows what to do. She is the only one who knows how economics really works and hence everyone should shrink their economies to fit her little mind. What she appears to have forgotten is that such a change of the European treaties requires unanimous support and referenda in many of the countries concerned.

What she appears not to realise is that she is pretty much hated throughout Europe precisely for her overbearing bullying and imposition of policies which ruin the countries she claims to be saving while sucking up all funds away from them and into Germany.

And that is when you start thinking whether she might not be high on some kind of drug or something too.

In November, Mitt Romney scrapes into the US Presidency, whereupon a plot by Paul Ryan’s mother, based on the remake of the film The Manchurian Candidate is set in motion, except unlike the film, it is successful and the new President is assassinated at the inauguration ball, so the ostensibly grief stricken Paul Ryan is sworn in as 45th President of the USA.

Over in Europe, the Eurozone has begun to unravel after the exit from the Euro fist by Finland, under the code name  Fixit, and then Holland, under Nexit. Grexit is still awaiting the outcome of the American election.

In further panic stricken, desperate attempts to keep the Eurozone together, The Frau has decided that the best way to do this is by strict example. Further austerity measures must be imposed on Greece whereby anyone who is still alive by the end of the year is subject to a “lucky-to-be-alive tax”, to make sure that this time all targets will finally be met.

Antonis Samaras willingly complies declaring that if we don’t do this we will be unable to pay public employee salaries and pensions and Greece will be kicked out of the Euro. The aid who nudges him discreetly to point out that there are no pensioners left, and the few public employees left are a handful of Samaras’ own relatives, gets summarily executed.

Back in Italy Mario Monti has already been hanged upside down from a meat hook, and France and Spain have reinstated the Bourbon dynasty together and crowned Juan Carlos’s son King at Rheims Cathedral.

Greece remains in the Eurozone under threat from Frau Merkel that the Lucky-to-be-alive tax is not sufficient since forecasts have again proved inadequate and the debt to GDP ratio has risen to thirteen and a half trillion per cent, overshooting the thirteen trillion projection, so more curs have to be made.

Samaras agrees saying that we have to do this otherwise we will be unable to pay public employees salaries and pensions and we will be kicked out of the Euro. After what happened to his last aid, the new aid fails to point out that there are only three public employees left and they are all his own relatives.

In the face of this turmoil, Ireland also leaves the Euro in disgust and begs the UK to take her back into the Union lock stock and barrel, and hang Parnell and all that nonsense. Nothing could be worse than Merkel’s Europe and the Euro, not even the United Kingdom!

Greece remains in the Eurozone, but Portugal, Belgium even Cyprus, have left quietly by the back door when no one was looking. Merkel insists that she wants to save the Eurozone and tells Samaras to tax any fish left in the Aegean because President Ryan has declared that an exorbitant import tariff will be slapped on all imports to give the US economy a chance to get back on its feet.

Merkel scoffs that this idiot hasn’t got a clue on how to solve an economic crisis and he should follow her example by swiftly instituting strict austerity. President Ryan decides on full isolation of the US instead and positions the American fleets all around its coasts to ensure this, while distributing copies of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” to every member of the armed forces protecting the country’s borders.

Totally oblivious, as he always is, of everything going on in the real world, Samaras, attends the Eurozone summit, unaware that he is the only other one there. Before she has even said anything, he vigorously nods his agreement with her, greatly pleasing The Mistress. Till Wolfgang Schauble points out from his wheelchair that President Ryan has just signalled the end of the German Economic miracle because no more Mercedes, or anything else, will be exported to the US any more under his armed isolation policy.

Merkel shrugs and turns to Samaras telling him to ratchet up the austerity measures to meet his targets because otherwise he will be kicked out of the Eurozone.

In a panic he sends the newly constituted state police (made up of Golden Dawn volunteers) to collect all and anything they can squeeze out of the taxpayers to balance the budget, by any means. That is, the well tested means of physical force.

Otherwise… he threatens the people (whatever has been left of them that is. A few hundred, if that.) We must take these measures, or else we will be unable to pay public employee salaries and pensions and worse! The Mistress will kick us out of the Eurozone!

This time his aid finally plucks up the courage and says,

“But sir! You are the Eurozone!”

“How so you insignificant little groveller?” (In a panic one always attributes one’s own faults to one’s minions.)

“Well, everyone else has gone! Even Germany! Greece is the only country left in the Eurozone and you are the only one left in Greece!”

“But where are my subjects? Where is everybody?”

“The last tacky boat headed for China with the last surviving refugees from Greece is just about to set sail from Piraeus. And I’m sorry, I have to rush, because otherwise I’ll miss it!”

And that was how Samaras lived up to his word.

“We shall stay in the Euro at all costs!”

It didn’t matter that he was all on his own. He had done it! he had proved himself!

Meanwhile back in Berlin a strange ghostly apparition begins to haunt the streets at night. Rumours abound as to whether it is the spirit of Rosa Luxembourg or Karl Marx. Frau Merkel immediately orders that strict austerity measures must be imposed immediately on anyone giving this rumour any credence.

A sound accounting principle for inventory evaluation depending on what you want to show in your Bottom Line. However, here I am not referring to inventory accounting but to the Euro. Greece was the last country to enter the Euro, I believe, and it appears it is going to be the first to leave it.

Rumours have now turned to assertions that Greece will be kicked out of the Euro AFTER the American Elections because Obama is desperate that it should not happen before as this would be detrimental to him. And the Europeans see eye to eye on this because they fear, we are told that Romney would be more “isolationist” than Obama. This says a lot about European analysis if that is all they fear.

Now, rumours have abounded, dates have been set, a general mood of will it, won’t it? When? etc. have been buzzing ever since The Frau ordered the lame Papandreou to call a referendum on whether Greece wants to stay in the Euro or not. So why should we be more alarmed, or encouraged (as the case may be) by this latest estimate of “after the American Elections”?

Well, not only is the writing on the wall, but also our equally lame PM Samaras has started shouting desperately that a Grexit would be disastrous for Europe! It is all he has to fall back on. Furthermore, since he is a proven pathological liar, it no doubt also means that the “Europeans” (whoever these may actually be… well, okay, Germany) have actually come down on the side of a Grexit NOT being disastrous for the Euro.

And there are good reasons for such a guesstimate. The ECB, in conjunction with the EMS (if it is approved by the German Constitutional Court) will start its plan for concerted buying of government bonds for the countries in trouble, that is Spain and Italy at this juncture. It is expected that this policy will be effective and that the so called spreads will be kept under control.

As to Greek debt, this has already been taken care of by now, with German banks (and French) having got rid of their Greek junk already so a Greek default will not create more than perhaps a ripple in the water for them.

Added to this, though detrimental for the American Elections, a Grexit would be positively beneficial for German Elections in that: Heil the Fuhrer! Look at her! She is strong! She gave those pesky, lying, grovelling, lazy Greeks just what they deserved! And if this does eventually prove to have been a disastrous step, or even just bad policy after all, the electorate won’t realise as much till long after they have cast their ballots. If then.

Remember Remember the fifth of November. Gunpowder, Treason and Plot!*

This will be more around, or after, the seventh November, and likely to be celebrated in much the same way thereafter. We shall see.

* Refers to Guy Fawkes and the failed Gun Powder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605.

Climatically things have gone quite wild in Europe, with temperatures in the mid thirties and forties (Centigrade) even in places like France and Germany. Heat waves all over, raging forest fires from Spain’s Canary Islands down through Italy and Greece. Austerity cuts hampering fire fighting efforts and storms in every tea cup from John O’Groats  in northern Scotland to Ierapetra in southern Crete.

And as if all that were not enough we have the blatant dithering, confusion, inability to realise, let alone focus, on what matters and how to deal with it within Europe. Leadership insists on plans that have quite obviously quite failed. Out of stubbornness? Idiocy? Some dark conspiratorial design? Who knows. And who cares.

The mess is so great and so intractable, does it really matter any more who caused it all and why? And as we have said before, the only thing that this German imposed policy has achieved is to exacerbate hatreds throughout the continent, reduce what passes for political analysis to racial slanging matches, narrow minded bigotry, finger pointing and of course the blame game. None of which is conducive to tackling the real problems of the real economy.

Do you think the crazy weather has boggled the crazy minds of what goes for politicians in Europe? Could there be some correlation? We have to ask. It is well known that the moon can have an effect on people’s minds. Perhaps all these heat waves, particularly in northern Europe, have turned the minds of our politicians into mush.

There is no rational explanation to anything going on any more. Globally. When a woman of limited ability, limited scope, limited vision and limited intelligence is declared The Most Powerful Woman of the World by Forbes magazine, what else would you expect to be happening in the world today?

Perhaps it’s the nonsensical antics of European politicians that has affected the weather down here, rather than the other way around, after all.

[This particular version stops short of the lyrics quoted in the title. But I find it’s so much more fitting!]

* From the lyrics of Leonard Bernstein’s song ‘I feel pretty'” from West Side Story.

The man is either delusional, demented, psychotic or dare I say it? Blind. Blind to what is before his very eyes. Most probably he is just another of these narcissists (like Venizelos) who gravitate towards politics in order to become Prime Minister and admire themselves posturing in the mirror.

Other than that, in the light of Juncker’s visit to Athens today and Samaras’ Charge of the Light Brigade in Berlin and Paris later this week, I have just one thing to say. And that is to quote (and endorse) the comment made by:

Elisabeth Afseth of Investec: “It would be refreshingly honest if Jean Claude Juncker emerged from meetings holding his head and saying, ‘I don’t know how we are going to sort this mess out.’ But it is more likely that we get supporting comments about ‘great efforts made, difficult economic conditions’ though with a warning more need to be done.”

I think she is exactly right. The so called hard liners, Dutch, Germans and others insist. No slack to be cut unless Greece complies fully with her MoU commitments. Which is a nonsense, because if she has managed (in some magical way) to comply that means she won’t need any more time to do it in. So that is the safest way for the so called hard liners to say no and sound self righteous about it.

And it is an easy way out because there is no way these terms can be met, regardless of Samaras’ idiotic idea to ask for an extension. Extension to do what? Carry out the ‘reforms’? That is tantamount to saying first I will completely destroy the Greek economy by ensuring recession continues on its rapid downward course and of course, that unemployment goes up to over 30% at least and then…

Then what bozo? Do you think you will even be in Greece by then any more, let alone Prime Minister?

Now the band of “moderates” Juncker among them. They have already started and will ratchet up the, there has been progress, Samaras is trying, the primary deficit has been lessened (ha, ha to that one) and other such conciliatory noises, merely in order to keep kicking the can down the road under the demented illusion that the Euro (and their positions and prestige) can be kept going under such Nonsense Economics conditions.

Perhaps it is Samaras who should simply tell the Greek people and the world the truth. This mess is impossible to fix under the terms being imposed. We did agree to them, Venizelos and I, signed up to them and pledged to carry them out. But there is no way any of this can happen with a recession racing downwards at an exponential rate and policies designed to exacerbate the recession and ruin the economy.

The only thing I can do for my country at this stage is resign and leave the negotiations for the default and Grexit in hands far more capable than my own.

But of course he won’t do that either, will he?

When did a narcissist ever do the right thing? Still less take the blame for his own follies and mistakes.

The original Holy Inquisition (under the notorious Torequemada in particular perhaps) was the institution of terror used to impose dogma blindly. Its means were foul. Torture, burning at the stake, incarceration under the cruellest of conditions and so on. But this was all for the highest of causes. For your own good. To save your soul. Of course you were not allowed to save your soul in any other way than submitting to torture. Or perhaps being burnt at the stake.

Today we don’t go on for that kind of mumbo jumbo and religious fanaticism any more. Or do we?

The IMF is supposed to be the institution that helps states finding themselves in debt (usually) or in an economic impasse of some kind, out of their mess. However, they have a one size fits all package deal. They have one aim in mind and only one. And it is dogmatic. The real economy is never taken into account. The state in trouble is considered deviant. That is, it is a sinner! And it has to be punished in order to be saved.

The approach is dogmatic and fanatical. It is not religious fanaticism, but free market capitalist dogma. What is always wrong with the state that has come under IMF brutality is too much Welfare, too much by way of social policy, too many labour rights. Because all of these cost money and money has to be saved.

So, you have to slash wages, benefits, close down all state hospitals and schools and in addition raise taxes at the same time to make sure you have well and truly screwed those least able to survive. This “austerity” inevitably leads to a recession, a recession where revenue falls because economic activity has been strangled. And this, in its turn makes deficits and debt indices go from bad to worse.

So what is the answer? The same as Torquemada’s was. The sinner has obviously not repented! He remains as sinful as before! Even worse! We must tighten the screws! Increase the punishment till he/she repents! The sinner must do our bidding or be damned!

Restructuring, flexibility, reform. The catch words. Words you can’t really disagree with. Who would not prefer something flexible to something rigid? Who is against reform? Even restructuring sounds good when you have been bullied into believing that the former structure was bad.

But hey, wait a minute! What does all this high sounding rhetoric really mean? It only applies to the labour market. It only applies to the rights of labour. Abolish all legislation protecting workers rights and make firing on a whim with no compensation, the law. That is a flexible labour market.

The same goes for restructuring and reform. Why, under reform and cutting back is it never the armaments budgets but only welfare that has to be cut? Why under restructuring is how banks and the financial markets work never called into question? 

The answer is quite simple. The IMF is the heavy hand of the free market capitalist dogma in action. Something like what used to go on in the communist states. They knew what was best for you, so you had to do it or else! The IMF is no different.

Not to go any further back, just take a look at what has happened in Greece. Now, the IMF claims that it is all the fault of the Greek government not applying the directives properly. But that cannot explain away why the IMF and troika have persistently got all the forecasts completely wrong. That cannot explain why, having reduced a potentially healthy economy into a pile of rubble, their main concern has been how to slash wages further, abolish all labour rights, while hiking all prices.

To make us competitive, they say. But competitive means nothing other than dirt cheap labour. Why else impose exorbitant taxes on fuel? Transport costs have soared because of this. Has that nothing to do with competition? Not for them no. And that is only one of the many factors affecting competition that the IMF couldn’t give a damn about.

Cheap labour, they say, reduces unemployment. Really? Why is it then that the cheaper labour becomes the greater the level of unemployment (set to reach the horrific figure of 30% in 2013)?

Oh but, they say, we did manage to reduce your primary deficit. Did you indeed? How? By foreign occupation standards taxation and a default on all payments other than to the banks and public employees salaries? Already 8 billion and rising is owed by the state. That doesn’t get counted in the deficit does it? No, but it is there, ready to explode.

So if this is anything but a ruthless, dogmatic punishment for the sinner whose soul will not be saved till he is burnt at the stake, they could have had me fooled.

If we were to be very charitable (and extremely naive) and accept the supposed reason behind The Frau’s brutal (and undemocratic) imposition of her austerity panacea, austerity with no growth, austerity where the funds saved through this policy are not plowed back into the economy, but siphoned off into the black hole of Godzilla… I mean The Banks, which is the long term restructuring of the economy.

Again, if we by pass this idea of restructuring, which means nothing other than imposing a neo liberal dogma on Europe, of destroying all and any welfare or social structures, reducing all wages to a pittance and of course completely abolishing all and any labour rights (aka a “flexible” labour market), and take it as being a desirable outcome, can we even then see any successful outcome of this project, even in the so called long run?

With all efforts focused on this long term project of turning Greece into a little China, say, where footballs can be manufactured cheaply (because the workers will not be paid), where there will not be a deficit problem say, because the state will not have expenses to meet such as healthcare and certainly no pensions, because everyone will die off before reaching a pensionable age, aren’t we forgetting something?

For an economy to develop at all, in any direction, even in such a brutal and despicable one, it has to be on going. The “policies” imposed on Greece have only led to its rapidly increasing rate of destruction. So, in the long run, there will not be an economy left to do anything. Even manufacturing footballs with child labour, because there will not be any children left to exploit, for instance.

In fact there will be nothing left at all. Just a barren waste land of where there was once, way back in history, some crazy and exotic civilization that taught… what? Funny, mysterious, metaphysical, mumbo jumbo ideas called philosophy, ethics, democracy….? I think. Anyway a whole lot of obsolete and irrelevant pipe dream ideas that have nothing at all to do with our brave new world (apologies to Aldus Huxley… or perhaps not. A vindication of Aldus Huxley).

Greece will have gone to join Carthage and the Phoenicians. And Keynes will have been completely vindicated.

“In the long run we are all dead.” Because here in Greece we will be. Literally.

European Markets at 13 month high. Euro climbs back a bit. Low trading volumes. Traders on the beach or in a drunken stupor. Not much happening it would appear. At least not on the strictly business front where those not on the beaches are hoping for good news soon. Good news in possibly more QE in the UK and US. In Mario Draghi, now that he has been verbally backed up by The Frau, making good on his promise of saving the Euro.

Ok. It is August. You are never supposed to do much or even think much in August. As to the Finn squealing “The Euro doesn’t work!”, hang him. He is just an extremist. And Merkel’s, in essence, rebuff by Harper, that whatever else, Canada is not going to provide funds so Merkel can carry on with her favourite game of you pay I collect, was camouflaged so well in the pretty pictures, it didn’t even get a headline.

Only one rather snide little telling comment referring to the picture where The Frau is running her hand in the water and Harper is standing behind her. Is he thinking of kicking her in the water? Well, he didn’t.

Oh, and one last comment. The expected “face off” between Samaras and Merkel. Are you kidding? Unless you mean The Frau will face off Samaras who will come home running and crying and start telling us the only we he can keep his job is if he grinds us even further down into the ground.

Do we really care so much that he should keep his job? Okay. He succeeded in his life long ambition of becoming PM. Whatever for, one doesn’t know. It’s not as if he has any visions or even any ideas what to do. He is perhaps notorious for building up a persuasive line only to adopt the complete opposite if it suits his personal ambitions.

So don’t expect a face off with The Frau, whatever else. He will nod and smile and tell us he is “negotiating”, not a change in terms, God forbid! That has been dead and buried ever since he took office, no… He will tell us he is “negotiating” the extension and present that as a ground breaking achievement.

Meanwhile Greece will either sink into complete oblivion and disappear from the face of the earth.

Or else it will explode.

Have a good weekend everyone!