So now that the Greek problem has been “solved” (Ha, ha, ha!), we have to find somebody else to blame. Having, swept the Greek mess under the carpet, now it’s time to play the blame game on Spain. Monti is alleged to have blamed the Spaniards and their mishandling of their economics (ha, ha again!) for the rise in Italian borrowing costs to dangerous levels.

In their turn, the Spanish blame the Europeans for not providing enough support, to which the Germans (and possibly the French too) responded by saying how much they admire the tenacity of the Spanish government and its efforts to apply austerity! A good solid pat on the back which is really no help at all!

Mind you, Greece is only temporarily out of the picture. But will no doubt come back with a vengeance after the general elections are held when whatever government emerges finds itself saddled with an impossible program which will only lead to greater recession and greater unemployment (we are already on the 22% mark and rising) if it is carried out.

But not only is no attempt being made to solve the real, underlying structural problem of the Euro, but no one (of those making the decisions) even sees it! They are in full and absolute denial (as Professor Yani Varoufakis has gone blue in the face repeating.

The problem is not the structure of the Euro! No! The problem is Greece’s deficit! (Now there’s a laugh if you take it as a percentage of the European economy as a whole.) Or now, it is Spain’s deficit! Later it will be Italy’s, or even, yes of course, Holland’s deficit. Which tut, tut is too high!

By the time the real problem slaps Germany in the face (and it will) it will probably be too late to do anything about it because Europe will already have collapsed into a heap of rubble under the weight of “austerity overload” (to use Charles Dallara’s own expression).

George Soros has said that the European crisis has entered a “more lethal phase” . This article from today’s Guardian ends with the following:

Soros stated that “.. ‘The rules of the Eurozone need radical revision’, and suggested that all countries need to be able to finance their existing debts at the same rate. He acknowledged that the Bundesbank would not accept his ideas but concluded ‘The future of Europe is a political issue. It is beyond the competence of the Bundesbank to decide.‘”

Yes indeed! Ionesco and his Theatre of the Absurd is alive and well and thriving in The Frau’s Euroland!

Today our so called Minister of Labour told us perfectly seriously the following: That when our government was being dictated the terms of what is known as the second bail out, in the billions that were to be cut there was a short fall of 350 million, and this was a terrible stumbling block.

One really has to admire the precision of the troika and their remarkable forecasting ability. Anyway, we know all that from the amateur theatricals that were performed for our benefit at the time, by our Prime Minister and partners. But, today our Minister told us that the shortfall of 350 million arose from the fall in revenue from VAT tax. So, he tells us with a straight face, we had to cut pensions!……..

Even Ionesco couldn’t have thought up something more absurd than that! So we remedy the shortfall in VAT receipts by cutting spending power even more??? And the Minister does not even realise he is talking nonsense?

But there may be some light shimmering in the distance. Spain is reported to be unwilling to raise the VAT rate so as to avoid falling into the recession feeding downward spiral that Greece has been plunged into. Through the over taxation and across the board cuts of salaries and pensions. You know, what our government is proud of having achieved.

But there is more, the Great Man himself, Charles Dallara of the IIF, has stated: “The emphasis on fiscal austerity [….] is excessive when carried out across the board and has already contributed to a steep contraction in domestic demand in the Euro area as a whole. It is important to move beyond just fiscal discipline, so as to avoid the risk of an austerity overload.”

Now if anyone wants to see what “an austerity overload” looks like, they should come to Greece. But we should warn you, it is a terrible sight and not for those with a queasy stomach.

When you get lost in the desert  you start going round and round in a blind circle without realising you’re lost. You think you are going ahead and you think you are in charge of where you are going and of your own destiny as if no one had ever got lost that way ever before. You keep going, under the conviction that you are navigating your own course and you actually believe you will get out of the desert in the end.

I think this describes The Frau’s New Europe in a nutshell.

In this context, I would like to share a Reuters article with you entitled Bernanke says banks need bigger capital buffer . Just one quote from this article providing yet one more instance of European brilliance, aka pig headedness.

“A Call from the head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde last year for European banks to raise up to 200 billion euros in new capital was quickly rejected by European politicians.”

Ring a ring a roses

A pocket full of posies

Atishou atishou

We all fall down!

A children’s nursery rhyme originally inspired by the effects of the Plague (aka The Black Death). Today it could be interpreted as European policy (or rather lack thereof) and where it will lead:

Atishou, atishou we all fall down.

Quite by coincidence on the eve of the announcement of the precise date for the general election to be held in Greece, Mme Lagarde announced that Greece still remained at great risk of bankruptcy, somewhat taking the wind out of the sails of the euphoria generated by the PSI.

Well, Mme Lagarde, we KNOW that. Everybody knows that. We also know that the hullaballou of the bond exchange being a great and resounding success was arrant nonsense too. And such a disaster that it really must not be repeated by anyone else! But we shall see about that.

Back to Greece and the terror aroused (for a change!) in the European directorate over what the result might be. After the man shot himself in front of Parliament, it seems they started wondering whether there might not be a backlash from the electorate after all.

So what do they want? Well, the ridiculously strict and impossible terms signed by the Greek government MUST be adhered to! How can that be achieved? Only by a government made up of the parties supporting the present government, preferably with the same appointed so called technocrat Prime Minister.

Yes, you might say, okay. Since they have signed on the dotted line, those are the ones who can be trusted to carry out the plan. However, the troika keep complaining that the problem with Greece is that the government has NOT carried out what it signed up to. And this is perfectly true. They haven’t. All they have done is repeatedly slash wages and pensions and slap exorbitant, crippling taxation on us.

Now the troika were perfectly happy with this in that they never complained and kept doling out the tranches of the loan. Despite the disastrous effects on the economy. Well of course. This money went through Greece, at the Greek tax payers expense, to prop up their zombie banks. The only time they did in fact stop the disbursement of a tranche from the loan was when Papandreou said he would call a referendum on the loan agreement.

Screams of anguish not only from the troika buy straight from Merkozy who summoned Papandreou to be publicly upbraided by them in Cannes.  This terrific hero of course came back with his tail between his legs and called the referendum off.

Be that as it may. The troika themselves have made a mess of it all too. First, of all they have been wrong with every forecast. Second, they have engineered the complete collapse of the Greek economy with recession running at around 6% per annum for three years (and counting) while unemployment has soared to over 21% (and counting).

Nevertheless, it’s always easier to blame the other guy and even though the troika were quite happy to condone the Greek government’s inertia, remedied by across the board income slashes and taxation, they insist that the destruction of the Greek economy is entirely the fault of the Greek government.

So why, one has to ask, why are they so desperate that the very people who they claim made the bloody mess should be the ones to form the next government too???

I do not believe in conspiracy theories but this situation is making me paranoid. Why are they so desperate that  Greece should continue to be governed by these utter failures? To carry out the plan imposed by them? But they know very well, as Lagarde herself confirmed, that if they do attempt to carry out the plan Greece will go bankrupt probably by the end of the year. (That is in the unlikely event that insurrections will be avoided.)

On the other hand they know from past painful experience that these wretched guys will not carry out the plan devised and imposed. Which means that Greece will again go bankrupt by the end of the year.

Is this all some dark conspiracy to destroy Greece for some sort of unfathomable gain? Or is this just another case of “collective denial”, (as the LSE Economists claimed when the Queen asked them why none of them had foreseen the crash*)  or, more likely, collective pig headedness and refusal to admit their own complete and utter failure in dealing with the European Crisis?

* See 19th August 2009 http://parina.gr/blog/?m=200908 The Wisdom of a little Old Lady

Mikis Theodorakis is a great man. Far too great to fit into a little blog. Throughout the dark years of the dictatorship in Greece, his songs, clandestinely circulated, on pain of severe punishment, provided hope, steeled resistance. They hold the same magic today. He was imprisoned, exiled, vilified, persecuted in every way, but he stood strong.

The politics of Shock and Awe currently being unleashed on the citizens of Europe by order of The Frau have achieved their purpose. We are prostrate and cringing in fear of the next blow. Which comes before we have even had tome to take stock of the previous one.

But there is hope. Hope in numbers. Inspiration from those who have gone through the pain and suffering of war, civil war, totalitarian repression. And here in Greece the dictatorship was just yesterday and the Nazi Occupation still very much alive in the stories we all heard from parents and grand parents.

Not only did they survive, but from their own cringing prostration there leapt out the flame of resistance eventually. This is one of Theodorakis’ songs that inspired us during the dictatorship and can do so now again.

“We are two, we are three, we are a thousand and three!” Vox populi.

And a Happy Easter for all those of the Western Persuasion. All those of the Eastern Persuasion have to wait another week for the Crucifixion and the Resurrection! But don’t worry. It will come. It always does. History is not linear, it turns in cycles.

Yesterday I compared, somewhat flippantly, the regime the European Union under the iron grip of The Frau has imposed on Europe with the Communist regimes of old. Concluding that at least the Communist regimes provided welfare.

Today, on a more serious note I need to point out that somehow we are now under a totalitarian regime, of the kind places like Greece knew from old. The post civil war police state. The dictatorship. And as I keep pointing out, Greece is not unique nor the exception but the face of things to come for the whole of Europe.

Greece has been shaken by the suicide of the 77 year old pensioner who blew his brains out on Syntagma Square in a conscious political act of the highest order. People flocked to the Square to pay homage, to leave a flower to honour this man.

In its panic the regime governing Greece at the moment unleashed the riot police, yet again, on the unarmed crowd demonstrating peacefully. This is the tactic. Scare the people out of their wits EVERY WAY THEY CAN. Use brute force, clubs, tear gas to send protestors home and strangle all protest.

Yesterday, in their zeal, the riot police (who have conveniently taken all their identity numbers off their uniforms) turned on the press, beating them up and in the process seriously wounding a photo reporter. The target now being the press who must also be bullied into submission.

The Frau’s Final Solution must be imposed at all costs! But this is a very dangerous game. Not least for those perpetrating it. Once blood starts to flow….

Well, lack of Democracy! The Nomenclatura decided what was best and drew up the five year plans and so on, without ever consulting the people because they, of course, the Politburo always knew best. And then of course property rights were abolished. No one was allowed to own their own home or anything terrible like that, and wherever  a Communist regime took over, the first thing it did was confiscate all private property. Right? Right And all this was despicable. Right? Right.

Then why have we so docilely agreed to a Communist regime through the back door? For Politburo read European Commission, For Chairman Mao, the Great Leader, read Chancellor Merkel. As for property rights, here is where the hardest laughs of all come shrieking out.

One of the most stringent measures imposed in Greece under the troikan Great Austerity Plan (you know, like those infamous five year plans), is the despicable and exorbitant tax on all property indiscriminately and irrelevant to any income or lack (usually the case by now) thereof, on pain of having your electricity supply cut off.  And this in addition to at least twenty other different taxes on property already being paid.

Nevertheless, the European Commission decided that Greeks were not paying nearly enough tax on their property and have proposed an extra one should be slapped on us, a tax penalising you for living in your own house. The Irish went out in protest against a property tax amounting to about 100 Euro per annum. Now, the extra Greek tax through the electricity bill, comes to the hundreds and the thousands of Euros annually. But no. It’s not enough.

Well, given that unemployment has soared to over 20% and that anyone still lucky enough to be working has seen their income slashed by an average of 40%, it is quite obvious that the sole object of the exercise is to confiscate all private property through exorbitant taxation. This has been done before. Ceasescu’s Romania if I am not mistaken?

As for the Great Austerity Plan imposed unilaterally and dictatorially by The Frau on the whole of Europe. Well, it seems to be working about as well as the Communist Five Year Plans ever did. But no, Mario Draghi (ECB) says. It’s not the austerity that isn’t working, but lack of competitiveness! Meaning uniquely that wages must be slashed to below subsistence level.

Okay. So, no say at all in what should happen to your country. Leave it to the Politburo. No property rights, because your property is being slowly and painfully expropriated. Oh, and no more of this frivolous, decadent consumption either! Since you will be gaining barely enough to keep yourself alive.

You know, in the coming elections here in Greece, I think I might vote for the Communist Party. Its program sounds far more benign compared to the Merkel/Lagarde recipe after all! And welfare, at least, they DID provide!

This morning, at around 9 a.m. local time, an elderly man shot himself through the head in despair publicly. This happened in Syntagma (Constitution) Square, in front of the Greek Parliament. Reportedly he said he did not want to pass debts on to his children.

Yesterday, another elderly Greek man reminded us of the German war reparations issue. The man is Manolis Glezos, who, as a young man, together with Lakis Santas, carried out the feat of lowering the swastika from the Acropolis and replacing it with the Greek flag. This was probably the first act of resistance and spurred a prostrate people into action when they saw their own flag on their own monument once again.

Manolis Glezos has been active on the war reparations committee for many years. He reminded us that during the war the Germans forcibly extracted a loan from occupied Greece, which they have never paid back, that they never paid reparations to Greece for the destruction of infrastructure and they never returned the antiquities they stole either.

Today is the 70th anniversary of Germany’s attack on Greece and he made a public request that we should all make this known however we can to whomever we can.

When what calls itself the Greek Parliament decided to vote in favour of the despicable loan treaty that gives just about every right Greece has away, Manolis Glezos, the hero of the resistance and still fighting for the rights of this country and Mikis Theodorakis* a man famous not only for his talent but also for his endless fight for his people, a man who has paid for his fight in years of imprisonment and bad health, were both gassed by the riot police outside the Parliament building.

* A small but important sample, as relevant today as when it was originally written.

Aditya Chakrabortty has an excellent piece in the Guardian today. About how it is the bankers who decide how much misery is to be “imposed on the Greeks” but that’s only a start of course. For all the protestations and screams of despair from the likes of Mario Monti and Nicolas Sarkozy, to name but two, that “we will not become another Greece!” heaven forbid, that is precisely what will happen.

Greece is neither a unique case nor the exception. Greece is the face of things to come all over Europe. Unless we have a revolution in politics and political and economic thinking and practice. It might sound like a big ‘unless’, but it is inescapably so.

Lord Wolfson (sponsoring a prestigious prize for economists on a plan for how to break up the Euro) is quoted as having said: “The Eurocrisis is like a runaway train. The longer you wait, the more painful it is when you have to jump off.” And this is not only true of the Eurocrisis but of the global crisis too I would say.

The whole story is that the banks and financial sector who created this crisis in the first place have decided that they’ll be damned if they are going to pay for it! So who is? the people of course. Who else? But the people do not have the resources to do so. Too bad! Let them eat cake (right Mme Lagarde?). As long as we save ourselves and our nice little earners.

And to their eternal credit, the so called political ‘leaders’ of Europe at any rate, are following this prescription and ruining their own economies on order to save, what? The banks? Well yes of course! I mean how can you have a functioning capitalist system without the banks?

By nationalising them perhaps? By regulating them? By bringing back the system that kept them in check throughout the age of prosperity and welfare states? And none of these suggestions implies we want to do away with capitalism. On the contrary, these would be the only way to preserve it.

So it has been set in motion and has begun taking effect. The peoples of Europe, beginning with the people of Greece, will be utterly impoverished and reduced to a kind of serf status. The Greek economy has already been ruined and the rest of Europe is already in this austerity induced recession which will lead not only countries like Italy and France, but perhaps also the Netherlands, to be ‘the next Greece.’

So when the life blood of these economies has been totally sucked out of them  (as has already happened in Greece) to the benefit of the banks… Yes? Well, the banks will have won! The people will have been utterly screwed and the banks will be strong and dictating everything (as they are now). It is perhaps not by chance that the ‘technocrat’ Prime Minister appointed for Greece is a central banker, nor that he has negotiated a deal fully favourable for the banks but which constitutes the last nail in the Greek coffin. (With Prime Ministers like that, who needs external enemies?)

However, what is the banking and financial sector? If the real economy has been devastated in order to save it, how will it function from there on? When you need to suck up all the wells and sources of water to keep you going in your fight for survival, it should come as no surprise that once you have achieved your victory, which you could not have done without consuming all available resources of water, there is no more water left. So what are you going to survive on then?

That will be the Banks’ greatest Pyrrhic victory. UNLESS!

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny, spring day. The kind of day that makes you think nothing can be bad all the time! There is warmth and life and beauty. As I drove down towards the sea the road was quite packed with like minded people, venturing out to savour the beauty of a longed for Spring.

At some point, in the middle of the street there was a young man distributing newspapers. I thought it was a freebie, but didn’t stop to take one because the traffic light was green. As I passed by him, however, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. The paper he was handing out was Chryssi Avgi, or Golden Dawn, the name of the Neo Nazi party of Greece,

As I drove along there were several young men in the street giving out their paper. Then as I approached another traffic light I saw a lot of Greek flags and wondered if it was some sort of celebration day or perhaps that the flags had been left over from the 25th March Independence Day celebrations.

But when I stopped at the light I found that the flags were being  vigorously waved by a crowd of similarly attired men, in sort of navy blue army fatigues with caps, and Golden Dawn arm bands. All very neat and disciplined. Out en masse making their presence felt.

In the opinion polls published last night they had scored a high rating of 5.5%! To enter parliament a party needs to gain 3% of the vote. Which means, if this is born out, that the Golden Dawn nazis will enter parliament after the next elections. Uniforms, arm bands and all?

You’d have thought that the Germans of all people would be alert to the dangers of stringent austerity. They know, or should know, what kind of reactions such policies lead to. But no, oh no. All they can remember from Weimar is the hyper inflation. And all that matters to them is that hyper inflation should never happen again.

Surely, Nazi party members, all trooping into parliament in uniforms and arm bands, as the Golden Dawn boys are set to do, should be something The Frau would rather not see either? You’d think so. You’d also think she’d know that squeezing a whole nation till the pips squeak as she is currently doing in Greece (and elsewhere to a greater or lesser extent), might, might just lead to some such extremism. Dangerous extremism.

Now this is a contagion that risks spreading! Not just the so called debt crisis, is it not?

And this is not a joke!