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Greek elections

Meanwhile ...

Does anyone else get the feeling that we're approaching another phase-change in neo-liberalism as it becomes increasingly obvious to anyone still in touch with reality that its repertoire of counter-crisis measures is proving more and more ineffective at propping up the rate of profit and more and more obviously toxic to normal humans?
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Meanwhile ...

Does anyone else get the feeling that we're approaching another phase-change in neo-liberalism as it becomes increasingly obvious to anyone still in touch with reality that its repertoire of counter-crisis measures is proving more and more ineffective at propping up the rate of profit and more and more obviously toxic to normal humans?
Click to expand...

Who or what is a non-normal human and why?
 
Whilst the ECB daleks and the germans are spinning this furiously as a humiliating climbdown for syriza (ARE YOU WATCHING SPAIN?) - they've clearly come away with something - and thats more than they would have got the greeks had voted for more of the same.
Politically toxic for germany as well - exposed as chief thumb-screw turners.
 
Diamond said:
Your credibility is very frangible.

Don't test it too much.
Click to expand...
You've made four basic errors in your over-excited reading since you've got back from whatever entertainment you were involved in earlier today. See if you can spot them.

Bernie Gunther - a few thoughts whilst cooking my tea: first thing i suppose is taking a global look - is this small dispute (with potential wider ramifications) impacting on the rate of total profit - or just one part of it. And in both questions, the political follow up of how is very important i.e is the key position of greece due to its shipping etc and in logistical planning opening up the possibility of rises in transportation costs,and the further possibility of rises in both consumer and production goods (the latter with further costs to be passed on or swallowed and impacting on rate of profit). If it's a problem of local capital (and limited to non-productive or marginally productive capital) then, failure of one regime (in the same way that the debt-regimes ultimately failed in latin american an african states in the 80s) will have limited effect on the rate of profit in actual value producing states/capital with different regimes.

I think there may well be a regional shake-out of neo-liberalism based around the political demands of each region/state/capital - but all within a wider common framework. So i can see states faced with the political threat more commonly associated with earlier capitalisms (i.e a w/c becoming conscious of an demanding basic political rights - as in europe in the late 19th/early 20th century) taking more of a rebooted social-democratic turn but with the state playing the role as protector within capital that the unions did in that earlier compromise - so maybe a mix of old-school eastern bloc style social provision being the pay-off for degraded conditions at work. Elsewhere, where those political rights have been won, the battle may well be more directly economic - and so more sharply posed. And then the interplay of these differently balanced regimes - if eastern europe w/c's manage to reject the low-wage platform model and impose social guarantees etc how is that then going to effect the profits of german capital who are economically colonising these areas.

The latin american and african working classes had a limited power to resist the plans of the 80s (aside from a few strategic hi-tech industries - i'm thinking of oil-production) but they did have the social and political power to force their states to provide a basic set of welfare provision - they were starting far far behind where we are and what we have come to expect as right (this is the correct reading of what dafties call marx's immiseration thesis btw - that the proletariats needs and expectations of what are basic necessities actually expands as capital does). The question i think needs looking at is where is the power that won those political demands located today, where is our greatest position of strength within the global chains of capital -and what would capitals response to a challenge on this terrain look like, how would it differ from what we are currently (if in a fractured manner) experiencing. With that i mind,i would recommend a read of this.

Right, waffled on a bit there and need to connect all those threads up a bit tighter later on and me teas ready...
 
butchersapron said:
You've made four basic errors in your over-excited reading since you've got back from whatever entertainment you were involved in earlier today. See if you can spot them.

Bernie Gunther - a few thoughts whilst cooking my tea: first thing i suppose is taking a global look - is this small dispute (with potential wider ramifications) impacting on the rate of total profit - or just one part of it. And in both questions, the political follow up of how is very important i.e is the key position of greece due to its shipping etc and in logistical planning opening up the possibility of rises in transportation costs,and the further possibility of rises in both consumer and production goods (the latter with further costs to be passed on or swallowed and impacting on rate of profit). If it's a problem of local capital (and limited to non-productive or marginally productive capital) then, failure of one regime (in the same way that the debt-regimes ultimately failed in latin american an african states in the 80s) will have limited effect on the rate of profit in actual value producing states/capital with different regimes.

I think there may well be a regional shake-out of neo-liberalism based around the political demands of each region/state/capital - but all within a wider common framework. So i can see states faced with the political threat more commonly associated with earlier capitalisms (i.e a w/c becoming conscious of an demanding basic political rights - as in europe in the late 19th/early 20th century) taking more of a rebooted social-democratic turn but with the state playing the role as protector within capital that the unions did in that earlier compromise - so maybe a mix of old-school eastern bloc style social provision being the pay-off for degraded conditions at work. Elsewhere, where those political rights have been won, the battle may well be more directly economic - and so more sharply posed. And then the interplay of these differently balanced regimes - if eastern europe w/c's manage to reject the low-wage platform model and impose social guarantees etc how is that then going to effect the profits of german capital who are economically colonising these areas.

The latin american and african working classes had a limited power to resist the plans of the 80s (aside from a few strategic hi-tech industries - i'm thinking of oil-production) but they did have the social and political power to force their states to provide a basic set of welfare provision - they were starting far far behind where we are and what we have come to expect as right (this is the correct reading of what dafties call marx's immiseration thesis btw - that the proletariats needs and expectations of what are basic necessities actually expands as capital does). The question i think needs looking at is where is the power that won those political demands located today, where is our greatest position of strength within the global chains of capital -and what would capitals response to a challenge on this terrain look like, how would it differ from what we are currently (if in a fractured manner) experiencing. With that i mind,i would recommend a read of this.

Right, waffled on a bit there and need to connect all those threads up a bit tighter later on and me teas ready...
Click to expand...

This is typically frustrating of you butchers.

You hint at making arguments and never do so.

In the end it undermines your credibility and makes you look like a coward, which is quite unecessary.
 
Diamond said:
This is typically frustrating of you butchers.

You hint at making arguments and never do so.

In the end it undermines your credibility and makes you look like a coward, which is quite unecessary.
Click to expand...

He prolly just doesn't want to bother typing out a full argument for the same reason that most don't bother with you, all you post is vacuous lightweight regurgitations of establishment common sense
 
J Ed said:
He prolly just doesn't want to bother typing out a full argument for the same reason that most don't bother with you, all you post is vacuous lightweight regurgitations of establishment common sense
Click to expand...

You do not try to do anything rather than snipe, apparently.

Laziness personified.
 
butchersapron said:
You've made four basic errors in your over-excited reading since you've got back from whatever entertainment you were involved in earlier today. See if you can spot them.

Bernie Gunther - a few thoughts whilst cooking my tea: first thing i suppose is taking a global look - is this small dispute (with potential wider ramifications) impacting on the rate of total profit - or just one part of it. And in both questions, the political follow up of how is very important i.e is the key position of greece due to its shipping etc and in logistical planning opening up the possibility of rises in transportation costs,and the further possibility of rises in both consumer and production goods (the latter with further costs to be passed on or swallowed and impacting on rate of profit). If it's a problem of local capital (and limited to non-productive or marginally productive capital) then, failure of one regime (in the same way that the debt-regimes ultimately failed in latin american an african states in the 80s) will have limited effect on the rate of profit in actual value producing states/capital with different regimes.

I think there may well be a regional shake-out of neo-liberalism based around the political demands of each region/state/capital - but all within a wider common framework. So i can see states faced with the political threat more commonly associated with earlier capitalisms (i.e a w/c becoming conscious of an demanding basic political rights - as in europe in the late 19th/early 20th century) taking more of a rebooted social-democratic turn but with the state playing the role as protector within capital that the unions did in that earlier compromise - so maybe a mix of old-school eastern bloc style social provision being the pay-off for degraded conditions at work. Elsewhere, where those political rights have been won, the battle may well be more directly economic - and so more sharply posed. And then the interplay of these differently balanced regimes - if eastern europe w/c's manage to reject the low-wage platform model and impose social guarantees etc how is that then going to effect the profits of german capital who are economically colonising these areas.

The latin american and african working classes had a limited power to resist the plans of the 80s (aside from a few strategic hi-tech industries - i'm thinking of oil-production) but they did have the social and political power to force their states to provide a basic set of welfare provision - they were starting far far behind where we are and what we have come to expect as right (this is the correct reading of what dafties call marx's immiseration thesis btw - that the proletariats needs and expectations of what are basic necessities actually expands as capital does). The question i think needs looking at is where is the power that won those political demands located today, where is our greatest position of strength within the global chains of capital -and what would capitals response to a challenge on this terrain look like, how would it differ from what we are currently (if in a fractured manner) experiencing. With that i mind,i would recommend a read of this.

Right, waffled on a bit there and need to connect all those threads up a bit tighter later on and me teas ready...
Click to expand...

This is such absurd nonsense that it is laughably easy to pick holes in but I'll start with an easy one - which African states in the 80s found it easy to build a welfare state on the basis of their hi-tech industries?
 
butchersapron said:
I think there may well be a regional shake-out of neo-liberalism based around the political demands of each region/state/capital - but all within a wider common framework. So i can see states faced with the political threat more commonly associated with earlier capitalisms (i.e a w/c becoming conscious of an demanding basic political rights - as in europe in the late 19th/early 20th century) taking more of a rebooted social-democratic turn but with the state playing the role as protector within capital that the unions did in that earlier compromise - so maybe a mix of old-school eastern bloc style social provision being the pay-off for degraded conditions at work.
Click to expand...

I was just reading an article about returning ex-pats-cum-venture capitalists in Tirana, Albania and one of them was saying something very similar - that the state's new role was to protect the rights agreed upon in law, not to provide jobs. A police force to be called upon only when necessary.

Albania is attracting a lot of foreign investment now (a lot of Italian call-centers have recently moved there) and its official foreign investment website proudly boasts that it was the only economy in the region not to go through a recession.

Albanians make up almost 5% of the Greek population - but this trend may even start to reverse in the future if job creation continues apace in Albania while everything churns to a halt in the Hellenic republic
 
Diamond said:
This is such absurd nonsense that it is laughably easy to pick holes in but I'll start with an easy one - which African states in the 80s found it easy to build a welfare state on the basis of their hi-tech industries?
Click to expand...
So many easy holes yet you choose to go for one in brackets, preceded by the words "aside from" that could of been referring to somewhere thousands of miles from Africa?
 
Diamond said:
This is such absurd nonsense that it is laughably easy to pick holes in but I'll start with an easy one - which African states in the 80s found it easy to build a welfare state on the basis of their hi-tech industries?
Click to expand...

He didn't suggest that was the case. Instead of laughing, try thinking.
 
Anyone know what's happening regarding the proposed Greek debt audit?

An audit of Greek debt will show that European private banks greatly increased their loans to Greece between the end of 2005 and 2009 (rising by more than €60 billion, from €80 billion to €140 billion) without taking into account Greece’s real repayment capacities. The banks acted recklessly, reassured in their conviction that the European authorities would come to their aid if there was a problem.
Click to expand...

Another purpose is to audit the actions of the IMF. We know that several members of the IMF Executive Board (the Brazilian, the Swiss, the Argentine, the Indian, the Iranian, the Chinese, and the Egyptian member) had expressed considerable reservations regarding the loan granted by the IMF, pointing out, among other things, that Greece would not be able to repay it due to the policies that were being imposed on the country |4|. Did the Greek government, in collusion with the Managing Director of the IMF at the time, request that its statistics department falsify the exact data in order to issue such a negative report on the country’s financial health that the IMF would be justified in launching a bail-out plan? Several highly-place Greek civil servants say so.
Click to expand...

The mainstream media relayed the narrative which said that the restructuring would reduce Greece’s debt by 50%. In reality, Greece’s debt is greater in 2015 than in 2011, the year before the so-called 50% cancellation. The audit will show that this restructuring operation, which was in fact a huge confidence trick, was linked to an extension of policies that run counter to the interests of Greece and its population.

The audit must also evaluate whether the strict conditions imposed on Greece by the Troika in exchange for the loans it received are a fundamental violation of a series of treaties and conventions with which the public authorities on the side of both the creditors and the borrower, Greece, are required to comply.
Click to expand...
http://cadtm.org/What-if-SYRIZA-took-the-EU-at-its
 
Last edited:
A sharks view...
18m ago09:01

Berenberg: Grexit risk cut to 25%
The odds of Greece quitting the eurozone has fallen, says German bank Berenberg this morning.

It has cut the chances of a ‘Grexit’ to 25%, after the Athens government and its creditors reached agreement on Friday night.

Dr Holger Schmieding, chief economist, says:

The risk of Grexit falls from 35% to 25%; the chance that prime minister Tsipras completes his required Uturn and stays the reform course (“Samaras II”) rises from 45% to 50%;

the probability that his double-populist government falls apart to make way for a less populist and more pro-European government rises from 20% to 25%.

The risk of immediate capital controls in Greece has receded.

Schmieding also points out that this “new deal” is rather similar to the previous bailout agreement:

The key elements of the deal struck late on Friday are:

● Greece accepts all conditions attached to its EU/IMF bailout programme;

● Greece stays under full supervision of the “institutions” that used to be called troika;

● Greece can make adjustments within the programme but only if the changes are neutral for the immediate and long-term fiscal outlook and are approved by its external supervisors;

● Greece will receive the last tranche of support to be paid under the current programme only if it meets all conditions. Greece probably needs the money in March for €2.2bn debt service payments, of which €1.4bn are to the IMF.
Click to expand...
 
call me thick, but does the above really suggest they are loaning them money, at interest, to pay back the money they already owe. peter\paul madness
 
DotCommunist said:
call me thick, but does the above really suggest they are loaning them money, at interest, to pay back the money they already owe. peter\paul madness
Click to expand...
the logic of austerity...till they've further impoverished the population with 'structural reforms' to the point where they can rob even more...the fuckers.
 
Flavour said:
I was just reading an article about returning ex-pats-cum-venture capitalists in Tirana, Albania and one of them was saying something very similar - that the state's new role was to protect the rights agreed upon in law, not to provide jobs. A police force to be called upon only when necessary.

Albania is attracting a lot of foreign investment now (a lot of Italian call-centers have recently moved there) and its official foreign investment website proudly boasts that it was the only economy in the region not to go through a recession.

Albanians make up almost 5% of the Greek population - but this trend may even start to reverse in the future if job creation continues apace in Albania while everything churns to a halt in the Hellenic republic
Click to expand...
Afaik, the Albanian central bank is still located in Italy.
 
brogdale said:
the logic of austerity...till they've further impoverished the population with 'structural reforms' to the point where they can rob even more...the fuckers.
Click to expand...
I suppose the logic is 'support them financially till they start showing surplus again and can pay us back' but by actively tying conditions on it that hobble recovery...
 
DotCommunist said:
I suppose the logic is 'support them financially till they start showing surplus again and can pay us back' but by actively tying conditions on it that hobble recovery...
Click to expand...
Financial capital requires stable consolidator states (sub-contracted debt convertors/collectors) in order to ensure continued profitability, whilst also enacting the labour market/fiscal reforms necessary to ensure the project continues. I don't believe that these are macro-economic judgements as we might 'traditionally' haveunderstood them.
 
DotCommunist said:
I suppose the logic is 'support them financially till they start showing surplus again and can pay us back' but by actively tying conditions on it that hobble recovery...
Click to expand...

I think the logic is more: 'Use the loans to impose conditions that fuck the Greek economy even further in perpetuity, which makes Greek assets cheaper to acquire and profit from and the Greek people even more desperate and hence readily exploitable'

So actively imposing conditions that make the loans impossible to repay, while spinning the shit out of it along the lines you indicate.
 
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