Greek elections

[Ming]

Let's see if the picture painted is true first.

Are you Jacques Sapir?

 

[Pickman's model]

How's that going to happen then? Do they eat Euros or something?

You just believe what the capitalist media tells you. You believe in absurdities.

you teach them

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Lapavistas responds to today's events with some concrete numbers (if numbers can be concrete?) - it's headlined 'scathing', but it's five specific questions about the impact events will have on Syriza's mandated platform.

This is very helpful in understanding what's going on, from the point of view of a sane economist who supported Syriza. Thanks.

One immediate question it raises for me, is that it shows how Syriza plans to raise revenue for socio-economic damage-limitation, independent of the Troika.

Obviously, as Lapavistas points out, there are questions of feasibility and timescale, but I'd be very interested to know if the Troika are able to veto such plans.

It sounds like they expect to be able to do this, even though they aren't actually funding any reconstruction, but rather just giving money straight to Greece's rapacious creditors.

 

[Coolfonz]

No it isn't. It says that banks lend money to sovereign states, charge them interest, and then use the leverage the loan gives them to ensure they are repaid, by insisting on anti-social policies that contradict the democratically expressed will of the people.

Not even the banks would deny that. And politicians like Merkel are the banks' debt collectors. I doubt if they'd even bother denying that these days, it's pretty damn obvious--and they don't see anything wrong with it anyway. The last bit is the really scary part.

That is true I would say. The `bailout` of Greece is largely a bailout of the Greek caste and the banks that lent to it.

Of course those governments can say that nations should repay debts, fair enough. But Syriza says the lending of the money should never have happened in the first place - they are right imo. That is the crux of the problem.

And at the same time the EU governments - just like Syriza - are elected by their populations.

On top of all this is the huge fuck up of the Eurozone, which now means the deal for Syriza leans into the deal for Spain/Ireland/Portugal etc.

This is why it is ridiculous for people to call on Syriza to fix this in five weeks, and sad to see members of Syriza losing their discipline and displaying their anger in public which must be great encouragement to the banks/Merkel.

 

[butchersapron]

Are you Jacques Sapir?

Someone finally notices. Don't tell diamond.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

One of the things that buying a bit of time potentially allows for is a debt audit.

If I recall correctly, when Ecuador identified a bunch of their debt as illegitimate via such an audit, the value of that odious debt to the vultures holding it collapsed.

Since involvement with the Troika the Greek debt has been growing fast. If it turns out that at least some of it is demonstrably dodgy, as it proved with Ecuador, then they might be able to build a case for selectively defaulting on corruptly acquired debt.

 

[DownwardDog]

Of course those governments can say that nations should repay debts, fair enough. But Syriza says the lending of the money should never have happened in the first place - they are right imo. That is the crux of the problem.

If that were the crux of the problem then things would be simpler for Syriza they could just default and go back to the drachma. The real root of the matter is that they still want, or need depending on how you define it, to borrow yet more money. If they still didn't need more money they could have fucked the troika off last week.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

From the Lapavistas thing above. Gives a breakdown of the Syriza 'National Plan' including costs and proposed funding.

In order to be more specific, the National Plan included four pillars with the following costs for the first year:

1. Addressing the humanitarian crisis (1.9bn euros)
2. Restarting of the economy with tax breaks, adjustment of “red loans,” creation of a Growth Bank, increase of the minimum wage to 751 euros (total of 6.5bn euros).
3. Program of Public Employment for 300,000 new jobs (3bn euros for the first year, and 2bn euros for the second).
4. Transformation of the political system with interventions in the local government and in the parliament.

The sources of funding, again, for the first year had been calculated as follows:

1. Clearing outstanding debts towards the tax authority (3bn euros)
2. Combatting tax-evasion and smuggling (3bn euros)
3. HFSF (3bn euros)
4. ESPA and other European programs (3bn euros)

https://greekanalyst.wordpress.com/...of-syriza-mp-and-economist-costas-lapavitsas/

 

[Patteran]

Varoufakis' Letter to the Eurogroup (as tweeted by Paul Mason), outlining Syriza's current reform intentions. The language of austerity & capitalist efficiency (robust/modernise/target) reversed & aimed at the rich rather than the poor. Reminiscent of Stuart Hall, maybe? Elements of the left reclaiming the language of efficiency previously colonised by the Thatcherite-right Hot Gospellers.

 

[butchersapron]

...and not a word of the crushing the unions stuff suggested last night.

 

[Patteran]

Two possible points of interest -

1) Positive sounding reforms round personal & small business debt, including 'De-criminalise lower income debtors with small liabilities' & 'Discriminate efficiently between: (a) strategic default/non-payment and (b) inability to pay; targeting case (a)individuals/firms by means of civil and criminal procedures (especially amongst high income groups) while offering case (b)individuals/firms repayment terms in a manner that enables potentially solvent enterprises to survive, averts free-riding, annuls moral hazard, and reinforces social responsibility as well as a proper re-payment culture.'

2) Privatisations - I don't know whether re-nationalising or cancelling on-going privatisations was in their manifesto, but they're now saying
'Commit not to roll back privatisations that have been completed. Where the tender process has been launched the government will respect the process, according to the law.'

I don't know whether this is relevant to the Piraeus Port privatisation, & there seem to be contradictory reports online about whether or not its proceeding as planned.

 

[Pickman's model]

That is a truly incoherent post.

you don't do anything beyond basick thinking, do you?

 

[Pickman's model]

I had budgeted for my time in Argentina on a fixed peso-dollar rate. By the time I left in May the currency had depreciated by around four times in the space of about three months.

when you say it had depreciated by around four times in the space of about three months, do you mean

a) it was a specifick fraction of its previous value (e.g. 1/64 or 1/128);

b) there had been four devaluations;

c) something else entirely?

 

[Pickman's model]

You're a cringing coward.

oh dear me no

if there's a cringing coward on these boards it is most definitely you. you lie on an almost pathological basis. you post up all manner of shit and refuse to substantiate your claims. you're not by any stretch of the imagination a stand-up man, you're very much a run-away coward.

 

[nino_savatte]

By the election of a government that is not in favour of austerity.

Oh? Do you know something the rest of us don't know?

 

[phildwyer]

you lie on an almost pathological basis. you post up all manner of shit and refuse to substantiate your claims.

Pickman's, I've asked you to be quiet several times now. Then I started to ignore you. That didn't work either. So this is the last straw. Either say what you're referring to here or shut up altogether and allow the rest of us to continue the discussion in peace.

 

[Pickman's model]

Pickman's, I've asked you to be quiet several times now. Then I started to ignore you. That didn't work either. So this is the last straw. Either say what you're referring to here or shut up altogether and allow the rest of us to continue the discussion in peace.

i am taking issue with you describing other posters as 'cringing cowards' when, as i say, that description would be better suited to you. i have drawn your attention to falsehoods you've told before (and of course there's one on this very thread, where i pointed out that syriza had had to form a coalition and were not in fact the party of the majority of greeks). perhaps if you refrain from lying, about other posters and about events, your presence on this thread might be acceptable. until that time the discussion's better off without your mendacious ways.

 

[phildwyer]

i am taking issue with you describing other posters as 'cringing cowards' when, as i say, that description would be better suited to you. i have drawn your attention to falsehoods you've told before (and of course there's one on this very thread, where i pointed out that syriza had had to form a coalition and were not in fact the party of the majority of greeks). perhaps if you refrain from lying, about other posters and about events, your presence on this thread might be acceptable. until that time the discussion's better off without your mendacious ways.

None of what you mention above are lies. At most they are expressions of opinion, with which you disagree. So I don't know what you're talking about, sorry.

 

[Pickman's model]

Actually now that I think about it, there are some striking socio-political convergences between Cambodia in 1975 and Greece in 2015.

such as...

 

[Pickman's model]

if that turns out to be true, anti-capitalists will move to the right.

how can this be true when a) you're not known for your prognostications; and b) you're on record as being rather sceptical about the whole left/right thing? even on your own terms this is rather far-fetched.

 

[phildwyer]

Nice one Pickman's, you've killed the thread.

 

[Pickman's model]

Nice one Pickman's, you've killed the thread.

if i had asked you to offer an example of your refusal to engage with criticism i couldn't have asked for a better one.

 

[Idris2002]

Could Tsipras and Co really have been so naive as to think that the Merk was going to say "yo, all in the game brah" and let him off with a warning?

Or is it all a careful double bluff to say "we tried to play nicely with the other children, but they weren't having it, so we're taking our ball and going home"?

 

[phildwyer]

Could Tsipras and Co really have been so naive as to think that the Merk was going to say "yo, all in the game brah" and let him off with a warning?

Of course not.

Not many commentators are trying to see this from Merkel's point of view but, if you think about it, she doesn't have a lot of options. Assuming Palmerstonian military intervention is off the table, which I do, there's not much else she can do but stick to her rhetorical guns. Sovereign nations don't have to fear bankruptcy, and can always look elsewhere for loans, because people will give them credit for ideological and geo-political reasons. I doubt that the Syriza leaders are bribeable. So the debt is finally unenforceable.

Then again, if she makes many concessions to Greece, everyone else will want them too, which would mean the collapse of everything she's worked for and believes in--and also of her own career. Her main concern must be to stop the contagion spreading, just as Syriza's must be to see that it does spread. Once again, it all comes down to Spain.

 

[treelover]

The new 'Golden' Dawn awaits

 

[treelover]

This is the most basic assumption that needs to be challenged: the legitimacy of charging interest on a loan.

Until Syriza or someone like them repudiates interest per se, rather than just saying it shouldn't be applied in some particular situations, or that it shouldn't be applied with full force under certain circumstances, they'll never get anywhere. We need to establish that all loans for profit are illegitimate and should not be repaid.

David Graebers 'A History of Debt' in on Radio 4 next week, should be illuminating.

 

[treelover]

Don't be more of a berk than you can help Coley.

If millions of people all cancel their debts at once, the debts become unenforceable.

That's what the Greek people have told their government to do. So why are they not doing it?

The old adage:, when you owe the bank a thousand pounds its your problem, but if you owe the bank five hundred thousand pounds, the problem is theirs..

 

[treelover]

Varoufakis' Letter to the Eurogroup (as tweeted by Paul Mason), outlining Syriza's current reform intentions. The language of austerity & capitalist efficiency (robust/modernise/target) reversed & aimed at the rich rather than the poor. Reminiscent of Stuart Hall, maybe? Elements of the left reclaiming the language of efficiency previously colonised by the Thatcherite-right Hot Gospellers.

Harry Perkins too,

yes, a fictional character, but this was indeed his strategy and breath taking it was too

 

[phildwyer]

David Graebers 'A History of Debt' in on Radio 4 next week, should be illuminating.

Yes, I rate Graeber very highly. I assume the radio show is based on his excellent and very timely book... if so, it will be required listening.

This is also useful for understanding what's going on wrt Greece:

 

[Diamond]

No it isn't. It says that banks lend money to sovereign states, charge them interest, and then use the leverage the loan gives them to ensure they are repaid, by insisting on anti-social policies that contradict the democratically expressed will of the people.

Not even the banks would deny that. And politicians like Merkel are the banks' debt collectors. I doubt if they'd even bother denying that these days, it's pretty damn obvious--and they don't see anything wrong with it anyway. The last bit is the really scary part.

Yes, some banks do engage in the first part of your first sentence, almost all will do the second part to counterparites (or at least in kind), and the leverage of their loan will obviously be reflected in the loan conditions - there are very rarely abuse of dominance issues in private banking, although there may be in theory be so in public banking (but I suspect that's a nuance much too far for you to grasp).

However, the final part of your first sentence about anti-social policies fails to recognise why people might be seeking a lender of last resort in the first instance. Arguably, the much more anti-social policies are those that have forced the nation state to seek emergency loans, which have to be repaid in correspondingly extreme conditions.

I'm not saying that austerity has worked for Greece - it clearly has not and it was clearly imposed because of fundamental internal contradictions in the Eurozone as well as a general, and not entirely unjustified sense, from Northern European nations that the Greeks had been taking the piss (although this should have become very quickly irrelevant at the start of the crisis, whereas it has unfortunately become a popular and successful democratic platform in those same Northern European countries that has long ago become very much unjustified).

But your obsession with interest is very interesting - are you adopting the usury argument, and, if so, how does that sit alongside the monetary supply and inflation/deflation risks?