So you default on your national debt, you devalue your currency, you introduce reforms that flatten inwards investment, and you introduce economic protectionism.
Sounds like a wonderful recipe for at least short-term disaster.
Greek elections
- Thread starter ska invita
- Start date
So you default on your national debt, you devalue your currency, you introduce reforms that flatten inwards investment, and you introduce economic protectionism.
Sounds like a wonderful recipe for at least short-term disaster.
To which "usury argument" do you refer? There are rather a lot of arguments against usury. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that every single system of religion or morality before the C18th condemned usury as the most heinous sin imaginable (I believe the Koran says it is a thousand times worse than having sexual intercourse with one's mother).
I think many of those arguments should be rediscovered and applied to our contemporary predicament. Today's finance-based capitalism can be more or less identified with usury. It's therefore hard to see how an ethical case against modern capitalism can be made without taking account of anti-usury arguments.
That's why I think it's a mistake--possibly a fatal one--for parties like Syriza to argue only against excessive interest, or coerced loans, or dubious financial dealing. I think they should make the case against interest per se. I think the abolition of usury is a precondition for a just society, and I think the continued practice of usury will lead mankind to certain destruction. I trust that answers your question?
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
The policies that drove Greece to seek emergency loans in the first place were respectively: massive corruption on the part of their ruling class (in which major international financial institutions were complicit and for which they have faced no consequences), a global recession (caused by the corruption of major international financial institutions for which they have faced no consequences), speculation on Greek debt (by corrupt financial institutions) and the effects of austerity (imposed by the same people who insisted on chucking money virtually condition-free at said corrupt major international financial institutions in order to save them from collapse). So let's not pretend that the majority of Greek people had any meaningful control over what was happening. They just did what most people around the world do, went to work, earned their wages, elected seemingly sensible centrist politicians to run their country.
You also might want to consider why it is the austerity didn't "work" (just like most people outside of the Troika and the major EU governments predicted it wouldn't)
I don't have much truck with the Koran as a moral authority.
Notably, while you argue the case for "rediscovering" and "applying" these various usury arguments, you singularly fail to do either yourself.
None of this is helped by the historical precedent of those who argued argainst usurers frequently co-existing as virulent anti-semites too.
And I am not sure what you mean by "coerced loans" - every deal is to a degree coerced on both sides otherwise there would be no deals - or "dubious financial dealing" - an altogether far more vague term that it is largely impossible to discover from your contextualisation.
And, no, you have not answered my question one jot. How do you anticipate a ban on usury working in relation to delfation/inflation?
Is interest to be paid on savings and not on loans, and, if so, why?
Ok, firstly, the idea that there was some exclusive elite in Greece who were the sole players in the bad decisions of the last decade, and to whom the blanket word "corruption" can be applied is factually incorrect - among other things tax evasion was a general endeavour for a variety of reasons and this also mirrors Argentina almost exactly in the run-up to its 2001/02 default.
The general Greek system was unsustainable, however it is important to separate out the stuff that gets you into a crisis from the stuff that persists and worsens it.
Or to put it another way - financial crises have the interesting characteristic of fundementally throttling all who are playing dodgy games on very tight margins immediately - this is when you tend to get to know about the Bernie Madoffs of the world because it is when they are put under unsustainable pressure. The fact that the Greek government's finances had been a scam for years - which they bloody well were - was exposed in much the same way as any other financial scam of the time.
What vastly complicated the matter was that the Greeks subsequently became the whipping boy, partly justified, but mostly not, for the Eurozone's inherent contradictions, lack of proper governance and general anger at what was then unfolding (which in Brussels and across the continent was largely viewed in terms not too dissimilar from being an Anglo-American conspiracy).
But what I do agree with is your comments on the bond markets (basically if you want to play that game, you have to accept that you'll get burnt when you disagree with them) and the fact that the Greeks got cut loose - it's a moral hazard issue - they allowed Lehmann to fail because they thought, if they were thinking at all, that it was containable and necessary. It was not. The EU is doing its utmost to make sure Greece doesn't fail for very different, much more European integrationist reasons, but ironically it probably will have to ease it out - it's just doing so in a typically deniable, Brussels manner...
It's not just the Koran. Check out the Bible, Aristotle, Augustine... everybody before the eighteenth century really. In all cultures. There aren't many questions on which humanity is unanimous but, before the C18th, usury was one of them.
There Sir you are extremely mistaken.
This is indeed a problem. However there is nothing inherently anti-Semitic about opposition to usury. In many ways the association is an historical accident.
The loans made to Greece, and to most third-world governments since the 1970s, exemplify both categories.
It would abolish both of them. The value of money would cease to fluctuate if money was not traded as a commodity.
No interest would be paid on anything, because interest is the cause of all the world's problems.
But money is not a commodity - it is a medium of exchange through which commodities are transacted...
That's what it should be, and that's what it is according to nature and logic.
But that's not what it is when usury is practiced. Usury makes money into a commodity--it makes the medium of exchange into an object of exchange.
No, I don't think that's correct. Loaning people money has an intrinsic price. That price is the danger that the person you lend to will default on their debt, in which case you may have no recourse to regain your loan.
The charging of a rate of interest builds into the transaction a degree of certainty, in that those who know that they may not be able to compensate the interest may refuse or not be able to gain the loan in the first place, while those who can satisfy the conditions get access to it, thereby, broadly, encouraging investment and transactions to the general good.
The idea of usury is deeply unprogressive.
The idea of progress is deeply reactionary.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
Here's a good illustration of why Syriza are right to be arguing that there shouldn't be an issue with Greek Debt levels, and why there shouldn't be a problem if the EU or others would just refinance or extend the debts falling due for repayment this year or next to be repaid over a longer period. The amounts due in 2016, 2017 and 2018 are far smaller than the mounts due this year, so if spread out over that period there'd be no crisis.
From a surprisingly good article from the telegraph
Most of this debt has repayment dates that are spread relatively evenly across the next 40 years, all the ECB needs to do is defer repayment of the debt owed to them and spread it over a 5 year period and there'd be no crisis.
I might be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that this debt that's repayable now is largely the emergency loans borrowed to bail out the Greek banks, with EUR41 bilion in 2013, and EUR28 billion in 2008. ie the Greek government borrowed nearly twice as much money to bail the banks out than it's now being held over a barrel to pay back between end of 2014 and end of 2015.
I also stumbled across an interesting blog article by Varoufakis showing how the Greek banks have loaded the Greek government with an additional EUR41 billion exposure to greek bank bailout debt by getting the Greek government to underwrite fake bank bonds that they then used as collateral to get bailout money from the ECB.
From a surprisingly good article from the telegraph
Most of this debt has repayment dates that are spread relatively evenly across the next 40 years, all the ECB needs to do is defer repayment of the debt owed to them and spread it over a 5 year period and there'd be no crisis.
I might be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that this debt that's repayable now is largely the emergency loans borrowed to bail out the Greek banks, with EUR41 bilion in 2013, and EUR28 billion in 2008. ie the Greek government borrowed nearly twice as much money to bail the banks out than it's now being held over a barrel to pay back between end of 2014 and end of 2015.
I also stumbled across an interesting blog article by Varoufakis showing how the Greek banks have loaded the Greek government with an additional EUR41 billion exposure to greek bank bailout debt by getting the Greek government to underwrite fake bank bonds that they then used as collateral to get bailout money from the ECB.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
can you refer to a contemporary authority wr2 the positjon in judaism inbygone days?
ska invita
back on the other side
Costas Lapavitsas was on Newsnight last night - did anyone catch it? Am curious what he said but wont have a chance today to watch
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Watching it now. About 20 mins in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0542ztn/newsnight-24022015
Nothing very surprising. Interviewer trotting out the obvious cliches "isn't this just what happens when left wing silliness meets reality?" etc.
Gist of what Lapavistas said:
"Not everything is clear, Syriza worried by deal. Worried by small print that implies very close supervision by the Troika. Very narrow limits on fiscal room for manoeuvre. Worried about what country will look like at the end of the four months when negotiations start again.
This government believed it could reform monetary union from within. It appears that this is not really possible."
Last edited:
I haven't seen that interview, but Lapavitsas is just the man Greece needs. He has always impressed me as one of the few commentators to call financialization by its true name: usury.
He's been doing this for years now, long before the current crisis. I disagree with the restrictions he puts on the term (I think it can be applied far more widely), but he knows his Aristotle better than any other economist I've come across, and he can apply it fluently to the C21st:
"Profit from financial expropriation is reminiscent of usurer’s profit. … Interest received by the usurer derives from monetary returns accruing to both producer and consumers, and can even eat into the minimum necessary for reproduction. It is different from interest received by financial institutions for lending to productive capitalists, which derives from profit systematically generated by production. By the same token, advanced financial institutions differ from usurers. But, in times of crisis, the former can become usurious, extracting interest out of the capital of the borrower, rather than out of profit." (Costas Lapavitsas, Financialization in Crisis, 2012)
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
But like all attempts to justify the 'logic' of austerity, this type of analysis conveniently (or wilfully) seeks to conceal the role of financialised capital in the deliberate creation of sovereign debt, and rather seeks to blame 'profligate' welfare states.
States dependent upon loans from financial capital offer huge advantage to corporations. Firstly debt can mask the refusal of globalised capital to contribute to state revenue through taxation. Why would capital give money to the state, (which is then 'lost' for ever), when they can extract wealth by 'earning' interest upon loans; that lending itself then representing 'assets' that can profitably be traded and justify further money creation.
The neo-liberal project is complemented by compliant political elites creating "consolidator states" with the aim of diminishing the state on the basis of the debt accumulated. The model 'works' as long as the neo-liberal political elites can convince "the markets" that they are capable of directly and indirectly taxing their populations sufficient to remain capable of repayment. The problem for countries in the position of Greece is that the level of austerity demanded has immiserated the population to the point where the state can no longer persuade the markets.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Yeah, but he also agreed that the deal means the 'can has merely been kicked down the road by 4 months' and that ultimately this is an initial skirmish.
The litmus test will be the negotiations in the summer. Whilst only a fool would ignore the balance of forces ranged against Syriza I think they have played their hand really smartly given the timescale and stark reality facing them had a deal not been agreed.
Also note that today Syriza have announced that the privatisation of the country’s largest electricity provider, PPC, and power grid operator ADMIE will not proceed.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Mason's blog is as interesting as ever - http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-eurogroup-syriza-varoufakis-grexit/3439
Surprised that Britain was supposedly one of the countries pushing for a more relaxed deal for Greece.
Surprised that Britain was supposedly one of the countries pushing for a more relaxed deal for Greece.
gosub
~#
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
On that, Michael Hudson in this short interview, suggests exactly that inversion (and of internal tensions on the other side too):
Patteran
A nowadays excuse
Ha! That's terrific. Robust. 'It's really the war of the banks against labor'.
Did you see the Lapavitsas Newsnight interview mentioned above? 'Elected to negotiate better conditions for the Greek people, now know that conditions are non-negotiable, we don't know what happens next'. He sounded clear, reasonable, loyal (to the nation & the coalition), & genuinely concerned about the immediate future. I guess these negotiations have, if nothing else, demonstrated the current limits that structural european power places on reforms. And they've now got four months to prepare themselves & the country for a June Euro exit, or perhaps call another election and open a debate that acknowledges these recently-exposed limits.
Associated piece here in Jacobin magazine, about the beginnings of reform within the police, and the necessity of having the police on-side (or at least less off-side) if Syriza are going to challenge the domestic oligarchs or as Tsipras puts it in the piece - “We have made the decision to clash with a regime of political and economic power that plunged our country into the crisis.”
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Was just going to mention another piece from Kouvelakis in Jacobin that has a line that could have been invented for the Hudson defence above "Can the Greek side possibly believe that it has achieved something beyond the impressive verbal inventiveness of the text?" Haven't read that piece you link to yet, will do later - ties in with something someone said elsewhere about disbanding the fascist infiltrated DELTA squad as a priority (can't remember who or where, so many things to keep on top of) or seen the Lapavitsas piece on tv yet - but that clarity is something he always has. In his books he makes very complex issues appear perfectly graspable.
Last edited:
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
That's in the latest Mason blog. It is interesting, whether they will push for either a new election after the four months, or will prepare for Grexit. Lapavitsas has always been on the 'prepare for exit' wing, which was probably the majority three years ago, but which has now been, not quite sidelined, but definitely diminished. If they want to exit, they will have to start planning right now (so that they will at least have a physical currency to use). Hopes for a new election would be a way of delaying things until closer to the time of the Spanish election, and a possible Podemos victory, which would throw everything up in the air again.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Sorry just to pile texts on for now - i've seen very little from the anti-state communists around this issue - a piece from TPTG from the days after the election has just been translated and is well worth a look - despite being a month old - for a number of reasons.
Flavour
hang the bankers
Reports in Italian media that tspiras has suspended the Greek football league due to fan violence. No footy!
Edit : also on BBC
http://m.bbc.com/sport/football/31627613
Edit : also on BBC
http://m.bbc.com/sport/football/31627613
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that'll set the cat among the pigeons
Lurdan
old wave
The same TPTG text in html rather than pdf. In the comments there are extracts from a discussion in which TPTG responded to questions about it.
Yes. But it's worth remembering that, even if the Greeks default on the debt, and even if they repudiate it altogether, capitalists can still make money from it. In the surreal world of capitalism, cancelled debts remain valid forever. Cuban government bonds, which were cancelled by Castro in 1959, are still trading on the market today. The chances of a future Cuban government honoring them may be small, but it is not zero. Accordingly, they retain a value, and the same would be true of the Greek debt.
Capitalism really does construct a fantasy world. And they talk about Syriza being "unrealistic."
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Well yes, but part of the whole con game is to get normal humans to accept whatever Capital wants as natural law like thermodynamics.
You can see it in the shite that Newsnight twat comes out with above.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
Nobody is dealing Cuban bonds because they expect them to be redeemed in full . They are buying them at cents on the dollar because they expect, not unreasonably, that Cuba will want to access the capital markets at some point in the future. At that point the old debt will be restuctured and rolled into the new.
