Re: nettime Europe: from bad to worse (should be Greece, from
Because they are not within the eurozone, obvs.
It didn't take long for the 'feckless Greeks' line to surface on
Nettime now did it?
Ahem, with some nettimers only ;-)
While Greek capital has been in trouble since
the 1970s, the current set of problems stems from the financial
structure of the Eurozone - namely, its set up so as to circulate
surplus German capital (where the currency is undervalued vis-a-vis
the old Deutschmark)
That's most probably true, and a taboo subject in Deutschland (correct me
if wrong). But in Deutschland's economic vassal state, the Netherlands,
whose currency was solidly tied to the Deutschmark since the seventies, it
was recently discussed thanks to the petulant former minister of finance,
Gerrit Zalm, now boss of the nationalised (bailed out) ABN-AMRO bank, when
it surfaced he had deliberately undervalued (by at least 10%) the Guilder
in its transition to the Euro so has to bolster Dutch exports, the
principal - and traditional, for centuries - mainstay of the Dutch
economy (with disastrous consequences for domestic incomes and
consumption, but that's another story)...
to Southern Europe, where the currencies are
overvalued.
... On the other hand, the clear overvaluing of the Greek Drachma in the
Euro transition, and it was clear even at the time, was also deliberate
act of 'national pride' by the then Greek government. It was accepted by
Greece's European partners as part of the general euphoria about all the
good things the new currency would bring about.
This all went to hell in the financial crisis of 2008,
and instead of letting the investor banks in the Greek economy go
bust the ECB/EU/et al set out to save the French and German banks
via the Greek government (moral hazard anyone?). So what we are
witnessing is a conflict over French and German investments, and who
is to pay for the bail out of them (sound familiar?).
As I wrote in my previous post (sorry), but was possibly not clear enough,
one of the characteristics of post-modern political actors is total denial
about what has happened before, especially if they had a hand in it.
That's why any mention ('lecturing') by 'the Greek' on the background of
today's predicament is declared irrelevant, null and void by their
interlocutors. And they are succesfull, since they do this 'by default'.
They genuninly can pretend they don't understand what, e.g., Varoufakis is
talking about and why he does it since it has been blanked out from their
mind.
Yesterday is History, To-day is a Gift, To-morrow is Mystery!
But if its
orthodox marxism on the crisis you want, you could do worse that
Michael Roberts...
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/
Looks like great stuff!
Cheers to all, and ... Don't Happy, Be Worry! (-Rambo Amadeus)
p+2D!
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Re: nettime Europe: from bad to worse (should be Greece, from
did someone post this already? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout-fund#/story CrowdFunding a bailout fund for Greece. By the people, for the people. they raised 140k so far. :) On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Patrice Riemens [2]patr...@xs4all.nl wrote: Because they are not within the eurozone, obvs. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Europe: from bad to worse
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 dear Felix your analysis seems unusually dark, since I know you usually as a mildly optimistic person. Well, in fact I share most of it, and said so recently on my website http://www.thenextlayer.org/node/1331 in an article comparing the current situation to Polanyi's analysis of the 1920s and 1930s. The amount of confusion in European papers is both, amazing and scary. Many seem to equate a no in the referendum with Greeks exit from the Eurozone and maybe even the EU. While this may be the outcome in the long run, and there is no doubt that the actions of Merkel, Hollande, Disselblom are immensely dangerous to the European project, I would like to warn against automatically linking those events. Syriza have always said they want to stay in the EU and in the Euro. Maybe they can do that by applying capital controls. An example has been provided by the irrepressible Dr. Mahathir during the Asian financial crisis. When Malaysia was hit by that crisis originating in Thailand, he, as prime minister of Malaysia, refused to swallow the IMF pill and introduced capital controls. I am definitely not a fan of Mahathir with regard to all his other policies, but this one seems to have worked. Quoting from this studay Compared to IMF programs, we find that the Malaysian policies produced faster economic recovery, smaller declines in employment and real wages, and more rapid turnaround in the stock market. https://www.sss.ias.edu/files/pdfs/Rodrik/Research/did-Malaysian-capital-controls-work.PDF I cant vow for the quality of this study above, but I just wanted to remind of the irrepressible Doctor who keeps being a real pain in the ass for his successors. Ah lot of what he says and thinks is absurd, but lets not forget how he was ostracized for breaking through the neoliberal orthodoxy by applying capital controls. But given that example, maybe Greece can toughen it out financially. The IMF loan? Negligible, thats something to work itself through the courts, like Argentine's default, it can take years. A country is not broke because of such a small debt. And now holiday season starts. If the situation in Greece remains quiet, tourist cash will be flowing in. Greece can stay in the Euro, strengthen its hand politically through a referendum which is a vote on the current 'package' but not on leaving the Euro, and thus keep negotiating. Above all, what they should accomplish, is politicising the whole conflict. Thus, Greece could become a real pain in the ass of the neoliberal crony capitalists of Europe and the world best Armin ... -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJVkPLqAAoJELVKgddlPDSt79gH+wZLZW/qpX41JaB+DFhgcCwc QcWw2OgTrsE23/Q5bgf8t1IYlZRP1xdHYKoYzFFi5ot8v/1mjleSt4fhMvwz5ciO EwFGlsYyFG1TP4wklX7EtkXqBgsT5x5jJpWCBEG3j/4zzif56pgGGYnTQRjCowFP J15Vg/p+SPwOi0VfTWVGWt7PeFDX7V0wEbgOFBij12CppNokNkCvPCwfuECd6UHH AIpeoE0JBisJRu6AjbigTCPVrA5wnPl0U9iYxRdr/8su9rPkiUSzP9WByKagAdtO BSUlHLSehTsLrNmJ/bXZ086VDSgsFmgG6RqSjc7UkqPHT6h5rBst1qXJSywQ9tk= =VX6B -END PGP SIGNATURE- # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
