George Soros, in an interview with the BBC yesterday (or thereabouts), makes the simple if important point that the problem with the Euro-zone countries is that they borrow in a currency that they don't themselves individually issue or print, namely, in the Euro. Thus, the fiscal pressures are not able to be mediated by simply printing their own money - which countries that are not tied to this extraordinary kind of monetary structure, can arrange.
In the immediate earlier thread re 'corporatism' the issue is raised about the unique monopolistic modern form of capitalism that we all now have. Even when the Euro was started, a lot of people asked where was the drive to do it at all really coming from? Someone, now has the right to issue a new(-ish) currency (the Euro) and grasped the power to dictate to countries what their domestic economic agendas must also be. In one fell swoop they have taken over the whole of Europe; unelected, virtually unheralded, certainly unknown.
I see the media as the linchpin of all of this. And I agree with Soros that Fox/Rupert Murdoch is by far the most aggressive puppetmaster of it all. Of course there are people behind him - the chartered accountant bosses in Lucerne and Zurich, Kuwait and London, and their running dog 'global' banks. HSBC, Citibank, in particular.
Without the media's complicity, there could not have been such blithe disregard of the principles of advanced modern civilization that endowed transparency and rights to citizens and removed the murky hand of dictators. But we have to go back and re-win those rights and depose the criminals.
I also point the finger directly at the ordinary judiciary of many countries - because they have not acted to draw a line on the encroachments of moneyed criminal interests against civil rights and fair financial transactions. The misleading of market transactions by a studied monetary policy that sweeps aside the open market and enacts deliberate low interest rates and structured-only borrowing to banks and others who follow the plan, means that shareholders can never achieve dividends from decent real earnings from real trade and industry. And that means there is no market.
In the end, there will be no tax receipts adequate to keep the racket going and total disaster will be visited on everyone - including the fools who pushed the whole foolish scheme to start with.
Calvin J. Bear
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Soros makes good point obvious, really but still...
#2
Posted 29 October 2011 - 07:11 AM
Posted 24 October 2011 - 07:57 PM
Krugman - May 2010
================
The fact is that three years ago none of the countries now in or near crisis seemed to be in deep fiscal trouble. Even Greece’s 2007 budget deficit was no higher, as a share of GDP, than the deficits the United States ran in the mid-1980s, while Spain actually ran a surplus. And all of the countries were attracting large inflows of foreign capital, largely because markets believed that membership in the euro zone made Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds safe investments.
Then came the global financial crisis. Those inflows of capital dried up; revenues plunged and deficits soared; and membership in the euro, which had encouraged markets to love the crisis countries not wisely but too well, turned into a trap.
What’s the nature of the trap? During the years of easy money, wages and prices in the crisis countries rose much faster than in the rest of Europe. Now that the money is no longer rolling in, those countries need to get costs back in line.
But that’s a much harder thing to do now than it was when each European nation had its own currency. Back then, costs could be brought in line by adjusting exchange rates — e.g., Greece could cut its wages relative to German wages simply by reducing the value of the drachma in terms of Deutsche marks. Now that Greece and Germany share the same currency, however, the only way to reduce Greek relative costs is through some combination of German inflation and Greek deflation. And since Germany won’t accept inflation, deflation it is.
http://www.pressdemo...mplate=printart
Krugman - May 2010
================
The fact is that three years ago none of the countries now in or near crisis seemed to be in deep fiscal trouble. Even Greece’s 2007 budget deficit was no higher, as a share of GDP, than the deficits the United States ran in the mid-1980s, while Spain actually ran a surplus. And all of the countries were attracting large inflows of foreign capital, largely because markets believed that membership in the euro zone made Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds safe investments.
Then came the global financial crisis. Those inflows of capital dried up; revenues plunged and deficits soared; and membership in the euro, which had encouraged markets to love the crisis countries not wisely but too well, turned into a trap.
What’s the nature of the trap? During the years of easy money, wages and prices in the crisis countries rose much faster than in the rest of Europe. Now that the money is no longer rolling in, those countries need to get costs back in line.
But that’s a much harder thing to do now than it was when each European nation had its own currency. Back then, costs could be brought in line by adjusting exchange rates — e.g., Greece could cut its wages relative to German wages simply by reducing the value of the drachma in terms of Deutsche marks. Now that Greece and Germany share the same currency, however, the only way to reduce Greek relative costs is through some combination of German inflation and Greek deflation. And since Germany won’t accept inflation, deflation it is.
http://www.pressdemo...mplate=printart
#3
Posted 29 October 2011 - 07:50 AM
I suspect that the German courts will eventually put the quietus on some of this ultra vires activity.
#4
Posted 29 October 2011 - 12:15 PM
This could all be seen at the start...
In the beginning of the EU plunder scheme...these problems showing up now were known about then...but the power seeking chumps were told to worrry about problems when they occur...not before they occur.
Just sign on the dotted line and you will be made richer in power...fail and you will be made poorer in power.
duh.
the problems that happen later will be dealt with then...there will be more will to deal with problems when they occur.
just think positive ignore negative...
The bottom who are split into two factions...the rich or servants of the hierarchy and poor or slaves of the hierarchy...are employed by the top or masters/lord of the hierarchy to supply the top with all the power wholesale...the top then marks it up and sells it to the bottom retail.
The bottom is supplied with the minimum amount of power so that the top can obtain the maximum amount of power.
In the beginning of the EU plunder scheme...these problems showing up now were known about then...but the power seeking chumps were told to worrry about problems when they occur...not before they occur.
Just sign on the dotted line and you will be made richer in power...fail and you will be made poorer in power.
duh.
the problems that happen later will be dealt with then...there will be more will to deal with problems when they occur.
just think positive ignore negative...
The bottom who are split into two factions...the rich or servants of the hierarchy and poor or slaves of the hierarchy...are employed by the top or masters/lord of the hierarchy to supply the top with all the power wholesale...the top then marks it up and sells it to the bottom retail.
The bottom is supplied with the minimum amount of power so that the top can obtain the maximum amount of power.
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