
Europe is in free fall. Nobody can doubt that any more. In fact, the EU is simultaneously suffering from several severe problems and any one of these could potentially become catastrophic. Let's look at them one by one. The 28 member EU makes no economic sense The most obvious problem for the EU is that...
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Summer reigns all over Europe, from Greece to Sweden. Vacations have emptied the offices, and filled the beaches. Flowers bloom all over, and their fragrance flows like a river. Endless festivals, performances and art compositions embellish the quaint old cities. But things are not as ever before. The old continent is sick. Living is easy,...
Read MoreI have maintained since the so-called Greek Debt “crisis” began back in 2010, I believe it was, that the imposition of austerity on Greece could not possibly work and that the only solution was to write down the debt to a level that Greece could service and introduce reforms that loosen the hold the oligarchs...
Read MoreFirst as Tragedy, Second as Farce, Thirdly as Vassal State
Introduction: The Greek people’s efforts to end the economic depression, recover their sovereignty and reverse the regressive socio-economic policies, which have drastically reduced living standards, have been thrice denied. First, the denial came as tragedy: When the Greek majority elected Syriza to government and their debts increased, the economy plunged further into depression and unemployment...
Read MoreWe forget that wars in Europe were the norm before the EU
Political crises in the Middle East and North Africa since 2011 have either produced extreme violence or caused countries to dissolve into civil war. The territorial settlement that followed the defeat of the Ottomans in 1918 is collapsing, but there is no clear sign of what will replace it, other than conflicts which nobody knows...
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The Iran nuclear agreement has less to do with proliferation than it does with geopolitics. The reason Obama wants to ease sanctions on Iran is because he wants to push down oil prices while creating an alternate source of natural gas for Europe. In other words, the real objective here is to hurt Russia which...
Read MoreAll of Europe, and insouciant Americans and Canadians as well, are put on notice by Syriza’s surrender to the agents of the One Percent. The message from the collapse of Syriza is that the social welfare system throughout the West will be dismantled. The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has agreed to the One Percent’s...
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Where Do We Go From Here?
The major financial problem tearing economies apart over the past century has lain more with official inter-governmental debt than with private-sector debt. That is why the global economy today faces a similar breakdown to 1929-31, when it became apparent that the volume of official inter-government debts could not be paid. The Versailles Treaty had imposed...
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Greece is the pearl of Mediterranean, the place generations of foreigners from Lord Byron to Graves to Fowles have fallen in love with. From philosophy to feta, from history to yoghurt, from poetry to honey they provided the example to follow. Their priests preserve the pristine faith; their fighters defeated Mussolini; their Helen is the...
Read MoreI doubt that there will be a Greek exit. The Greek referendum, in which the Greek government’s position easily prevailed, tells the troika (EU Commission, European Central Bank, IMF, with of course Washington as the puppet master) that the Greek people support their government’s position that the years of austerity to which Greece has been...
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Greece Rejects the Troika. Where Do We Go From Here?
Just after 7 PM Greek time on Sunday, I was told that the “No” vote (Gk. Oxi) was winning approximately 60/40. The “opinion polls” showing a dead heat evidently were wrong. Bookies across Europe are reported to be losing their shirts for betting that the financial right wing could fool most Greeks into voting against...
Read MoreWith 90% of the votes counted, the Greek people have voted 61% to 39% against accepting the latest round of austerity that the EU is trying to impose on the Greek people for the benefit of the One Percent. What is amazing is that 39% voted for the One Percent against their own interests. This...
Read MorePARIS – As the squalid drama of Greece’s bankruptcy unfolds, many alarmists claim the European Union is about to disintegrate. British and Americans are cheering the ills of the EU. On top of all this, it’s a blazing 39.8 C here in the City of Light. In spite of all the bad news from Greece,...
Read MoreHowever the Greek crisis ends, whether with Athens leaving the eurozone, or submitting and accepting austerity at the dictates of its creditors, the European Union appears headed for an existential crisis. Greece borrowed and spent beyond its means, like New York City in the '70s, and Detroit, Illinois, and Puerto Rico today. But the crisis...
Read MoreAccording to history books, democracy originated in Greece. Of course, historians could be mistaken, but this is the prevailing view among Western populations with enough awareness to be interested to know. What we are witnessing today, July 2, 2015, is that after 2,500 years in the Western World only the current Greek government is interested...
Read MoreLike Marathon, Thermopylae, Plateau and Mycale roughly 2,500 years ago, Western freedom again depends on Greece. Today Washington and its empire of European vassal states are playing the part of the Persian Empire, and belatedly the Greeks have formed a government, Syriza, that refuses to submit to the Washington Empire. Few people understand that the...
Read MoreBack in January upon coming into office, Syriza probably could not have won a referendum on whether to pay or not to pay. It didn’t have a full parliamentary majority, and had to rely on a nationalist party for Tsipras to become prime minister. (That party balked at cutting back Greek military spending, which was...
Read MoreThe Greek debt is unpayable. It is simply too large to be repaid. The austerity that the EU and IMF have imposed on Greece has worsened the problem by driving down the Greek economy, thus making the burden of the debt even heavier. Despite the obvious fact that the EU’s austerity policy is a failure...
Read MoreSyriza, the new Greek government that intended to rescue Greece from austerity, has come a cropper. The government relied on the good will of its EU “partners,” only to find that its “partners” had no good will. The Greek government did not understand that the only concern was the bottom line, or profits, of those...
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How the ‘Hard Left’ embraces the policies of the Hard Right
Introduction: Greece has been in the headlines of the world’s financial press for the past five months, as a newly elected leftist party, ‘Syriza’, which ostensibly opposes so-called ‘austerity measures’, faces off against the “Troika” (International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and European Central Bank). Early on, the Syriza leadership, headed by Alexis Tsipras, adopted...
Read MoreThe mass drowning of eight or nine hundred—nobody knows precisely—illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean last Sunday triggered a lot of commentary about these boat people, most of it stupid. Here are some of the grosser stupidities. They’re just seeking a better life. Who isn’t? I guess there are some Lotus eaters among us who are...
Read MoreWashington in its arrogance, seeing itself as “indispensable,” poses a continuing threat to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The extraordinary number of dead that Washington has murdered in the 21st century–”The American Century”–is dismissed as “collateral damage” in the “war on terror.” The war on terror is a hoax. It is a...
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The European Union is not a state or a federation of states, it is something not seen before, but is assumed to grow state-like characteristics like a center of political accountability. It does not have a head of state or head of government. But political entities of any kind will at some point, when under...
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Don't Tell Anyone in Berlin
If you haven’t been following developments in the Greek-EU standoff, you’re really missing out. This might be the best story of the year. And what makes it so riveting, is that no one thought that little Greece could face off with the powerful leaders of the EU and make them blink. But that’s exactly what’s...
Read MoreMonday's Deadline
Monday is a crucial deadline in Greece’s struggle against Brussels-imposed austerity. Eurozone finance ministers are set to meet in the morning to decide whether Greece has made sufficient progress on previous agreements to justify further support. The new leftist government of Greece, Syzira, has rejected provisions in the so-called bailout, saying that the loans have...
Read MoreIntroduction: The Obama Administration actively pressured Europe to impose harsh sanctions on Russia in order to defend the violent takeover (‘regime change’) in the Ukraine. England, France, Germany and the rest of the European regimes gave in to Washington’s demands. Russia responded by imposing reciprocal sanctions, especially on agriculture goods, and is establishing alternative trading...
Read MoreIntroduction: The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative. The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy. Though even here their predictions understate the scope and depth of the crises. There are powerful reasons to believe that beginning in 2012, we are heading toward a...
Read MoreIt’s finally become clear to everyone the key problem in the current Eurozone crisis is just too much democracy. Pesky voters opposed to austerity measures get in the way of efforts to cut government expenditures in order to reduce deficits and make repayment of national debts more likely. China’s Global Times on Greece, November 2:...
Read MoreCounterPunch Diary
Itinerant pundits touching down briefly in Paris lost no time in stigmatizing the French for their resounding Non! in last week's referendum on the proposed Constitution for Europe. The French were charged with selfishness, self-absorption, nostalgia for a lost empire, unwholesome obsession with Descartes and Jacobinism and other crimes too frightful for individual citation. Actually...
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