It appears the men have been targeted for elimination; the working ants need no sex.

“Yes, exactly. Just like the drone males of an anthill.”

Except the women get the jobs. And THEY are the working ants who need no sex.

You make a lot of assertions. If you know what you are talking about what about naming names?

The only good reason for Greece to have remained in the misbegotten Eurozone rather than pursue an early Grexit was to apply pressure for needed reforms which couldn’t happen if Greece just slid back on its own to the non tax collecting Third World socialism of its past (and present) with a new devaluable currency. But the German voters aversion to more generous bail out for Greece than needed to prop up the German banks (whose share and bond holders ought to have suffered more btw) is understandable if you read Chapter 2 of Michael Lewis’s “Boomerang”. A railway system which costs 10 times as much to keep going as it received in fares, retirement and state pensions for almost everyone at 55, no income tax paid except by those on salaries from big employers, real estate taxes on false valuations etc etc. A true low trust society.

David Ricardo was a son of a large Jewish family who’d been thrown out of Portugal and then thrown out of Holland. His views on debt and lending are not surprising.

It’s a Jewish usury thing that never expects debt to be repaid. As John Adams said there are two ways to become enslaved – 1. by force 2. by debt. I hope Greece and other IMF victims take Russia up on it’s generous offer and join BRICS and fast!

But blaming the medics for the sinning that occurred prior to their arrival on the scene is disengenuous.

The banks who cooked Greece’s books to get them into the EU – which is what allowed the over borrowing – are the ones running the privatization of Greek assets now and Greek politicians involved in the initial cooking of the books went to work in those banks afterwards.

Or that they are humanitarians who see a situation for what it is (aka a pickle) but will still loosen the belt from time to time when the belligerent drunk looks to be on the verge of asphyxiation.

It ain’t simple and fixing the situation prior to the ems arriving is always preferable. But blaming the medics for the sinning that occurred prior to their arrival on the scene is disengenuous. Best not to have a crooked kleptocrat government but these things happen. The next generation of Greeks will be better off if the present generation chooses reform and stable money via the euro. Here’s to today’s generation of deciders banishing the Paul Krugman school of economics to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Opa!

The truth is Greece has a hugely bloated kleptocratic government of the worst kind.

Which reinforces the OP’s point – the international banking mafia have started to loan shark entire countries because the political-media class in the EU have been corrupted enough to let them get away with it.

the irrefutable fact is that the Greeks keep doing the same thing over & over again

nothing is being given to Greece – taxpayer money is being given to the banks using Greece as an excuse

Productivity levels are practically nil vs. Germany’s.

You keep reinforcing the loan sharking argument.

Rugers SP 101 probably doesn’t need customer service, I suspect I could drag mine behind my truck several miles and it would function. Hogues mono grip is major improvement though. Business, politics or water pollution, scum rises to the top. As for our post literate president, I feel bit sorry for him, he is like a bear with a shaved ass, discovering the joy of bee stings.

How much is for keeping the Praetorian guard happy and how much for value adding technology and hard assets?

Slow learners ain’t we boys?

Yes, and it’s been driving me bonkers for years.

Indeed, I spent my stimulus check from uncle Bama on Ruger hand guns, they’re still American made you know.

I used to be a Ruger man but their customer service stinks so bad I’ve been boycotting them for at least 20 years.

BTW, I think most people would be shocked if they knew what scum owns, (or at least has owned), a lot of American weapons manufacturers such as Remington and Colt. Ruger may still be clean in that regard, but I haven’t kept up to speed on it.

Speaking of elections, who is that the Greeks elected?
The same ones that keep accepting the money.

Yeah, they have about as much choice in who they vote for as we in the US do.

You really don’t understand how the scams work, do you?

This stuff is so basic that it really shouldn’t need explaining and I’m done trying to introduce the concepts to you.

Hudson is 100 % correct here. Read the damned article, will ya? And ignore the fools who call him a leftist. Even if he is, sometimes even “leftists” get it right and besides, people who think in terms of left vs right are way behind the curve. Those terms are, and have been, meaningless for quite some time.

Yes, the US owes a lot of money, but guess what, we just had an election and after a mere month in Trump is already talking of cuts to deal with the national debt.

Talk is cheap, and Trump is just another politician except that he’s basically clueless about nearly everything. (I am happy that he made Hillary and the Republican clowns look as stupid as they are tho.) Please don’t hold your breath waiting for the Trumpster to do anything that benefits us proles and peasants.

Give me a break.

It’s not as if the average Greek isn’t seeing this money in his pocket, propping up his bloated union wages & benefits, paying subsidized government monopoly services that he uses.

So they get a few crumbs while the big pigs hog the bulk of the slop. The average Greek is seeing worse than nothing in his pocket. Even his bank account has been looted. A few lucky ones with connections were able to get their money out of the country. The average Gianni wasn’t so lucky. You should see the closed businesses. It’s a crying shame.

Nothing’s changed in at least 2500 years. Aristophanes’ play is not only a hoot, but educational. Well worth reading. I find it amazing that the old timers had the scam figured out that long ago, while the vast majority of us moderns remain clueless.

Demos
Oh! what a lot of good things! Why it’s quite full! Oh! what a huge great part of this cake he kept for himself! [1220] He had only cut off the least little tiny piece for me.

Sausage-Seller
But this is what he has always done. Of everything he took, he only gave you the crumbs, and kept the bulk.

– Aristophanes, The Knights, 424 BC

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0034%3Acard%3D1191

First they’re lazy, then they’re unproductive. Which is it?

I’ll await the results of your formidable research team.

You wrote, “One German running the phyllo dough machine for 6 hours is way more productive than the Greek baker layering it by hand for 12 hours.”

What’s your source on this?

Of course, a managing director at Goldman Sachs is a thousand times as productive.

Trump is already talking of cuts to deal with the national debt.

He’s talking about increasing defense spending, which is already the most bloated part of the budget. All the cuts in social spending won’t offset that. If you think he’s going to reduce the debt you need your head examined.

Under the 2012 budget, Greece defense spending was 2.3% of GDP, but the debt was accrued when the defense budget was much higher:

In 2003, Greek Defense Minister Papantoniou expressed a new goal of reducing arms expenditure from 4.9% of GDP and stabilize it toan average of 2.7%, for the period 2010-2015. Greek defence spending had reached a high of 5.6 percent of GDP, about 13.4 billion euros ($17 billion).

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/gr-budget.htm

And:

For 2015, NATO projects that Greece will spend 2.4% of its GDP on defense, which is actually a 0.1% increase in spending over 2014.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-greeces-military-budget-is-so-high-2015-6

In all, Greece has 2nd highest defense spending in NATO after USA.

Really? How are they different?

Michael Hudson is obviously a lefty economist. Only a lefty economist could say that reforms required in Greece are actually anti-reforms rolling back all the “progress” made by the labor movement. The truth is Greece has a hugely bloated kleptocratic government of the worst kind. The pension promises that were made are of the Detroit Michigan variety, they are pie in the sky fantasy. The prescription proposed by Mr. Hudson is that Greek society at large pay for the sins of their poor excuse for a government, by bringing back the Drachma and printing the money to pay the unpayable, inflating their way out of the pickle all that “labor progress” brought them, see Venezuela for an example of where this Junk Economics leads. While there is truth that unending harsh austerity does not ignite economic growth, the fiddler must be paid. This will likely take the form of some combination of debt relief, austerity & government reform. The sooner the government reform actually occurs, the sooner the debt relief comes and austerity tapers off. Suggesting that giving the keys back to the guys who ran things off the cliff (lefty government beauracrats and progressive lefty labor pols & corrupt unions) is disingenuous. Michael, Paul Krugman was shown the door at Princeton for preaching your Junk Economics because it is garbage. You ought pay attention.

If Greece makes it out the other side the Greek people will have stable money for the first time in forever. Their children will thank them for having the fortitude to stick it out. Lets hope the Greeks take the long view for their own best interest.

Give me a break.

It’s not as if the average Greek isn’t seeing this money in his pocket, propping up his bloated union wages & benefits, paying subsidized government monopoly services that he uses.

Having said that, Greece should Grexit and stand on their own two feet. But they won’t, because they’ll need to actually support themselves.

‘Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money’.

“Any tourists lost from Europe would be more than covered by Russians.” You’ve not paid much attention to Russia. Also dumping Greece and fully embracing Turkey would suit the US very well.

This guy is deliberately conflating the Eurozone and the EU. He is conflating staying in the Eurozone and leaving it. The whole thing is a confused garbage hardly better than stream of consciousness.

Yawn.
Such excuses would be understandable once, but the irrefutable fact is that the Greeks keep doing the same thing over & over again. They know they can’t pay the money back and don’t care who they screw. They want their elected politicians to lie.

‘The first time, fuck you, the second time, fuck me’.

Pardon my French.

Productivity levels are practically nil vs. Germany’s.
Claiming self reported hours vs. actually working those hours are 2 different things altogether.

Just look at Greece’s situation vs. Germany’s, there you go.

The banks will definitely take their hits, but they are not capitalized enough to eat the entire debt that cannot be paid. That will require a “bail-in” by bondholders* and depositors. In addition, every nation that can print money will print money (it does no good to print money if your debts are dollar or Euro denominated) and the ones that cannot will at least partially default.

In order to maintain some level of commerce governments will assume (or attempt) power that will meet pretty severe opposition from many quarters.

Call me an optimist, but I believe a general World War can be avoided, the costs/devastation are just too high. That does not mean that a lot of people will not die. Minor players will likely lob a few nukes and the bio-weapons will be devastating and available to non-state actors.

*Keep in mind that many bonds are held by pension plans.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/

Indeed, Israelis fit in that category.

Speaking of elections, who is that the Greeks elected?
The same ones that keep accepting the money.

The Greeks made their own bed, they will sleep in it.

Yes, the US owes a lot of money, but guess what, we just had an election and after a mere month in Trump is already talking of cuts to deal with the national debt.

This sounds similar to Gov Brown’s bullet train in California.

Pay attention and note that I said “ARE pathetically lazy, unproductive”. That’s present tense.

And, even you said past tense “laid”.

Today’s Greeks are not the same as yesterday’s Greeks, haven’t been for ages.

Greece spends about 2% of their GDP on defense. This isn’t a big reason why they have a debt problem.

Its also plausible that what contributed to it was easy money. First the gold at Amphipolis infected the Athenians. Then when Sparta inherited it , king Agis said it led to their corruption. After all, finding a large stash of gold in the ancient world is more or less a source of central planning, and by someone whose skill is have good luck. Everything good about Athens was due to ts poor soil without a natural source to monopolize in sight.

Debts being paid by someone else certainly isn’t capitalism.

The pressing danger is what method will be used to retire the widespread national debt of so many nations.

The typical response has been war, versus a chapter 11/09 type workout. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Trump is bent on modernizing the US military. I am not sure that anybody gets out of the next world war alive so perhaps it is time for the banksters to take a haircut.

Old Hat, all previewed in Steinbecks “Grapes of Wrath,” perhaps Obama would say “It’s Grapes of Math.” Especially note the end of chapter 21. “Money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. . . . . . .”and the anger began to ferment.” And all without being watched over by the “machines of loving grace” that we have now days. Slow learners ain’t we boys? Indeed, I spent my stimulus check from uncle Bama on Ruger hand guns, they’re still American made you know.

“Country has airports, mines, islands worth 100 billion – loan them 10 billion they can’t repay – take the 100 billion in airports, mines and islands.”

Yeah, except all that stuff is immovable. Greece could easily exit the EU, repudiate the debt, and nationalise all the pledged assets, and the worst it might get are a few sanctions that might actually be less painful than the current doses of austerity (does anyone think a German or EU army are going to march on Greece?). Any tourists lost from Europe would be more than covered by Russians. The US is also unlikely to turn its back on Greece, regardless of the caterwauling by Europe.

I’m actually wondering what is holding Greece back … oh wait, it’s the corrupt leadership who are on the EU payroll for selling out their people. Where are the Colonels when you need them?

That’s not the metric that counts. One German running the phyllo dough machine for 6 hours is way more productive than the Greek baker layering it by hand for 12 hours.

The obvious solution is for Greece to repudiate the debt, withdraw from the EU, and issue her own currency. It’s not the perfect solution–we don’t live in the perfect world–but it’s the only way out if the Greeks want to retain sovereignty.

Why would any self-respecting nation-state join the EU? Kick that rotten institution over. Confiscate the assets of its senior executives.

The people who inhabited the Grecian peninsula during the era of Classical Antiquity went genetically extinct a long time ago. Only a form of their language remains.

Yes, well said.

Here’s another take. We have been brainwashed into thinking that the foundation of capitalism is that debts must be repaid. Rubbish.

The foundation of capitalism is that when someone makes a bad investment, they lose money.

If we break this link, we eliminate the entire logic (such as it is) of capitalism.

You might say, oh if banks lend a pile of money to a corrupt government that is going to steal or misuse the funds and has no rational chance of making good on the loans, and then the banks don’t get paid back, where is the incentive for banks to make bad loans to corrupt governments? Exactly.

And we see this on so many other fronts, like the US student loan program where lenders get their profits no matter what via taxpayer funds, and they have had no problem loading up students with unpayable debt and this has allowed colleges to become explosively expensive… If lenders had to take the risk themselves, they might not loan $100,000 to a mediocre student at a mediocre college with a nothing degree… and before long that college might not cost $100,000, and people wouldn’t be saddled with low value degrees and massive debts and no job prospects, etc.

That’s unscientific. Greeks work more hours per year than Germans.

This is my all time favorite speech on and about banking.

May 21, 2013 Why the whole banking system is a scam – Godfrey Bloom MEP

• European Parliament, Strasbourg, 21 May 2013

• Speaker: Godfrey Bloom MEP, UKIP (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire)

greece is being treated like russia during the yeltsin years. but they don’t have a yeltsin, how the hell they arrived at the current situation is baffling. are the greek elites that stupid and self serving?

that says enough.

Hey Wally and the rest who think it’s OK for one party to accept loans in other people’s names, I have a deal for ya.

I’m going down to my friendly IMF bank and take out a loan in your name, backed by your assets.

I’ll use the money to bribe some politicians to make laws that favor my schemes, and since I’ve named you as the backer of the loan, and since I have no intention of ever paying back the loan, you better get out yer checkbook and start liquidating assets.

If you fail to do that, then you may wanna pray to G-d when the troops knock on yer door in the middle of the night, kick you out, loot the property, then sell it to a buddy for pennies on the dollar.

And don’t whine when the bank confiscates yer savings, either.

Sweet deal, eh? Really tough concept too.

But never mind, the gubbermint is here to protect ya. Uh-huh.

There’s a six letter word for people who think that way, and it begins with an “s.”

BTW, this is an excellent article with a superb title.

Bad Lenders Make Bad Loans

Mafia racketeer bankers do it knowingly. Connect the dots.

The lenders are the ones who should have known better; screw them.

I have no sympathy for the lenders, but it was the politicians and the bureaucrats who set this Ponzi scheme on its course. The bankers are just raking off their percentage of the ever-growing cash flow as the money moves from place to place. Their prime interest is in keeping the game going so the money keeps flowing through their hands.

One should regard the bankers as lower level drug dealers while the politicians and bureaucrats are the kingpins who control the trade. Richard Nixon closed the gold window to avoid having to pay for the excesses of the Great Society and that sealed our doom, but “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”

The bankers were let off after the last hiccup because they still are useful in maintaining the trade. The banks will be maintained as long as trade remains near the present high level. When it all finally breaks down there will be many bankers who get it in the neck. Those that survive will do so because of their usefulness to and entanglement with whoever gets control of the State(s).

When the EU breaks up there will be bankrupt banks galore. Then we will begin to meet the new boss(es).

Lol well we in the U.S. are a lot like Greece after all we the people didn’t vote for a $ 20 trillion dollar debt ($30 trillion by 2030 so they say) trillions more in future liabilities ,outsourcing of jobs a decline in the standard of living and a whole lot of low paying jobs while we fight off the cheap labor from South of the border, while we wait for the financial system to crash and burn.We like Greece are controlled by the rich and powerful who gladly send our young off to some hell hole to fight some imaginary foe one of our creation so the rich and the powerful can become a little richer and order more tanks airplanes drones and other weapons.
I see Bush was on the morning talk show this morning hawking a book that he wrote called ‘Wounded Warriors” and I’m sure he left out how he lied the country into war and trust me there will be thousands who will buy it because we the people are just like Greece dead from the neck up..

Michael Hudson complicates his story unmecessarily. Why not suspect that the IMF with a French president is just helping European friends to save the French and German banks (which should have been left to be rescued (with losses to share and bon holders) by their own governments directly as n the UK. More charitably, it was making a gesture of solidarity to the EZ and ECB while it was still possible to believe that internal devaluation by austerity would rectify years of profligacy by Greek governments.

Here’s an article for the Wallys of the world. It gives a glimpse of the corruption at the heart of the matter.

But yesterday the betting was back on the Greek island affair to spell the prime minister’s political doom, after a wealthy businessman and leading power broker in his Likud party, David Appel, was indicted for allegedly paying bribes to Mr Sharon and his youngest son, Gilad.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/22/israel

“Sell off your land….. This is a program that’s gone on decade after decade…”

Is that just loose talk? Clearly it is implyong that the IMFvhas been manipulated for decades before Greece’s problems to make improvident countries sell up their best assets to foreigners. Examples please – with figures – to quell my raging scepticism.

Moreover foreign owners of assets in banana republics (or olive ones) can’t have much confidence that a sovereign government is going to treat them any more gently than the bondholders who have been stiffed by many countries over the last 300 years, especially when the acwuisition of the assets is resented ss coercive.

Excellent comment. I don’t know why this stuff is so hard for some folks to figure out.

Country has airports, mines, islands worth 100 billion – loan them 10 billion they can’t repay – take the 100 billion in airports, mines and islands.

As we write, there’s an ongoing project to build modern tollways all over the country that only the rich use, and they hardly use them. One can drive from Sparta to Thessaloniki for 700 km either up the West coast or the East on roads the likes of which far surpass anything in the US for condition, and nearly the only traffic you’ll encounter are trucks from the EU.

Many useless road building schemes deep into the mountains as well. These things go where there were only trails before. I’ve seen the same things in Bosnia and know engineers who were flabbergasted at the infrastructure built in the boonies that no one has ever needed. I’ve been on modern roads way back in the mountains there where people were literally living in dugouts as they had been since the beginning of time.

The people of Greece and Bosnia barely use the things, haven’t needed them ever, and yet they’re held liable for them.

Another sad thing is that because of the accessibility, the mountains no longer hold any significant areas of refuge for those who are self sufficient and don’t want to play the banker’s games.

Greeks are a pathetically lazy, unproductive lot.

You don’t know Greeks and what does their supposed laziness have to do with it anyway?

Why is austerity so bad for a people who refuse to work, but want to live the good life? If they think they have it bad now, just wait until they are forced to stand on their own two feet.

Please don’t confuse Greeks with Israelis.

And why do the Greeks allow their government monopolize so much of the economy anyway?

They don’t. Have you kept up with the recent elections? Is it not obvious that the Greeks have no more control over their masters than we in the US do?

Screw them, they repeatedly took the money, the conditions were known. Not a penny more.

No, the ruling class took the money; screw them. Make them pay.

Please bear in mind that the most indebted country in the world is the US. If you think the people are responsible for it, then you better start writing some checks.

The lenders are the ones who should have known better; screw them.

For such lazy people, ironic that they laid the foundation for Western civilization, isn’t it?

The article has a rather political slant. It’s true that Greece got loans that went straight back to European banks to enable them to 1)continue making money and 2) pretend that the loans were good, but still, Greece took the low interest rates that came with the Euro and went on a giant speculative binge the same as the rest of Southern Europe.

They didn’t have to participate in a speculative credit bubble but they did so through their own choice.

However, I see that Hudson’s political line only allows him to present the Greeks as innocent bystanders.

It’s loan sharking.

Guy has a car worth 1k but no income – loan him $100 he can’t pay back – take the car.

Country has airports, mines, islands worth 100 billion – loan them 10 billion they can’t repay – take the 100 billion in airports, mines and islands.

It’s why they’ve been keeping Greece on life support all this time – it takes time to loot a whole country.

A large part of the justification for Greek military spending is the ongoing threat the country faces from fellow NATO member and supposed ally, Turkey, which just goes to show how useless that alliance is in promoting peace in Europe.

Greece reminds me of Wales … Why did the Welsh nobles sell their people into English Bondage? Because instead of being minor Welsh nobles, they became minor British nobles, which for them was nevertheless a significant step up. Ditto Scotland. And so Greece remains in the Euro and the EU long past the point where the well-being of the people mattered.

Show me how they were forced to.

They weren’t forced.

The banking mafia in collusion with corrupt politicians (and an either corrupt or innumerate media) run up unpayable debts and then when it eventually blows up the EU and IMF come in as debt collectors to asset strip the country of everything valuable.

It’s standard loan sharking but on a country size scale.

The banking mafia are racketeers – should all be in jail.

Is it really a loan if you know you’ll never get it back? It sounds more like a gratuitous wealth transfer.

Greeks are a pathetically lazy, unproductive lot.

Everyone making this argument is unconsciously reinforcing the point made in the OP…

the banking mafia have started loan sharking entire countries with the collusion of a corrupt political-media class.

But Greece DID buy that crap. Show me how they were forced to.

Greek trade union confederation (GSEE)? Indeed, a huge part of their problems.

Conspicuous by its absence in this article is any mention of what it was the Greeks bought that they couldn’t afford.

This excerpt from a Grauniad article by Helena Smith may help:

Yiannis Panagopoulos, who heads the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), found himself sitting opposite Angela Merkel at a private meeting the German chancellor had called of European trade unionists in Berlin.

When it came to his turn to address the leader, he instinctively popped the question that many in Greece have wanted to ask. “After running through all the reasons why austerity wasn’t working in my country I brought up the issue of defence expenditure. Was it right, I asked, that our government makes so many weapons purchases from Germany when it obviously couldn’t afford such deals and was slashing wages and pensions?”

Merkel’s reaction was instant. “She immediately said: ‘But we never asked you to spend so much of your GDP on defence,’” Panagopoulos recalled. “And then she mentioned the issue of outstanding payments on submarines she said Germany had been owed for over a decade.”
[..]
“If there is one country that has benefited from the huge amounts Greece spends on defence it is Germany,” said Dimitris Papadimoulis, an MP with the Coalition of the Radical Left party.

That comment is followed by a chart showing that Germany indeed accounts for 25% of Greece’s weapons purchases, but conspicuous by its absence in Ms. Smith’s column is any mention of the United States, which accounts for 42% of the Greek total of arms purchases for the period, more than Germany and France combined.

Thanos Dokos, a leading Greek defence expert, says rational debate on such military extravagance has been made impossible by the supposed Turkish threat and a fear among politicians of being labelled unpatriotic.

“One could argue that with 1,300 tanks, more than twice the number in the UK, Greece has many more than it needs. But no one forced it to spend so much. It happened because of the threat perception from Turkey and the need to balance Turkey militarily,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military-spending-debt-crisis

And so the Merchants of Death are moonlighting as the Merchants of Debt.

I’m flabbergasted; ‘just flabbergasted

Greeks are a pathetically lazy, unproductive lot.

Why is austerity so bad for a people who refuse to work, but want to live the good life? If they think they have it bad now, just wait until they are forced to stand on their own two feet.

And why do the Greeks allow their government monopolize so much of the economy anyway? Ah.

Screw them, they repeatedly took the money, the conditions were known. Not a penny more.

Home loans at one time were underwritten at some lenders by qualifying the borrowers at the teaser rate. Never mind that the interest rate would adjust in six months to ‘fully indexed’ with an increase in the payment.

I heard the executives of a nationwide lender discuss why they could not change their underwriting standards as it would result in a decline in lending volume. They suffered through higher foreclosures not long after that and then got acquired.

Bad Lenders Make Bad Loans

“* Money loaned out to friends abroad will assure their collapse over time as we will make our usury painful by requiring them to sell off assets at bargain prices to pay us.”
Excerpt from:
La Cosa Nostra
APPLICATION / JOB DESCRIPTION
Position: Capo di Tutti Capi

https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/la-cosa-nostra-application-job-description/

So expansion of government (reversing privatization) and increasing budget deficits are the path to revitalizing the European left? Doesn’t the left recognize the rudiments of productive activity and the stupidity of paying for leftist goodies with more debt?

A lot of previously “normal” thinking is now being questioned. Tired socialist nostrums of the first part of the last century need to be rethought as well.

How about living within our means as the new normal? Is that anathema to socialists?

Art:

The lender also has a responsibility – if you loan money to someone who may not be able to pay it back – then you must accept the possibility of a bankruptcy.

The money lent to Greece by Germany went right back to Germany.

Exactly.

Plutarch, Morals, Chapter 23, “Against Running in Debt” c. 100 AD

JS – nice quote – thanks.

For most of Christian history lending at interest was a sin – so that dirty job of usury was left to Jews. It was thought to be a job on the level of selling crack. That is how Jew ghettos got started in big Euro cities.

There is NO need for usury. The Jews have so screwed up the banking system that today they are charging negative interest rates on savings. Such a deal!

Art

It has been going on for centuries.

“Care not for fine horses or chariots with handsome harness, adorned with gold886 and silver, which swift interest will catch up with and outrun, but mounted on any chance donkey or nag flee from the hostile and tyrannical money-lender, who does not demand land and water like the Mede,887 but interferes with your liberty, and lowers your status.

If you pay him not, he duns you; if you offer the money, he won’t have it; if you are selling anything, he cheapens the price; if you don’t want to sell, he forces you; if you sue him, he comes to terms with you; if you swear, he hectors; if you go to his house, he shuts the door in your face; whereas if you stay at home, he billets himself on you, and is ever rapping at your door.”

Plutarch, Morals, Chapter 23, “Against Running in Debt” c. 100 AD

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23639/23639-h/23639-h.htm…

BTW: Thanks to annamaria and to nickels, whose comment is correct as well.

I have to agree with Hudson and Michael E Jones that debts should be written down for a number of reasons.

1) Historically it worked.
2) Most loans are predatory, given in the time of need or under false pretences or propaganda.
3) Creditors take no risk without the potential for writedowns.
4) If Loans aren’t written down, tax payers end up footing the bill for wild speculation by the 1%
5) Exponential accumulation is a force that NOTHING can sustain.
6) Historically it is obvious that creditors get richer and richer and richer and the result is strangulating debt deflation of the economy.
7) Usury is not Christian.
8) Creditors sit on their shiny behinds doing absolutely nothing, contributing absolutely nothing and get rich.
9) Exponential accumulation of wealth always leads to control of government and the control of utility monopolies, hence extortion.

10) Screw the rich.
11) Pitchforks are sharp.

-d

One of the crimes of any type of “rule” is the ability of a few crooks to saddle whole populations with debt and other charges while paying little themselves

Just say – Rothschild.

It has been going on for centuries.

It has to stop!

“It would be closer to ideal if the politicians could be held personally responsible for repaying the debt as well as reparations to those they’ve used in their complicity with the usurers and war mongers.”
Correct.

You are correct. There’s a reason interest is charged for money lent. The lender takes a risk also.

And this simple minded claim irks me to no end…”If you can’t pay back other peoples money, then don’t take their money in the first place.”

While that’s often true between individuals, it doesn’t hold for whole nations. One cannot blame the Greeks for their predicament since the majority of them had no say in either selecting their greedy, complicit leaders, or their acceptance of the debt.

One of the crimes of any type of “rule” is the ability of a few crooks to saddle whole populations with debt and other charges while paying little themselves. It would be closer to ideal if the politicians could be held personally responsible for repaying the debt as well as reparations to those they’ve used in their complicity with the usurers and war mongers.

“No pity for lazy Marxist Greeks.”
You mean that the Marxist Goldman Sachs had been helping the Marxist Greek government for the lasting benefit for the Greek people?
Lets’ have some history lessons:
“In 2013, Greece was spending about 2.2 percent of its GNP or roughly $10 billion on the military. It was strongly urged to spend at least that amount by NATO…
Another “secret” from the past that returns to haunt statesmen today is that Greece got caught up in clever, but perhaps illegal, manipulation of accounts. Led by the American banking firm of Goldman Sachs, the previous conservative government of George Papandreou did a $15 billion “swap” to hide Greek indebtedness,… Goldman Sachs was alleged to have made hundreds of millions of dollars in the deal taking that money into its corporate coffers while leaving the debt behind in Greece.” https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/12/secret-history-of-the-greek-crisis/
“The trading costs on the swap rose because the deal had a notional value of more than 15 billion euros, more than the amount of the loan itself, said a former Greek official with knowledge of the transaction who asked not to be identified because the pricing was private. The complexity of the deal helped Goldman reap a bigger payday—but in fact, the loan was so confusing that even the Greece government had trouble understanding it and thought it was much cheaper than it actually was. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-goldman-sachs-greece-deal-thats-described-as-a-very-sexy-story-between-two-sinners-2012-3

The Greeks fucked themselves by taking the money with terms they agreed to.

No pity for lazy Marxist Greeks.

Then who will pay the Greek bills?

Certainly not the lazy, corrupt Greeks.

An incorrect argument.

The Greeks cannot pay what they owe, but they want more.

“The money lent to Greece by Germany went right back to Germany.”

No it didn’t. Haven’t you been paying attention?

The Greeks have not / cannot pay back the money THEY borrowed, but still want more.

I loath the EU, but the lying Marxist Greeks deserve what they get on this one.

On the one hand, EU policy toward Greece is hugely destructive and brutal. On the other hand, the Greeks are a bunch of lazy scroungers who choose to borrow huge amounts of money to pay themselves for doing nothing. My sympathy is limited.

If you can’t pay back other peoples money, then don’t take their money in the first place.

The lender also has a responsibility – if you loan money to someone who may not be able to pay it back – then you must accept the possibility of a bankruptcy.

The money lent to Greece by Germany went right back to Germany.

There are NO good guys here.

one wonders if turkey was attacked from the rear by russia whether greece would help.

anyway the truth …..the magic

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16834815

The Greek’s original sin was joining the Euro under false pretences. They had their years of false plenty. Time has come to pay. For Germany, supporting tiny Greece was a price worth paying for the political gain.

greeks got royally fucked over by their supposed hope, Tsipras.

Just finished ‘Killing the Host’, highly recommend it.
But also read Michael E Jones ‘Barren Metal’ and ‘Libido Dominandi’.

The Jone’s books provide a nice compliment for Hudson’s, showing how ‘liberalism’ is the tool used by the parasite to numb the mind of the Host.
Jones also attacks the very foundations of classical economics, linking them with heartless Darwinism, whereas Hudson defends them.

And the obvious lesson is:

If you can’t pay back other peoples money, then don’t take their money in the first place.

That is unless the intention was to never pay back the money. Hmm.

No pity for the Greeks, a notoriously lazy, unproductive, communist inclined people.

If European Left does not succeed in creating an alternative to eurozone austerity, right-wing nationalists will lead a withdrawal campaign.

There’s no IF there, it is happening now.
The Left doesn’t have and never has had an alternative to theft.

Yes. As the author writes, “The financial sector’s policy of leaving money and credit allocation to banks and bondholders calls for blocking public money creation. This leaves the financial sector as the economy’s central planner.”
The EU has been suffering from financial Bolshevism.
Planned economy in the former USSR was a disaster for ordinary people. For example, both Ukraine and Russia, these breadbaskets of Eastern Europe, were reduced to the famine-stricken regions; as a results, the Soviet government started looting the national treasures in order to import grain for the starving populations.
The name “troika” for the European Central Bank (ECB), IMF and EU bureaucracy is on point. “Troika” was an “instrument of extrajudicial punishment” for the Stalinist court system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_troika
The ideological inflexibility of the EU “troika” relates directly to the insatiable thirst for power by the financial directorate.
PS: The beginning of the 20th century saw various expressions of dictatorship (including the financial dictatorship). Complementing the totalitarian ideology for societal structures, there were also attempts at dictatorial approach to artistic spaces in fine arts. – The museums of modern art are still coping with the often unnatural and inhuman (and sloppy) outbursts of these attempts.

I don’t care how, but the economic rent must be recycled into the local economy that supports it. Otherwise it leads to poverty and decay. Too bad most people don’t even know what that is.

I agree. Varoufakis wanted to do that but couldn’t, so he honorably resigned. Tsiparas sold out.

I just got back from Greece, and it’s really sd to see how “dead” it is. I have little doubt that the python is strangling the US in a similar fashion.

I could go on a bit except that I need to make another trip today.

History would tend to side with you.

Foreign ownership of national assets is nothing but an ‘economic occupation’ by Rothschild, and other vultures.

In Canada, there is hardly any heavy industry or nuclear plant which is not owned by United States.

Greece and other nations should follow Iranian Constitution which bans leasing or sale of national assets to foreign economic and military powers.

Last year, one of the top Greek religious leaders, Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus, blamed ZIONIST MONSTER for country’s most problems. He also claimed that “Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed by the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to the shore of Europe and go to Palestine and the new empire.”

On December 22, 2010, Robert Mackey accused Seraphim at The Jew York Times, of saying during a interview that Jews were behind Greece’s financial problems, and Holocaust was orchestrated by Zionist Jews. He accused international Zionism of trying to destroy family unit by promoting one-parent family and same-sex marriage…..

https://rehmat1.com/2015/12/23/top-bishop-zionist-monster-controls-greece/

If European Left does not succeed in creating an alternative to eurozone austerity, right-wing nationalists will lead a withdrawal campaign. Golden Dawn in Greece, France’s National Front, along with Hungarian, Austrian and Polish nationalist parties and Britain’s UKIP are moving to fill the vacuum left by the absence of a socialist alternative to financialization under ECB and IMF dirigisme.

The gap will be filled, there’s no question about it. It’s just a question of how much gap will be filled in – any victory won will have to be decisive enough to secure control outright regardless of establishment maneuvering. Golden Dawn in Greece is closest to doing so outside the Visegrad Four, and they’re only pulling in <40% support in the country (that should actually be enough to take control of a majority of all parliamentary seats there, but I haven't seen breakdowns by region). I don't count FPÖ in Austria, because that's only for the Presidency, though it would be a major victory if they do pull it off.

It's also worth noting that the ECB has outright refused to include the Greeks in their QE program despite the fact that the Greeks were most in need of it, and that the large (((banks))) outright complained ab0ut the resulting yield depression as a result of the program in other parts of the European Union.

As a side note:

Galbraith contrasts economists to doctors, whose professional motto is “Do no harm.” Economists cannot avoid harming economies when their priority is to save bankers and bondholders from losses – by bleeding economies to pay creditors.

Economics is math backed by psychology and philosophy, not necessarily empirical figures.
A corollary of this is that economics is as inherently flawed as psychology is.

Good point. Although they had been preparing to leave the eurozone, getting ready to issue a new drachma, as was widely reported at the time.

Since the creditors are dirty rotten creeps (don’t forget the Goldman Sachs role in providing advice that dug a deep hole for Greece) that may have been enough to repudiate the debt.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

I would add, with the exception of rare small sums, repaid ASAP, among personal friends.

Know that is not how things work.

Since it is the central point of Hudson’s article, I’ll start by saying that Tzipras was a fool and betrayed his people. The best solution would have been to dump the euro and return to the drachma
ASAP. It would have meant pain and difficulty for some time, but would have avoided the invasive process imposed by the troika.

The EUSSR is such a bizarre entity.

Run by what, since ‘new left’ days, has increasingly passed for ‘the left’ in the mass media, plenty of ex-trots and other strange leftists among the commissioners, leaders of ‘centre-left’ parties in and MEPs from member states that were not formerly Warsaw Pact members, parts of the USSR, or parts of Yugoslavia.

So they have this oddly strict neocon/neolib (they are identical on macroeconomics) orthodoxy on capitalist economics, combined with bizarre and harmful social policies.

The weird social policies include policies towards the people that are antithetical to the populations on accession (we must rescue all invaders that we can, and land them on our shores, for one).

That is supposed to be the expression of their still being ‘good progressive’ people today. They like to avert their eyes from the simple fact that most of the invaders are opposed to all of their ‘doubleplusgoodthink’ on social policy.

Much more weird social policy shit on top of that.

Hegel’s history repeating, tragedy then farce formulation doesn’t quite seem to work here.

The EUSSR is more farcical than its predecessor state, but its end game is far more tragic.

“In a successful financial system, there must be a state larger than any market. That state must have monetary control – as the Federal Reserve does, without question, in the Untied States.”

Does Michael Hudson of all people have to be reminded that the Federal Reserve is not a state entity?

James Galbraith’s articles and interviews collected in his book Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice trace his growing exasperation at the “troika” – the European Central Bank (ECB), IMF and EU bureaucracy – which refused to loosen their demand that Greece impoverish its economy to a degree worse than the Great Depression.

Another spelling for “troika” – Rothschild.

What is right-wing about international, globalist institutions destroying the national state?

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences… The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.”

— Carroll Quigley (CFR member, Bill Clinton mentor), “Tragedy and Hope”, 1966, pg 324

Outsourcing should have been part of this article. It’s a central feature of the Neoliberal “World is Flat” idea and was greatly enabled by the EEC administration to please their Neoliberal friends. They received higher corporate profits while off shoring European manufacturing and employment and dumping the social costs onto government.

The Euro is a separate issue (here in Spain), that kicked off an enormous speculative real estate boom while interest rates fell from 15% to 2% with junk sub-prime bond backed financing. Everyone was guilty here, the public turning to speculation, the banks lending to anyone, and the government denying the bubble (Iberian Tiger) and grabbing as much as possible in taxes to shower the public with welfare benefits (in return for votes).

In fact, looking from here, outsourcing is the main issue.

Over 30 years in Spain, I have seen what the “liberal international order” has done to local industry. Many inland villages and towns specialized for generations in manufacturing toys, hats, shoes, clothing, textiles, lamps etc. with a good local market and exports throughout Europe. They weren’t rich but they were getting by as self-supporting skilled artisans making a good contribution to the national economy.

However, now, the “liberal international order” means that everything that can fit into a shipping container comes from China, and whole towns are unemployed, with miles of derelict factories and warehouses and whole families often living from a single (minimal) pensioners benefits.

The government parrots “free trade” and EEC rules, while what buying power’s left is funneled to China through 100% Chinese import store chains like Sprinter (sports clothing), Decathalon (sports goods), Alehop (gifts), DonDino (toys) or Chinese general stores in every high street.

This is plainly crazy, with EEC rules only supporting the profitability of outsourcing corporations.

Would any of this have been possible without the groundwork of the bankers in respect to the financial dictatorship imposed on the American taxpayers in 1913?

Europe is a sinking ship, it is comprised of many cultures who all hate each other. No one wants Arab and African migrants, they do not blend well and are too radically different for it ever to work. That and everyone hates Islam. Briton has gone and those guys will do Anything for money so you know there’s none there. No money, no way forward, too many people, no work means war. Get in the coffin business if you really wanta get rich.

If European Left does not succeed in creating an alternative to eurozone austerity, right-wing nationalists will lead a withdrawal campaign.

Yeah, because the elitist and intrusive and idiotic policies of the unelected Eurocrats in Brussels about immigration and other sovereignty destroying policies have nothing to do with Europeans pushing to leave the EU.

I foresee the joy of the Greek people when Deutsche Bank collapses

I’m not convinced of the wisdom of actual EU policy. In particular I resent the idea of selling public property to foreign proprietors. And in my eyes, in case of predatory lending the creditor is as much responsible as the debtor (the previous Greek governments).

That said, I don’t trust Galbraith’ mantra of deficit spending. What if deficit spending does not “revive employment and economical growth”? Hudson expressively discusses historical examples for austerity politics, but he doesn’t discuss examples of deficit spending. (I’m a layman. It seems to have worked well for Hitler, but seems to have been a failure for Roosevelt. So there might be particular conditions which must be met.)

Also the idea that European austerity politics contradicts democracy seems preposterous. The Greek people may democratically resolve that their creditors have to cut the losses, but are the creditors (who have no say in this) really obliged to follow this resolution? Of course, the Greek people could leave the EU and then declare the debts void (which is what Hitler did), but then they have to abstain from taking new credits (which Hitler was prepared to do, but which Tsipras was not prepared). A man who wants a new credit can’t be rebellious at the same time.

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