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June 15, the day of a general strike in Greece, is also the day when the critical "mid-term agreement" between the insolvent country and the Troica will be voted on by the general assembly. "The agreement includes tax increases, slashing of wages and pensions and the lay-off of approximately more 100,000 civil servants in the next few years." Already the blog Occupied London has called for a blockade of the Athens parliament: "Last night (June 11th) the popular assembly of Syntagma square announced a call to blockade the Greek parliament ahead of the voting of the so-called Mid-term agreement between the Greek government and the troika (IMF/ECB/EU). The call-out for the blockade below is one of the most important acts we have seen by the Syntagma assembly so far. June 15th is gearing up to become a historical day in Greece, a crucial chance to block off the charge-ahead of neoliberalism here. Don't be a spectator to this - translate and disseminate the text below; organise a gathering where you are, or come join us at Syntagma. This is the struggle for and of our lives." Needless to say, should the vote pass, and should the Parliament be blockaded, which it will be, the chances of politicians to leave general assembly unscathed may be compromised. Which is why we were not surprised to learn, courtesy of Covering Delta, that the Greek parliament has hired foreign workers to clean out the underground tunnel which leads from the parliament to the port of Piraeus (soon to be privatized) in order to avoid what some fear may be the popular lynchings of MPs by the disgruntled masses.
The vote is expected to come in the late morning on Wednesday EDT, so there will be enough time to observe the market's reaction should violence return to Athens.
From the news this weekend, you'd think the world was in a coma, but I swear I heard ominous bassoon phrases through the night rain... something large groaning out there in the dark. A great churn, coming closer. The world is in a box, tortured with its obsolete ideas about how economies are supposed to run, especially the money part, and the economists are clueless. A case in point: the eminent Vincent Reinhart at the Council of Foreign Relations last week. (Conspiracy theorists just shut your pie-holes): "There are very few debt defaults... there are a whole lot of restructurings. For most of history, default is something the strong declare on the weak when they lose their patience. And if you're members of the same club, you're less likely to lose your patience. Hence you're less likely to default. Greece is in the club." The club he refers to - the Euro money club - is less a jolly fraternal lodge than a funeral insurance association. The latest restructuring for Greece he referred to is a cockamamie perpetual rollover with no redemptions allowed, while Greece has to agree to become more like its neighbor, Albania, in lifestyle - that is, like Borat, minus the joie de vivre. There's a third option that Reinhart ignores: the Greek populace can riot in the streets, toss out their government, install some kind of rump leadership and hoist its middle fingers at the Euro management team, opting out of the club. Why this does not occur to Reinhart (and many other vested poobahs) I can't say, despite the fact that there are many places around the world (especially Europe these days) where the natives are obviously getting restless. Besides, it's not lost on the Greek people that they're being asked to go Albanian for the sake of a dozen banks up in Germany, France, and Holland, not their own country's sacred honor.
"There are very few debt defaults... there are a whole lot of restructurings. For most of history, default is something the strong declare on the weak when they lose their patience. And if you're members of the same club, you're less likely to lose your patience. Hence you're less likely to default. Greece is in the club."
;) 'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
Zero Hedge sources it from Covering Delta,
is the blog for [the] radio show "Covering the Spread," that airs on Tuesday nights, between 7pm-8pm on 91.5FM WNYE New York. [They] cover the latest in Finance, Politics and the in-between.
The people currently gathered in Constitution Square have no more in common with each other than any other two random Greeks that you would find on the street. Some are unemployed. Some are pensioners. Some are students. Some are angry, others are despondent, and many are just there to pick up chicks. Still, they do all seem to share one belief, and this is that the latest memorandum is bad for the country. Some falsely believe that putting an end to the memorandum and to the new IMF intervention will mean an end to austerity. Others believe that a return to the Drachma is a solution. Still others believe that solution can be found in the tenants of communism - yes, unfortunately communism is still alive and well in Athens. However, the majority of those who I have spoken to agree that Greeks are to blame for their problems, and that a dismantling of the "rousfeti" economy seeped in bureaucracy and socialist dogma is necessary in order to improve the competitiveness of the country. This is encouraging, and equally encouraging is the recognition by this same majority that just because we are responsible for the situation that we now find ourselves in does not mean that we have the obligation, the responsibility and even the right to sell our country to a group of predator banks and multination corporations that worked alongside a generation of corrupt politicians to create a debt so large that it could never be repaid. Many Greeks are not responsible for even a penny of this debt, but even if they were, no Greek alive today has a right to sell that which is not his. Who told these parliamentarians and foreign dignitaries that they have the right to sign away this land to private corporations? What would our forefathers, who fought and bled for our right to even have a country of our own and a functioning parliament, say in response to this treason?
Still, they do all seem to share one belief, and this is that the latest memorandum is bad for the country. Some falsely believe that putting an end to the memorandum and to the new IMF intervention will mean an end to austerity. Others believe that a return to the Drachma is a solution. Still others believe that solution can be found in the tenants of communism - yes, unfortunately communism is still alive and well in Athens.
However, the majority of those who I have spoken to agree that Greeks are to blame for their problems, and that a dismantling of the "rousfeti" economy seeped in bureaucracy and socialist dogma is necessary in order to improve the competitiveness of the country. This is encouraging, and equally encouraging is the recognition by this same majority that just because we are responsible for the situation that we now find ourselves in does not mean that we have the obligation, the responsibility and even the right to sell our country to a group of predator banks and multination corporations that worked alongside a generation of corrupt politicians to create a debt so large that it could never be repaid. Many Greeks are not responsible for even a penny of this debt, but even if they were, no Greek alive today has a right to sell that which is not his. Who told these parliamentarians and foreign dignitaries that they have the right to sign away this land to private corporations? What would our forefathers, who fought and bled for our right to even have a country of our own and a functioning parliament, say in response to this treason?
The quote: "the "rousfeti" economy seeped in bureaucracy and socialist dogma" is balderdash: Rousfeti is a word (and a practice) dating from Ottoman times, and it has been a socially legitimizing pillar of the post-civil war clientilist state, a way in which the Right bought some social consensus despite its authoritarianism. It means a favor done by a politician to one of his or her voter... The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
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