Greece - here come the lefties
 

http://news.sky.com/story/1414691/gr...feat-to-syriza

Creditors schmeditors. I suspect that the rich will now be asked to pay their fair share, but the entrenched gov't corruption will continue unabated.

Wonder if this will also mean one more nail in the coffin of the EU.

Greece will be better off outside of the the Eurozone, but still within the EU. It'll be messy getting there from here, however.

The rich WILL pay.

They can do it the easy way, with higher taxes, or they can do it the hard way:

http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/z...5432305028.jpg

It's their choice.

Good one TJ. :cool:

I never quite understood the idea behind the Euro. A country cannot maintain financial stability without control over their own currency. With the Euro in the hands of some wonks in Brussels this mess was inevitable. Whatever else Angela is it seems rather obvious she is not an economist.

True!

The big plus in Europe is access to cheap labor. In Britain many jobs are advertised in former soviet dominated countries.

RE: "the rich will pay." Have to address the capital flight problem. Basically, tax liability should stay attached to income, international borders notwithstanding.

'International flight to avoid taxation' should be investigated and prosecuted by international authorities empowered for that purpose. Countries that think they will provide 'havens' should face extreme sanctions.

We DON'T want the Euro to fold. For starters it'll almost certainly crash the world economy, at least a major recession maybe worse.

It was designed to force a political union from the start. Our fearless betters, um, leaders decided after ww2 that Europe needed integrating to stop the incessant and deadly wars. They thought if they could sell a monetary union a political union would be necessary to keep it, and that the economic benefits of the monetary union would convince people to agree to the political union. Who doesn't want a new Rome? :o

Seriously, a unified Europe is probably in Europes' best interest and certainly in ours. Greece has to come to grips with the fact TNSTAAFL no matter what the commies say. Or become a second world country or worse, it really is up to them.

Pete

The Greeks, Italians and Spaniards were all encouraged to buy Germany's products so Angela got rich and they went into debt then the smart asses on Wall Street pulled the rug out from under everyone. Sure Pete there was a free lunch just ask the Koch bros.

We're the new Rome. Get with the program. :D

We definitely want an economically healthy Europe, and a viable Euro is now part of that. I remember reading an Economist article a while ago that left me with the impression that Greece isn't concerned about paying back the money. After all, the lenders can't take Greece away from the Greeks.

Damn! Nailer nails it.

Actually, we're the new Athens, and Iraq was our Sicily.

See Harold Meyerson's Op Ed piece in today's WaPo, maybe someone should send Angela a copy.

Thanks! I read in the comments Germany lent Greece money to buy 800
Leopard tanks. :D

I hope this was not so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...440_story.html

Harold made a good point that many Germans tend to forget when they gaze upon their post war economic recovery.

One of the World's Biggest Economic Nightmares Has Ended
 

http://www.alternet.org/paul-krugman...ares-has-ended

continue

Here is an 2012 article dealing with Germany/Greece military smelly financial connections.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ng-debt-crisis

Of course looking for "historical example" is not in the IMF playbook.

Under the IMF the well connected grab and milk important economic assets
with the assurance that banksters will be repaid regardless of the human cost.

Human material wealth has always been based on a human cost, even in the best and most prosperous of times. Our declining middle class wealth was acquired at a human cost. Capitalism is all about winners/losers. The alphas always lead the tribes. At least that's how it appears to me.

This case has given Putin another opportunity to meddle in international affairs with Greece all ready to paint themselves red. Will be interesting to see what the US and Germany will do to keep Greece solvent. Either way, Greece will come out ahead meaning nothing will change economically for the long term..

Do you have any evidence that he is meddling or is this just Cold War 2.0 paranoia!

Be careful! This whole Russia vs. The West thing may just turn out to be the MIC doing a little sales promotion.

John

LONDON — Just days after shaking European economic policy to its core with a sweeping win in Greek elections, the radical leftist party Syriza is challenging a fundamental tenet of the continent’s foreign policy by seeking a softer stance on Russia.

Both before and after coming to power this week, party leaders have made no secret of their affinity for the Kremlin. They visited Moscow to show solidarity after Western condemnation of the Russian annexation of Crimea last spring. New Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made the Russian ambassador his first foreign visitor within hours of taking office Monday.

Now Syriza is complicating Western efforts to take a tough line against Moscow amid an escalating Russian-backed insurgency in southeastern Ukraine.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...6a0_story.html

Thank you Finn, I was basing my opinion from the very same article.

Putin/Russia have lost a lot of their muscle due to their spiraling economy and all they can do in the foreseeable future is to meddle internationally, just to keep Russia relevant. Their favorite targets are NATO, EU and the US.

How dare Syriza "complicate Western efforts" to support the EU-backed coup government in Kiev? The nerve of those people!

The article speaks of overtures toward Russia from the new democratically elected government in Greece. There is no mention of Russian "interference".

I mean, let's get real here! First of all, the Syriza government has already declared that it has no desire to leave the EU or even the "eurozone". Second, after the royal rogering the Greeks received from the EU and Western bankers, they'd have to be fools not to explore any and every avenue for getting their country back on track.... except, that is, the avenues that took them to where they are now.

The article you linked to is very, very slanted, by the way, especially as regards the issue of increased sanctions on Russia.

"Now Syriza is complicating Western efforts to take a tough line against Moscow amid an escalating Russian-backed insurgency in southeastern Ukraine.

"The new dynamic was on display Thursday, with European foreign ministers gathered for an emergency meeting in Brussels to consider fresh sanctions against Moscow just days after shelling killed 30 civilians in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. But amid Greece’s doubts, the ministers could agree only to extend existing sanctions while deferring any decision on new ones after hours of emotional debate.

"'The discussion was open, frank and heated,' Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said in an interview.

"Although Greece is just one of 28 members of both the European Union and NATO, both organizations operate on a principle of unanimous consent, meaning any member can block policy with a simple veto."

The article implies that Greece exercised its veto to prevent the EU from imposing greater sanctions. The truth is that the EU members were pretty well split on the issue and, when one considers that France's Hollande, among others, wants sanctions lifted altogether, the vote to maintain them can be thought of as something of a victory.

"After years of Russian support for populists on the far right and far left in an attempt to undermine European unity, the election of Syriza gives Moscow a potentially critical spoiler at the heart of Western decision-making."

Again, no indication that the Russians actually are doing anything here, just that they might.

Booga-booga!

"'You have a lot of people asking themselves whether Greece is going to play the role of the Trojan horse,' said Ben Nimmo, a European security analyst and former NATO official. 'But nobody really knows. And you have mixed messages coming out of the Greek government.'"

See? Typical Fox News "Some people say...." with no substance and no facts.

The whole thing reads more like an op-ed but it's offered as reporting. Pretty disappointing, given it's from the WaPo.

John

NATO would like to present a common front against Russian aggression, particularly with Putin seemingly likely to use such aggression to foster support for his regime during a serious economic downturn. To me, it's fully understandable that NATO and leaders of EU nations are concerned about Greek overtures with Russia.

While Greece may have taken a screwing from western bankers, etc., the fiscal management of their country, with or without European intervention, has been pretty abysmal. Tax evasion is a national pastime there and it's pretty damned difficult to balance the books when 6 in 10 pay no income taxes. The gap between what Greek taxpayers owed last year and what they paid was about a third of total tax revenue, roughly the size of the country’s budget deficit.

Do you, for one second, believe that there would be any "Russian aggression" were it not for Western meddling in Maidan?

And you said it yourself: "Greek overtures with Russia" (although the construction is typically "to" rather than "with"). The present discussion resulted from my asking BeamOn if he had any evidence of Russian meddling in Greece. In response, you posted that pathetic article from the Post as evidence, even though the author made no such claim.

So, my question remains unanswered.

I don't disagree but that's not to the point. Clearly Syriza's success can be attributed to the dismal failures of the last several governments as well as the depredations of Western bankers and neoliberal policies of the EU toward Greece.

John

I do indeed.

Paint us a scenario.

John

Similar to Georgia in 2008, using the excuse of protecting Russian-speakers. I cannot ascribe benign happenstance to that kleptocratic little weasel, Putin.

Yeah, but without the Maidan coup, there would have been no separatist movement for Russia to support as happened with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, so no pretext for intervention.

(No fair saying that that little weasel Putin don't need no stinkin' pretext. Weasels always need a pretext.)

John

I would like to mention also re Georgia the issue of NATO and the role of ethnicity. And the Russians were not the ones who set the template for
separation in post soviet times.

BTW Boreas, thanks for the clarity.

As to the Germans, they are something: they fed profligacy and now shout economic rectitude.

The pressure upon Yanukovych by Putin to bail on his plans for developing closer ties with Europe (against the wishes of a majority of Ukrainians) was itself an intervention by Russia. Putin is a kleptocratic, deceitful weasel, plain and simple.

The EU wanted Ukraine to give up its Russian economic connection cheaply. :D

The clear goal of the US and the EU was to fold Ukraine in to the eurozone and also NATO. This was a clear and deliberate provocation and another violation of the entente between the US and Russia regarding NATO expansion. There's a lot not to like about Putin but, in this case, I think he has been pretty restrained.

John

I suppose one could view it as a provocation if a sovereign Ukraine viewed its future rosier if it adopted economic policies and alliances more like those in Poland rather than Belarus.:confused: If I lived in Kiev, I sure as hell know where I'd prefer to hitch my wagon.

So, ya got nuthin'? :)

John

I'm simply not a Putin fanboy and refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything.

As a Ukrainian old fart living in Kiev I wouldn't trust Moscow and I'd trust Berlin even less. Germany is still Germany. Germans still want their place in the Sun.

Hmmm...any territorial aspirations re Poland rearing their hoary head?

Sung to the tune of "Give Ireland Back to the Irish."

Give Danzig back to the Prussians
Let Danzig be Prussian again

Seriously though, as a 60 year old Pole living in Gdańsk Berlin might be a vacation destination for me. Russians are wolves.