Tag Archives: Austerity

Trump Administration Tips Its Hand, Oks Third Greek Bailout

Tuesday, 18 April 2017 06:18

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 17, 2017:

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It took EURACTIV, the online source that focuses on European policymaking, to report that the Trump administration has signaled that, previous protestations to the contrary, it won’t object to a third Greek bailout. The anonymous Trump administration tipster told its reporters: “We’re looking for the Europeans to help Greece to resolve its economic problems by the Fund [the International Monetary Fund], despite the criticism of many Republicans regarding the two previous bailout programs in 2010 and 2012.”

This anonymous tip kicks to the curb protestations voiced by Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin in February that

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Greece Needs Another Bailout; Disagreement Threatens EU Itself

Friday, 10 February 2017 06:42

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 9, 2017:

IMF Headquarters, Washington, DC.

IMF Headquarters

The report on Greece’s financial condition issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday was dismal, but, said the central bank, its future remains bright. First, the bad news: The EU member will fall far short of the budget-surplus targets put in place in order to get the last bailout. The Greek economy must grow at 3.1 percent but it expanded by only 0.4 percent last year.

However, the IMF said Greece’s economy is expected to grow by 2.7 percent in 2017. An unnamed European Union official who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity said that

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Simmering Greek Financial Crisis Explodes Once Again

Friday, 16 December 2016 06:41

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, December 15, 2016:

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Under the terms of its last bailout, Athens (above) was required not only to continue to impose harsh austerity terms (higher taxes, less government spending, better accountability, and increased tax collection enforcement onto Greek citizens) but to inform the unelected “higher” European authorities of any change in those terms by Athens.

Last week Athens unilaterally

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Civilization’s Thin Veneer

Thursday, 15 December 2016 06:45

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, December 14, 2016:

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The dictionary defines civilization as “an ideal state of human culture characterized by a complete absence of barbarism and non-rational behavior.” Rich Galen thinks a better definition is living in a “constant state of positive assumptions.”

Many of those assumptions are coming into question, with many more already proven to be false. One of them is that pension plans are safe, that promises made will be kept, and that the assumptions underlying those plans regarding rates of return on invested assets are reasonable and that they virtually guarantee predictable results.

Those positive assumptions vanished last summer in Athens when

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Boomers Are Retiring, Draining Pension Plans

Wednesday, 14 December 2016 07:27

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, December 12, 2016:

Roosevelt Signs The : President Roosevelt sign...

President Roosevelt signs Social Security Act, at approximately 3:30 pm EST on 14 August 1935.

In a moment of surprising candor, Danielle DiMartino Booth, a former advisor to the Federal Reserve, said in a Real Vision TV interview on Saturday that “the Baby Boomers are no longer an actuarial theory. They’re a reality. The checks [from their retirement plans] are being written.”

For years commentators have repeatedly asserted that “when” the Baby Boomers (that generation born between 1946 and 1964) start to retire, they will start using up funds set aside in pension plans, putting those plans into crisis. According to Booth, that day has arrived.

She pointed to the crisis in Dallas that threatens to put the city into bankruptcy, and the report from Calpers (the California Public Employees Retirement System),

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Candidates Silent as Government Spending Jumps, Deficit Increases

Tuesday, 18 October 2016 05:22

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 17, 2016:

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On Friday, the Treasury Department published the final revenue and spending numbers for the federal government for Fiscal Year 2016, which ended on September 30. According to Treasury’s report, spending increased significantly (by nearly five percent) over the previous year, to more than $3.8 trillion, while revenues remained essentially flat from the year before, at $3.25 trillion. That left a shortfall of approximately $600 billion, forcing the government to borrow 15 cents of every dollar it spent last year. And the two presidential candidates have remained disturbingly silent about the issue.

Said Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan group that favors reducing the deficit,

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The Root Cause of Greece’s Problems: Socialism

Tuesday, 14 July 2015 05:41

This article was published online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 13, 2015:

English: Alexis Tsipras in a press conference ...

Alexis Tsipras

Returning to Brussels with an austerity program eerily similar to that just rejected by Greek citizens a week ago, Prime Minister Alex Tsipras hoped to obtain another bailout in exchange for debt forgiveness by the European Central Bank (ECB). Tsipras is desperate: His government must make a $7.8 billion payment to the ECB next Monday, and another $13 billion by the middle of August.

Instead, following marathon sessions lasting into the wee hours, those EU officials upped the ante, passing even more stringent demands before granting Tsipras his lifeline. It told Tsipras, in essence, either to paint or get off the ladder:

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Greek Vote the Death Knell for the EU?

Thursday, 09 July 2015 03:53

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, July 8, 2015:

English: Nigel Farage at Lord's cricket ground...

Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage, named “Briton of the Year” in 2014 by the London Times, has finally found his voice. He noisily departed the Conservative Party in 1992 after the signing of the treaty that created the European Union to start his own UK Independence Party (UKIP). His criticism of the EU has been steady ever since, culminating in his eulogy on Monday: “The European Union is Dying Before our Eyes.”

According to Farage, Sunday’s referendum in Greece sealed its death warrant, even if somehow the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is able to come to terms with the troika and have them turn on the financial spigot once again: “It [was] a crushing defeat for those Eurocrats who believe that you can simply bulldoze public opinion.” He added,

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Greece-EU Standoff Increases Chances of “Grexit”

Tuesday, 07 July 2015 16:06

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 7, 2015:

Writing in London’s Telegraph on Monday, Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-EU, pro-sovereignty UK Independence Party (UKIP), called Sunday’s referendum in Greece “a crushing defeat for those Eurocrats who believe that you can simply bulldoze public opinion.” Threats by those Eurocrats to shut off emergency financing unless the country agreed to its terms fell on deaf ears, especially among those under age 35: Eighty percent of them voted no on Sunday.

That cohort is the one least likely to remember the songs that were sung by those promoting the European Union decades ago:

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Greeks Shout “NO!”

Monday, 06 July 2015 12:28

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, July 6, 2015:

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Greek citizens shouted “No!” to further austerity measures for the hapless country in exchange for more of what got it into trouble in the first place: other people’s money. The lopsided 60-40 vote astonished telephone pollsters, who predicted a much narrower victory for Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the far-left Syriza party. Although the issues were far more complicated than the referendum made it appear, the 68-word ballot question made it easy: do you want more increases in taxes, more cuts in pension benefits, another increase in the VAT … or not? Translated into English, the ballot read:

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Greece to the EU: NO!

Monday, 06 July 2015 05:38

This article was published online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 6, 2015:

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In an astonishing blow to the European Union’s credibility, Greek voters, fed up with five years of austerity, continuing recession, 25-percent unemployment, and severe cuts in pension payouts, strongly said “No!” at the ballot box Sunday. The 68-word ballot question, rejected by 61 percent of the voters, reads (translated into English):

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Will Sunday’s Greek vote Signal the end of Monnet’s Dream?

Saturday, 04 July 2015 05:39

This article was published at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, July 3, 2015:

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Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that Sunday’s vote is only about accepting or rejecting the troika’s terms to restart the flow of bailout funds that has been keeping the Greek economy from tanking. He said that a “no” vote “does not mean rupture with Europe but a return to Europe with values.”

Most assuredly Sunday’s vote is likely to, in hindsight, turn out to be much more than that. Historians might write that Sunday, July 5, 2015, ended Monnet’s dream.

Monnet was the architect, the primary driving force, behind the failing experiment in Europe called the European Union. He was head of the first genuine European executive body,

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Greece: Capital Controls Threat Increases as Deadline Approaches

Tuesday, 23 June 2015 04:22

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, June 22, 2015:

The announcement last week by Greece’s central bank that it may be forced to start implementing capital controls — eliminating the ability of Greeks who still have any money in the bank to withdraw it or send it to another country for safekeeping — may just be a ploy to bring more pressure on the Troika (European Central Bank, IMF, and eurozone countries) to release the last batch of funds from Bailout Number Three.

Withdrawals by nervous Greeks began last fall as Bailouts Number One, Two, and Three were only pushing the country further into recession. Withdrawal from the eurozone itself became increasingly likely, with the result that the euro would be replaced in Greece with a new currency with much less purchasing power.

Ever since Greece joined the European Community, later to be called the European Union, it has enjoyed far better credit ratings than it deserved. Assured that default was now no longer an option, central banks and other international financial institutions were more than willing to

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U.S. Government’s Interest Costs to Quadruple in 10 Years

Friday, 06 February 2015 05:26

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 5, 2015:

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On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the federal government will be paying $800 billion annually just to service the interest on its massive debt by 2025, up from just over $200 billion currently. By 2021, those interest costs will equal what the government is projected to be spending on national defense, and on non-defense (so-called “discretionary” items), and will greatly exceed those two budget items just by 2025. The Journal also noted that “non-discretionary” items (so-called “mandatory” expenditures) will continue their inexorable march upward, from $2 trillion currently to more than $4 trillion by 2025.

Surprisingly, few eyebrows were raised over the announcement,

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Wisconsin Governor Walker to Substantially Reduce University Spending

Thursday, 05 February 2015 05:37

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 4, 2015:

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On Tuesday, as part of his continuing quest to bring Wisconsin’s government spending under control, Governor Scott Walker announced a 13-percent cut to the University of Wisconsin’s $2.3 billion annual budget. In addition, his plan includes a two-year tuition freeze and the severance of state control over the university, passing it over to an autonomous authority. It also includes drug testing for people applying for public assistance, the merging of several state agencies, and the elimination of 400 state jobs. Walker explained: “Our plan will use common-sense reforms to create a government that is limited in scope and ultimately more effective, more efficient and more accountable.”

He also made clear in a radio interview that professors are going to have to ante up as well:

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Controversial Harvard Professors predict high inflation and defaults for the US

Friday, 17 January 2014 11:51

The two Harvard professors who made themselves famous, and then infamous, are at it again, now predicting that America will soon be forced to

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“Saudi Texas” is changing the world’s economic and political landscape

Friday, 06 December 2013 05:31

The virtual explosion in Texas’ production of natural gas and oil, thanks to fracking, caught even Citigroup off-guard. In February it apologized for so widely missing the mark in its report the previous year entitled “Energy 2020: Independence Day”:

Momentum toward North American energy independence accelerated last year [2012] well beyond the wildest dreams of any analyst and

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The Implosion of the Social Security Disability Ponzi Scheme Accelerates

Friday, 22 November 2013 13:27

Fresh data just released by the trustees of the Social Security Administration show that the number of people receiving benefits from the Disability Insurance Trust Fund has exploded over the last five years, reducing the surplus in that fund from $216 billion in 2008 to just over $100 billion in 2013. There were 7.4 million recipients in January 2009, but as of October 2013, there are nearly 9 million beneficiaries, not including

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Staff Report from the IMF Blames the European Union for Mishandling the Greek Crisis

Thursday, 06 June 2013 13:41

The report from the International Monetary Fund is remarkable in its candor: efforts to bail out Greece were fumbled as the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank all tried to promote their own agendas with little regard for the lowly Greek citizen.

Happily the disclaimer appeared on the front page:

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Austerity is impending the economy, say the Keynesians

Thursday, 09 May 2013 11:00

Two writers at The New York Times have embraced the fallacy that cutting government spending is keeping the economy from growing. It is Keynesian claptrap.

Let’s let them rant a little before responding:

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