Tag Archives: Greece

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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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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Hanjin Bankruptcy: a Harbinger for the Global Economy?

Friday, 09 September 2016 04:26

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 8, 2016:

South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping was the world’s seventh-largest container shipping company, moving (until last week) 100 million tons of cargo on its 200 cargo ships from manufacturers to retailers across the globe. Last week, following years of losses as the global economy has slowed, Hanjin declared bankruptcy. That move stranded 90 of those ships as off-loading companies refused to unload them over concerns that they wouldn’t be paid.

Even an offer of $90 million from what’s left of Hanjin (including $36 million from the personal assets of its chairman) fell far short of the necessary $543 million estimated to unload all of its ships that are now circling ports around the world.

Concerns are mounting that

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Resurgence of Nationalism Following Brexit Making Insiders Nervous

Thursday, 30 June 2016 05:28

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, June 29, 2016:

The first successful pushback against the machinations of the New World Order elites last week was followed by much hand-wringing, second-guessing, and suggestions that the citizens of Great Britain didn’t know what they were doing and should take a mulligan (golf term: a do-over). The Wall Street Journal published a timeline of the exit process, which could take as long as two years.

Calling it a potential “multi-year tussle,” that process has the global elites in a pickle:

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Trump Suggests National Debt “Deal,” Media Calls It “Fanciful” and “Dangerous”

Tuesday, 10 May 2016 05:29

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 9, 2016:

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A snippet from Donald Trump’s conversation with CNBC on Thursday raised the ire of numerous media commentators, who called Trump’s plan “unprecedented” (CNBC), “fanciful” and a “threat” (New York Times), and “tantamount to a debt default” (Yahoo Finance). Others called his remarks “reckless,” while Tony Fratto, a former Treasury official in the George W. Bush administration said, “This isn’t a serious idea — it’s an insane idea.”

What sparked the ire? The initial impetus was when Trump said, “[The U.S. Treasury is] paying a very low interest rate. What happens if that interest goes up two, three, four points? We don’t have a country. I mean, if you look at the numbers, they’re staggering.”

Indeed they are. The U.S. Debt Clock shows the national debt closing in on $20 trillion, while the economy is slumping along, with a GDP at just over $18 trillion. Put another way,

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Puerto Rico Stiffs Bond Investors on Monday

Monday, 04 January 2016 15:52

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 4, 2015:

Coat of Arms of Puertor Rico

Coat of Arms of Puertor Rico

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Greece Passes into History as a Sovereign Nation

Wednesday, 22 July 2015 04:40

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, July 15, 2015:

Coat of arms of Greece since 7 June 1975.

Coat of arms of Greece since 7 June 1975.

From Genesis 25 one finds this:

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

“Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”

But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

So Esau despised his birthright.

After suffering through some 17 hours of haranguing and browbeating last weekend, Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras gave away Greece’s national sovereignty for some bread and a bowl of lentil stew.

And the stew smelled to high heaven.

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The Great Greek Yard Sale

Wednesday, 15 July 2015 05:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 14, 2015:

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The great capitulation by Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last weekend will shortly be followed by the great Greek yard sale. Calling it an agreement rather than an ultimatum, the Eurozone statement from its ministers spelled out in painful detail the degree to which Greece will have lost its sovereign powers if the country’s parliament agrees to it.

First, Greece must accomplish the following no later than midnight Wednesday, July 15:

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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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Is Puerto Rico America’s Greece?

Tuesday, 07 July 2015 04:24

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

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After running deficits every year since 1973 and paying for them by borrowing, the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico has finally run out of options. On June 28, the island’s Governor Garcia Padilla admitted that its $73 billion “debt is not payable.… We will [shortly] be in a death spiral.” Padilla added: “There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math.”

The math is persuasive.

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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:

View image | gettyimages.com

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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Greek Referendum to Determine European Union’s Viability

Friday, 03 July 2015 05:06

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, July 2, 2015:

The latest polls show that on Sunday Greek citizens are likely to reject the terms of the bailout from the troika — the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — but by a steadily decreasing plurality. Before Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced the referendum, polls showed voters were opposed to the bailout terms, 57 to 30 percent. When the banks closed and citizens were restricted to withdrawing just $67 a day from their ATMs and pensioners couldn’t cash their checks, polls showed a narrowing, 46 to 37 percent.

Tsipras repeatedly said that the referendum is only about accepting or rejecting the terms imposed by the troika, not about leaving the euro or the European Union: “No does not mean rupture with Europe but a return to Europe with values.”

Citizens weren’t impressed and

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Do Negative Interest Rates Portend a Negative Economy?

Tuesday, 05 May 2015 04:20

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 4, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

Last Thursday the London Daily Telegraph’s assistant editor, Jeremy Warner, reported an astonishing statistic: Almost a third of all government debt in the eurozone is paying negative interest rates. That’s more than $2 trillion in government bonds, and, it appears, investors are happy that they aren’t paying even more.

Fifty percent of French bonds now trade with a negative yield, while 70 percent of Germany’s bonds trade at a negative yield. More remarkably, in Spain, which was on the verge of insolvency just a few years ago, 17 percent of its government bonds now trade with a negative yield.

This is counterintuitive, which explains why Keynesians, those who believe that “demand” in an economy can be artificially increased by manipulating taxes and the money supply, have no explanation for it. In theory,

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