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Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou has called for a referendum on the newest EU bailout/austerity program forced on the country. This has caused a rebellion in his own party.
The austerity measures that were imposed with the past EU deals have been deeply unpopular with the Greek people, and polls show voters disapprove of this new deal. As a result world markets are panicking based on the assumption the Greeks will vote against the deal. The Euro value has fallen (usually a good thing for them to help their exports) and all over the world stock markets are down sharply.
No one knows if the referendum will even happen, whether it will fail or what will happen if it does. It could potentially have huge implications for the economy of Europe. Paul Krugman thinks this referendum could be part of the beginning of the end of the Euro currency union as it’s currently structured. The reaction of world markets shows he is not the only one to think that way.
While I suspect in the long term Greece and other parts of Europe would be better off without the unworkable structure of the Euro, in the short term any chaos or prolonged uncertainty about a possible break up of the currency union seems likely to cause further economic downturn on the Continent.
For the Obama campaign though, what matters is how the US economy is going in the short term. Presidential elections are heavily based on the state of the economy. Obama’s job approval numbers have been slowly moving up thanks in part to a modest improvement in economic optimism. But if economic turmoil hits Europe’s economy over the next few months, a contraction there could easily spill across the Atlantic and destroy the very modest growth the American economy might otherwise see. A crisis in Europe, a huge trading partner of the United States, could end up pushing the US unemployment rate back up.
A no vote in Greek could finally force Europe into the crisis it had been kicking down the road for years. A terrible economy in Europe could drag down the American economy, producing such bad economic conditions here that it would be almost impossible for an incumbent president to win re-election.
It is possible a large part of Obama’s political success or failure may soon rest thousand of miles away with the voters in a small Mediterranean country, but only because years of total failure by European elites finally brought their continent to this brink.
85 Comments
The Elite ruling class in Greece needs Diebold’s number stat! :)
A pretty big leap from Greek referendum to bringing down O.
Getting a lot of exercise by jumping to conclusions.
AS if we didn’t have enough trouble HERE in River City already. I agree, this theory might be a stretch.
OTOH, if the Mayans were right, and the world is gonna end on December 23, 2012, perhaps we should all lighten up a bit and not take things so seriously. Surely, no matter what, we can “make do” for another 14 months.
I think we should all “party like it’s 1999″, so to speak.
Greece’s problem is the same as ours the rich don’t pay enough in taxes. Greece is not spending anywhere near what other more advanced EU countries spend on social spending healthcare etc so government spending is not the problem . The Rich EU countries that do spend more on social programs, healthcare etc are not in trouble because of their spending.
They are in trouble because their banks invested in American Home loan debt and because they invested in countries like Greece, Italy etc that ran up huge debts but did not tax the rich enough to pay their debts.
Greece needs a referendum on a tax the Assets of the rich to pay their debts taxing the income of the rich in a recession is a joke their income is hurting just like everyone’s but if Assets were taxed well that would increase the amount of money available for Greece to pay its debts.
Also Greece could cut military spending for 10 years Greece’s only enemy is Turkey and all Europe would back them up if the Turks invaded so why do they need more than an army with machine guns and grenades?
The world finance system is running on funny accounting all it takes is for one domino to fall and the rest will follow. We will know when that happens because Obama and Congress will surely cut SS and Medicare benefits before that happens to free up money to save the banks.
I knew if I hung around here long enough I’d finally end up agreeing with something you wrote.
And this nonsense about “world markets panicking” needs to stop.
There is hardly any “panic” in the 70% of trading volume done by the hedge funds and high frequency trading crowd.
Computers don’t panic…they execute.
No, what’s happening is our lunch money (read 401k balances) is being taken by the financial bullies yet again while Washington tunes its fiddle.
Huge ‘Europe’ is not going to let tiny ‘Greece’ bring down the European Union. Please.
Isn’t it 12/ 21/ ’12 ? You should check because if you’re planning a party on the 12/ 23 no one may show up.
Its a new age granted the last one that means thing change I am sure some won’t like any change but who says all change is bad? I like the direction we are headed things staying the same as they are now is what I would call bad.
Wasn’t aware we were at edaggers drawn. I’ll have to pay more attention. :-)
I was actually able to watch more than a minute of cnbc today. Lots of hyperventilating. I think Merk & Sark are about as despicable as O. But it takes a lot to bring down the system.
I’m not at all sure what will happen. So mostly in watching/waiting mode.
Sorry if this comment steps on your toes, but I’ll take the Mayans’ forecast seriously right after I take the Xtian rapture forecasts seriously.
I’m guessing they are all shorting Greek, Italy, Spain’s debt but tell me who can afford to pay them on their shorts?
I agree our lunch money regular investor’s money will get screwed. I think O and the GOP will try and steal our SS and Medicare and use the money to try and save the banks.
However I seem to recall Ben Stein and David Brooks talking about how the *cough* Great the Bush economy was right before the banking crisis happened. All the big banks needed a bailout nobody but the Left was predicting that Greenspan’s zero interest rate housing boom would end in a bust.
I don’t think it is a stretch at all. 0 has considered OWS to be at least, odious. He contorts in the most painful way to appear to empathize with a movement that would ultimately be kryptonite.
Even michael moore left denial and has publicly stated that 0 probably ‘thinks’ like a bankster.
“I mean, Wall Street set the tone and set the policy.”
“So, he might actually just believe that. That may be just the sad, sad part about Barack Obama, that not that he’s too timid or that he’s too compromising, but he actually believes in a lot of what they believe in. I hate to say that.”
If there is a referendum in Greece, the Greeks are sure to turn it down, some dominoes will fall and if the choice has to be made for some Fed intervention or assistance, or there is a lehman moment from the fallout from jon corzino’s pigeons coming home to shit.
On many of the wall street blogs, especially zero hedge, the thread commentariat has been expounding on the possibility that corzino will sleep with the fishes to distract from goldman, again.
goldman is totally behind the rot that is the root canal that cooked the Greek books for the last 10 years.
They were in a shitload of debt after betting bad on the revenue generating possibilities of the olympics.
No one came, the money was squandered on infrastructure, and totally immolated in the guise of anti terror security, was never recovered through commerce.
Sorry for being somewhat convoluted but these are external forces that created the energy behind the beginning of OWS, with our own financial duplicity and failure to hold the crooks accountable.
OWS will have met with a perfect storm for their existence.
So, 0 may not be ‘brought down’, but he will have a real hard time filling the teleprompter with populist inspiration.
Whether or not Greece votes no and brings down the Euro, Obama has done nothing to warrant being re-elected in his own right. Every economic decision made by his administration has favored the 1% over the rest of us. His one and only reason for being re-elected is that the other guy will be even worse – and that no longer works for me. Even if these neo-liberal bastards in Washington and Brussels manage to get lucky and avert a world-wide collapse unemployment in the States will not improve to less than 8% by 2012.
What was that line….”F*ck’m, it’ll be a lesson to the rest”.
I hope the “rest” pays attention.
Never did understand the rush to save the banks….more will spring up.
The people never had any input from the coming/supposed “armegeddon”.
Now look where we’re at….
They don’t panic because they are algorithms, programmed to function in a nano second. These trading sharks make money on the way up, and on the way down. They don’t give a fuck or ‘think’ about anything.
Not ruling it out. Did a little (mighty little) reading in chaos theory over a decade ago and as as result am duly reverential wrt butterflies and 1000 miles and all that shit.
(To be honest, math involved in chaos theory is so far above my pay grade that I must cope by making fun. Feel free to attack away.)
They have a better track record than the Fundies Day 7 year of the Reed the White God did come back after being driven out as ruler of Mexico by his brother the lord of the Smoking Mirror. Well ok a White Guy did come on that day prophecy is an
inexactnot even a science. Much like economics as long as the Chicago School and Ron Paul still get to claim to be economists.But its totally unfair to compare us to the fundies! :)
Personally, I almost wish the Rapture those nutjobs believe in would happen. That’s half the Repub and tea Parties right there. Now if we only had something similar to make the neo-libs and DINO’s dissappear… /s
Not that big a stretch. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving politician, who is obsessed with looking forward. So, onward. Win the future! Your past has been dismal.
Aside: There is a Pap vote of confidence on Friday. Has 2 vote majority.
Might provide some interesting evidence.
How the hell would anyone know what the Mayans’ track records would be. I haven’t seen a recent update.
Not THAT far-fetched. We have a number of financial institutions facing significant downside exposure from substantial investments in instruments linked to Eurodebt. I can easily see Obama being politically tone-deaf enough to propose a bailout of those institutions while, at the same time, calling on us to shoulder the burden by accepting cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Oh, I’ve typed that on several threads. If wishes were only unicorns.
On second thought, what I really want are goats, not unicorns. Goats are said to eat every undesirable weed.
We need to forget about who is the next President and start organizing for congressional seats and maybe senate seats for OWS approved D’s or I’s. Candidates who will sign on to the principles of OWS and not take money from the 1%. If this is a movement that will fundamentally change our political system into a truer Democracy it has to have actual representatives. The OWS convention in Philadelphia should be the fulcrum that shifts power from the 1% to us.
The Mayan end of the world has come and gone and those predictions were written by their 1%ers.
Thats why I think the vote on the referendum will be rigged so that the Prime Minister can claim a Mandate just like Bush did when he tried to Privatize SS, Bush’s failure to Privatize SS is now Bush’s biggest regret he says.
The question is will the Greeks accept a stolen election? I think the referendum is just a play for time so tempers can cool down and the media can try and convince the Greeks to drink the Cool Aid.
A stolen election could trigger a revolt and no payment at all on the debt Arab Spring will have spread to the EU and Spain, Italy etc will see the interest rates on their debts go sky high.
If heaven is full of Fundies I’ll take the other option.
Actually if this were to happen it could work well for O. focus everyone on forces outside anyone’s control rather than all the things within his control that he has neither fixed or made worse.
A record of one that I can think of beats the fundies record of 0:)
I expect Greek pols and right wing groups to be showered with money soon the Greek 1%ers need muscle in the street and Fox News lies to create an illusion of a majority so the Greeks might believe that the referendum election is legit.
I and another hs classmate were responsible for getting senior pics/bios into yearbook. 50 years ago. Class of 450, but one guy I knew well, wanted “Rule in hell rather than serve in heaven” as his quote. We put it thru, no one noticed, so it lives on.
Gotta go nice talk:)
ha ha!
Funny but I was I’m thinking more about if there is eternal life why would I want to spend eternity talking to a bunch of stupid bigots who lie all the time? Why would I want to spend eternity without Beer in Fundy heaven when being surrounded by Fundies would drive me to want to drink constantly?
Fundy heaven is my idea of Hell:) Ok gotta go serious bye.
That’s the situation in a nutshell, and deserves to be seen in print a second time. Nice going.
I have agreed with most of your posts in this thread today.
On the referendum, I see it differently, and didn’t even consider the fact the referendum would be rigged.
GPap pretty much wants to wash his hands of the mess, and he is going to throw it to ‘the people’.
The Greeks WILL NOT accept a stolen election.
The country will explode if there is even a hint of impropriety.
They have already taken it to the streets with more rage than any of the other countries.
You accurately described some of the sclerosis in their tax structure, that coupled by the what the banksters from new york and london tied a gordian knot around their necks, the focused rage against the banksters will become very difficult to quell.
They make take their money and go home and make us all suffer. The Mayan calendar apocalypse that is impending may be the quakes of -$$$$$$-.
well an attack from me over your views is not in the cards. I appreciate the way you assemble thoughts, and agree with you most of the time, on this point we see things from different perspectives.
If the Greek referendum is not the straw that breaks the back of Western Capitalism something else will be. Obama’s reelection chances are perhaps the most trivial consideration in such an event. For me personally, with or without a collapsing Empire, what’s for supper is more important than Obama’s fucking reelection campaign.
I think Jon’s concerns are perfectly valid, here. The Greeks should pay no attention, though, and save themselves however they can.
My assessment is largely the same.
But suppose the PM is looking for an out? Maybe he sees the referendum as a way to upend an agreement he couldn’t refuse on his own?
If Robert Reich is correct in what he wrote yesterday, that optimism will be short-lived anyway. What the state of Europe really means for us is how bad it’s going to get, at least until the “leadership” of the world’s economic powers decide that the bankers have gotten all they’re getting for a while. What Reich said, in essence, is that the recent uptick in spending was due to people using more of their savings. Economically, that’s like eating the seed corn, and sooner or later that has to stop.
You forgot the snark tag.
That BBC article (the second link) says the referendum would be in a few weeks’ time, if it happens. If it does, and the Greeks decide not to opt for austerity, then I think the end of the Obama Administration is one possible bit of fallout.
In every possible short term; bailout, borrowing, money printing and phoney accounting will always be the best policy. There will never come a time when this isn’t true. So wish all you want that the system can be ‘fixed’ and we can get back to normal ‘growth’ with just one more bailout but every bailout will beget another. Until that is that the system just dislocates. In the meantime the rich and powerful will become more rich and more powerful with each iteration of rescue.
The public in every country will always be against bailout. Even if they half know the result will be terrible for them. The elites are all for bailout in every circumstance and they are the designers of the plans. If you are for bailout and OWS you are schizophrenic or muddy headed.
Heard on cnbc that ref will happen in Jan. Sounds like we don’t know the timing yet.
But vote of confidence on Pap is Friday. So that could provide some evidence.
It’s hard to believe the world’s democracies could object to the people voting on this. Is this really the beginning of the European spring? The conservatives must really fear this.
I do not believe it serves any useful purpose to acknowledge weakness in liberalism. This is acceptance of the dogma of the Right. The Right is wrong, and we should remember that the discussion is far more nuanced that such simplicity/simple-mindedness.
And where was I to place it?
World markets aren’t panicking, they are being gamed to our detriment.
And please trust me, there will be a mean game of EU ‘financial chicken’ played, but there will be no collapse of the EU because of teeny tiny Greece.
It may well be that the rich Greeks don’t pay enough in taxes. Yet there haven’t been many details in the media about that — except for, anecdotally, a WSJ piece a couple of months ago about excess swimming pools noticed in Athens’ suburbs. That was a marker that too many people were living beyond their means, implying they are not taxed enough, and the difference should be in the state’s coffers rather than enjoyed by pool contractors.
There was another WSJ piece, at about the same time, about rich Greeks spiriting their wealth overseas and then leaving. It’s all murky, though, as to why all of this is the case (if it is).
Somehow the responsible European countries that tax high wealth more than Greece (do they?), provide needed services within a more stable budget, and are able to maintain a relatively satisfied populace — how does this come about? Does Greece have a rotten tax code, or is it more about rotten wealthy Greeks who evade such? Then if they pay up like rich Germans, will Greece’s problems go away?
It would also be useful to know more about the money loaned to Greece, AKA “sovereign debt,” or perhaps the “banking crisis” as DD insists. Where did that money go after deplaning in Athens? My hunch is that too much of it was spirited away in corrupt ways right under the noses of an unwatchful public and investors.
We don’t know enough about any of this yet. It seems to me that printing more money and taxing more might solve only a small bit of the problem, and the rest will remain.
In the long run, we’re NOT all dead.
We’re not, I was just pickin’ with ya.
But limit that CNBC watching; it can rot your brain if you aren’t careful. I That, and having to read that right wing rag the Wall Street Journal are two curses of my profession.
I think Jon MIGHT be on to something. It’s going to be even harder for Obama to pitch himself as the big reformer, if the stock market is eating it’s shorts. And if Greece goes into full-on 1929 mode, there will be ripples and probably, big ones. Having said that, Pap is meeting with Sarkozy and Merkel this week, and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t walk back that referendum thing. The temple money-shufflers have too much riding on this for him not to.
It’s all about control and protecting the status quo. This house of cards/floating crap game that we’ve exported to, seemingly, the entire world, is teetering on the brink of collapse. It can’t be supported by the top: has to have the peons at least going along with it, if not taking vestigial part in it, and there’s the rub; too many of us are saying “no mas!”. We just don’t believe that shuffling money around from one group of corporate hogs to another, is going to make things better.
That’s why the bought-and-paid-for msm is always preaching at us to stop being cyinical and to start enjoying the cake-eating, even if the cake is stale dog-biscuits.
That thing about “spiriting their wealth overseas and then leaving” is getting to be de riguer for the fatcats, of all nationalities, and I’ll be surprised if we don’t start hearing more about rich americans looking for some place to hide out, in the next few months.
The people camping out in american cities and holding up signs reading “Jump, you fuckers!” had to have been a shock. :o)
The “size” of Greece is not the issue. You may need to expand your reading somewhat.
STTP: Hearing, repeatedly, about the possibility of Greece going bankrupt is NOT part of a conspiracy. The Bastille aristocrats in all countries, don’t like it when people are taking to the streets and particularly, as in Greece, doing it violently.
I think that when Pap set that referendum, it made for very real earth tremors under Wall Street and it’s equivalents around the world. They were like “WTF are you THINKING…to give people the chance to vote on MORE austerity measures.”
YOU trust ME: Wall Street does not like bouncing around like a yo-yo. It scares people, and is bad for the status quo.
This is real, and if it continues, it could really start to get out of control, and the only thing that will stop it are some Roosevelt-style remedies of taking quick action to put money in the hands of the cottage people. Fatcats hate it when that happens. :o)
Needless to say, Barack Obama is very much at risk of the same thing, and his “EU” is run by John Boehner and a bunch of people who wouldn’t walk out of their offices to take a piss on him if he was sitting on the capitol steps on fire.
“…if this were to happen, it could work well for O…”
I don’t think so. The responsibility-shifting train left the station a long time ago; along about the day after the mid-terms. We’ve been stuck at 9% unemployment while pissing that $3 billion a week down the tube in Afghanistan and Iraq, for every day of it. Too many people are onto the fact that the Wall Street barons are eating way high on the hog, while the rest of us learn to like kibble and warm water, figuratively.
That sign: “The buck stops here.”…?
It aint sitting on John Boehner’s desk.
This was the situation as of 6PM today:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20111101/D9QO6TEG1.html
Good lord. It’s not all about Obama. Who CARES what happens to Obama next year. Either we get the Corporatist Democrat or the Corporatist Republican. There is no difference as far as I am concerned.
As for the Greek referendum, if it happens there is absolutely no doubt about how the Greek people will vote. Even the stockbrokers know that, which is why the Dow lost over 200 points today. The entire global financial system is teetering on the brink of collapse because it is fundamentally unsustainable. Because it is capitalist.
Crash and burn, baby, burn. Let it fall. Good!
Uhh…at the end of the day it is. The EU is not going to fail because of Greece.
There.. I said it again.
And, as for my reading habits, just because I don’t care to get lost in the weeds of the ‘interconnectedness of the world’s financial markets’ doesn’t mean I don’t read plenty about it.
I’ve been in financial services over 25 years and have seen these greedy bastards cry “Wolf” more times than I care to remember, all to make a buck at the expense of the rest of us.
So, if you care to believe “But…this time is different” have at it.
I don’t.
You may need to expand your understanding of how these people operate.
I wasn’t thinking of Obama, but I laughed out loud when I heard the Greek PM wanted a vote on the austerity last night on the BBC news. I have a bitter sense of humor. Funny to see here that there is an understanding of one thread pulling it all apart. There is an August 1914 feeling on this. The end of Obama-small potatoes.
“. . .The entire global financial system is teetering on the brink of collapse because it is fundamentally unsustainable. Because it is capitalist. . .”
——————–
According to Autie Mame in 1929, “there isn’t anything the matter, except nothing’s worth anything anymore.”
I wonder if the collapse you perceive has to do with an inability of our system to assign accurate intrinsic values to anything nowadays. How long has this been going on? I had always thought that was the core weakness of Marxism, but. . .
Never said it was. I just said it’s not going to take the EU with it.
Respectfully disagree. Bouncing around (or volatility) is exactly what the people (hedge funds and high frequency traders) who now control 70% of the trading activity want. That’s how they make the quick cash. Unlike most of us, they could give a rat’s ass about the direction, because they make cash up or down.
This is why most 401k plans have done nothing for the last decade. Every time the markets go up, they set their short positions and scare it back down, making money both ways.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Intrinsic values? I don’t know what you mean. No, I mean the inequality of wealth has reached a global tipping point. It’s getting to You’ve got it, you stole it from us, we need it back, and we’re taking it, over your dead body if necessary.
There’s a lot of anger out here in the real world. And it’s starting to get focused. Interesting times loom, just a few years away.
I’m just showing up here and I haven’t read any of the comments, yet.
So, forgive me.
If Obama goes down.
What next?
Serious quesion.
Gawd, now that I’m going back to read the comments, I hope someone else asked that question.
Or…
Well, I skimmed and probably missed the coherent answer to my question.
S’all good, pups.
Bye.
Isn’t there anyone who has an answer?
Dec 21, the afternoon of the winter solstice.
If that referendum doesn’t happen until Janauary this will be all over but the shouting. They can’t wait that long. (?) Is there a chance the Greeks are playing brinksmanship to get a better deal? Maybe they figure Germany and France stand to lose more?
We need for both parties to be out of office.
we need a completely new system and a completely new economy.
The more I see this yo yo on Wall Street the more I think that is the only thing explains it.
Part of the fall of the Mayan Empire, which lasted over a thousand years, was due to too few serfs and too many elite who depended on them. The serfs farmed and fed the elites. As the City/States grew in size and population, they pushed the farmers out. Slash and burn technology was needed to sustain food production for the elites. Unfortunately, the ecosystems collapsed and so did the city/states.
You became an elite by being born into it. Eventually, there were just too many elites to support
Seems to be a parallel with todays ecosystems and politics.
Using a similar Aztec analogy, Obama acted like Cortez saying he’d free the Tlaxcalans if they helped him to conquer the Aztecs…then once he got into power, it turns out that he was as bad or worse an oppressive elite than the old boss. Hope and Change was just PR fed to the Tlaxcalans as we got that fed to us and still get that fed to us. No surprise that Corzine was an Obama mega-bundler.
STTP: The ptb like using Wall Street as their thermom. When it’s banging off the top and the bottom, it’s not good. Socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for poor and working-class americans doesn’t work well unless the poor and working-class are still fairly optimistic.
We are not optimistic, anymore, and the damage done to the great holy see of capitalism, Wall Street, from it looking like a back-alley crapshoot, is something that our economic lords are not happy about. You can respectfully disagree all you want to, but the fat is in the fire, and while the lairds are still making money off it, they’re worried that that their days are numbered. If the shit really hits the fan, they may well be.
Demi, a fair question, about: apres Obama; then what?
I think, probably, a Romney White House. Not good, but at this point, the main thing to be gained, or salvaged, from Obama’s sellout term, is the instruction to future dems, that if you get elected as a progressive and then govern as a country-club republican, you’ll go down as a poster boy for political failure, and you’ll take the democratic party with you.
I’m sorry, but I think that needs to happen, for a real political sea-change/purgative to occur. We thought that the savage idiocy of Bush and the repubs were enough to give Obama the courage and drive (along with the clout we gave him…) to go after the shits. Clearly, we were wrong. Some people can assign it to a conspiracy, if they want, but I don’t believe that Barack Obama came into office looking to end his term, as an abject failure. His problems, and ours, come from from the fact that he’s a political coward, and a dumb political coward, at that.
Anyone who thinks that he can now make himself attractive enough to the voters to get a second term, needs to tell us how he’s going to do that.
“We suck less!” didn’t work in the mid-terms, and it’s going to be an even worse campaign strategy for 2012. In fact, I think that the only way we might be able to keep the Senate is to dump Obama and run a relatively new face. I’m hoping that in a few months, his numbers will have incumbent democrats shitting themselves, to the point that they stage an intra-party coup against he and the other “bipartisans”, but then, no political party I’ve ever seen has a deathwish like the democrats.
Market performance (or non-performance) used to be tied pretty much to earnings, give or take a little depending on what the overall economy was doing.
This made sense because the higher earnings went, the higher the corresponding stocks’ price went as well. So if you, your broker, or your mutual fund did a decent job of forecasting a company’s future prospects you did well.
But see, a sleepy old 8-10% annual return wasn’t good enough for The Greedy Bastards (a.k.a the MOTU). No, that was too much hard work- visiting companies, talking to managements, kicking the tires, etc.
No, all that stuff took away from being at the tennis club and the dinner parties, and besides who’s gonna pay 20% of gains and a base fee of 2% (standard hedge fund rates) for that?
The way to go was leverage! And not just 3-1 or 5-1 leverage; I’m talkin’ 40-1! That’ll juice up the returns. A 5% gain pumped up with 40-1 leverage turns into a 200% gain (minus interest costs).
So, in order to get to that nirvana, this pesky thing called Glass-Steagall had to be done away with. Well, that was just a matter of a few hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions and solemn assurances that this was needed in order to keep Wall Street from moving trading activity to Europe, and “Voila!” Here we are.
The voters in both France and Germany, two of the EU “rocks”, are deeply suspicious of helping Greece. Sarkozy and Merkel will pay a price for this Venusian fire drill, and so will the the EU.
What’s happening in Greece is a nationalist’s wet dream, all over Europe.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan so wonderfully put it…
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
70% of trading activity is done by people who could not care less about the direction of the market. Now, that is a fact. If our “economic lords” were so displeased by this, why do they allow it?
I mean, they’re lords after all, so they could stop it if they wanted to.
It’s like you’re saying that the car going down the road with a rod knocking against the crankcase is really OK, since the mechanics will still make money off it. The mechanics are way outnumbered by the investors and stock buyers and traders. If the conventional wisdom is that it’s really tanking, these 300 point drops will look like the good old days, and the “mechanics” can go fish.
What? I’m saying no such thing, and I am most certainly not saying it’s OK.
What I am doing is pointing out what’s happening beyond the obvious in financial markets. I think we both can agree it’s wrong.
I read that one of the long Mesoamerican calendar cycles ended just as Cortes and the Spaniards landed on the shores of Mexico.
There is indeed an August 1914 feeling to all this. The PTB who control things today really came into being on that date. Now there are signs the PTB are cracking. The growth of OWS is one indicator. The Greek prime minister’s decision for a referendum is another (even if the prime minister backtracks, the PTB look indecisive and weak in the face of popular resistance).
This three legged House of Cards is at present trying to balance on one leg, the quicker the Economic Collapse the better for the 99%
No doubt it will wash across the world like a tsunami
LMAO!!!
Yeah, I’m concerned by the Senate, too.
It could take the loss of just a Dem seat or two and the GOP will offer any other blue dog something for a Jeffords-like flip (assuming they even need to).
I think Obama keeping the WH is a better bet than a Dem Senate.