John O'Brennan cuts to the heart of the Eurozone crisis, outlining the political consequences of issuing aloof, one-size-fits-all austerity requirements from afar:

The European crisis is as much a crisis of politics as economics. The current paralysis of the Greek political system demonstrates the point very clearly. EU policy has actively contributed to this crisis by effectively sealing off discussion of the political problems thrown up by austerity.

Budgetary policy is at the core of traditional democratic politics in Europe but the management of the euro zone is increasingly being effected not through democratic institutions but via a centralised and depoliticised form of technocratic fiat. The “stability” narrative has triumphed over the need for legitimacy as the crisis in Europe has deepened.

Ivan Krastev, the eminent political scientist, argues that we have now arrived at a point where national governments have politics but are no longer in control of policy, including budgetary policy, which is moving via the fiscal treaty and other measures to the EU level.

On the other side of this divide the European Union has policies but no politics, since decisions are increasingly being made by technocratic managers rather than directly elected representatives of the European public. The euro zone crisis has thus amplified an existing problem – the absence of both a European citizenry and a transparent European level political process.

The whole thing. Read.

h/t RCW.

The Guardian's Helena Smith talks to Greek leftist leader Alex Tsipras:

Tsipras, who turns 38 in July, wants me to know that the war is not personal. The enemy is not Berlin, until now the biggest provider of the monumental rescue funds keeping the debt-stricken economy afloat. "It is not between nations and peoples," he says. "On the one side there are workers and a majority of people and on the other are global capitalists, bankers, profiteers on stock exchanges, the big funds. It's a war between peoples and capitalism … and as in each war what happens on the frontline defines the battle. It will be decisive for the war elsewhere."

Greece, he says, has become a model for the rest of Europe because it was the first country to fall victim to the enforcement of hard-hitting "growth through austerity" policies pursued in the name of resolving the crisis.

"It was chosen as the experiment for the enforcement of neo-liberal shock [policies] and Greek people were the guinea pigs," he insists.

"If the experiment continues, it will be considered successful and the policies will be applied in other countries. That's why it is so important to stop the experiment. It will not just be a victory for Greece but for all of Europe."

Even the old capitalist robber-barons understood that the way to get wealthy was to create wealth for all while making sure you kept the lion's share. Neoliberal austerity policies are just asset stripping under a false banner.

Not sure exactly when I said it, but I did predict that Greece would exit the Euro. I also said that it should leave the Euro sooner, rather than later and do so on its own terms. Now elite opinion has decided it's okay for Greece to exit. Mostly because the neoliberals have already raped the economy there. You heard it here first.

David Wearing at New Left Project reviews Belén Fernández's recent book, The Imperial Messenger – Thomas Friedman At Work, noting how Friedman's banal pro-imperialist bloviation reflects -- and helps to further -- an all-too entrenched broader mentality:

Friedman puts the Iraqi public’s failure to appreciate the benefits of foreign occupation down to “the wall in the Arab mind”. As Fernández notes, “the Orientalist tendency to anchor Oriental subjects in antiquity, where they remain in perpetual need of civilisation by the West and its militaries, is viewable time and again in Friedman’s discourse”. Arabs and Muslims are “backward”. Iraqis “hate each other more than they love their own kids”. Shortly after the invasion of 2003, he opines that “it would be idiotic to even ask Iraqis here how they felt about politics. They are in a pre-political, primordial state of nature”.

For the American missionaries, the noble mission of raising the savages out of the swamp is not without its dangers. “While we would like an Iraqi national movement – building Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis – to coalesce, we don’t want it coalescing in opposition to us”. Evidently then there is a limit to which even this staunch advocate of enlightened Western values will support democracy, the limit being whether the liberated people then bow before the might of western power.

All of this would be of limited relevance were Friedman an isolated figure, rather than the ugly face of ideas and assumptions which have a much wider currency. His complaint that American occupying forces in Iraq “are baby-sitting a civil war” is a direct echo of Barack Obama’s promise during the 2007 presidential election campaign that “we're not going to babysit a civil war”, as though the bloodbath engulfing the country was attributable to the infantilism of its people and not to the effects of it being violently invaded by a foreign power. Elsewhere, Friedman’s likening of the US occupation of Afghanistan to the adoption of a “special needs baby” bears more than a passing resemblance to Donald Rumsfeld’s description of Washington’s role in teaching Iraqis how to run their own country:

“Getting Iraq straightened out was like teaching a kid to ride a bike: 'They're learning, and you're running down the street holding on to the back of the seat. You know that if you take your hand off they could fall, so you take a finger off and then two fingers, and pretty soon you're just barely touching it. You can't know when you're running down the street how many steps you're going to have to take. We can't know that, but we're off to a good start.”

The flip side of this casual racism is of course the chauvinistic view of the nature of Western civilisation; the paternal figure to the Iraqi and Afghan infants. For Friedman, “without a strong America holding the world together, and doing the right thing more often than not, the world really would be a Hobbesian jungle”, a faith in the benevolence of Western power which is shared right across the spectrum of mainstream intellectual opinion.

Related: If you have not yet done so, please read--nay, experience--Matt Taibbi's legendary takedown of The World is Flat. If snark were whiskey we'd all be shit-faced before breakfast.

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Michael Hudson asks: "In light of the enormous productivity gains since the end of World War II – and especially since 1980 – why isn’t everyone rich and enjoying the leisure economy that was promised?"

The answer (per Hudson) is painfully obvious, but bears repeating (ad infinitum):

What was applauded as a post-industrial economy has turned into a financialized economy. The reason you have to work so much harder than before, even when wages rise, is to carry your debt overhead. You’re unable to buy the goods you produce because you need to pay your bankers. And the only way that you can barely maintain your living standards is to borrow even more. This means having to pay back even more in years to come.

That is the Eurozone plan in a nutshell for its economic future. It is a financial plan that is replacing industrial capitalism – with finance capitalism.

Industrial capitalism was based on increasing production and expanding markets. Industrialists were supposed to use their profits to build more factories, buy more machinery and hire more labor. But this is not what happens under finance capitalism. Banks lend out their receipt of interest, fees and penalties (which now yield credit card companies as much as interest) in new loans.

The problem is that income used to pay debts cannot simultaneously be used to buy the goods and services that labor produces. So when wages and living standards do not rise, how are producers to sell – unless they find new markets abroad? The gains have been siphoned off by finance. And the financial dynamic ends up in austerity.

And to make matters worse, it is not the fat that is cut. The fat is the financial sector. What is cut is the bone: the industrial sector. So when writers refer to a post-industrial economy led by the banks, they imply deindustrialization. And for you it means unemployment and lower wages.

As they say, read the whole damn thing.

And weep.

h/t

Originally posted at bastard.logic

(Image: jesse.millan, Flickr)

Al-Jazeera (May 4) - from Nikolas Kosmatopoulos's provocative Op-Ed just prior to this Sunday's elections, May 5:

Urban myth has it that a slogan by the Spanish protesters in Puerta del Sol fuelled the spark for the Greek Tahrir - Syntagma Square - in spring 2011: "Be silent or you will wake up Greece".
 

The "Greek crisis" has had at least two side effects so far: it demonstrated that official politics has no vision whatsoever, and that mainstream journalism has no shame...

While workers and pensioners throughout the country are deprived of basic means for survival, both parties ask them to be patient and make sure they do not die until May 6.

In the face of all this, it appears essential to ask whether, instead of drafting an electoral program, it would be more useful to craft everyday programs of population mobilisation against elite-driven violence and misery.

Read the entire piece (photo: BBC).

First, do nothing:

Obama turned his call for middle-income tax breaks into law within a month of taking office, incorporating a $400-a-person tax credit for workers into the 2009 stimulus law. In late 2010, with the economy still weak and Republicans gaining political clout, Obama agreed to an $858 billion tax cut that extended all of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for two years.

"The tax policy has been substantially in the conservative direction whereas the rhetoric has gone in the exact opposite direction," said Don Susswein, a tax aide to former Republican Senator Bob Dole who said he supported Obama in 2008.

Patrick Wintour | Mar 16

Guardian Online - George Osborne will announce plans to pay lower salaries to public sector workers in poorer parts of the country in his budget next week.

The chancellor will argue that public sector pay should mimic the private sector and be more reflective of local economies. He intends to start the process in three Whitehall departments in the coming financial year, as part of a phased introduction.

Critics say the move will entrench economic divisions between north and south and depress regions of the country already struggling in the economic downturn.

It has not yet been decided if localised pay will apply only to new staff or to existing staff as well, but it was being stressed that no current employee would suffer a pay cut. Instead pay levels will gradually be adjusted to take account of costs, leading to larger pay rises in the south-east where some labour shortages exist.
 

The dismemberment/privatisation of the UK civil service continues...
Hey, does that mean members of Parliament should also suffer this pay differential? ;-)

The Wall Street Journal suggests that big banks should be broken up. Citing the inadequacy of the Volcker Rule in the Dodd-Frank bill now wending its way through Congress, the Journal states any real reform should include "a Congressional plan either for allowing large banks to fail or for breaking them up."

Horrors! Nationalizing banks? The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal?

More astounding: Jamie Dimon, the head of JP Morgan Chase Bank and an proud 1%er (he once claimed to feel safer in Lebanon than amongst the Occupy Wall Street members) is for raising his own taxes:

Mitt Romney, tribune of the people, still doesn't seem to get a simple concept: Social Security is popular. With everybody. And particularly with older tea-party-supporting white voters who can often be counted on to be conservative on numerous other issues, and turn out in elections in key swing states.

It's pretty simple, really. It is perhaps the most successful government program ever, is the largest insurance program for children, and seniors benefiting from their earned benefits during their golden years are rather hesitant to lay it down on the altar of Mitt's very own Golden Calf -- Wall Street. Quelle surprise, as Mitt would have said during his tour as a Mormon missionary in France.

The Arab Spring opened on the road in Tunisia before hitting the big time in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. The workers of the unofficial Egyptian union movement had fought the neoconservative run government of Hosni Mubarak for years. This was their moment. Unfortunately, there were others present who wanted to make it their moment. Some of them, sixteen representatives of U.S. supported non-government organizations (NGOs), have been indicted by the Egyptian government for meddling in the internal political affairs of that country (Feb 5, 2012)

SourceWatch

. . . working out?

No, she won't.

. . . hippies have been proved right, but we will still get more austerity.

Reuters, By Ayesha Rascoe & Richard Cowan, January 23

Washington - President Barack Obama will encourage the country's booming natural gas output in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, while defending his administration's energy record, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Obama was expected to devote a significant portion of his speech slated for 9 p.m. EST Tuesday calling for a "new era for American energy," which will include promoting domestic natural gas production, according to documents provided to Democratic party sources.

U.S. natural gas output has grown sharply in recent years thanks to advances in drilling techniques that have unlocked massive shale reserves.

. . . the government is stealing your retirement. Literally.

. . . so that 13 year-old Chinese pesants would only work half-day shifts manufacturing our gadgets. And yes, I have an iPhone. And yes, my conscience stings. An no, I probably won't do a fucking thing about it.

Credit Card companies, no longer satisfied with stealing from cardholders are now stealing from everyone.

I was nine years old at the time. We were in school one morning when our teacher was called away. This was a very unusual occurrence. We sat quietly waiting, and when teacher returned, she was crying and shaking uncontrollably. All of us were worried and confused – teacher had never acted this way before. In fact we had never seen any emotion from her at all. “What has happened, teacher?”, someone called out. Sobbing, she replied – “Children, Great Teacher has died!”

It was as if you pushed a button in the room. Instantaneously all of us burst into tears, with many of us wailing “What is going to happen to us? Who is going to take care of us? How will we live?” It never occurred to any of us that our parents or some responsible adult would take care of us. From the moment we were aware of the outer world, we understood that all that was good, beautiful and intelligent in the world came from Great Teacher.

We're in for a long and bumpy ride:

True, historical parallels are never precise. We won’t re-play the long depression of 1873 to 1896 exactly, nor will this slump necessarily last as long. It is, however, a far more instructive episode than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
That time frame would see this depression end in 2031, just so you see the problem.

Now, we do have some tools to use that the world didn't back in the 19th Century, of course, many of which are designed to mitigate, lessen, and shorten an economic downturn.

. . . inspired confidence fairy is working her miracles on Greece! What's next, Green Shoots?

The UK gives the bird to the European Union:

WE JOURNALISTS are probably too bleary-eyed after a sleepless night to understand the full significance of what has just happened in Brussels. What is clear is that after a long, hard and rancorous negotiation, at about 5am this morning the European Union split in a fundamental way . . .

For Britain the benefit of the bargain in Brussels is far from clear. It took a good half-hour after the end of Mr Sarkozy's appearance for Mr Cameron to emerge and explain his action. The prime minister claimed he had taken a “tough decision but the right one” for British interests—particularly for its financial-services industry. In return for his agreement to change the EU treaties, Mr Cameron had wanted a number of safeguards for Britain. When he did not get them, he used his veto.

After much studied vagueness on his part about Britain's objectives, Mr Cameron's demand came down to a protocol that would ensure Britain would be given a veto on financial-services regulation.

Cameron has chosen the bankers over the common good in Europe. Doesn't surprise me.

Thomas Watson | Paris, France | October 20

canadianbusiness - Don’t be fooled by the reference to fighting dark arts. This isn’t a graduate program offered by Harry Potter’s beloved Hogwarts. The institution out to conquer evil in this case is the deadly serious École de Guerre Économique, known in English circles as the School of Economic Warfare, where students are equipped with a unique and controversial set of skills that school founders insist are required to successfully lead modern corporations on the battlefield of capitalism, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

~by Phil Sloan

After the announcement of complete and utter failure by the so-called “super committee,” the more cynical side of my brain has taken over. I had thought that the members might have struck a last-minute compromise for the good of the country, but now I’m starting to think I’d been sprayed with fairy dust to harbor such a ridiculous idea (not pepper spray, which is essentially a food product). Maybe I entered the twilight zone, or better yet, a Flat Earth Society meeting. When I googled the Flat Earth Society, I was flabbergasted to find that there is such a thing. It said that the group believes in passages from the bible that say the earth is flat. I am sure that if this came up during one of the endless Republican debates, more than half of the participants would agree. Why do citizens always have to pay the price for the stupidity of their elected officials? Once again our politicians have sacrificed our collective long-term interests for the short term political rewards of continued gridlock from their base. I must have lost my mind to think that maybe there were still some statesmen left.

Repeat after me: the United States Postal Service should never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, be expected to run a profit. It is a public good, not a profit center. People who use the postal service cannot afford $4.99 to mail a fucking letter.

Plus, it's one of the most timely postal services in the world. I've seen my fair share of postal services and while ours isn't perfect, it's damn good and efficient when compared to many, many others around the world.

And magical malarkey ponies, too.