The European Union, Greece, the Will To Power, and the Viceroys of Monetary Repression

"Talk to IMF people and they will go on about the impossibility of dealing with Syriza, their annoyance at the grandstanding, and so on. But we’re not in high school here. And right now it’s the creditors, much more than the Greeks, who keep moving the goalposts. So what is happening? Is the goal to break Syriza? Is it to force Greece into a presumably disastrous default, to encourage the others?

At this point it’s time to stop talking about 'Graccident'; if Grexit happens it will be because the creditors, or at least the IMF, wanted it to happen."

Paul Krugman, 'Breaking Greece.'

"Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."

Even more than she thinks about all those now struggling to survive without jobs or public services? "I think of them equally. And I think they should also help themselves collectively."

How?

"By all paying their tax. Yeah."

Christine Lagarde, Can the Head of the IMF Save the Eurozone 

 

This is no longer about the Greek debt. This is now about a small group of technocrats dictating domestic policy, and alas, enforced 'obedience' from a distant a central authority, using the power of monetary rather than military control.   It is painfully obvious.

So where are the economists?  Where are the analysts who pretend to authority on monetary matters, but who in fact blow with the wind from one incompatible position and crackpot theory to another, wherever their advantage may be?

Why are they not pointing out that monetary and public policy union over a large and diverse geographic area without 'fiscal transfers' between local economies, as exists in the US between the states for example, is inherently unstable, if not barking mad?  

You cannot have one distinct part of a region setting monetary and fiscal policy to suit their own needs, and expect the rest of a vast area with varying economic situations, demographics, and cycles to dance to their indifferent tune.   We know this.

This is not some theory.  This is hard experience, and one of the great issues of the 19th century in the US where New York Banks set monetary policy and drove the economies of the rest of the nation, particularly the agricultural areas of the West, into near rebellion through their callous disregard.

What are these people thinking?  This is not a political and economic union. This is neo-colonialism.  This is degenerating into a despicable parody of the white man's burden.  And they know this. 

So what is the purpose of their experiment?  What are they trying to prove?  That they are superior, apart from the power that they obtain solely from their privileged positions?

I was just listening to Larry Summers, speaking condescendingly (in his mind I am sure it was compassionately) about not trying to change the Greeks and countries like them culturally, but instead bringing them along gradually while offering 'competent administrative assistance.'  

Are you kidding me?  From the serial destroyers of wealth at the EU and the Fed?  What do these fellows imagine themselves to be, the new Viceroys of India?

Are they trying to show that if the world moved to a single currency that the different regions around the globe would still be able to maintain their national sovereignty while operating under a centralized monetary control in the City of London and Wall Street?   Well, if so, they have failed. 

They have shown such a notion to be ludicrous, a mere pretext for the eventual tyranny of an aloof central authority of self-defining and self-deluding 'superior beings,' whose burden it is to bring order and self-control to the weak minded inferior races.  

Inferior races!  This is Greece, the cradle of Western civilization.  This is the country that stood against the onslaught of the fascists, and bought time for the Allies.   This is the nation that was placed under a series of authoritarian puppet regimes by the Truman Doctrine as their thanks.  How convenient are our memories.  

And this is a nation that has been brought very low, into the spiral of a depression, by the monetary chicanery and neo-colonial vendor financing of Brussels and Berlin, through the puppet governments and Western economic hitmen under which they have suffered for far too long.

This is nothing more than the high water mark of a long trend to the will to power, that is as old as Babylon, and evil as hell.

Social change happens slowly at first, and then all in a rush. We have seen this recently in the States, and the rate of change, when it comes, can be breath taking. 

And the things that these hypocrites fear most are being brought about by their clumsy and incompetent pretensions.  There is no irony sweeter than the course of history, and human nature.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - It Is Not About the Debt, But About Power and Obedience

"This nation is getting remarkably adept at turning its less affluent citizens upside down and shaking them, until literally every single cent falls out of their pockets.  And then it induces them to take on debt so they can be shaken down some more."

Malcom McMichael

"There is a certain irony to Europe starting to worry that austerity is hurting Greece's economy. For years, Europe's leaders have insisted Greece cut deficits in exchange for concessions. Greece's economy has already shrunk 25 percent, and it is having trouble honoring its obligations in part because it has had so much austerity."

Matt O'Brien, Europe Is Destroying Greece's Economy For No Reason At All

As we saw today, the celebrations about the 'capitulation' of Greece were premature to say the least, if not fabricated almost entirely in the case of the financial markets.

 

The amateurs may have gotten carried away by their own theories and predictions but the professionals in the markets and the media certainly knew better.

Greece offered what they labeled 'harsh cuts' for themselves, and crossed some mythical 'red lines.' And I think in sum they put most of the money up.  Whether they would have stuck with it is another matter entirely. 

But what people forget is that as it is now the EU is no longer about money.  It is all about power, and the gathering of more of that power for a central authority, and above all, obedience.    If it were about money, and bailing out their Banks which has largely been done, it would be over already. 

 

Greece is being made an example of for the benefit of the others.  And the liberal use of propaganda and financial terrorism, the stirring the emotions of the people against the Greeks by portraying them falsely, calls to mind, and may even be the prelude to the same sorts of crimes that haunted the twentieth century. 

 

And I would hope that the non-Europeans will take no comfort in this, because these same sorts of arguments and oppression are being used in our own places every day.  We cannot afford to pay these people a living wage.  We cannot provide adequate healthcare to everyone.  We cannot treat everyone the same in the legal system and afford them equal protection under the law.  We cannot afford to treat the mentally ill and the disabled humanely, so let us just throw them on the streets to fend for themselves.   It is too complex, too costly.  Let the markets sort them out.  Our new god will judge.

The Greek debt crisis is about money to the same extent that Germany claiming Czechoslovakia was about protecting native Germans, or the invasion of Iraq was about preventing the use of their weapons of mass destruction.  

 

These are blatant acts of will, the will to power. 

The manipulation of the gold and silver markets this week is mostly about skinning anyone foolish enough to have purchased option calls on the Comex. Given the balance of calls at about 1180 to 1220 coming into this week at 1200, I would say things went pretty much according to plan.

Who in the heck is still giving The Bucket Shop their money?  Because, as the old joke goes, it is the only game in town?

 

The Pope caused a fuss by saying that Christians who invest in the making and selling of armaments to wage aggressive war are hypocrites.  And that financial repression and fraud are the result of setting a love of money over the love of our neighbor.

 

The corporatists and their enablers do not want to hear about that.  The markets are their new gods.  It is never really the money, but the power and the willful pride to it.

 

So too are the hypocrites who make their money by knowingly participating in these control frauds and con games, even if they might say that they are just along for the ride. 

 

They did not mug that innocent traveler or stranger.   They just went through his or her pockets after the fact, they just fenced their property.  They just made a bet on whether the victim would receive a broken arm or a concussion.   All while saying and doing nothing to help.  As Czeslaw Milosz said, 'A true opium of the people is the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.'  

 

And this will end badly, for many.  And especially for those who believe they are winning, again. 

 

The times they are a changing.  But not nearly fast or soon enough. And so history repeats.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Whoops, There Goes the Greek Agreement, and the VIX

It appears that the rally celebrating the capitulation of Greece and the settling of the debt crisis was about as premature as The Recovery™.

Perhaps we will have to start calling it The Eurozone™, since it is as equally mythical and at the same time diabolically odious, merely an instrument of theft and oppression under false pretenses of growth and prosperity.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember These Words For the Time to Come

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will know them by their fruits.  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles."

Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness:  they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression.  And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it,  they will eventually come to condemn it, unless they relent from their folly, and thereby condemn themselves.
 

For all the people of God, love is the touchstone of our faith, the way to know if what we believe is with Him, or with something else; if we are walking with Him, or with something else; if the one who speaks is speaking for Him, or for something else; if we are keeping Him in our hearts, or something else; if we love Him, or ourselves, or something else.

Love does not speak with hate or fear or derision, but with a fullness of existence.  And that love is ridiculed and trampled, and can only be counterfeited but never achieved, by that which is opposed to His creation.

When you are in doubt or confusion about what is true and what is false, look for the light of love.  This is the hallmark of the spirit.   And if it is not there, if it is wrapped in the hardness of pride disguised even as an elaborate ritual observance and pharisaical pride, then you will know what it truly is.  It is a sin against the spirit. 

Love is not easy; it is not a natural state. It seems weak and foolish, and even despicable to the fallen and the world. 

It is a disposition of the mind and the heart, and an act of acceptance of grace not by but through the will. It is a shield against temptation. It is a habit of acting and looking at things, that can become easier and more comfortable as we carry that yoke or restraint on our weaker nature and our harsher emotions. Over time that yoke becomes lighter, and a light to steady us in life's darker moments.

 

But it is rarely easy or natural, which makes it the stuff of the brave, of the spiritually and emotionally hardy, of God's knights.  The way of the world, of anger and oppression, is the easy path not of the truly human, but of darker things.

 

So we must remember we are sinners, but reaching out to the eternal, and thereby attempting great things, if but clumsily and with a number falls like the apostle himself.

This is how the people of God may guide themselves and their own actions along the way. If there is no love evident in the words and the heart, then the words and the actions are not of God, but of something else.

Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do. Love is found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate mannerisms, but in the small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done lovingly and with care, for His sake.   It is how we carry our cross, not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little things, while walking with Him.

We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise and subdue His creation. They are a gift from God, to which we bring our own good use and order in His name.  And if we are wise, with our reverent wonder. We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them from excess and greed.

 

It is not the world that is a source of evil, but the willfulness of our hearts, made hard with pride. Only love is creative and productive.  Only love is accepting and uplifting, able to bring all things forward to His plan and make them new.  Love consecrates, while sin desecrates and destroys in its lust for possession and the will to power.

Obviously this law of love is applicable to all people, but is addressed particularly here to those who hearts have been already touched, in a time of spiritual wickedness, and dark powers in high places. 

 

God is the essence of all existence, which is His love.  The pity for those who would otherwise be faithful, then, is not to love.

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the fullness comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Some Lengthier Thoughts on Greece and Repression

"But in substance, Mr Tsipras’ plan relies far more heavily on raising taxes — and not cutting spending — than bailout monitors had suggested.   In a country that has a spotty record in collecting taxes, that has raised concern among some of the creditors, as has the potential recessionary effect high new taxes could have on the economy."

Financial Times, Deal or No Deal

 

I thought it was interesting that, in the judgment of the financial class, harsh cuts to pensioners and the social systems and regressive VAT taxes are good, but raising corporate taxes and income taxes on the wealthy are bad.   Austerity must be meted out, but only on the 'right people.'    This does seem to be the measure used by the Troika, and the international financial class that owns them these days.  It is even fashionable in Kansas and Wisconsin these days from what I hear.

The Greeks may very well be bad at collecting taxes as they say.  They are probably not draconian enough, invasive enough, and insufficiently ruthless.  In the Land of the Free they will triple a disabled woman's student debt with interest and fees, and then refuse to dispense any of it in bankruptcy.  Now that's entertainment.  

But the Greeks certainly are not particularly good at cutting costs either. And the Eurocrats should surely know since they keep coming back and asking them to do it more and again.  Perhaps it is just a habitual thing, as the Western governments have found in their own experience that preying on the vulnerable and the weak is a much more sustainable task.  And you don't have to lead them as much.

 

But oh the hypocrisy!  They are rank with it. 

For these EU economic propeller heads to worry about 'potential recessionary effects' in Greece from raising taxes is laughable.  At every opportunity these self-important plutocrats have abused their powers and positions to create massive financial bubbles, which they use to reward themselves and their cronies handsomely.   And afterwards, they plunge the public into depression-like conditions with their crackpot neoliberal prescriptions, while pompously prevaricating about virtue and 'thrift.'   The financial class are serial economy wreckers. 

In pursuit of a second opinion, I contacted one of the more experienced minds amongst the Greeks, which is saying quite a bit, and he often does and very well, with lawyerly precision.   I asked him for his take on the situation there.  And so here it is with a few parenthetical notes from your maître d'hôtel.

"Greece will not honor these obligations any more than it has its prior ones during the past decade. It may privatize a few assets, and it may even pretend to cut pensions. There is practically zero chance it can achieve the primary surplus targets it has accepted because its economy is not going to be able to grow quickly enough. (and few will be, thanks to the quackonomics of the ruling class).

We will be back at this charade six months from now, more or less, and then again later.   The Greek goal is most likely to extend and pretend until the political landscape changes in Europe, as it will eventually. What is much less clear is what the ultimate resolution might come to resemble. The EU is not sustainable as it is. I have no idea what is going to cause the Very Serious People to come to that realization and what will remain after they cannot kick the can any further.  (It is not clear to me how many unstable financial systems and their supporting kleptocracies will be resolved as well.) 

As you have noted, the game is just beginning in Greece. I am not even sure I would say 'game on' yet. Some hard times are going to be visited upon the various countries of Europe. 

I strongly suspect, however, that since the technocrats in Brussels and the troika have been tone deaf in overriding the will of the people and their elected governments in the weaker periphery countries, it will come back to haunt them. The end result is likely to be the exact opposite of what they seek to ensure.

Instead of greater economic, fiscal, and political integration (with power concentrated in Brussels and Bonn), they are likely to revive stronger anti-EU nationalism in the periphery, as this will be the only means the weaker nations will have of effectively fighting the stronger nations. When enough nations in the periphery see the light, the EU will no longer be able to continue in its current form. I am curious to see how this process will play out."

Pnev̱mató̱di̱s Diki̱góros

 

Overreach and hubris in a self-proclaimed elite, leading to their miserable decline and downfall through a series of self-inflicted and unintended missteps?  Always a solid call.

 

I tend to agree with his take on this. How could I not? Except perhaps that I think the presence of the Greek Parliament will be weighing more heavily in this matter than expected. 

 

It may be just a bias really, a visceral fear I have of very pissed off Greek women.  Keep your hands over your eyes and other tender parts.  Perhaps it is a hangover from a youth wasted on classical studies, and ancient myths and dramas. 

One gets the sense that a very impressive banquet of consequences is being prepared for the neo-liberal legislators and their masters in the global predatory class. 

How and when it is served is another matter.  I have no doubt that the financiers would love to supplant Syriza, and install more pliable legislators in their place. This seems to be the popular trend in that area of the world these days. 

This nonsense we have seen in the precious metal markets this week is just more of the same sort of thing really, the sturm und drang of those who would master the world.  Our leaders.

 

There was little legitimate action in The Bucket Shop the past two days.  It is an option expiration after all. China came back from its holiday on Monday.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

The wash cycle looks almost done.

 

But it would not do to set a lower high, and they have some room left overhead.

 

The wheels are not quite falling off the economy yet.  But they seem to be on their way.

 

Let's see how many spins the old gal has left before the next rinse

 

Have a pleasant evening.