7 July 2015 — Naked Capitalism
Yves here. As this article describes, the cheerleaders over the Greek referendum last weekend has badly misread the game in play. Tsipras is now working on a coalition basis with all parties save Golden Dawn, which means firmly pro-Eurozone parties such as To Potami and New Democracy. And as he and other party leaders promised in the runup to the election that with a voter mandate, they’d be able to get a better deal from the creditors.
16 January 2014 — Global Research
1. The integration of Greece into the EU is the real cause of its catastrophic crisis
The almost complete destruction of the lower classes in Greece is not due to the causes usually attributed to it by the “Left”.[1] In fact, contrary to the misleading “explanations” provided by this Left and the Right alike, the actual cause is the full integration of the Greek economy into neoliberal globalization, through its accession into the EU. This has meant the complete transformation of Greece into an economic and political protectorate of the Transnational Elite.[2]
10 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
At the end of July, eurozone deputy finance ministers approved another transfer of money to Greece to the tune of EUR 6.8 billion (it had previously been thought that Athens would be allocated EUR 8.1 billion). Several days earlier, meanwhile, the Greek parliament approved the latest in a series of legislative acts, the adoption of which had been a condition of receiving money from international creditors – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Continue reading
4 July 2013 — The Real News Network
President Silva’s austerity policies made Portugal a darling of the troika, but highly unpopular at home (inc. transcript)
4 July 2013 — The Real News Network
President Silva’s austerity policies made Portugal a darling of the troika, but highly unpopular at home (inc. transcript)
28 March, 2013– webofdebt
Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here; and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.
19 January 2013 — RT
As French soldiers pour into Mali in the fight to push back the advancing Islamist militants, questions have been raised as to the motives behind the intervention. Author William Engdahl told RT the US was using France as a scapegoat to save face. Continue reading
11 December, 2012 — The Real News Network
Costas Lapavitsas: There is an impression that the crisis has been handled by ECB but economies are deteriorating quickly (inc. transcript) Continue reading
24 February 2012 — NEWS
1. Housmans Virtual Book Club
2. Competition to win a pair of tickets to Camus’ ‘Caligula’
IN-STORE EVENTS
3. Women’s History Month presents: ‘Women’s history: half the future half the past’ with Jessica Metheringham-Owlett
4. Coalition of Resistance presents: ‘Eurozone in crisis: what is to be done?’
5. Bent Bars presents: ‘Gender and the prison industrial complex’ with S. Lamble
6. Zero Books presents: ‘Capitalist realism: is there no alternative?’ with Mark Fisher Continue reading
August 2011 — Red Pepper
A fairy with a broomstick is sweeping the Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s central square. In front of her, a handful of weather-beaten activists are dispensing information from what looks like an upturned ship, a semi-permanent legacy from the occupation that began here on 15 May (M15). Strip away some of the tourists, and this scene could have been plucked from anywhere in the decade-long back catalogue of alter-globalisation movements.
1 July 2011 — Pravda.Ru
It is by now patently obvious that there are two languages being spoken in Athens: that among the political class desperate to keep the Euro-wagon on the road and that of the Greek people, who at this moment represent the hearts and minds of the Europeans, which spells out the message that we do not want this European Union.
1 July 2011 — RT
Greece is now set to receive 12 billion euro in additional rescue cash from the EU, after parliament passed a vote on how to implement tough new austerity measures. However, the move sent thousands of angry protestors on to the streets of Athens.
Greeks face 28 billion euros in cuts, to be implemented over the next five years. EU officials have welcomed the plan, saying it will help the country get back onto a path of recovery.
30 June 2011 — RT
Greek protests against the new austerity measures can be viewed as a way of standing up to EU neo-colonialism, both economically and politically, believes Professor Costas Douzinas from the University of London.
Greek protesters are gathering for another day of rallies after the country’s parliament approved new austerity measures needed to avert a debt default in the country. Wednesday’s clashes with police left some 200 people injured.
9 May 2011 — The Greanville Post
The Spreading Euro Crisis is Eloquent
Spanish villa for sale: with the market softening, maybe a long wait.
When the current economic crisis hit Europe in 2008, small countries on the periphery were its first victims: Iceland, Ireland, and Latvia. Within a year it had spread to Greece and Portugal, though the GDP of both nations—respectively 11th and 12th in the European Union (EU)—are hardly central to the continent’s economic engine.
But now the contagion threatens to strike at the center of Europe. Spain, the fifth largest economy in the EU and 13th largest in the world, is staggering under a combination of debt and growth-killing austerity, and the balance books in Italy, the Union’s fourth largest economy, don’t look much better. Indeed, Italy’s national debt is higher than that of Greece, Ireland or Portugal, three countries that have been forced to apply for bailouts.
20 May 2011 — The Real News Network
EuroNews: A lack of jobs and the bite of austerity measures prompted thousands of people to take to the streets of Lisbon on Thursday
20 May 2011 — The Bullet – Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 504
“The eurozone has decided that the losses of private sector creditors should be socialized and the ultimate burden fall on the taxpayers of deficit countries. The latter will then suffer first a slump and then years of fiscal austerity.” — Martin Wolf, “The eurozone after Strauss-Kahn,” Financial Times, 18 May 2011.
10 April 2011 — Global Research
See also: ‘The Economic Crisis in Iceland: “IMF Medicine” is not the Solution‘
About 75% of Iceland’s voters turned out on Saturday to reject the Social Democratic-Green government’s proposal to pay $5.2 billion to the British and Dutch bank insurance agencies for the Landsbanki-Icesave collapse. Every one of Iceland’s six electoral districts voted in the ‘No’ column – by a national margin of 60% (down from 93% in January 2010).
8 April, 2011 — Global Research
[Ed. As we know, the Icelandic people voted no to committing financial suicide.]
Will Iceland Vote “No” on April 9, or commit financial suicide?
A year ago, in March 2010, Iceland’s economy was so small that it did not warrant much attention when 93% of its voters rejected the Social Democratic-Green government’s surrender to Gordon Brown and the Dutch, the European Union (EU) bureaucracy and IMF demands that it impose austerity as penance for believing the neoliberal fairy tales about how bank deregulation and “free markets” would make it the richest, happiest country in the world. Indeed it seemed to be, according to United Nations data. But the dream was dashed after the Icesave electronic Internet bank branches abroad were emptied out by their proprietors.
9 October, 2010 — MRZine
The European tour of Wen Jiabao is taking place while the conflict between the US and China over the yuan/dollar exchange rate is getting worse. At the same time, a similar if less noisy clash exists between China and the Eurozone countries. Last but not least, tensions have also arisen in the Sino-Japanese relations following the Bank of China’s decision last month to purchase Japanese bonds, thereby contributing to the rise of the value of the yen. Tokyo is fighting the nominal revaluation of the yen; thus the Bank of China’s move significantly undermines Tokyo’s objectives.
The widening of the conflict over exchange rates means that major capitalist countries are now trying to ‘solve’ the crisis by grabbing slices of each other’s markets through exports. For the US, though, the official issue is how to reduce the dependence upon the external deficit given that the crisis has highlighted the damage done by the long-standing outsourcing processes undertaken by US multinationals, including large US retailers. Hence, it is Europe and Japan that are the heart of new mercantilism, that is, the strategy aimed at obtaining profits and capitalist growth by means of net exports to the rest of the world.
11 May, 2010 — Democracy Now!
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have approved a nearly $1 trillion package to stop Greece’s debt crisis from spilling beyond its borders into the rest of the eurozone. Stocks surged in Europe, Asia and the United States Monday after EU leaders agreed to a $960 billion package to contain Greece’s financial troubles. Meanwhile, the austerity measures demanded by the IMF and the European Union as a condition of their loan are continuing to exact their toll. Greece’s two main unions have continued to hold protests against the reforms. In a statement, one of the unions said, ‘The crisis should be paid by…all those who looted public finances.’ Last week nearly 100,000 people participated in a mass demonstration and a twenty-four-hour general strike against the austerity measures.
http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v1/300/2010/5/11/segment/2
Guests:
Tariq Ali, longtime political commentator who has written more than two dozen books on world history and politics, seven novels and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review, where his most recent article is about President Obama at war and titled ‘President of Cant.’ His latest book, published last month, is the concluding novel of his Islam Quintet, titled Night of the Golden Butterfly.
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and has written on the situation in Greece for the Guardian of London. His latest piece, pending publication, is titled ‘The European Union’s Dangerous Game.’
The New Dark Age 
