Paul Craig Roberts – America Is Being Destroyed By Problems That Are Unaddressed

One hundred years ago European civilization, as it had been known, was ending its life in the Great War, later renamed World War I. Millions of soldiers ordered by mindless generals into the hostile arms of barbed wire and machine gun fire had left the armies stalemated in trenches. A reasonable peace could have been reached, but US President Woodrow …

Nick Dearden – Greece is for sale – and everything must go

Why does this matter? First because it makes no sense to sell off valuable assets in the middle of Europe’s worst depression in 70 years. I’ve just had sight of the latest privatisation plan for Greece. It’s been issued by something called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund – the vehicle supervised by the European institutions, which has been tasked with …

Ellen Brown – The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion

“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract.” — The Godfather (1972) In the modern global banking system, all banks need a credit line with the central bank in order to be part of …

Ernst Wolff – Tsipras and Varoufakis Approve of Home Evictions and Expropriation of Depositors

After being elected in January, Prime Minister Tsipras and his Finance Minister Varoufakis negotiated with the EU commission, the ECB and the IMF for almost five months. While fulfilling almost all of their financial demands, Syriza’s leaders openly criticized the “institutions” for their tough bargaining and resisted some of their harshest measures. At the beginning of July, the Troika tightened …

The European Union’s Crisis of Legitimacy and The Greek Referendum – Donatella della Porta

For some time now social movements have expressed their support for Another Europe. Their almost unanimous support for a “NO” vote in the Greek referendum on the proposals of the Troika, says much about the repeatedly frustrated hopes of constructing a social Europe from below. Indeed, the protests against austerity have established, ever more clearly and explicitly, that the evolution of …

GREECE’D: We Voted ‘No’ to slavery, but ‘Yes’ to our chains By Greg Palast

We Greeks have voted ‘No’ to slavery — but ‘Yes’ to our chains. Not surprisingly, by nearly two-to-one, Greeks have overwhelmingly rejected the cruel, economically bonkers “austerity” program required by the European Central Bank in return for an ECB loan to pay Greece’s creditors. In doing so, the Greek people overcame an unprecedented campaign of fear from the Greek and …

HOW EUROPE PLAYED GREECE – Alex Andreou

Do these things, they said, for all our sakes and you will return to prosperity with our help. They lied. “They have decided to strangle us, whether we say yes or no”, said a Greek woman to me yesterday. “The only choice we have is to make it quick or slow. I will vote “oxi” (no). We are economically dead …

The Greek Debt Crisis and Crashing Markets by MICHAEL HUDSON

Back in January upon coming into office, Syriza probably could not have won a referendum on whether to pay or not to pay. It didn’t have a full parliamentary majority, and had to rely on a nationalist party for Tsipras to become prime minister. (That party balked at cutting back Greek military spending, which was 3% of GDP, and which …

On the Delphi Declaration by MICHAEL HUDSON

Many readers of the European and American press must be confused about what actually is happening in the negotiations between Greece (Alexis Tsipras and Yannis Varoufakis). The European Troika (the IMF, European Central Bank and European Council now object to the name and want to be called simply “the Institutions”) have stepped up their demands on Syriza. What is called …

Greeced Lightning! Will Greece Default? Will Athens Cut a Financial Deal with Moscow and Beijing?

We seem to have finally arrived at some sort of moment of truth regarding Greece and their inclusion in the EU.  The speculation is they will be out of money by April 9th, this Thursday, unable to make a less than 500 million euro payment.  Please keep in mind they have already been raiding the country’s pension plans to fund day to day …