Eurozone Crisis

Varoufakis Goes Full Retard

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Never go full retard.

(I realize that this joke is insensitive, but I couldn’t resist. Forgive me.)

When you go politician, you go a little bit in, dabble your foot, play with words, deflect a question or two. But you never go full politician. ESPECIALLY when you state publicly that you will resign the minute you sense that you are turning into a politician.

Yanis Varoufakis has gone full politician, full retard, no holds barred (I don’t know what that means) all-in, I call your “Definition of Is” and raise you a “My twitter account was hacked and that’s not my penis!” and add another quadrillion.

Caught in a 2013 video giving the finger to Germany, Varoufakis replied:

“That video was doctored. I’ve never given the finger, I’ve never given the middle finger ever.”

Are you #$%^ing kidding me Yanis? Doctored? That’s what you’ve been reduced to? Taking Hedonism-Bot pictures of yourself living a life of luxury off of BAILOUT money?

Varoufakis Goes Full Retard
Varoufakis and his Trophy Wife, Living it Up on Bailout Money While Greece Burns
Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis’s Cartoon Doppleganger

And then THIS? Denying you gave the finger when you CLEARLY did, and even if it were, by some crazy conspiracy, actually doctored, you were CLEARLY TALKING ABOUT IT YOU IDIOT! (Finger at 1:50 mark)

What a disgrace you have become. NOT because you gave the middle finger to Germany. If you want to give the finger to Germany, give the finger to Germany! Just default and leave them holding the bag, see what happens! Just like you said!

But you know why he’s going full politician and has to calm the waters now by pathetic lying? Because if he really gives them the finger now, he’s kicked out of the Euro. Varoufakis never wanted to leave the Euro immediately. Why? Because his problem is that Greece has no Drachma to stuff its banks with and he thinks that the economy would have no money and revert to BARTER (such stupidity) for 8 months while they were busy printing them. He doesn’t understand that money would revert to gold and silver and copper and prices would adjust accordingly automatically. But that’s because he’s a Marxist idiot.

He also doesn’t want the Greeks to know he’s printing Drachma because then Euros would flee the country so as not to be converted to Drachma. So what he wants to do is SECRETLY print drachma, THEN default, THEN watch the value of the Euro tank to nothing, THEN tell the Greeks he has Drachma, THEN leave the Euro. He makes that sick evil scheme VERY CLEAR at the end of the video.

Result being that Greeks do not have the opportunity to ship whatever money they have left out of the country, everyone loses his savings while the government gets to start fresh, spending money, zero debt. That’s why he’s going full retard. Because he’s busy stealth printing Drachma, and when he defaults, he wants to convert Euros overnight to Drachma without warning his people. Screw him.

Greeks, get your money OUT of the country NOW and out of the Euro as well or you will all lose everything because of full retards like this clown. Varoufakis is going to sink the ship without warning you first. I’m warning you now.

Afra Lepumei, Yanis Varoufakis. What a joke. I’m ashamed I ever thought anything positive of you.

70 Years too late? Greece Now Demands Money from Germany over WWII

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This won’t go over well with the Germans. The Greeks are now playing the Nazi/WWII card.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused Germany on Tuesday of using legal tricks to avoid paying reparations for the Nazi occupation of Greece and said he would support parliamentary efforts to review the matter.

His comments are likely to heighten tensions between Athens and Berlin as Greece’s new, leftist government struggles to persuade its euro zone partners to renegotiate the terms of a 240 billion euro ($260 billion) bailout.

Germany last month rejected renewed calls from Greece for war compensation, saying the issue had been settled at world power talks that led to German reunification in 1990.

But Tsipras said his government approved plans to revive a parliamentary commission to look into the issue.

Forget whether the Germans owe anything. Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Legally, I have no idea, as legalism are made up by the victors. Morally, maybe, I’m not God. But clearly, this is a soured attempt by the Greeks to actually pathetically bully the Germans into giving them more money, and it is so plainly obvious it won’t work that you have to wonder if Tsipras is such a dark red commie that maybe he’s actually insane.

You don’t bully a country that’s bailing you out to the tune of $240B. It’s just nuts. If Greece is daring Germany to kick it out of the Eurozone, this pissant move might actually accomplish that.

GREEK SADNESS Tsipras and Varoufakis Completely Cave Like Dogs

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If I were a Syriza fan, of which I absolutely am not, I would see this line as the saddest letdown ever. From Bloomberg, and it’s really, really pathetic. I almost feel for these sad Greeks. Not for Tsipras, but for the people. Just sad.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is trying to access European bailout funds for Greece without completely ditching the anti-austerity agenda that won him election seven weeks ago. So far he’s dropped demands for a writedown on Greek debt, abandoned his plan to halt privatizations and accepted that he won’t get “bridge financing” without signing up to conditions.

In return he’s won concessions to shift some meetings to Brussels and persuaded European officials to describe the country’s official creditors as “institutions” rather than “the troika.”

So that’s it then. All Tsipras and Varoufakis have been able to get out of the EZ overlords is to change their name a bit so it doesn’t sound as bad. And move some meetings to Brussels. Wow.

But even sadder, is they couldn’t get even that.

 Greek officials are not hiding their frustration at the reappearance of the dreaded word “Troika” in statements made by several euro zone finance ministers today, reports Helena Smith.

The German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, no less, used it four or five times – in what some are calling a deliberate act of spite.

Why is a worthless name change for the same freaking people and their sophisticated bailout acronyms so damn important? I don’t think it’s just an emotional thing, though that is part of it.

They want to be able to lie more convincingly to their sad Greek people that they did something positive, that the “Troika” is no more, that there are “different” people auditing us now, that everything is different.

But if the Germans keep calling a spade a spade, they can’t pass the lie.

Syriza did nothing, as expected. And Varoufakis cowers along. His fire is gone.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. Varoufakis wanted a writedown and to stay on the Eurozone. He was never going to get both. He can have a full writedown of course, but the ECB will never give Greece another Euro cent in that case.

GREXIT The Real Question is, Do the Morons at the ECB understand the Consequences?

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Here we go again with Greece. With Zero Hedge reporting (they really are on top of the latest crap, got to give them that, even if it’s sometimes overstated):

Unfortunately for Greece, moments ago Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung confirmed the bad news, when it said that the EU commission has rejected the Greek request for speedy aid payments, cites Valdis Dombrovskis, EU commissioner for the euro. The commissioner adds that the Varoufakis letter “lacks specific enough action plan and that the reform steps must be approved by Greek parliament and be implemented.”

In other words, as we reported before, Greece is back to square minus one, where first Europe will send the dreaded Troika inspectors “on the ground” in Athens to catch up to everything they have missed in the months they have been absent and then, and only then, does Greece have any chance of even being seriously considered for more aid.

I’ll stop pretending I know what’s going on here. But the funniest part is that Greece (may have, depending on whether you think ZH is credible or not) issued a plan to use foreign tourists as wires against tax evaders, a plan which was laughed at by European creditors, Troika, ECB, EFSF, whatever:

Financial Times reports that the reaction from eurozone officials to the tourist plan was received with humor. They thought the proposal was hilarious and even laughed when they read it. “It’s quite hilarious, if it were not so tragic, that this is what a government in an industrialised country comes up with,” said one eurozone official involved in the talks.

Here’s the question really. It all comes down to this. Does whoever is financing Greece currently, with whatever stupid acronym they use to name themselves, really understand the consequences of a Grexit? Do they undestand the chain reaction that will ensue, given that the world is embroiled in a debt crisis the likes of which it has never, ever seen in history?

If they understand it, they will keep funding Greece indefinitely. If they don’t, they will start a chain reaction that will end the entire game.

Maybe I’m wrong. That’s what I think.

I’m reminded of a line from Payback, that Mel Gibson movie where Porter goes after the whole Outfit by himself for $70,000 he claims was stolen from him. Porter is looking for the one man in charge of the outfit. He says to one of the gangsters, “One man… you go high enough you always come to one man… who?”

It’s the same in legalized gangs like the Eurozone. You go high enough you always come to one man. Who? And does he understand that he has the trigger to the entire pile of cards collapsing in a matter of weeks? By that I mean everything the whole western financial system?

If he gets it, it’ll be a few more years. If he doesn’t get it, it could be any day now. But I don’t know, because I don’t know who that one man is.

Will Germany Shoot Down the Greek Proposal And Force Grexit?

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The thing that really annoys me about all this elitist bull where the media constantly reports about vague snippets about “proposals” and “negotiations” and “give and take” with absolutely no specifics about what is being negotiated is..well, just that. We have no idea what the politicos are really talking about behind closed doors, and nothing is clear.

Greece made a proposal. What’s in it? How is it different from past agreements? What are the hard numbers? What are the objections? What the hell is going on? Nobody can give a clear answer. Only talk in vague generalities about “concessions” and “compromise” but never about what!

So Greece made some kind of deal with Germany. What was it? The only place that tells you anything even meager is Zerohedge, and you never know when the guys over there are being totally crazy or they have real info. So, here’s what they’re reporting.

Greece is demanding that private residences in mortgage default be protected from foreclosure, which will of course clog and paralyze the banking system. Also a gradual raise of minimum wage, which will clog and paralyze the labor market. As well as restoration of collective bargaining rights for unions, which will constrict the labor supply and increase unemployment. As well as wage hikes for the bureaucrat sector. Which will increase the debt load that Germany is paying for.

And Germany, apparently, is going to say nein, according to Zerohedge, tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU_GhqVgc9M

Let’s see what happens.

Greece Caves, Varoufakis Fails, He Should Resign Immediately

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Oh well. I was wrong. I thought I was on to something with Varoufakis but apparently a grasp of basic economics (which Yanis Varoufakis does not quite have) is a necessary condition for having a spine. I thought that maybe it didn’t have to be that way, but he caved to a bailout extension of 4 months, and once you let the door open a crack like that, that’s it. There’s no going back. He’s a politician now. It’s over.

Zerohedge is reporting that Varoufakis actually sent a letter to the Germans sticking to his guns, with Tsipras then overriding that letter when the Germans said no deal. Varoufakis is denying there was ever any wrong letter. Who knows, now that he’s caved and won’t admit it, no one can trust anything he says anymore.

So four months from now this whole thing will repeat again.

Eventually though, reality will express itself with full force and the Eurozone will collapse. We just can’t count on anyone to be honest enough to get the ball rolling voluntarily. It will have to happen by some surprise event now.

The reality is, Greece still cannot pay back its debt, and the Syriza government sure won’t allow the economy to grow by getting out of the damn way. It looks like more debt slavery for the average Greek now. For four more months at least.

If Varoufakis were honest, he’d explain publicly why he has reversed himself from saying “no extension” to “four month extension”. But he won’t. He’s descended into the realm of the politician.

What a Greek Default Means in Simple English

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A Greek default, or any government default for that matter, is heavily misunderstood. I’m not speaking in terms of chain reactions here or what it may cause, just essentially what it is.

If a private person defaults, say if I go bankrupt, that means anyone who I owe money to, loses that money that I would have paid them. That’s it. Not one person who did not loan me anything will suffer at all. People who have no financial connection to me couldn’t care less if I default since it has nothing to do with them.

It gets a bit more complicated if I own a business. If I go bankrupt, my business will be sold by force for lack of payment of my debts, someone else will get the business and do what he wants with it, and the cash I got for the sale will go to my creditors in order of liens. All the capital I control, whatever it is, goes to someone else, and the cash goes to my creditors. That’s what happens. No capital is destroyed, nothing changes physically, just ownership titles.

So, if a government goes bankrupt, what SHOULD happen by that example is they stop paying their debts, which are their bonds. Then, by the example of myself going bankrupt and my assets being liquidated and transferring title to some other owner, what should happen and what WOULD solve the entire garbage situation in Greece is for the entire government to liquidate ALL of its asset, everything it owns, and sell it ALL for cash, in this case Euros.

Entire Greek government departments should be sold to whoever wants them for however much is offered. If someone wants the Greek Bureau of Regulation Whatever and to employ all its pointless bureaucrats, then they can. But you know what the problem is here?

If I go bankrupt but I own a business, my business probably makes money, just not enough to cover my debts. It has employees etc. So somebody buys it, maybe lays off a few people, ships up the outfit and makes it profitable

But who the HELL wants a piece of crap bureaucracy? It makes no money, it only obstructs business! So bidding for it would go through the floor and be equivalent to whatever hard assets the Bureau has like computers and real estate and cars and whatever, and all the dumb bureaucrats would be laid off and that’s it. 

The other problem is the government owns the roads, and for some reason everyone is brainwashed into thinking that roads cannot be privately owned because then 1,250,000 people would die on the roads globally every year. But wait, no, that’s how it is now.

So the government owns assets that people don’t believe can be sold, when of course they can and should.

But the worst part of government default is that the government owns the money itself, because money is a government monopoly.  So when a government defaults, anyone who holds government money is in serious, serious trouble. They will lose everything. Holding government money is like being a government employee when your employer goes bankrupt. It is bad. That’s why people own gold and silver.

The unique problem with Greece, however, is that the government there does not own the money supply. And that’s why they can’t print the currency to death and need bailouts. Germany and Brussels and the ECB own the money supply.

If this default were honest, everything the Greek government owned or controlled would be liquidated and sold, including the Hellenic Parliament building itself and all the roads and all the military equipment, absolutely everything, with cash raised to pay the bonds. All the bureaucrats would be laid off to find something to do in the economy. All the regulation enforcers would be unemployed. The economy would be freed.

A true, honest government default would be an absolutely great thing for the private citizen, if not for the fact that the government, instead of honestly going bankrupt like any private person and starting over at zero, will immediately set itself up another monetary monopoly, force everyone to use it, and inflate it to death, stealing from everyone just to stay in business.

If Greece starts printing drachmas, they will hyperinflate very quickly. If I were a Greek, I would buy real assets and hide them under the Parthenon. That, or sell all paper assets short now.

When a private person or company goes bankrupt, assets are liquidated and sold to new owners. Employees are let go and must find new jobs. Some stay.

When a government goes bankrupt, they destroy everyone else’s money so they can pay back their debts through theft. Greece is just a tiny little thing, a tiny domino in a line of ever increasing bankrupt dominoes.

When the US goes bankrupt, now that will be a sight to see.

Varoufakis Holding his Own, Germans want him replaced!

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The Greek talks with the Eurozone just broke down again. There currently is no way forward. Greek bank runs may start as early as tomorrow. If they do, the Eurozone will disintegrate fast. Most people did not see this coming and thought Greece would cave. But I did. I felt Greece would not cave, at least strongly suspected it. Here’s why.

I don’t have much investment in Yanis Varoufakis other than fascination and an inkling he can hold his own. He’s showing the Eurozone leaders that he’s not a yes man, not a politician, but a guy with principles that won’t break.

Most commentators on my side of the spectrum, the libertarians, armageddonists, preppers and those folk simply assumed that Greece will cave to Troika demands sooner or later, but that’s because they haven’t been following Varoufakis for three years like I have. Or maybe it’s just a 6th sense I have or something that I recognized with Ron Paul and Feiglin, and to a certain extent with Varoufakis. This harks back to my Ron Paul article about soul.

Varoufakis is wrong about a lot of stuff, even about basic stuff, but he has a soul. And he will not break from what he sees as right. Tsipras and the rest of Syriza are all a bunch of politician monkeys and they’ll cave. But Yanis Varoufakis won’t. Interestingly, Varoufakis is not even a Syriza party member.

Bob Wenzel recently quoted Tyler Cowen, a mainstream economist, as saying this:

The Greek government will cave so cravenly on the substance that they want to have it on the record books that they supplied some expressive goods for a few weeks’ time, namely insulting the Germans and claiming that the Troika is dead and buried.

See, that would be true of any Greek politician except Varoufakis. He won’t cave on anything, unless absolutely ordered to do so, in which case he will resign, as he has said explicitly that he keeps his resignation letter in his inside pocket and will submit it the moment he feels he can no longer speak truth to power. Or his version of it anyway.

Even the bloggers on my side of the aisle like Wenzel simply don’t understand this. I covered this in my column two weeks ago at CalvinAyre, where I said the following:

In a nutshell, it’s like this. If just another politician occupied the Greek FinMin seat, eventually he’d be bought off by the Troika, that trifecta of acronyms like ESM and EFSF that hold all the bailout funds, and the proverbial can would be kicked down the road again. But Varoufakis is not just another politician, and that’s what political mainstreamers, as well as Eurozone leaders themselves, just don’t understand. He’s serious. He wants to default, he’s been saying it for years, and he is the only one with the guts and independence to mean what he says and do it.

Varoufakis still may cave. I don’t have as much faith in his strength of character than I do of Ron Paul or Moshe Feiglin, but so far he has been holding up. How much longer I don’t know. But we can safely assume that since he has not yet resigned, he has not caved.

Now, at the prospect of Greece being kicked out of the Euro, Varoufakis could get fired. Once he’s out, if that happens, you can be sure Greece will cave. Tsipras is a nobody, that I’m sure of. Zerohedge is reporting now that the Germans want Varoufakis out. Why? Because he literally is the only obstacle in the way of continuing this disgusting bailout. There is no one else in the way. Just him. Quoting Keeptalkinggreece:

An SPD politician from Merkels’ social-democrat coalition suggested s that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should replaces Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis as he apparently creates lots of confusion, German politicians cannot understand.

SPD executive board member, Joachim Poß, wrote in an e-mail for his party colleagues:

“Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis has best demonstrated with his performance  until now, that he is not up to the demands of such an office. In the interest of the Greek people and in view of the difficult situation, Prime Minister Tsipras should consider to replace Mr Varoufakis with a political experienced, realistic-efficient person.”

Let me take that last bold paragraph out of Orwellian Newspeak and translate it into Human:

“Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis has best demonstrated with his performance until now that he is not up to simply caving to our demands for fear of being kicked out of the Euro. In the interest of the German government oligarchy and in view of the difficult situation, Prime Minister Tripras should consider to replace Mr. Varoufakis with a politician.”

Watch Greek capital flight tomorrow. It could get intense.

GREEK INSANITY Tsipras’ Solution to Insolvency is More Free Stuff

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We’re headed for default in Greece. Varoufakis may have human guts, but he’s still clueless, still doesn’t understand that the Everlasting Gobstopper doesn’t actually exist. That the government cannot simply supply endless resources at a whim. Just doesn’t get it.

Tsipras of course doesn’t get it. So it’s funny I should be reading this headline on Ynet first, in Hebrew. The other headlines to the same story do not catch the punchline. But the Israeli headline does. For example, Reuters:

“Defiant Greek PM sets up EU clash with bailout rejection, austerity rollback”

Ah, but the Jews get it. They get that you can’t solve an insolvency problem by handing out free stuff. Ynet, on the same story:

ר”מ יוון מציג: חשמל ומזון חינם לעניים

Greek Prime Minister Lays Out Plan: Free Electricity and Food for the Poor

Yeah, that’ll do it. That should put you right back on the road to financial stability. Hand out more free crap. Suck on the Everlasting Gobstopper that is government money.

What’s happening here, from what I can see, is a crazy angry Prime Minister with extreme Greek pride is combining with a confused Finance Minister with the guts to push Europe to the brink and over, with neither realizing at all the meaning of their “solutions”.

We’re on our way to default. The eurozone is going down folks, in weeks to months. Brace yourselves.

Yanis Varoufakis is Threatening to Push the Greek Default Button!

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He may be a confused “Marxist libertarian” whatever that means, which is what he calls himself, but whatever fire is in him, though it isn’t a total “kosher blue flame” as my 10th grade chemistry teacher called it in lab, Yanis Varoufakis is heating up. This is what happens when a human being, though not perfect, walks into a den of politicians with his resignation letter on the inside pocket in case he succumbs to politician-hood. Yanis Varoufakis is trying to keep his soul and that’s what makes him so exciting.

I’m not sure he will succeed, but he’s trying. He’s no Ron Paul, but he’s closer than most. He’s threatening to push the default button…the beautiful shiny jolly candy-like button.

Varoufakis has said he does not intend to cooperate with the Troika (that conglomeration of bailout funds with different acronyms) and will NOT seek an extension to its bailout funds.

Yanis is taking Greece into default. The Greek Government will not be able to borrow any more, from anyone for a long time. If they want to stay in the euro, they are going to have to cut, slash, and burn like there’s no tomorrow. But I doubt they will do that, because politicians have voters to bribe.

Varoufakis will bring them into default, the Greeks will complain and scream, and they’ll start printing Drachmas into hyperinflation. Italy’s next.