Posted on 06/08/2015 6:26:48 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
One is the plight of Greece, with the nation's leftist government and its creditors engaged in the latest round of brinksmanship over its debt. Greece is running out of cash, but international creditors are refusing to release bailout money unless the government makes concessions. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, elected on a platform of fighting back against European-imposed austerity, has refused to budge. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, had expected to have a proposal from Tsipras several days ago, but he was "visibly angry," according to The Guardian... A Greek exit would pose a challenge to a beleaguered EU -- other countries might feel tempted to follow its lead; meanwhile, rising euroskepticism in Britain led Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a referendum on U.K. membership during his successful reelection campaign.
At least on the other crisis there seems to be a bit more consensus. Merkel is trying to maintain a unified front against Russia, maintaining EU sanctions put in place as a response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where fighting has heated up in the last couple of weeks. (The group that's meeting in Germany was the G8 until Russian President Vladimir Putin was unceremoniously dumped in retaliation for his moves into Crimea.) Sanctions have put a serious pinch on the Russian economy, but they've also hurt Russia's European trading partners. Italy's prime minister and left-wing politicians in Germany are among those bearish on sanctions...
...Merkel... "Despite using his first name, and addressing him in the informal 'du' form, she immediately made a veiled reference to the tensions between the US and Germany over the scandal surrounding Germany's intelligence agents allegedly helping the US's National Security Agency to spy on officials and companies in Europe."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Have a great week.
If EU cuts off Greece because it won’t make any show of attempt to rein in spending and thus render itself able to pay back some of the money it owes then Greece will experience “austerity.”Greece will do the best for itself in the long run by defaulting and getting kicked out of Europe.
The G7 needs to be calling for regime change in Russia and China.
The main problem the EU has is its untempered belief that the EU must be allowed to structure the world as it wishes.
The Group of 7 (G7) is a group consisting of the finance ministers and central bank governors of seven major advanced economies as reported by the International Monetary Fund:
-Of course- a central bankers club should select the governments everywhere.
Pullease. The freeloading Greek socialists -- irrespective of their party label, the whole country is socialist -- want to freeload, and are not going to be allowed to continue to do that if they expect to stay in the EU.
The current Greek gov’t won’t last. Either Greece will make budget cuts in order to continue to get a credit line — a credit line that is only being used to make payments on their existing debt — in which case the gov’t will be going back on its demagogic campaign promises; or Greece will make its “grexit”, have worthless independent currency, Weimar-style hyperinflation, inability to provide for itself *or* buy imports, and its freeloader gov’t will fall as the country disintegrates.
They used to be the G8, they threw out and sanctioned the imperialist butcher and murderer Putin, and became the G7. The existing sanctions are going to stick, and the price of oil is going to rise in Europe as the Euro falls in value.
Ultimately that would be better for Greece and for the European countries, note I didn’t say “better for Europe.” Perhaps it will cause the whole house of cards to fall. The sooner that happens the less damage there will be though it has built up for so long uncorrected that the the depths that must be plumbed are awesome. Next year they would be worse and in yet another year worse still. That is true for all of us.
As soon as your hero, Vlad the Imploder, invades Greece, we should help.
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