The Money Game Fri 2010-07-16 18:52 EDT

Here's The Real Reason Cities And States Would Never Be Allowed To Default

David Goldman at Asia Times nails it: It's not about the impact on the real economy (the attendant cut in public services and public employment), it's about the effect that such defaults would have on the banks...that's a good rule of thumb. If it's going to hurt the banks, it's probably not going to be allowed to happen...The $800 billion bailout package for Europe's PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) in May was in fact a bailout for the banking system...

allowed; default; Money game; Real Reason Cities; s; state.

Sat 2010-05-22 20:00 EDT

"Drop Dead Economics": The Financial Crisis in Greece and the European Union

Michael Hudson

Financial lobbyists are using the Greek crisis as an object lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the opposite of what the Greek demonstrators are demanding: to reverse the global tax shift off property and finance onto labor, and to give labor's financial claims for retirement pensions priority over claims by the banks to get fully paid on hundreds of billions of dollars of recklessly bad loans recently reduced to junk status. The Greek bailout should be thought of as a TARP for German and other European bankers and global currency speculators. Almost $1 trillion is being provided by governments (mainly Germany, at the cost of its own domestic spending) into a kind of escrow account for the Greek government to pay foreign bondholders who bought up these securities at plunging prices over the past few weeks. They will make a killing, as will buyers of hundreds of billions of dollars of credit-default swaps on the Greek government bonds, speculators in euro-swaps and other casino-capitalist gamblers. (Parties on the losing side of these swaps now will need to be bailed out as well, and so on ad infinitum.) This windfall is to be paid by taxpayers -- ultimately those of Greece (in effect labor, because the wealthy have been untaxed) -- to reimburse Euro-governments, the IMF and even the U.S. Treasury for its commitment to predatory finance. The ³sanctity of debt -- sacrificing the economy to pay bondholders -- is to be used as an excuse to slash Greek public services, pensions and other government spending...

Drop Dead Economics; European Union; Financial Crisis; Greece.

Thu 2010-05-13 13:39 EDT

The People v. the Bankers

Michael Hudson

Financial lobbyists here in the U.S. are using the Greek crisis as an object lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the opposite of what the Greek demonstrators are demanding: to reverse the global tax shift off property and finance onto labor, and to give labor's financial claims for retirement pensions priority over claims by the banks to get fully paid on hundreds of billions of dollars of recklessly bad loans recently reduced to junk status. Let's call the ``Greek bailout'' what it is: a TARP for German and other European bankers and global currency speculators. The money is being provided by other governments (mainly the German Treasury, cutting back its domestic spending) into a kind of escrow account for the Greek government to pay foreign bondholders who bought up these securities at plunging prices over the past few weeks...This windfall is to be paid by taxpayers -- ultimately those of Greece (in effect labor, because the wealthy have been untaxed) -- to reimburse Euro-governments, the IMF and even the U.S. Treasury for its commitment to predatory finance. The payment to bondholders is to be used as an excuse to slash Greek public services, pensions and other government spending. It will be a model for other countries to impose similar economic austerity...

bankers; people.

Mon 2009-12-28 15:56 EST

Provide A Public Service With Small Profits, Or Destroy It With Large Ones? | The Agonist

...I don't buy all the hype that the internet is even the primary culprit of the demise of journalism. The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction...You can provide a public service with small profits for a long, long time, but if you demand large ones you will destroy it. Just ask the big banks.

Agonist; destroyed; large ones; provided; Public services; small profit.