Evening Blues Preview 7-9-15

This evening's music features Memphis blues singer and harmonica player Herman "Little Junior" Parker.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

Joseph E. Stiglitz: The U.S. Must Save Greece

As the Greek saga continues, many have marveled at Germany’s chutzpah. It received, in real terms, one of the largest bailout and debt reduction in history and unconditional aid from the U.S. in the Marshall Plan. And yet it refuses even to discuss debt relief. Many, too, have marveled at how Germany has done so well in the propaganda game, selling an image of a long-failed state that refuses to go along with the minimal conditions demanded in return for generous aid.

The facts prove otherwise: From the mid-90’s to the beginning of the crisis, the Greek economy was growing at a faster rate than the EU average (3.9% vs 2.4%). The Greeks took austerity to heart, slashing expenditures and increasing taxes. They even achieved a primary surplus (that is, tax revenues exceeded expenditures excluding interest payments), and their fiscal position would have been truly impressive had they not gone into depression. Their depression—25% decline in GDP and 25% unemployment, with youth unemployment twice that—is because they did what was demanded of them, not because of their failure to do so. It was the predictable and predicted response to the austerity. ...

The question now is: What’s next, assuming (as seems ever more likely) they are effectively thrown out of the euro? It’s likely that the European Central Bank will refuse to do its job—as the Central Bank for Greece, it should do what every central bank is supposed to do, act as a lender of last resort. And if it refuses to do that, Greece will have no option but to create a parallel currency. The ECB has already begun tightening the screws, making access to funds more and more difficult.

Greece can easily survive without the funds from the IMF and the eurozone. Greece has done such a good job of adjusting its economy that, apart from what it’s paying to service the debt, it has a surplus. It isn’t even dependent on the IMF and the eurozone for foreign exchange: At least before the most recent stranglehold that Greece’s creditors had imposed, it was running a current account surplus of 1%—5% if we exclude oil exports.

The U.S. was generous with Germany as we defeated it. Now, it is time for the U.S. to be generous with our friends in Greece in their time of need, as they have been crushed for the second time in a century by Germany, this time with the support of the troika. At a technical level, the Federal Reserve needs to create a swap line with Greece’s central bank, which—as a result of the default of the ECB in fulfilling its responsibilities—will have to take on once again the role of lender of last resort. Greece needs unconditional humanitarian aid; it needs Americans to buy its products, take vacations there, and show a solidarity with Greece and a humanity that its European partners were not able to display.

Greece extends bank closures as reform proposal due

Greece has extended bank closures and a $66 limit on ATM withdrawals until Monday, as the deadline for the country to submit detailed economic reform proposals looms.

The debt-strapped country has until the end of Thursday to present the plans in exchange for a bailout.

On Wednesday, Greece submitted a request for a three-year bailout from the European Stability Mechanism — a European Union agency that provides loans.

‘Leave Euro, retake democracy!’ Far-left & eurosceptic MEPs bash eurozone over Greece

Greece finally admits €2bn gas pipeline deal with Russia

Closer ties between Athens and Moscow is likely to worry the US, which has stepped up its involvement in Greece's debt crisis

Greece has admitted for the first time it is planning a €2bn gas pipeline with Russia.

The move is likely to worry the US, which has stepped up its involvement in Greece's debt talks with international creditors over fears the cash-strapped country could drop out of the single currency and come under the influence of its Cold War rival.

Panayotis Lafazanis, Greece's energy minister, said the move would be a key part of the country's "multi-faceted" foreign policy and would create 20,000 jobs, the Financial Times reported.

China bans major shareholders from selling their stakes for next six months

China’s securities regulator took the drastic step of banning shareholders with stakes of more than 5% from selling shares for the next six months in a bid to halt a plunge in stock prices that is starting to roil global financial markets. ...

China’s stock markets opened down again Thursday morning before making up some ground. Shanghai Composite Index fell more than 3% in the first half hour of trading before reversing course and rising 1.4%, while the Shenzhen Component Index opened down just over 1%. ...

Iron ore prices plunged to fresh six-year lows on Thursday as the contagion hurt commodity markets, with resource-heavy economies such as Australia bearing the brunt.

The spot price of the commodity used to make steel took its biggest one-day hit ever overnight, falling 10% to $44.59 a tonne, analysts said, as demand in key market China continues to shrink.

An IG Markets strategist, Evan Lucas, said: “Iron ore has just logged its worst trading day on record. The steel price in China is now cheaper per tonne than cabbage.”

Chinese Economy Running Off the Cliff and There is Nothing Beneath It

Former Dictator of Guatemala Ruled Mentally Unfit to Face Retrial for War Crimes

Efrain Rios Montt, the aging former dictator of Guatemala, is mentally incompetent and unable to stand trial once more for charges of genocide during Guatemala's decades-long civil war, government forensic scientists have ruled. ...

The news dredging up wounds from Guatemala's painful civil war comes amid a current period of political turmoil reaching the highest office in the country.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in recent weeks have rallied and called on President Otto Perez Molina to step down over a fiscal corruption scandal that has already toppled vice president Roxana Baldetti, who resigned in early May. Perez Molina, himself a former general who still faces lingering allegations of abuses during his time in the civil war, has said he won't resign. ...

Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification has estimated that 10,000 mostly indigenous civilians were killed by armed forces in the 17 months Rios Montt was president, and 448 villages were literally wiped off the map. At least 200,000 people were killed overall in the government's US-backed war against guerrillas and paramilitaries between 1960 and 1996, in unrest that was rooted back to the 1940s.

This article makes for some harrowing reading, but the facts within it ought to be brought up to illuminate the discussion the next time some humanitarian interventionist mad bomber mouths the name Srebernica to justify their next round of death-dealing, hellfire demockery from above:

How Britain and the US decided to abandon Srebrenica to its fate

New research reveals that Britain and the US knew six weeks before massacre that enclave would fall – but they decided to sacrifice it in their efforts for peace

They will fill the VIP stands at Srebrenica next weekend to mark the 20th anniversary of the worst massacre on European soil since the Third Reich; heads of state, politicians, the great and good.

There will be speeches and tributes at the town’s memorial site, Potocari, but the least likely homily would be one that answered the question: how did Srebrenica happen? Why were Bosnian Serb death squads able, unfettered, to murder more than 8,000 men and boys in a few days, under the noses of United Nations troops legally bound to protect the victims? Who delivered the UN-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica to the death squads, and why? ...

Until now, it has always been asserted that the so-called “endgame strategy” that forged a peace settlement for – and postwar map of – Bosnia followed the “reality on the ground” after the fall, and ceding, of Srebrenica. What can now be revealed is that the “endgame” preceded that fall, and was – as it turned out – conditional upon it.

The western powers whose negotiations led to Srebrenica’s downfall cannot be said to have known the extent of the massacre that would follow, but the evidence demonstrates they were aware – or should have been – of Mladic’s declared intention to have the Bosniak Muslim population of the entire region “vanish completely”. In the history of eastern Bosnia over the three years that preceded the massacre, that can only have meant one thing.

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I don't know if anyone else remembers some discussion on DKos about why Hillary doesn't take a stand on TPP. Well, she has. 45 times

Clinton said, "there are some specifics in there that could and should be changed. So I am hoping that's what happens now -- let's take the lemons and turn it into lemonade."

But as members of the Obama administration can attest, Clinton was one of the leading drivers of the TPP when Secretary of State. Here are 45 instances when she approvingly invoked the trade bill about which she is now expressing concerns:

Not a surprise for Wall Street Republicans 'dark secret'.

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joe shikspack's picture

but, but, but... it was her job when she was sos to promote the administration's policies, that doesn't mean that she liked them!

pffffffttt!!!

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Walker isn't the only asshole. The ALEC agenda to eliminate public schools is in full swing.

Gov. Snyder signs early warning bills that could increase state's role in fixing districts' finances

LANSING — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law a package of bills that he believes will allow school districts to receive more help quicker during a financial emergency.

The package, House Bills 4325-4332, combines more financial reporting, the expansion of deficit elimination plan programs, the creation of enhanced deficit elimination plans and also changes how the Michigan Department of Education and Treasury Department can withhold state aid payments to school districts.

See the 171 Michigan school districts and charter schools affected by early financial warning laws

The role of the State Treasurer is also expanded in school oversight, including having the ability to recommend to the governor a financial manager take over a school district.

The bills also allow local school districts to contract with an intermediate school district for two years to fix a district's finances.

The bills also:
Require school districts, intermediate school districts and charter schools with reserve funds of less than 5 percent of their general fund budget to send their budgetary assumptions to the state.
Change the financial authority in charge of districts with deficit elimination plans from the state superintendent to the state treasurer.
Require districts going into deficit to tell the treasurer and state superintendent, send an amended budget to the state and intermediate school district, allow the Michigan Department of Education to withhold state school aid payments and allow the state superintendent to require deficit elimination plans to have an academic plan.
Create enhanced deficit elimination plans that would include assistance and guidance from treasury and other state departments, a financial operating plan, appointment of local auditor or inspector and a timeline for deficit elimination set out by the treasurer.
Require, by March 1 every year, that the treasurer must prepare a report of districts, ISDs and charter schools that have enhanced deficit elimination plans and their progress on them.
Allow the Treasury to withhold a portion or all of state school aid to entities with enhanced deficit elimination plans until a district submits their plan.
Allow the treasurer to declare a financial emergency and recommend the governor appoint a financial manager.
Allow school districts to choose between working with their intermediate school district to fix their financial problems or to work with the state.
Increases the cap on emergency loans to municipalities but prohibits the loan board from authorizing loans to Detroit Public Schools.
These are the districts affected by the new laws, based on their financial information from fiscal years 2013 and 2014, according to the Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI). Those are the last two years the state has full financial information for districts.

Michigan can say goodbye to school boards, local control, and public schools.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

joe shikspack's picture

i hear there's coincidentally a move afoot in congress to update no child left behind to put more power and control in the hands of states. i'll put it in tomorrow's eb.

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Yesterday this article was posted. It's an interesting read.

Baghdad and Tehran remain opposed to arming Sunnis while igniting their own Shia awakening – one Baghdad may have no control over...
Iran is now funding and providing arms to 100,000 Shia who are joining Iranian-backed Shia militias under the umbrella of Population Mobilization Units (PMUs).
These men do not answer to Abadi — they answer to Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Corps. And he answers to Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the IRGC Qods Force.
Al-Ameri commands the PMUs and credits Tehran and Soleimani for preventing Baghdad from falling to ISIS. He openly criticizes PM Abadi and pledges loyalty to Soleimani.

And then, as if on command, there is this story today.

An interior ministry officer said around 15 gunmen from the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force stormed an unfinished health ministry building in the Zayyounah neighbourhood overnight.
"The guards went to the police, which dispatched units of around 60 men equipped with armoured personnel carriers to expel the gunmen, who opened fire," the officer said.
A police colonel said three policemen were wounded in the clashes, which resulted in the militiamen eventually leaving the building.
"The gunfire lasted for almost an hour," said Wafa Mohammed, who lives nearby. "We were scared inside our home and had no idea what was happening on the street."
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From the guy mainstream Democrats don't want

As you may have heard, Democratic turnout dropped off a cliff again last year, just like it did in 2010. I was wondering why, so I asked. I polled Florida non-voters. I found that the main reason why they didn't vote last year was simple: They couldn't see any difference between the candidates. When there is no difference between the candidates, Democrats don't vote, and Democrats lose.
...
As Gov. Howard Dean has said, if you offer people a choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they will choose the real Republican every time. And they did. Getting back to our poll, we focused on people who actually could have voted, not permanent residents, convicted felons whose rights had not been restored or children. We offered the non-voters 12 different reasons to explain why they hadn't voted. Reason #1, the most "popular," was that "people did not like either choice for Governor." Forty-one percent of the Democratic non-voters said that this was the main reason why people didn't vote.

By the way, the non-voters were overwhelmingly Democratic, whether or not they were registered as such. When asked whom they had had favored in the 2012 Presidential race, they chose Obama over Romney by 17 points. President Obama won Florida -- among the actual voters -- by less than one point.

So, let's be honest. When we put up a pseudo-Democrat or a neo-Democrat or a quasi-Democrat or a semi-Democrat for Team Blue, our voters are not amused. They are not fooled. And we only hurt ourselves.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

gulfgal98's picture

I can honestly say that the only reason I chose to vote for Charlie Crist instead of not voting at all was on one and only one issue. That was the future of Florida's environment. Protecting the environment was one of the areas that Crist was previously strong, even as a Republican. As a native Floridian, Crist understood the fragility of Florida's environment while Scott can hardly wait to further decimate Florida's environmental and growth management regulations. As a climate change denier, it is unconscionable that Rick Scott is even in the governorship of a state with one of the most fragile ecosystems around and one of the states most likely to be devastated by the effects of climate change.

Personally, I see what happened in Florida with Alex Sink and Charlie Crist as being symptomatic of the Democratic party as a whole. Now they are all in behind former Republican turned Democrat, but very much a DINO, Patrick Murphy to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio. I will not vote for Murphy in the general because it is like voting for a Republican anyway. The homogenization of the Democratic party's candidates to the lowest common denominator has turned me off. I will from now on only vote for candidates who reflect my own values or I will not vote.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy