Weekend Economists Think on the Starving Armenians February 20-22, 2015

[Demeter]

If you are old enough, you may recall hearing the admonishment to clean your plate: "Remember the starving Armenians!"

Who are the Armenians, and why were they starving? Are they still starving today? For that matter, where IS Armenia?

History of Armenia

Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of Ararat. The original Armenian name for the country was Hayk, later Hayastan (Armenian: Հայաստան , translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name of the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya (ha-ià) and the Iranian suffix '-stan' ("land&quot .

The historical enemy of Hayk (the legendary ruler of Armenia), Hayastan, was Bel, or in other words Baal (Akkadian cognate Bēlu). The word "Bel" is named in the Bible at Isaiah 46:1 and Jeremiah 50:2 and 51:44. (MENDELSSOHN'S "ELIJAH" ORATORIO IS ALL ABOUT A CONTEST BETWEEN THE JEWISH GOD JAWEH AND BAAL....DEMETER)

The name Armenia was given to the country by the surrounding states, and it is traditionally derived from Armenak or Aram (the great-grandson of Haik's great-grandson, and another leader who is, according to Armenian tradition, the ancestor of all Armenians).

In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including

the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power),
Mitanni (South-Western historical Armenia), and
Hayasa-Azzi (1600–1200 BC).

Soon after the Hayasa-Azzi were the

Nairi (1400–1000 BC) and the
Kingdom of Urartu (1000–600 BC),

who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the aforementioned nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people.

Yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, dates back to the 8th century BC, with the founding of the fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC by King Argishti I at the western extreme of the Ararat plain. Erebuni has been described as "designed as a great administrative and religious centre, a fully royal capital."

The Iron Age kingdom of Urartu (Assyrian for Ararat) was replaced by the Orontid dynasty. Following Persian and Macedonian rule, the Artaxiad dynasty from 190 BC gave rise to the Kingdom of Armenia which rose to the peak of its influence under Tigranes II before falling under Roman rule.

In 301, Arsacid Armenia was the first sovereign nation to accept Christianity as a state religion. The Armenians later fell under Byzantine, Persian, and Islamic hegemony, but reinstated their independence with the Bagratuni Dynasty kingdom of Armenia. After the fall of the kingdom in 1045, and the subsequent Seljuk conquest of Armenia in 1064, the Armenians established a kingdom in Cilicia, where they prolonged their sovereignty to 1375.

Greater Armenia was later divided between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

In the early 20th century Armenians suffered in the genocide inflicted on them by the Ottoman government, in which 1.5 million Armenians were killed and many more dispersed throughout the world via Syria and Lebanon. Armenia, from then on corresponding to much of Eastern Armenia, regained independence in 1918, with the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia, and in 1991, the Republic of Armenia.

An ancient land...with a heavy burden of history and beautiful scenery.



The Khor Virap monastery stands before the snowcapped flanks of Mount Ararat.



An even more dramatic view!





Tatev monastery 9-13 century

[Warpy]

1. It was starving Chinese or Africans when I was a kid

since starving Armenians were before my time. Since I wasn't a stupid child, I suggested we wrap up whatever shit I didn't want to eat and send it to China or Africa. My parents, food power strugglers of the first order, were unimpressed.

To this day, I can't get liver down.

[MattSh]

11. Definitely the Chinese for us too.

But maybe the "remember the starving Armenians" is more of a regional thing, in areas where there is greater Armenian heritage? Because starving Armenians would seem to be the 1930's or earlier, whereas the Chinese would definitely be a 1950s -1960s thing. I think. Don't quote me on any of this...

Definitely don't like liver either. My Russian wife (don't call her Ukrainian) loves the stuff.

[Demeter]

18. I love liver, too

But it has to be prepared properly.

chicken livers wrapped in bacon and broiled, or dredged in flour and pepper and fried with onions, or made into pate. Any kind of liver pate is fine with me...ask for recipes! I've done turkey, chicken and duck liver pate.

Calves liver, soaked in milk to take out the bitterness, deveined to take out the toughness, dredged in flour and pepper, fried gently and eaten still slightly bloody...

I've only had pork liver in pate from the deli. And braunschweiger.

Did I mention an inherited iron deficiency? That may have a lot to do with why people love liver. And rare cooked beef.

[MattSh]

40. I'm a bit opposite...

I've got a tendency toward gout. Liver & kidney are definitely foods to avoid, especially during an attack. Those two are easy. I don't like either. But there are other foods to avoid that I definitely love, like bacon and beer.

But drinking always seems to trigger it. Not normal, run of the mill drinking. We had our anniversary last week. Her father doesn't drink too much, but when he does, watch out. A couple of days later, and my gout's acting up.

[Fuddnik]

53. Everyone I know who has gout says Beer triggers it.

Not so much with whiskey.

I used to work with a guy, who was very prone to gout, and he could never pass up a place with all you can eat shrimp. And beer. The next day his knees were so swollen, he couldn't put on pants to come to work.

[Demeter]

2. How to tell an Armenian

It's like that old joke...you can always tell an Armenian, but you cannot tell him much...

When I was a girl, several centuries ago, in Massachusetts, I encountered several Armenians, 1st and second generation immigrants. Their surnames usually ended in -ien or -ian. They have medium to dark, wavy hair, classical Caucasian features (the people of the Caucuses were considered the most beautiful Europeans by many connoisseurs).

[Demeter]

3. Caucasian race

Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or Europid) has historically been used to describe the physical or biological type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia.

The term was used in biological anthropology for many people from these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone. First introduced in early racial science and anthropometry, the taxon has historically been used to denote one of the proposed major races of humankind.

Although its validity and utility is disputed by many anthropologists, Caucasoid as a biological classification remains in use, particularly within the field of forensic anthropology.

Origin of the concept

The term "Caucasian race" was coined by the German philosopher Christoph Meiners in his The Outline of History of Mankind (1785). Meiners' term was given wider circulation in the 1790s by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German professor of medicine and member of the British Royal Society, who is considered one of the founders of the discipline of anthropology.

Meiners' treatise was widely read in the German intellectual circles of its day, despite muted criticism of its scholarship. Meiners proposed a taxonomy of human beings which involved only two races (Rassen): Caucasians and Mongolians. He considered Caucasians to be more physically attractive than Mongolians, notably because they had paler skin; Caucasians were also more sensitive and more morally virtuous than Mongolians. Later he would make similar distinctions within the Caucasian group, concluding that the Germans were the most attractive and virtuous people on earth. The name "Caucasian" derived from the Southern Caucasus region (or what is now the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), because he considered the people of this region to be the archetype for the grouping.

Meiners' classification was not grounded on any scientific criteria. It was Blumenbach who gave it scientific credibility and a wider audience, by grounding it in the new quantitative method of craniology. Blumenbach did not credit Meiners with his taxonomy, however, claiming to have developed it himself — although his justification clearly points to Meiners' aesthetic viewpoint:

Caucasian variety—I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (original members) of mankind.

AND THEN RACISM AND SKIN COLOR INTRUDED...

Physical anthropology

Drawing from Petrus Camper's theory of facial angle, Blumenbach and Cuvier classified races, through their skull collections based on their cranial features and anthropometric measurements.

Caucasoid traits were recognised as: thin nasal aperture ("nose narrow&quot , a small mouth, facial angle of 100°–90°, and orthognathism, exemplified by what Blumenbach saw in most ancient Greek crania and statues. Later anthropologists of the 19th and early 20th century such as Pritchard, Pickering, Broca, Topinard, Morton, Peschel, Seligman, Bean, Ripley, Haddon and Dixon came to recognise other Caucasoid morphological features, such as prominent supraorbital ridges and a sharp nasal sill. Many anthropologists in the 20th century used the term "Caucasoid" in their literature, such as Boyd, Gates, Coon, Cole, Brues and Krantz replacing the earlier term "Caucasian" as it had fallen out of usage.

The physical traits of Caucasoid crania are still recognised as distinct (in contrast to Mongoloid and Negroid races) within modern forensic anthropology. A Caucasoid skull is identified, with an accuracy of up to 95%, by the following features:

Little or no prognathism exhibited — an orthognathic profile, with minimal protrusion of the lower part of the face.
Retreating zygomatic bones (cheekbones), making the face look more "pointed".
Narrow nasal aperture, with a tear-shaped nasal cavity.

Other physical characteristics of Caucasoids include hair texture that varies from straight to curly, with wavy (cymotrichous) hair most typical on average according to Coon (1962), in contrast to the Negroid and Mongoloid races. Skin color amongst Caucasoids ranges greatly from pale, reddish-white, olive, through to dark brown tones.

Origin


The original "Old man of Crô-Magnon", Musée de l'Homme, Paris

Physical anthropologists generally consider the Cro-Magnons, who emerged during the Upper Paleolithic or Late Stone Age as the earliest or prototype representatives of the Caucasoid race. In a study of Cro-Magnon crania, Jantz and Owsley (2003) have noted that: "Upper Paleolithic crania are, for the most part, larger and more generalized versions of recent Europeans."

William Howells (1997) has pointed out that Cro-Magnons were Caucasoid based on their cranial traits:

... the Cro-Magnons were already racially European, i.e., Caucasoid. This has always been accepted because of the general appearance of the skulls: straight faces, narrow noses, and so forth. It is also possible to test this arithmetically. ... Except for Predmosti 4, which is distant from every present and past population, all of these skulls show themselves to be closer to "Europeans" than to other peoples — Mladec and Abri Pataud comfortably so, the other two much more remotely.

Proponents of the multiregional origin of modern humans argue that Caucasoid traits emerged prior to the Cro-Magnons, and are present in the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids as well as the Neanderthals. Carleton Coon (1962), for example, considered the Skhul IV specimen as a proto-Caucasoid. He further argued that the Caucasoid race is of dual origin, consisting of Upper Paleolithic types (mixture of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals) and Mediterranean types (purely Homo sapiens).

More recent analysis of Cro-Magnon fossils indicates that they had larger skulls than modern populations, and possessed a dolichocephalic (long) and low cranium with a wide face. It also suggests that they may have had brown skin.

EXCERPTS FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

[Demeter]

7. Armenians, Themselves

Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, hayer [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.

Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world's oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus' death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion.

Armenian is an Indo-European language. It has two mutually intelligible and written forms: Eastern Armenian, today spoken mainly in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran and the former Soviet republics, and Western Armenian, used in the historical Western Armenia and, after the Armenian Genocide, primarily in the Armenian diasporan communities. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.

Armenian alphabet

The Armenian alphabet (Armenian: Հայոց գրեր Hayots grer or Հայոց այբուբեն Hayots aybuben) is a graphically unique alphabetical writing system that has been used to write the Armenian language. It was introduced around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and originally contained 36 letters. Two more letters, օ (o) and ֆ (f), were added in the Middle Ages. During the 1920s orthography reform, a new letter և (capital ԵՎ was added, which was a ligature before ե+ւ, while the letter Ւ ւ was discarded and reintroduced as part of a new letter ՈՒ ու (which was a digraph before).

The Armenian word for "alphabet" is այբուբեն aybuben (Armenian pronunciation: [ɑjbubɛn]), named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet Ա այբ ayb and Բ բեն ben. The Armenian script's directionality is horizontal left-to-right, like the Latin and Greek alphabets.

GO TO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet

TO SEE THESE BEAUTIFUL LETTERS AND TO HEAR THEM PRONOUNCED

[Demeter]

4. Starbucks apologises for 'offensive' ad ahead of Armenia genocide anniversary

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/starbucks-offensive-ad-armenia-genocide

Starbucks has withdrawn a poster showing Armenian women in traditional clothing drinking coffee under the crescent and star of the Turkish flag and apologised to customers for causing offence.

The posters, displayed at at least one coffee shop in Los Angeles, angered Armenian Americans because of sensitivities around the deaths of more than a million Armenians at the hands of Turkish Ottoman forces in the early 20th century.

“Why is Starbucks selling coffee using an image of women, dressed in traditional Armenian costumes, celebrating a Turkish state that systematically victimized Armenian women during the Armenian genocide, and that still denies this crime against all humanity?” the Armenian National Committee Of America (ANCA) asked on Facebook.

[Demeter]

5. Ancient Fortune-Telling Shrines Unearthed in Armenia

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/ancient-fortune-telling-shrines-unearthed-armenia-n309691

Three shrines, dating back about 3,300 years, have been discovered within a hilltop fortress at Gegharot in Armenia.

Local rulers at the time probably used the shrines for divination, a practice aimed at predicting the future, the archaeologists involved in the discovery say.

Each of the three shrines consists of a single room holding a clay basin filled with ash and ceramic vessels. Wide varieties of artifacts were discovered, including clay idols with horns, stamp seals, censers used to burn substances and a vast amount of animal bones with markings on them. During divination practices, the rulers and diviners may have burnt intoxicating substances and drank wine, allowing them to experience altered states of mind, the archaeologists say.



This shrine was excavated at the entrance of a fortress' west terrace in Gegharot in Armenia. The stone monument was probably the focal point for rituals practiced there 3,300 years ago, archaeologists say.

...Excavations at the shrines are part of the American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, also known as Project ArAGATS. The shrines were unearthed over a period stretching from 2003 to 2011.

Smith told LiveScience that the region's rulers probably used Gegharot as an occult center. At the time, writing had not yet spread to this part of Armenia, so the names of the polity and its rulers are unknown. Smith and Leon found evidence for three forms of divination at Gegharot. One form was osteomancy, trying to predict the future through rituals that involved rolling the marked-up knuckle bones of cows, sheep and goats like dice. Lithomancy, trying to predict the future through the use of colored pebbles, also appears to have been practiced at Gegharot. And at one shrine, the archaeologists found an installation used to grind flour. Smith and Leon think that this flour could have been used to predict the future in a practice called aleuromancy.

The shrines were in use for a century or so until the surrounding fortress, along with all the other fortresses in the area, were destroyed. The site was largely abandoned after this, Smith said. Although the rulers who controlled Gegharot put great effort into trying to predict and change the future, it was to no avail.

[Demeter]

6. Sim card database hack gave US and UK spies access to billions of cellphones

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/nsa-gchq-sim-card-billions-cellphones-hacking

American and British spies hacked into the world’s largest sim card manufacturer in a move that gave them unfettered access to billions of cellphones around the globe and looks set to spark another international row into overreach by espionage agencies.

The National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent GCHQ hacked into Gemalto, a Netherlands sim card manufacturer, stealing encryption keys that allowed them to secretly monitor both voice calls and data, according to documents newly released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The breach, revealed in documents provided to The Intercept, gave the agencies the power to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, which experts said violated international laws.

Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said there was no doubt that the spy agencies had violated Dutch law and were in all probability violating laws in many other territories when they used the hacked keys.

“They have the functional equivalent of our house keys,” he said. “That has serious implications for privacy not just here in the US but internationally.”

MORE--THERE'S ALWAYS MORE WHEN IT'S NSA

[Demeter]

8. Obama Administration Throws Greece Under the Bus; ECB Leak Recommends Capital Controls; Greece Weigh

Obama Administration Throws Greece Under the Bus; ECB Leak Recommends Capital Controls; Greece Weighing Capitulation (Updated: Germany Rejects Greek Proposal)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/obama-administration-throws-greece-bus-ecb-leak-recommends-capital-controls-greece-weighing-capitulation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Yves Smith YVES DOES GREECE!

Things are not going well for Greece. It appears Syriza has largely capitulated to the demands of the Troika. Greece has submitted a request for a loan extension that the Eurogroup will consider Friday. From ekathimerini:

Government officials on Wednesday worked until late finalizing a proposal…

Specifically the government is expected to seek an extension to the so-called Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement, the official name for the European Financial Stability Facility’s loan contract. That contract stipulates, however, that the dispensation of financial assistance is dependant on Greece honoring the terms of the so-called memorandum, which contains the economic reforms that the previous government committed to and which the current SYRIZA-led coalition has contested. Indeed, former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had made the same request in December last year when he sought to extend the European part of Greece’s bailout program, from the end of the year to February 28. Kathimerini understands that Samaras’s request had then used the words “technical extension to the existing Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement,” the same phrase that the new government was said to be considering last night.

The compromise is expected to satisfy both sides as it would mean Athens can avoid using the phrase “extension of the existing program” and the creditors can avoid using the term “loan agreement.” In substance, however, there would be little difference from the extension sought by Samaras as the terms of the memorandum would have to be respected in order for rescue loans to be disbursed.

This means that Greece is effectively asking for an extension of the bailout, which is what it had refused to do. And that means keeping the “conditionality” as in privatizations and labor-crushing structural reforms, intact. Greece is still fighting to keep some flexibility there but it is not clear they will obtain much. Again from ekathimerini:

The European Commission’s vice president for eurozone affairs, Valdis Dombrovskis, said efforts were under way to reach a compromise by finding “common ground for an extension of the current program.”

He insisted that “the best way forward is to extend the existing program with its conditionality.” Dombrovskis noted, however, that if Greece wants to substitute some of the existing measures in the memorandum with alternatives, it could do so.

In other words, this is a “peace with honor” solution...As we’ve said from the outset, as much as we’d liked to see Greece prevail in its efforts to restructure its relationship with its creditors, not just for its own sake but for the benefit of other periphery countries and the Eurozone project, it was unlikely to prevail unless it could rally support. One possible source was the anti-austerity and anti-Eurozone parties in the rest of Europe. Perhaps we’ve missed it, but we’ve seen nary a sign of Marine Le Pen in France or Spain’s Podemos, the two proximate threats to business as usual in the Eurozone, using the extraordinary hostility of the Eurogroup to economically rational proposals from Greece as a talking point. For instance, when General Secretary Pablo Iglesias of Podemos appeared in New York earlier this week and took questions from the audience, there was nary a mention of Syriza.

Similarly, it will come as no surprise to regular readers to see the Administration hew to its usual pattern of false friend when it appears to take up of populist causes. Consider these remarks, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, early this month:

“You cannot keep on squeezing countries that are in the midst of depression. At some point there has to be a growth strategy in order for them to pay off their debts to eliminate some of their deficits,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria aired Sunday.

He said Athens needs to restructure its economy to boost its competitiveness, “but it’s very hard to initiate those changes if people’s standards of livings are dropping by 25%. Over time, eventually the political system, the society can’t sustain it.”

And as we pointed out at the time, the Administration had legitimate reason to try to push the recalcitrant Germans and northern countries to relent. The Eurozone is on utterly unsustainable foundations. It isn’t just that its structure is defective, with monetary integration but no Federal fiscal structure to allow for Eurozone-wide government spending to help equilibrate economic performance across regions. It is also that the design of the Eurozone is far too skewed to Germany’s advantage. Germany continues to run large trade surpluses with the rest of the Eurozone; they’ve even widened to a record 7.4% of GDP. Germany wants the impossible, to run persistent trade surpluses with its trade partners, yet not finance their purchases.

Unlike the Eurocrats, the Administration, along with most financial analysts, knows that persisting in this course of action assures a Eurozone breakup. And unlike Germany and its allies in the Eurogroup, it believes that a Grexit would pave the way for other countries leaving, and that the consequences of a Eurozone implosion would be catastrophic for Europe and not too pretty for the US either. So the intervention was hardly selfless. And our sources tell us Treasury did expend some effort on Greece’s behalf, although given the lack of movement from the Eurogroup side over the last week, we doubted how forceful a case was made.

Yesterday, with this terse report on the Treasury’s website, the Administration abandoned its support for Greece:

Readout from a Treasury Spokesperson on Secretary Lew’s Call Today with Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis

2/18/2015

Today, Secretary Jacob J. Lew spoke by phone with Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to discuss the latest deliberations between Greece and its international partners. Secretary Lew noted that failure to reach an agreement would lead to immediate hardship in Greece, that the uncertainty is not good for Europe, and that time is of the essence. He urged Greece to find a constructive path forward in partnership with Europe and the IMF to build on the foundation that exists to advance growth and reform. Secretary Lew added that the United States will remain engaged with all parties to encourage concrete progress in the days ahead.​

While Ambrose Evans-Pritchard cautioned via e-mail that Treasury could have issued similar warnings to ECB leaders, we see no corresponding press releases. So this looks to be a deliberate retreat from the Administration’s posture that the austerians in Europe needed to relent.

Another source of pressure on Greece was, as we discussed yesterday, was that it was running out of funding even sooner than expected. We had hoped they might hold on until mid-March or later. But ekathimerini reported that the government faced a cash crunch starting February 24. Yes, it can presumably delay some payments or resort to a scrip like the Robert Parenteau’s tax anticipation notes. But the knowledge that Greece was at the end of its rope gave the Troika the opportunity to press its advantage.

A third source of pressure came from the ECB. We were puzzled by the ECB’s decision to give Greece only a €3.3 billion increase in the ELA when it had requested €10 billion. This was clearly not a good sign, although the intent was not clear. Was it to create plausible deniability, as it had two weeks ago, by making it harder for the Greek government to finance itself while maintaining the appearance of supporting its banking system? Many observers saw the measures implemented at the last regular ECB board meeting as intended to accelerate the bank run in progress. If so, the ECB was successful. This looked to be more of the same, to focus media and Greek depositor attention on how little headroom the central bank had provided relative to the continuing deposit drain.

A story in the German paper FAZ (hat tip Dimitri and Swedish Lex) increased the pressure on Greece:

The Greek government should have imposed capital controls by now but was loath to do so, since any leak of that line of thought would increase the deposit run. While it could be done in isolation, simply as a protective measure to prevent deposits being moved out of the country and to reduce daily withdrawals. it would be entirely logical to see it as a step on the way to a Grexit. Anyone with an operating brain cell would want to minimize their exposure to having cash in the bank turned into less valuable drachmas.

The ECB did everything they could in the FAZ leak to stoke that concern. The ominous headline is Central Bankers Lose Faith in Greece. Some extracts via Google Translate:

In central bank circles a “Grexit” is now seen as likely. First, there are 3.3 billion euros more emergency loans… Some policymakers speak now behind closed doors the view that a Grexit is the most likely scenario now. “One gets the impression that the Greeks want to get out and look only for an external guilty,” said a central banker, who declined to be named….

In central bank circles was discussed why the Greek government had not yet introduced capital controls. “The Governing Council and the Governing banking supervisors would be better if there were capital controls to prevent bleeding of the banks,” it said in ECB circles. The Council of the Central Bank also discussed the question of whether and how long the Greek banks in general are still solvent. Ela-emergency loans may only be granted to temporarily illiquid but solvent banks in principle. If the Governing Council finish with a two-thirds majority of the Ela loans, this would effectively mean Greece’s euro-Off…

The skepticism in central bank circles increases more and more that the government will agree Tsipras time required by the EU partners extension of the aid program, subject to conditions. “It is very unlikely that the Greeks will make a 180 degree turn,” said a central banker. “It now runs to the Grexit.”

This story is the banking equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater. Whoever planted this piece knew exactly what he was doing.

The article also treats the Greek government as likely to repeat its demands of earlier in the week, which were already rejected by the Eurogroup. It also reiterated that the Germans have no intention of budging:

What are the five points, insist on the Berlin and other donor countries? First, this includes the confession that reforms are not turned back. Second, one expects an assurance that new measures are modified in consultation with the three institutions (European Commission, ECB and IMF) – and also the state budget not charge. Thirdly, to predict, to repay the loans to all donors to the Greek. Fourth part to the fact that Athens agreed to continue with the three institutions that have been called “troika” to work. Fifth, it is expected that the new Greek government seriously committed to the goal of successfully guiding the program to end…

The CSU profiled on Wednesday with Euro critical tones. Your Honorary Chairman Edmund Stoiber used the political Ash Wednesday to sharp attacks on the behavior of the government in Athens to their donors. “How many steps can you give the cow that you will milk,” warned Stoiber. The behavior Athens towards the countries of the Euro Group is an outrage. “The Germans are very helpful and patient, but I do not know how long,” Stoiber said. Europe is a continent of law and live on it that contracts are honored. If the principle of “pacta sunt servanda” (agreements must be complied with) no longer applies, “Europe is at the end.”

Another proof of the German view that Greece is a vassal state: Germany formally demanded the removal of Varoufakis through their ambassador in Athens.

The irony here is that if Greece were willing to default, Germany would have turned an intended subjugation of Syriza into a devastating political wound to the ruling German parties. Refusing to extend the ELA any further, if it were to come to that, merely limits ECB losses. If Greece were to default, it would suddenly expose the size of the commitments to Greece through the Target2 system, the vehicle used to launder the bailout money from Greece to French and German banks. Most Germans have the inaccurate picture than the rescue funds went to stereotypically lazy Greeks, when 91% of the payments actually went to banks. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explains in an important article:

The Target2 claims of the Bundesbank on the ECB system have jumped from €443bn in July to €515bn as of January 31. Most of this is due to capital outflows from Greek banks into German banks, either through direct transfers or indirectly through Switzerland, Cyprus and Britain.

Grexit would detonate the system. “The risks would suddenly become a reality and create a political storm in Germany,” said Eric Dor, from the IESEG business school in Lille. “That is the moment when the Bundestag would start to question the whole project of the euro. The risks are huge,” he said.

Mr Dor says a Greek default would reach €287bn if all forms of debt are included: Target2, ECB’s holdings of Greek bonds, bilateral loans and loans from the bail-out fund (EFSF)…

As a practical matter, the ECB itself would be in trouble. Any Target2 losses must be shared, according to the ECB’s “capital key”. The Bundesbank would take 27pc, the French 20pc, the Italians 18pc and so on, but these are uncharted waters.

“I do not believe that the Germans would allow the Bundesbank or the ECB to carry on with negative capital. They would demand recapitalisation and consider it a direct loss to the German state,” said Mr Dor.

If so, Chancellor Merkel would face an ugly moment – avoided until now – of having to go to the Bundestag to request actual money to cover the damage. Other forms of spending would have to be cut to meet budget targets.

Evans-Pritchard judged Greece to have the far stronger hand by virtue of being able to inflict this level of damage on Merkel. Yet the persistent ECB bludgeoning of Greek banks appears to have chastened Tsipras and Varoufakis. Or it may be that even the concessions that they are apparently prepared to offer will not be deemed sufficient. For instance, it does not appear that Syriza has agreed to let the Troika monitors back in, one of the five demands seen as critical by the Germans. And even though the European Commission spokesperson Valdis Dombrovskis said there might be some negotiating room on specific conditions, that is also inconsistent with the FAZ description of the German stance. Recall that it was a European Commission trial document that Varoufakis said Greece was willing to sign but was firmly nixed by the Eurogroup. So it may be that this last round of concessions is meant not as a capitulation but to demonstrate how much Greece was willing to give in the face of implacable Eurogroup demands and was still rebuffed. We’ll know the outcome either way shortly.

Update 8:00 AM. Well, that was fast and ugly. The Germans are playing completely non-negotiable, not that that is a surprise. Greece must surrender completely. From the BBC:

Germany has rejected a Greek request for a six-month extension to its eurozone loan programme, after earlier signs that a compromise was possible.

Greek had sought a six-month assistance package, rather than a renewal of the existing deal which comes with tough austerity conditions.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said it was “not a substantial proposal for a solution”.

The European Commission had earlier called the Greek request “positive”.

The wee problem is that the European Commission is not a party to this negotiation. Back to the key sections of the article:

Mr Schaeuble said the Greek request was an attempt at “bridge financing, without meeting the requirements of the programme. The letter does not meet the criteria agreed upon in the eurogroup on Monday”….

And it has this useful, if disheartening, summary:

How the German papers see the Greek negotiations:

Popular tabloid Bild has a full page spread featuring pictures of Vladimir Putin and Alexis Tsipras with the headline: “The Russian or the Greek: who is more dangerous for us?” Underneath it says: “Europe is in the most difficult crisis it’s seen for decades — because two heads of government are aggressively demonstrating their power.”

A commentary in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says: “The Greek government appears to believe it can treat its partners like fools,” accusing the Greek government of using Brussels like a stage for theatrics, adding that many people have simply had enough.

And the business paper Handelsblatt says the request for a loan extension changes very little. “It remains unclear whether Athens is willing to meet the conditions set by its creditors.” And that, the paper says is crucial for the meeting of European finance ministers on Friday.

Update 8:55 AM More detail from the Financial Times. Notice they confirm our reading of the Greek offer:

Germany has rejected a request by Athens to extend its €172bn bailout despite a significant U-turn by the new Greek government, which for the first time on Thursday promised to work on completing the economic reform measures required by the current rescue programme.

Martin Jäger, a spokesman for Germany’s finance ministry, said the letter requesting the extension, sent by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on Thursday, left too many questions unanswered and did not meet demands by eurozone finance ministers to unconditionally agree the terms of the existing rescue.

“The letter from Athens is not a substantive proposal for a solution,” Mr Jäger said. “In truth, it aims at bridge financing without fulfilling the demands of the programme. The text does not meet the conditions agreed on Monday in the eurogroup.”

The swift rejection by Berlin after what many viewed as near complete capitulation by Athens is just the latest in a series of breakdowns over how to keep the Greek government financed when the current EU programme expires next week….

Some members of the governing council believe that if a solution is not agreed between Greek officials and the eurogroup by the end of the week, the ECB might then have to review the solvency of Greek banks. The approval of the latest increase lasts for two weeks, but ELA can be reviewed at any time. A two-thirds majority of the governing council’s 21 voting members would be needed to end ELA — a “nuclear option” that would effectively force Greece to adopt capital controls or quit the currency area.

MORE, INCLUDING COMMENTARY AT LINK

[Demeter]

9. The U.S. Economy is Dead

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-19/us-economy-dead

For the past quarter century the most effective “stimulus” for the U.S. economy has been a fall in gasoline prices. This is no great surprise, given that the United States had been the most gas-guzzling nation on the planet – and by a wide margin. But times have changed! After Barack Obama publicly admitted that the U.S. government had ruthlessly manipulated oil prices lower, as “part of its strategy” of economic terrorism against Russia; global oil prices have been cut in half. The only other time that oil prices have fallen so far or so fast in the last quarter century was the brief/temporary collapse in prices which accompanied the Crash of ’08.

Has this enormous economic stimulus kick-started the U.S.’s zombie economy? Not at all. Indeed, the collapse in the U.S. retail sector has accelerated throughout this plunge in oil/gasoline prices. This should not be possible. Economic stimulus from lower prices (in any sector) is supposed to be automatic. What does it mean when an economy not only fails to respond to “automatic” stimulus, but continues to rapidly decompose? It means we are dealing with a deceased economy. This is a “surprise” to the irredeemable charlatans who have the audacity to call themselves economists, but it shouldn’t have been. Not if any of them were paying attention. Not if any of them lived in the real world.

Back in the real world, evidence of the U.S.’s zombie economy is both overwhelming and abundant. It begins with 0% interest rates. As has frequently been noted in the past; 0% interest rates are the economic equivalent of a defibrillator. As with a defibrillator; it is the most-extreme form of stimulus known to us. As with a defibrillator; it is a “therapy” option which is so radical/reckless that it is only ever intended to be used as a last resort, to resuscitate a patient on Death’s door. Equally, as with a defibrillator; if it doesn’t “work” right away, it will never work (has anyone ever heard of a nation called “Japan”?). When a doctor attempts to resuscitate a patient with a defibrillator, and fails after a couple of minutes; does he continue to jolt the patient, again and again and again and again – year after year? Of course not. He quickly gives up, because it has become evident that he is no longer “treating a patient”, but merely charring a corpse. This is what the U.S. government (and other Western governments) has been doing for the past 6+ years with its 0% interest rate: charring a corpse. Further proof that the U.S. economy is already dead comes from a chart of the heartbeat of the U.S. economy (and any capitalist economy) – it’s “velocity of money”.



As we see; the U.S. “heartbeat” (i.e. the flow of money) has nearly stopped, having fallen further/lower than at any time in recorded history. What does it mean when money stops moving, in a “capitalist economy”? What does it mean when the money (i.e. blood) stops moving in the heart of the greatest Capitalist Empire the world has ever seen? R.I.P...But there is even further, equally overwhelming proof that this gas-guzzling, consumer economy is dead, and it comes from the gasoline consumption numbers, themselves. “Official” U.S. gasoline consumption has plummeted by nearly 75% from its absolute peak in July of 1998. More pertinently; the gasoline consumption numbers have plummeted by roughly 66% since the start of the U.S.’s (imaginary)“recovery”. What does it mean when the gas-pumps stop being used in a gas-guzzling economy? It means the same thing as when the money stops moving in a capitalist economy, or when a “patient” fails to respond to a defibrillator. R.I.P.

This brings us to the ghastly train-wreck known as “the U.S. retail sector”, the cornerstone of this consumer economy. Regular readers are already familiar with the “Black Friday Shopping Massacre” in the 2014 U.S. holiday shopping season. Yet despite that horrific 20+% (year-over-year) collapse in U.S. holiday shopping; the “news” from the U.S. retail sector has gotten much, much worse since that initial plunge. It began with an equally large/ugly collapse in December retail sales. When adjusted for inflation, and expressed as an annualized number; the “0.9%” drop reported by the statistical liars of the U.S. government translates into a 25% plunge in December retail sales – even worse than the Black Friday collapse. Equally important, and as noted in a recent commentary; these horrific plunges in U.S. retail sales are cumulative. After retail sales collapsed at the end of November, it collapsed by an additional (annualized) 25% in December. And now, as we move to January and a new year; we see yet another, sickening plunge in U.S. retail sales – even as gasoline prices continue falling. The “advance estimate” of U.S. January retail sales reports another, enormous, cumulative drop. The “-0.8%” fantasy-number reported by the U.S. government translates into another, additional (annualized) collapse in excess of 20%.

With U.S. gasoline prices now hovering just above $2/gallon; this represents roughly a $1.50/gallon plunge from average prices through most of 2014. In other words; (for the first time) Big Oil has chosen to pass along to consumers nearly the entire plunge in crude oil prices, in the form of lower gas prices. Yet despite this massive stimulus to the U.S. economy; the U.S.’s pauper consumers haven’t even been able to maintain their level of spending. Supposedly, their wallets are all full of the dollars they have been saving from dramatically lower gasoline prices. Yet outside of gasoline purchases; Americans continue to buy less of everything else. So-called “core retail sales”, which excludes (among other things) gasoline consumption, fell in January by nearly 10% when adjusted for inflation and annualized. The near-bankrupt consumers (in this near-bankrupt economy) don’t have “more dollars” in their wallets thanks to the huge plunge in gasoline prices, they have simply been going further into debt at a slower rate. The only “benefit” the U.S. economy has received from (much) lower gas prices is that this corpse is decomposing at a slower rate than it would have, if the U.S. government had not manipulated oil prices lower.

Yet note what the liars/charlatans expect us to believe (inside and outside the U.S. government). In their fantasy-world; despite the horrific and unprecedented collapse in U.S. retail sales in November and December, we’re supposed to believe that “consumer spending” for the fourth quarter (as a whole) rose by 4.3%. In the Wonderland Matrix fabricated by these liars; the faster U.S. “retail sales” fell each month, the faster U.S. “consumer spending” rose for the whole quarter. It’s exactly the same as someone claiming to have traveled downhill in order to get to the peak of a mountain. It’s not simply a lie, it’s a ridiculous lie. It is precisely these sorts of perverse, utterly absurd lies which will inevitably shatter the brainwashing which the One Bank (puppet-master of the U.S. government) has laboured so diligently to perfect over the past several decades. Yet what choice does it (and its media/government puppets) have? Ultimately any lie one uses to attempt to cover-up a corpse is quickly perceived to be ridiculous and/or perverse, for one, simple reason. Corpses tend to smell very bad, very soon. Soon the stench emanating from the U.S. zombie economy will be so overpowering that it will be perceptible even to the deadened senses of its zombie population.

[Adsos Letter]

10. That second shot is absolutely gorgeous!!!

Makes me want to go there.

[Demeter]

19. Me, too.

maybe we should organize an expedition with a tour guide...

[xchrom]

12. Duke Energy fined over $100 million for environmental violations

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-duke-energy-fined-over-100-million-for-environmental-violations-2015-2

Duke set aside $100 million in the fourth quarter in anticipation of the settlement, the company said in an earnings statement.

The U.S. Department of Justice fined the company for five Clean Water Act violations at its Dan River and Riverbend steam stations and four Clean Water Act violations at the company's H.F. Lee Steam, Cape Fear and Asheville electricity-generating plants, according to a company statement on Friday.

Apart from the monetary fines, Duke Energy will enter a five-year probation period, during which the company agreed to establish environmental compliance plans under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor, the cost of which shall be borne by the company.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-duke-energy-fined-over-100-million-for-environmental-violations-2015-2#ixzz3SNguu4tt

[Fuddnik]

14. Just the cost of doing business.

As it stands now, the CEO and a few others will get a tidy bonus for keeping the fine under $100 mil. And of course, the shareholders will pay the fine.

Until they start holding individuals, high ranking individuals in the company responsible for this crap, locking them up, and taking their assets, this shit will continue.

Bizness as usual.

[xchrom]

13. For Less Corporate Fraud, Add Female Executives

For Less Corporate Fraud, Add Female Executives

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/for-less-corporate-fraud-add-female-executives/385618/


After a recession that tanked the economy and revealed the shady dealings associated with subprime mortgages, statements of corporate income, and other problematic business practices, it’s natural that many remain suspicious of how large companies operate—and concerned about the far-reaching consequences of their moral failings.

Taxes have become an increasingly important part of the conversation, especially when it comes to discussions about corporate-tax rates and loopholes, which then brings up questions about which groups do or do not pay their fair share of taxes. According to a new study from Wake Forest and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, the IRS estimates that in 2006, corporate-tax evasion was responsible for around $67 billion in losses. And prior to that, unethical behavior related to the reporting of corporate finances was also an issue in major cases of fraud, including WorldCom and Enron.

[MattSh]

15. Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine? - Truthdig

This may have been posted elsewhere on DU this week. I don't remember...

Michael Hudson, an economist at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of the upcoming book “Killing the Host: Financial Parasites and Wall Street’s War on Capitalism,” says the terms attached to the loans made by the IMF to Ukraine are likely to turn its people into penniless serfs of international banks.

In the video below, Sharmini Peries at The Real News Network asks Hudson, “In a recent interview [by former State Department official James Carden] published in The National Interest magazine you said that most media covers Russia as if it is the greatest threat to Ukraine. History suggests that the IMF may be far more dangerous. What did you mean by that?”

Hudson responds, “Well, the terms on which the IMF make loans, first of all, are based on austerity. The terms require more austerity and a withdrawal of all public subsidies. Now, you have the Ukrainian population absolutely devastated. The only result of the IMF’s austerity program, the conditions that it’s laying down for making loans to Ukraine, is you have to repay the debts, but you don’t have the ability to repay the debts. So there’s only one way to do it, and that’s the way that we’ve told Greece and other countries to do. You have to begin selling off whatever you have left of your public domain. Or you have to have your leading oligarchs take on partnerships with American or European investors so that they can buy out into the monopolies in the Ukraine.

“So essentially, the IMF has a two stage, one-two punch. Punch number one is: ‘Here’s the money, now you have to repay us after cutting back public spending and causing a depression.’ The two punch is: ‘Oh, you can’t pay us? I’m sorry that all of our projections are wrong.’

“And the IMF has been wrong on Ukraine year after year. Almost as much as it’s been wrong on Ireland and on Greece. So now the real problem is: what is Ukraine going to have to sell to pay off the foreign debts that it gets for having waged a war that’s devastated an economy. Well, the main things that foreign investors want are Ukrainian farmland. Monsanto has been buying into Ukraine, but Ukraine has a law against alienating its farmland and agricultural land to foreigners. As a matter of fact, its law is very much the same as what the Financial Times reports that Australia is wanting to do today: to block Chinese and American purchases of farmlands. The IMF’s position is: ‘You have to dismantle public regulations against foreign investment and you have to dismantle consumer production and environmental production regulations.’

“In other words, what is in store for Ukraine is a neoliberal policy that’s guaranteed to actually make it even worse. And in that sense, finance is war. Finance is a new kind of warfare using finance and forced selloffs in the IMF as a new kind of battlefield. I’m not sure how all of this is going to really help Ukraine, and it promises to lead to yet another crisis down the road, very, very quickly.”
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Complete story at - http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/has_the_imf_annexed_ukraine_20150214

[Demeter]

20. We have to make sure that the banksters have no armies to command

and that includes especially the US army and NATO.

[MattSh]

16. Ukraine Sells Off British Armored Vehicles It Just Received - Fort Russ

By Alex Leshy

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

The proof is for all here to see. As soon as Kiev received the British AT105 Saxon armored personnel carriers, it promptly put them on sale. I don’t know what business is located at the Borispol Street 9 in Kiev, Ukraine, that’s indicated on the web site. But if it is to be believed, it offers for sale something remarkable, namely a Saxon AT105 tactical police vehicle. If need be, the firm is willing to repaint the vehicle according to the wishes of the purchaser.

No, Ukraine will never be a great power. Granted, the Saxon is a piece of junk. But at a time when a boarded-up truck is considered an armored vehicle at the front, even these wheeled coffins might be of some use. Of how much use, that is another question. But when you on the one hand plead for military assistance all around the world, and on the other you put it up for sale as soon as you receive some is, undeniably, the stuff of which empires are made of. Yes.

J.Hawk’s Comment: Lenin famously said that the “capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with,” and judging by the goings-on in the Ukraine, capitalism seems to be alive and well there! The Saxons were, interestingly enough, purchased by the Yanukovych government from a private British arms dealer, not the UK government. Still, they are in working order, and they do have certain usefulness, even though their combat qualities are negligible. But yes, this is a prime example of the epic, almost supernatural, Ukrainian corruption which will bring the current “Ukraine project” to a very tragic end. Western governments no doubt have few illusions as to what would happen to whatever assistance, lethal or non-lethal, they sent to Kiev.

Complete story at - http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/ukraine-sells-off-british-armored.html

[MattSh]

17. Ukrainian Households Face 264% Spike in Utilities Rates on Gas / Sputnik International

Amid an uneasy ceasefire, a spiraling currency, pension cuts, the re-introduction of the military draft, and faltering public services, now ordinary Ukrainians are likely to see their utility costs skyrocket.

IMF officials and the Ukrainian government have been negotiating proposals that would substantially raise gas and heating tariffs for Ukrainian households, as part of the IMF's agreement to provide Ukraine with a new $17.5 billion rescue plan. The plan is conditioned on Ukraine making a number of changes to its national budget, in areas including price subsidies, pensions, tariffs, and the tax code.

"The package of documents includes not only amendments to the 2015 state budget, but also a change in tax laws. It also includes an increase in gas tariffs by 264 percent and an increase of 64 percent on tariffs for heating," a National Bank of Ukraine official participating in the IMF-NBU meeting told the Ukrainian newspaper Vesti. The official added that the NBU "has little doubt that the MPs will vote for the necessary package of measures."

According to Alexandr Klimenko, the former Minister of Revenue and Duties, the proposed changes, which will be voted on at a special session of the Verkhovna Rada on February 25, leaves little money to assist ordinary Ukrainians in coping with the rising rates. "For those counting on subsidies, let's use simple arithmetic: Subsidies to Naftogaz in 2014 comprised about 100 billion hryvnia ($3.8 billion US); in 2015, they will be reduced to 30 billion hryvnia ($1.15 billion); the difference will be covered by an increase in tariffs. At the same time, subsidies for low-income families in 2015 will amount to only 12.5 billion hryvnia ($479 million). The difference in the amount of 57.5 billion hrynvia ($2.2 billion) will theoretically now be covered out of the pockets of Ukrainians."

Complete story at - http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150217/1018374170.html

[Demeter]

21. The weather in Michigan continues to confound

There are 4 new seasons in the lineup in Michigan: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Oh My God!

We seldom have a real Spring any more. Once in 20 years by my count. Although last year it was a perpetual Spring; Summer never got started. It was glorious, almost worth the months of OMG we endured.

We are deep in the OMG. It's 19F at 10 AM, a significant improvement over yesterday.

The snowfall promised for the weekend has passed us by, apparently, but temps. are rising. Up to 28-30 F is forecast, if that doesn't pass us by, too.

Stay warm!

[MattSh]

26. Seems we might be in for a touch of early spring...

I remember last fall they were forecasting a cold cold winter here in Kiev. Because temps in Siberia were already -40C. The only problem with that theory is that weather patterns in the northern hemisphere generally tend to go from west to east. So the planet would likely have to start spinning backwards for the Siberian cold to get to us. Damn, science can be so picky at times.

So today we topped out around 39F. We've got some mid 40's on tap for late next week. So they say...

So the junta lucked out here weather-wise. And maybe us end users of heat did too, although I wouldn't be surprised if they charged us for heat they never delivered.

[DemReadingDU]

49. OMG, we have the snow!

It was a crazy weather prediction of snow, rain, sleet, ice. We only received the snow, 6-7 inches, and that is enough for the rest of the year!

[Demeter]

51. All we got was above 20F

Oh, it pretended to snow for a bit yesterday, but it melted right away.

It's doing a scenic lacy snow sprinkle right now, but I doubt anything will come of it.

[Demeter]

22. The Epochal Consequences Of Woodrow Wilson’s War by David Stockman

My humble thesis tonight is that the entire 20th Century was a giant mistake. And that you can put the blame for this monumental error squarely on Thomas Woodrow Wilson——-a megalo-maniacal madman who was the very worst President in American history……..well, except for the last two.

His unforgivable error was to put the United States into the Great War for utterly no good reason of national interest. The European war posed not an iota of threat to the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE, or Worcester MA or Sacramento CA. In that respect, Wilson’s putative defense of “freedom of the seas” and the rights of neutrals was an empty shibboleth; his call to make the world safe for democracy, a preposterous pipe dream. Actually, his thinly veiled reason for plunging the US into the cauldron of the Great War was to obtain a seat at the peace conference table——so that he could remake the world in response to god’s calling. But this was a world about which he was blatantly ignorant; a task for which he was temperamentally unsuited; and an utter chimera based on 14 points that were so abstractly devoid of substance as to constitute mental play dough.

Or, as his alter-ego and sycophant, Colonel House, put it: Intervention positioned Wilson to play “The noblest part that has ever come to the son of man”. America thus plunged into Europe’s carnage, and forevermore shed its century-long Republican tradition of anti-militarism and non-intervention in the quarrels of the Old World. Needless to say, there was absolutely nothing noble that came of Wilson’s intervention. It led to a peace of vengeful victors, triumphant nationalists and avaricious imperialists—-when the war would have otherwise ended in a bedraggled peace of mutually exhausted bankrupts and discredited war parties on both sides. By so altering the course of history, Wilson’s war bankrupted Europe and midwifed 20th century totalitarianism in Russia and Germany.

These developments, in turn, eventually led to the Great Depression, the Welfare State and Keynesian economics, World War II, the holocaust, the Cold War, the permanent Warfare State and its military-industrial complex. They also spawned Nixon’s 1971 destruction of sound money, Reagan’s failure to tame Big Government and Greenspan’s destructive cult of monetary central planning. So, too, flowed the Bush’s wars of intervention and occupation, their fatal blow to the failed states in the lands of Islam foolishly created by the imperialist map-makers at Versailles and the resulting endless waves of blowback and terrorism now afflicting the world. And not the least of the ills begotten in Wilson’s war is the modern rogue regime of central bank money printing, and the Bernanke-Yellen plague of bubble economics which never stops showering the 1% with the monumental windfalls from central bank enabled speculation.

Consider the building blocks of that lamentable edifice.

First, had the war ended in 1917 by a mutual withdrawal from the utterly stalemated trenches of the Western Front, as it was destined to, there would have been no disastrous summer offensive by the Kerensky government, or subsequent massive mutiny in Petrograd that enabled Lenin’s flukish seizure of power in November. That is, the 20th century would not have been saddled with a Stalinist nightmare or with a Soviet state that poisoned the peace of nations for 75 years, while the nuclear sword of Damocles hung over the planet...Likewise, there would have been no abomination known as the Versailles peace treaty; no “stab in the back” legends owing to the Weimar government’s forced signing of the “war guilt” clause; no continuance of England’s brutal post-armistice blockade that delivered Germany’s women and children into starvation and death and left a demobilized 3-million man army destitute, bitter and on a permanent political rampage of vengeance. So too, there would have been no acquiescence in the dismemberment of Germany and the spreading of its parts and pieces to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Austria and Italy—–with the consequent revanchist agitation that nourished the Nazi’s with patriotic public support in the rump of the fatherland. Nor would there have materialized the French occupation of the Ruhr and the war reparations crisis that led to the destruction of the German middle class in the 1923 hyperinflation; and, finally, the history books would have never recorded the Hitlerian ascent to power and all the evils that flowed thereupon.

STOCKMAN GOES ON, AND ON, LINKING EVERYTHING HE DISLIKES TO WOODROW WILSON...IT'S ENTERTAINING, IF NOT EDUCATIONAL...HIS GOOD POINTS ARE DROWNED IN HIS BAD ECONOMICS

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-epochal-consequences-of-woodrow-wilsons-war/

[mother earth]

55. Demeter, you have turned me into an economic junkie...thanks a lot.

I don't know how you do it, but you do....

going to come back & read again a bit later, I need a break.

[Demeter]

59. It is the underlying motivation for EVERYTHING!

And I was so thirsty for actual real news that helps explain the world...

the rest is history!

I think all of history could be adequately covered by : economics, religion, and technology. The wars and the famous names are just the results of the underlying Big 3.

[mother earth]

60. Yep, and now I can't live without SMW or my coffee, and you've got me

singing your praises to anyone who will listen.

[Demeter]

23. Here are all the countries that don’t have a currency of their own

http://qz.com/260980/meet-the-countries-that-dont-use-their-own-currency/

Countries that only use a foreign currency

US dollar: Ecuador, East Timor, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Zimbabwe.

Euro: Andorra, Kosovo, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Vatican City.

Countries in a currency union

Euro: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

East Caribbean dollar: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and the Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The successor to the British West Indies dollar was created in 1976. The East Caribbean dollar is fixed to the US dollar at a rate of 2.7 to 1. The only member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to not take part is the British Virgin Islands—which uses the US dollar, of course.

CFA franc: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

It may surprise you to know that 14 countries in Africa also are dependent on the euro, albeit indirectly. Strictly speaking, there are two currencies between them: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo use the West African franc. Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon use the Central African franc. Both currencies are at parity and their notes are interchangeable across all 14 countries, but they have different monetary authorities.

The CFA franc was created in 1945 to spare France’s colonies the pain that the post-World War II revaluation in the French franc would do to their much smaller economies. The CFA franc was set at fixed exchange rates against its French counterpart, and is now fixed against the euro.

THEN THERE ARE PEGS TO THE DOLLAR OR OTHER BIG-NAME CURRENCY, AND MULTIPLE-CURRENCY NATIONS (THE US AND CANADA COULD BE CONSIDERED SUCH)

WELL WORTH THE READ!

[Demeter]

24. Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying By Philippe Legrain

Philippe Legrain, who was economic advisor to the president of the European Commission from 2011 to 2014, is a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute and the author of European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess -- and How to Put Them Right.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/19/greece-should-not-give-in-to-germanys-bullying-euro-syriza-merkel-varoufakis/

Ever since the initial bargain in the 1950s between post-Nazi West Germany and its wartime victims, European integration has been built on compromise. So there is huge pressure on Greece’s new Syriza government to be “good Europeans” and compromise on their demands for debt justice from their European partners — also known as creditors. But sometimes compromise is the wrong course of action. Sometimes you need to take a stand.

Let’s face it: no advanced economies in living memory have been as catastrophically mismanaged as the eurozone has been in recent years, as I document at length in my book, European Spring. Seven years into the crisis, the eurozone economy is doing much worse than the United States, worse than Japan during its lost decade in the 1990s and worse even than Europe in the 1930s: GDP is still 2 percent lower than seven years ago and the unemployment rate is in double digits. The policy stance set by Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin, implemented by the European Commission in Brussels, and sometimes tempered — but more often enforced — by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, remains disastrous. Continuing with current policies — austerity and wage cuts, forbearance for banks, no debt restructuring or adjustment to Germany’s mercantilism — is leading Europe into the ditch; the launch of quantitative easing is unlikely to change that. So settling for a “compromise” that shifts Merkel’s line by a millimeter would be a mistake; it must be challenged and dismantled.

While Greece alone may not be able to change the entire monetary union, it could act as a catalyst for the growing political backlash against the eurozone’s stagnation policies. For the first time in years, there is hope that the dead hand of Merkelism can be unclasped, not just fear of the consequences and nationalist loathing. More immediately, Greece can save itself. Left in the clutches of its EU creditors, it is not destined for the sunlit uplands of recovery, but for the enduring misery of debt bondage. So the four-point plan put forward by its dashing new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, is eminently sensible. This involves running a smaller primary surplus — that is a budget surplus, excluding interest payments — of 1.5 percent of GDP a year, instead of 3 percent this year and 4.5 percent thereafter. Some of the spare funds would be used to alleviate Greece’s humanitarian emergency. The crushing debts of more than 175 percent of GDP would be relieved by swapping the loans from eurozone governments for less burdensome obligations with payments tied to Greece’s GDP growth. Last but not least, Syriza wants to genuinely reform the economy, with the help of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), notably by tackling the corrupt, clientelist political system, cracking down on tax evasion, and breaking the power of the oligarchs who have a stranglehold over the Greek economy.

Had the Varoufakis plan been put forward by an investment banker, it would have been perceived as perfectly reasonable. Yet in the parallel universe inhabited by Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, such demands are seen as “irresponsible”: Greece must be bled dry to service its foreign creditors in the name of European solidarity....The belief that Greece has little leverage in its negotiations with eurozone authorities is false. If no agreement is reached and Greece is illegally forced out of the euro by Berlin and Frankfurt, it would doubtless default on all its debts to both eurozone governments and the ECB, as well as the Bank of Greece’s Target 2 liabilities. Speculation would soon start about which country might be next to exit the euro — Portugal? — and the single currency would suddenly look eminently revocable.

Do Berlin and Frankfurt really want to push Athens over the brink? I doubt it. Especially since, freed of its external debt and an overvalued exchange rate, Greece would doubtless be growing again once the immediate chaos subsided. After all, even an economy as badly managed as Argentina started growing again only a year after the government defaulted and junked its dollar peg in 2002....

MORE WISDOM AT LINK

[Demeter]

25. Why the U.S. will have to bail out Greece

NOBLESE OBLIGE? LET GERMANY CLEAN UP ITS OWN MESSES, FOR ONCE!

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-us-will-have-to-bail-out-greece-2015-02-18?link=mw_home_kiosk

...Greece may be about to turn from a European into an American problem.

As the game of brinkmanship between the radical Syriza government elected last month and the European Union gets played out, it has become increasingly clear that both sides may have a strong interest in the talks failing. The International Monetary Fund looks to have abdicated all responsibility for fixing the mess.

The worrying point is this: Both sides have an increasing interest in a catastrophic failure.

But the U.S., with the U.K. perhaps in a subsidiary role, has an equally strong interest in a stable Greece. If a crunch comes, America will have no choice but to bail Greece out. How? It may well need to extend emergency loans, prop up its banks, and if necessary help it establish a new currency as well...

WHY? BECAUSE: " Syriza is a party with its roots in hard-left Leninist politics"

BECAUSE LENIN.... AND FEAR OF THE RUSSIAN BEAR STEPPING IN TO HELP

COLD WAR, THE SEQUEL....NOW SHOWING AT A THEATER OF WAR NEAR YOU!

[Demeter]

27. Mathew D. Rose: Greece – It’s a Revolution, Stupid!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/mathew-d-rose-greece-revolution-stupid.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Yves here. As Greece’s struggles to secure relief from impossible-to-pay-debt that served to prop up otherwise insolvent French and German banks, and to be permitted to implement measures to reduce distress and restore growth, more and more observers are recognizing that this is really a struggle over democratic self-control versus rule by an unaccountable technocracy with inflexible rules, using finance as their enforcement weapon. This speech in the European Parliament today by UKIP leader Neil Farage (hat tip Chuck L) echoes some of the themes of Mathew Rose’s post. Rose also explains how the many Germans justify the counterproductive destruction of a society that they have turned into a vassal state.

Greece – It’s a Revolution, Stupid! By Mathew D. Rose, a freelance journalist in Berlin

I fear most people have become so fixated on the Greek debt and the fate of the Euro, that they have completely ignored the political dimensions of the current conflict in Europe, which are no less dramatic. The ongoing dispute between the German and Greek governments is nothing less than a democratic revolution against German hegemony and the attempt of the Germans and their paladins in the EU to dictate Greek domestic policy. It is a struggle by the Greeks to re-establish national sovereignty. What is more, this is the first time in the history of the EU that a political party with true leftist credentials has led a member nation. For reactionary Germany, with its neoliberal agenda, that is intolerable. This conflict is profound, if not existential, and thus could well be intractable...The Greek people have made a decision to liberate themselves from a repressive regime of austerity and its incumbent humanitarian disaster. The Germans on the other hand refer to the developments of the past five years in Greece as a success. Yes, it has been a success in the sense that the Germans and French were able to rescue their banks and leave the Greek people to foot the bill. It was even more successful in that Greece was stripped of its political and economic autonomy – with the assistance of the quislings Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos.

The German government has never wanted democratic reform in Greece, leaving the perpetrators of the Greek financial crisis, the political and financial elites unscathed. Success has meant Greece being reduced to a vassal state, raising the market above all other values, where multinational corporations, including German companies, could take over profitable state assets cheaply and German tourists could enjoy cut-rate holidays or buy holiday homes at bargain prices. What occurred in Greece with the bailout is an occupation, not with troops and panzers, but by financial means. Following the recent elections in Greece, Germany and its EU compradors are making it clear who is in charge. The Germans are currently not offering any compromise, but iterate the same blunt demand: Greece has to accept what is being dictated; in other words, capitulate or be annihilated. This time it will not be the Wehrmacht und Luftwaffe that are to force the Greek nation into submission, but a weapon just as lethal: national bankruptcy.

What has been a true disgrace is the role of the German people, who sincerely believe that they are the “Good Guys”, championing democracy and justice wherever they tread. There is a saying in German that should not to be underestimated: “Am deutschen Wesen mag die Welt genesen” (The German character will heal the world). In Germany, where the banks are held in awe, the government is dictated by vested interests and the Germans lay claim to a very high social morality, the true reasons for the so called Greek bailout – saving German banks – would not do. Thus the government, assisted by the media, utilised old political tools: nationalism and racism. The financial crisis in Europe and Greece was no longer a narrative of profligate, lying, cheating, corrupt private banks, but of profligate, lying, cheating, corrupt Southern Europeans. It is surprising, if not shocking, how prepared the Germans, many of whom normally possess a very high political acumen, were prepared to embrace this discourse. A climb-down by the German government in what has become such an emotionally laden issue will be difficult.

Add to this, that no nation has profited more from the Euro crisis than Germany, catapulting it to its new hegemonic role in the EU. According to the Bundesbank the German government had by the conclusion of 2014 saved 152.4 billion Euros in debt payment due to the low interest rates it pays for credit since the crisis began. The depressed value of the Euro, also a product of the crisis, has been a boon for Germany’s export oriented economy and returns from overseas investments. Thus the Germans have ignored the humanitarian crisis developing at its doorstep.

Unfortunately nationalism begets nationalism and this may well become the fulcrum of future developments. Whereas banks and the EU are rather elusive opponents, Germany is not. Europeans, like their German counterparts, are well versed in nationalism. Thus being able to concentrate their ire upon Germany – and the current intransigence of the German government towards Greece is augmenting this mood – there is a potential political backlash developing. Greece has played its political hand brilliantly. They have presented a humanitarian and democratic programme, gaining the moral high ground, then going on to offer compromises and plans to put these into action. They have exhibited the true spirit of the European Union. The Euro Group, led conspicuously by Germany, demands a perpetuation of their imposed austerity programme.

The problem is that Syriza is not a Social Democratic party that has no scruple about selling its voters down the river. They appear to be sincerely committed to democracy and reform – and prepared to fight for it. Despite the current Greek government having not named the German government as the problem, which the media does anyway, the perception of many Europeans is of the return of the Ugly German on the political stage. This may well have a decisive role in the negotiations in the upcoming weeks. Should Germany come down too hard on Greece or even drive it into bankruptcy and out of the Euro, this will give all the anti-austerity political parties in Southern Europe a fillip. They, as Germany before them, will be able to convert an economic conflict into a nationalistic one, simply from the opposite perspective: the repressive, greedy, power hungry Germans once again plundering Europe as they did seventy-five years ago. This will be utilised by the left as well as the right. Soon Germany may not only have to deal with the Greek government, but the Spanish, Italian, French and Portugese as well.

As a historian I know better than to speculate upon history repeating itself, but there is something eerily disturbing concerning the current situation. Whoever I speak with and in most Anglo-Saxon media, everyone analyses the situation with Game Theory, apparently rather modish these days. According to them, the Greeks and Germans will pull up at the brink, anything else would be madness. 101 years ago, this was the same thing being said in Europe concerning the Germans with regard to the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.

Then World War I broke out.

[Demeter]

28. FROM THE COMMENTS: Dan Allen February 18, 2015 at 2:40 pm

The Greece as liars and bad debtors, perennial deadbeats, is a quick story peddled to shuffle Euro taxpayer money to the banks.

Here’s why:

1. Greece hasn’t defaulted since the Great depression, and even then, they paid that money back and then some in the 1950s. It’s been 80 years since a Greek default.

2. The Rogoff paper that shows Greece in default for its entire history prior to that has done Greece a great disservice. Greece had 5 previous defaults.

They are:

One, the initial loans given to fund the Greek rebellion against the Ottomans in 1821. That was a very long war and Greece wasn’t even functioning as a state until 1832, when they began paying back that long defaulted loan. This was the default of the 1820s.

Two, the Great Powers didn’t want to lose the Ottomans. So they handed Turkey a large sum of money for lost Greek possessions, and they charged the loan to Greece. Te Greeks never signed and foreswore this “loan,” never paid a single dime of it. Yet this is charged as a Greek default. This was the default of the 1930s.

Three, the Great Powers decreed that Greece needed a royal from one of the noble houses of Europe. No one wanted to become that royal. So, finally, a Bavarian Prince was given a huge loan to pad his mattress, with the money supposedly coming from the Greek people. Paupers and peasants. The King, realizing he was going to move into a ramshackle home in a dusty sheepherding village (such as Athens was at the time) departed for Bavaria with the money, and returned only for communal blessings. This was the default of 1842.

Four, in 1878, Greece settled all outstanding debts (paying at very very high interest rates). From 1878 until 1893 is the only period in Greece’s early history from 1821 onward when it was not in a state of default until the 1930s. In 1893 Greece took its first ever loan from foreign banks and defaulted in 1898. The 1890s until the 1910s were the time of the Balkan Wars.

Five, Greece defaulted in 1932 during the Great Depression, a time of many defaults around the world.

Six, 2012.

From the Great Depression until 1912, Greece hadn’t defaulted.

But there is one country that defaulted spectacularly in the period, notably the 1930s, 1940s and 1953.(GIVE UP? NEED A HINT? GERMANY)

[mother earth]

56. BRAVO, Nigel Farage! Just wow, given the rise of Golden Dawn in Greece, they are spot on!

TY for posting this here, well said, well said, indeed...we don't need Hitler for this one now do we?

Please post this in video/mm...this really is a revolution!

I want to throw up when some are so intent on the 2016 "election" while this is playing out & they pay no attention.

[Demeter]

58. I think YOU should post it

Especially with your Ready for Yanis banner

[mother earth]

61. Oh, I did, I couldn't wait for your return to post it.

I've always enjoyed parliament exchanges, powerful sometimes, def. in this case.

TY, as usual.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=246847

[Demeter]

29. Wolf Richter: The Chilling Thing Devon Energy Just Said About the US Oil Glut

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/wolf-richter-chilling-thing-devon-energy-just-said-us-oil-glut.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



The oil-price plunge hit the industry when it was drunk on its own exuberance and awash in money. At the time, over-indebted junk-rated drillers had no trouble borrowing even more to drill more, efficiently or not. Dreadful IPOs flew off the shelf. Misbegotten spin-offs made Wall Street a ton of money. But in July, everything started to go awry. By October, it was clear that the oil-price plunge wasn’t a blip. By November, oil was in free fall.

Soaring production in the US, reaching 9.2 million barrels per day in January, and lackluster demand have caused US inventories to balloon. The “oil glut” was born. So the industry adjusted by announcing waves of layoffs, whittling down operating costs, renegotiating prices with suppliers, and slashing capital expenditures. The number of rigs actively drilling for oil – a weekly gauge that indicates what’s going on in the oil field – has plummeted by 553 rigs, or 34%, since the peak in October. Never before has it plummeted this fast this far. The crashing rig count was supposed to curtail production, and lower production would bring supply and demand into balance and allow the price of oil to recover. But the opposite is happening. And Devon Energy Corp. just told us why.

With total operating revenues of nearly $6 billion in the fourth quarter 2014, Devon isn’t the largest oil company out there, but it’s one of the larger players in the US shale revolution. It reported Q4 results on Tuesday evening. According to its own measure of “core earnings,” it made $343 million. According to GAAP, it lost $408 million, after writing off “asset impairments” of $1.95 billion “related to the recent drop in oil prices.” Stuff happens when the price of oil plunges. But production soared – and will continue to soar. CEO John Richels explained the phenomenon in the press release:

We expect to sustain operational momentum in 2015 with the significant improvements we have seen in our completion designs and a capital program focused on development drilling. With strong results from our enhanced completions and a focus on core development areas, we expect growth in oil production to be between 20 and 25 percent in 2015, even with a projected reduction of approximately 20 percent in E&P capital spending compared to 2014.

So, despite slashing the capital expenditure budget by 20%, the company’s oil production in 2015 would grow 20% to 25%. And in Q4 2014, production of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids from Devon’s “retained assets” had soared to an average of 664,000 oil-equivalent barrels (Boe) per day. This included record oil production of 239,000 barrels per day, up 48% year over year. While bitumen production in Canada grew more slowly, oil production from fracking in the US soared 82%! This chart shows Devon Energy’s oil production for the last five quarters:


US Devon Energy oil-production-growth

Oil production is projected to grow another 20% to 25% in 2015. This is how Devon explained the phenomenon:

The strong growth in U.S. oil production during the quarter was largely attributable to prolific well results from the company’s world-class Eagle Ford assets. Net production in the Eagle Ford averaged 98,000 Boe per day in the fourth quarter, a 100 percent increase compared to Devon’s first month of ownership in March 2014.

And in 2015, it expects a 50% increase in production from the Eagle Ford shale....
This is the brutal irony: drillers are hoping that rising production achieved with greater efficiencies allows them to meet their interest costs; but rising production pressures the price of oil to a level that may not be survivable long-term for many of them. They can lose money, burn through cash, and keep themselves above water through asset sales for only so long. And this is the terrible fracking treadmill they’ve all gotten on and now can’t get off.

MORE

[MattSh]

30. So, is there something out of the ordinary weirdness happening in the USA...

during the last two weeks? Something well beyond the usual weirdness and stupidity?

Over the last couple of weeks, it seems my family is starting to worry about me again. I could understand last January and February, with the riots going on in Kiev. The war in the east has been going on for 8 months now, so it would seem weird that people all of a sudden started to pay attention to that.

Is the media or are the politicians whipping up some beyond the normal stupidity about Ukraine during the last two weeks?

[Demeter]

31. There's unrelenting propaganda

Demonizing Putin, calling the civil war Russia-backed, and the Chocolate King has rolled over for the IMF...Obama is in trouble, as usual. He wants a shooting war, his buddies want a shooting war, and they have multiple targets....the difficulty is choosing one, and getting the army to go along. The army has no appetite for yet another failure and no materiel or troops.

Ukraine, ISIS, Haiti, Nigeria wants us to get into their act, the continuing struggles to overthrow Venezuela's democracy, and now Cuba....Obama's a busy boy, making more messes than any 3 terms could clear up. He just lost Yemen...with his incessant droning on.

And TPTB are very worried about Merkel, Hollande and so forth meeting in the Kremlin, where they can't be spied upon, except by Putin. I think that really threw them into a panic. The Eurozone is toast, the question is how burnt it will get. The banksters are panicking...the smart ones.

The US economy is dead (see above post) and the Eurozone is floundering on the impossibility of having it all Germany's way. Even the Germans are getting suspicious. Except Merkel: she really does believe in fairies, and she's clapping hands for all she's worth.

When there's so many lies flying about in the media, ordinary people sense it. They may not understand it, or think deeply about it, but they know something is rotten in DC. The upcoming election is not helping any. For all the posturing, there are no front-runners. Stealing this one will be like taking candy from a baby.

The impossible weather is just adding physical discomfort on top of all the financial and mental discomfort. And it takes at least 8 months for ANYTHING to rise to the conscious public mind around here. Ferguson took that long...and it's still not resolved. If a topic hangs around 8 months, maybe it's serious enough to raise heads from their smart phones! Besides, the "wrong" side is losing...

I'd blame it all on a failure to receive communication...to build upon Cool Hand Luke. I've never seen it, as I have no fondness for prison films or Robert Redford, but maybe that would be a good theme for WEE....

The phrase "What we've got here is failure to communicate" is a quotation from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, spoken in the movie first by Strother Martin (as the Captain, a prison warden) and later, slightly differently, by Paul Newman (as Luke, a stubborn prisoner).

The context of the first delivery of the line is:

Captain: You gonna get used to wearing them chains after a while, Luke. Don't you never stop listening to them clinking, 'cause they gonna remind you what I been saying for your own good.

Luke: I wish you'd stop being so good to me, Cap'n.

Captain: Don't you ever talk that way to me. (pause, then hitting him) NEVER! NEVER! (Luke rolls down hill; to other prisoners) What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.

The Captain's line is often misquoted as "What we have here is a failure to communicate" (which is more grammatically correct in the United States).

Near the end of the film, when Luke is surrounded in the church and about to be shot, he says, "What we got here is a failure to communicate."

The phrase ranks at No. 11 on the American Film Institute list, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.

And I was thinking it was from Dirty Harry....which I HAVE seen...

It's Oscar's Week, Matt. Nobody's paying any attention.

(I never seem to watch any Oscars movies nowadays...they stopped putting musicals in the running, and romances, and comedies, and romantic-comedies...if I want violence, cruelty and deviance, or to need 3 hankies, I can just open the door.)

[Demeter]

32. Two New Papers Say Big Finance Sectors Hurt Growth and Innovation

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/two-new-papers-say-big-finance-sectors-hurt-growth-innovation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

YVES: In a bit of synchronicity, two new papers confirm the long-held suspicion that Wall Street is sucking the life out of Main Street. The BIS (BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS) has released an important paper, embedded at the end of this post, which has created quite a stir, even leading the orthodoxy-touting Economist to take note. Titled, Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth?, its analysis of why too much finance is a bad thing is robust and compelling. This article is a follow up to a 2012 paper by the same authors, Stephen Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi, which found that when finance sectors exceeded a certain size, specifically when private sector debt topped 100% of GDP or when financial services industry professions were more than 3.9% of the work force, it became a drag on growth. Notice that this finding alone is damning as far as policy in the US is concerned, where cheaper debt, deregulation, more access to financial markets, and “financial deepening” are all seen as virtuous.

The paper is short and accessible, so I strongly encourage you to read it in full.
SEE LINK

YVES WALKS YOU THROUGH IT, THEN CONTINUES WITH 2ND PAPER:

Finance vs. Wal-Mart: Why are Financial Services so Expensive?

THE TOOLS OF THE ECONOMICS TRADE...

[Demeter]

33. And now for something COMPLETELY different...

Click on this link...and let the server talk to you.

Marvin the Paranoid Android

[Demeter]

34. This one moves!

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jPZdfHTdJgM/U-fX1q_mPyI/AAAAAAAACaA/xvOUIRB3SY8/s1600/marvin+paranoid+android.jpg

[Demeter]

35. It's a crying shame

[DemReadingDU]

48. That was quite the conversation! n/t

[Demeter]

36. Greece, euro zone agree four-month loan extension, avert crunch

IS THIS IT? OR JUST THE SEVENTH INNING STRETCH?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/20/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN0LO0O620150220

[Demeter]

37. Greece Capitulates On Bailout, Reaches Four Month Deal

VYES SMITH AND FRIENDS AT NAKED CAPITALISM ANALYZE THE DEAL EVERY WHICH WAY POSSIBLE...AND AT GREAT LENGTH.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/greece-capitulates-bailout-reaches-four-month-deal.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[Demeter]

38. Benchmarking the Greece/Eurogroup Bailout Memo and Process

SATURDAY MORNING ANALYSIS FROM YVES SMITH AND CO.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/benchmarking-greeceeurogroup-bailout-memo-process.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[DemReadingDU]

47. Ilargi: 50 shades of Greece

2/21/15 50 Shades of Greece

When it comes to the ongoing Greek question, I see a lot of people eagerly jump to conclusions, after the ‘debt deal’, that I don’t think are justified; certainly not yet. The overall conviction in the press seems to be that Syriza has given in on just about all fronts, and Germany and Dijsselbloem are the big winners.

But since that may well be the exact position Syriza wants ‘the other side’ to be in, where they think they have prevailed, one will have to try and think a few steps ahead before judging the situation. There’s far more grey area here than many pundits seem to assume, easily 50 shades of it.

If Greece wouldn’t have given Germany the idea that it was winning, Athens would have already come very close to an exit from the eurozone. The problem with that is that it is not part of the mandate Syriza has been given by Greek voters. Who have spoken out for an end to austerity, but within the existing euro framework.

Varoufakis et al. may long have concluded that such a set-up is simply not realistic, but they would still have to work up to a situation where, at some point, they can present this to the people. And that can only be done after they can convincingly show that Germany and Holland refuse to honor the democratically decided mandate Syriza brings to the table.

They would have to make absolutely sure that the other side gets the blame for the failed negotiations. They have to do that anyway, even if a Grexit is not their preferred outcome. They need to be able to prove that they bent over backwards and Germany still wouldn’t play ball.

The 4-month extension debt deal agreed on this week is still contingent on a set of measures Varoufakis is due to hand to his various European ‘partners’ on Monday. If the ‘partners’ throw out the package, or too much of it, then Tsipras can go to the Greek people and say:

“Look, they’re not acting in good faith, they refuse to honor your democratic vote, and the mandate you handed us with that vote. So what are we going to do now? Do you want to stay in the eurozone and the austerity programs it forces upon you, or are we going to try to find out what would happen if we leave the euro?”


much more...
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/02/50-shades-of-greece/

[mother earth]

57. Interesting. nt

[Demeter]

39. McDonald's Should Either Make Burgers And Fries Right Or Drop Them From The Menu

HEAR! HEAR! THE LAST TIME I BOUGHT FRIES, THEY WERE INEDIBLE AS WELL AS COLD...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/02/21/mcdonalds-should-either-make-burgers-and-fries-right-or-drop-them-from-the-menu/

If you follow the financial reports of McDonalds — the biggest hamburger and French fries chain — closely, you would probably conclude that burgers and fries are falling out of favor among consumers. Moreover, its coffee and shakes business do not seem to have helped enough.

But if you check out the recent financial report of Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King, you will see a big jump in that company’s quarterly sales. Last year Burger King began serving burgers and fries for breakfast, together with coffee. Meanwhile you may have to wait for half hour to buy burgers and fries in your local Shake Shack restaurant on weekends—at least I did.

Apparently, the problem isn’t in the burgers and fries per se, but in the way they are prepared and served.

Wall Street has taken notice. McDonald’s stock has been sluggish at best—even when adjusted for its hefty dividend. Restaurant Brands stock has soared since it was listed in Toronto Exchange, and after the purchase of coffee chain Tim Horton’s. Shake Shack saw its shares skyrocketing on its first day of trade in New York Stock of Exchange...

[DemReadingDU]

50. The hot chocolate is delicious!

Get it made with whole milk, and whipped cream on top. Yummy!

[xchrom]

41. FINANce minister: greece to submit reforms list by sunday

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GREECE_BAILOUT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-21-16-17-59


ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greece will submit a list of reforms to be agreed with its creditors Sunday, the country's finance minister said Saturday.

"We are in the process of compiling the list of reforms for the institutions," finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters Saturday evening, following an inner cabinet meeting under prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

Following weeks of accusations and distrust, Greece and its creditors in the 19-nation eurozone reached an agreement Friday to extend the country's rescue loans, a move that should dramatically ease concerns it was heading for the euro exit as soon as next month.

[xchrom]

42. REFINERY WORKERS STRIKE SPREADS TO BIGGEST US LOCATION

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_REFINERIES_STRIKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-21-18-14-12


The first nationwide oil refinery strike in more than 30 years was poised to expand this weekend in a labor dispute that may start having more of an impact on the price consumers pay for gasoline.

The United Steelworkers union said Saturday that workers at the largest refinery in the U.S., the Motiva Enterprises refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, started their strike at midnight Friday. Employees at two other refineries and a chemical plant in Louisiana planned to strike at the end of Saturday.

The union said in a statement that it expanded a strike that started Feb. 1 at refineries largely in Texas and California because the industry has refused to "meaningfully address" safety issues through good-faith bargaining. The union also wants to discuss staffing levels and seeks limits on the use of contractors to replace union members in doing daily maintenance work.

[xchrom]

43. BANK TO END TOUGH SCREENING SYSTEM FOR LOW-INCOME APPLICANTS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NY_ATTORNEY_GENERAL_UNBANKED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-20-17-55-44

NEW YORK (AP) -- Santander Bank has agreed to stop a policy that often kept poor and low-income people from opening new checking or savings accounts, the bank and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Friday.

Santander becomes the third bank after Capital One and Citibank to agree to do away with such policies in an effort to accommodate millions of Americans dubbed the "unbanked." These individuals do not have checking or savings accounts and must rely on expensive alternatives for everyday banking needs.

The controversy involves ChexSystems, which is used by nearly every bank to screen applicants when they apply to open a new account. ChexSystems is similar to the credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Equilar and TransUnion. But it focuses on bank history instead of credit cards and loans. It keeps a database on whether an applicant has a history of bouncing checks or using overdrafts.

[Demeter]

44. Grain of Salt Time

[Demeter]

45. Russia ratifies $100bn BRICS New Development Bank

http://rt.com/business/234027-russia-ratifies-brics-bank/



The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and challenge the dominance of the Western-led World Bank and the IMF. The New Development Bank is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015, according to the Russian Finance Ministry.

Russia has agreed to provide $2 billion dollars from the federal budget for the bank over the next seven years. It will have three-tiers of corporate governance, with a Board of Governors, Board of Directors and a President. The bank’s board of directors will hold its first meeting in Ufa in Russia in April. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is likely to become the bank’s first Chairman of the Board of Governors, according to Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak talking on the Russia 24 TV channel.

The decision to establish the BRICS bank, along with a $100 billion reserve currency pool, was made in July 2014. Each of the five member countries is expected to allocate an equal share of the $50 billion startup capital that will be expanded to $100 billion. The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai, India will serve as the first five-year rotating president, and the first Chairman of the Board of Directors will come from Brazil.

[Demeter]

46. China launches new World Bank rival OCTOBER 2014

http://rt.com/business/198928-china-world-bank-rival/

China and India are backing a 21 country $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to challenge to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Memoranda of understanding were signed with 21 Asian countries in Beijing Friday. Australia, Indonesia and South Korea were absent following hidden pressure from Washington. The development bank was proposed a year ago by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and is to offer financing for infrastructure projects in underdeveloped Asian countries.

Headquartered in Beijing, former chairman of the China International Capital Corp investment bank Jim Liqun, is expected to take a leading role. The bank will initially be capitalized with $50 billion, most of it contributed by China. The country is planning to increase authorized capital to $100 billion. With that amount the AIIB would be two-thirds the size of the $175 billion Asian Development Bank.

India will be the second largest bank shareholder though Kuwait, Qatar, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Nepal, Oman, and all the countries of the Association of Southeast Asia, except Indonesia are involved. Australia, Indonesia and South Korea did not participate following US claims of ‘concerns’ about a rival to Western-dominated multilateral lenders. Japan, China's main rival in Asia, which dominates the Asian Development Bank along with the United States, did not attend but had not been expected to do so. Indonesia refused to participate claiming it needs time to discuss China’s proposal.

The Australian Financial Review said US Secretary of State John Kerry had personally asked Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to “steer clear” from joining AIIB.

"Australia has been under pressure from the US for some time to not become a founding member of the bank and it is understood Mr. Kerry put the case directly to the prime minister when the pair met in Jakarta on Monday following the inauguration of Indonesian President Joko Widodo," the paper said.

South Korea, one of America’s closest allies in Asia, is also prevaricating. Its finance ministry said it spoke with China to request more time to consider details such as the AIIB's governance and operational principles.

US officials have said they do not want to support an initiative Washington thinks is unlikely to promote good environmental, procurement and human rights standards in the way the World Bank and ADB are required to do...Matthew Goodman, scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC believes the initiatives of a BRICS Bank and AIIB “represent the first serious institutional challenge to the global economic order.” Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said the AIIB will set high standards, safeguard policies and improve on bureaucratic, unrealistic and irrelevant policies, according to the Xinhua news agency.

[Demeter]

52. Hello, I must be going

I've got a big bash tonight...our annual all-in-one February Party:

Chinese New Year, Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, etc.

So: Chinese food, cherry pie and chocolate are on the menu. So I must really be going...

[Fuddnik]

54. Have fun.

I'll be sitting here trying to wrestle the IRS, between 2 dogs who can't hold their licker, and taking care of 2 semi-disabled people.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.