"The state nobility, which preaches the withering away of the state and the undivided reign of the market and the consumer, the commercial substitute for the citizen, has kidnapped the state: it has made the public good a private good, has made the 'public thing', res publica, the Republic, its own thing. (..) The national states are undermined from outside by these financial forces, and they are undermined from inside by those who act as the accomplices of these financial forces, in other words, the financiers, bankers and finance ministry officials. I think that the dominated groups in society have an interest in defending the state, particularly in its social aspect." -- Pierre Bourdieu, Acts of Resistance, 'Against the Destruction of a Civilization', 1998: 25

 

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile. (..) So why let a whole nation fall into a depression, because of a vitiated control of these figures?" Mackenzie King, leader of Canadian Liberal Party, 1935. Related Book In This Age of Plenty: A Vision of the Economic Order in Canada Along Social Credit Lines, 2012, by Louis Even

 

"The idea that the euro has "failed" is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do. That progenitor is former University of Chicago economist Robert Mundell. The architect of "supply-side economics" is now a professor at Columbia University, but I knew him through his connection to my Chicago professor, Milton Friedman, back before Mundell's research on currencies and exchange rates had produced the blueprint for European monetary union and a common European currency.

 

"It's very hard to fire workers in Europe," he complained. His answer: the euro. - The euro would really do its work when crises hit, Mundell explained. Removing a government's control over currency would prevent nasty little elected officials from using Keynesian monetary and fiscal juice to pull a nation out of recession. "It puts monetary policy out of the reach of politicians," he said. " (And) without fiscal policy, the only way nations can keep jobs is by the competitive reduction of rules on business." He cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace – or the plumbing. 

 

As another Nobelist, Paul Krugman, notes, the creation of the eurozone violated the basic economic rule known as "optimum currency area". This was a rule devised by Bob Mundell. That doesn't bother Mundell. For him, the euro wasn't about turning Europe into a powerful, unified economic unit. It was about Reagan and Thatcher. "Ronald Reagan would not have been elected president without Mundell's influence," once wrote Jude Wanniski in the Wall Street Journal. The supply-side economics pioneered by Mundell became the theoretical template for Reaganomics – or as George Bush the Elder called it, "voodoo economics": the magical belief in free-market nostrums that also inspired the policies of Mrs Thatcher. 

Mundell explained to me that, in fact, the euro is of a piece with Reaganomics: "Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well." And when crises arise, economically disarmed nations have little to do but wipe away government regulations wholesale, privatize state industries en masse, slash taxes and send the European welfare state down the drain. - Thus, we see that (unelected) Prime Minister Mario Monti is demanding labor law "reform" in Italy to make it easier for employers like Mundell to fire those Tuscan plumbers. Mario Draghi, the (unelected) head of the European Central Bank, is calling for "structural reforms" – a euphemism for worker-crushing schemes. They cite the nebulous theory that this "internal devaluation" of each nation will make them all more competitive. Monti and Draghi cannot credibly explain how, if every country in the Continent cheapens its workforce, any can gain a competitive advantage [the well-known 'race to the bottom' destroying workers' standings]. But they don't have to explain their policies; they just have to let the markets go to work on each nation's bonds. Hence, currency union is class war by other means. (..) The flames, the mass unemployment, the fire-sale of national assets, would bring about what Friedman called a "regeneration" of Greece and, ultimately, the entire eurozone. So that Mundell and those others with villas can put their toilets wherever they damn well want to. - Far from failing, the euro, which was Mundell's baby, has succeeded probably beyond its progenitor's wildest dreams." Robert Mundell, evil genius of the euro, 2012, Greg Palast, The Guardian 

 

"The euro has taken away the possibility for national governments to manage their economies in a meaningful way — and in Italy, just as in Greece a couple of years ago, the people have had to pay the true costs of its concomitant misguided austerity policies. - The unfolding of the repeated economic crises in euroland during the last decade has shown beyond any doubts that the euro is not only an economic project but just as much a political one. What the neoliberal revolution during the 1980s and 1990s didn’t manage to accomplish, the euro shall now force on us.

But do the peoples of Europe really want to deprive themselves of economic autonomy, enforce lower wages and slash social welfare at the slightest sign of economic distress? Is increasing income inequality and a federal überstate really the stuff that our dreams are made of? I doubt it. History ought to act as a deterrent. During the 1930s our economies didn’t come out of the depression until the folly of that time — the gold standard — was thrown on the dustbin of history. The euro will hopefully soon join it. Economists have a tendency to get enthralled by their theories and model and forget that behind the figures and abstractions there is a real world with real people. Real people that have to pay dearly for fundamentally flawed doctrines and recommendations." Why the euro cannot be saved, June 2018, Lars Syll, (The) Swedish Professor of Economics 

 

 

'The Brussels Commission has just suspended its senior economist, Bernard Connolly, for writing a book savaging the prospects for a common currency. There are many who now believe he should be lauded as a prophet.' Observer, Editorial, Oct. 1 1995. The Rotten Heart of Europe: Dirty War for Europe's Money, 1995/2013, Bernard Connolly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the banks were 'bailed out' in Europe, the debt was 'nationalized', that is, put on the shoulders of the European populations. "50 billion euros in Greece, 70 Ireland, 40 Spain - one Euro-country after another is forced to support its banks with huge sums of money (..) from bad loans. But (..) Who are the beneficiaries?", The Secret Bank Bailout, 2013, Harald Schumann

 

95% of the loans given to Greece never went to Greece, but went to big banks in Germany, France, Britain etc., while Greece only received the loans as more debt. Moreover, these loans/debt btw. private banks and private borrowers were 'nationalized' and put on the shoulders of the Greek nation and people. Most of Greek bailout money went to banks: study, 2016, Deutche Welle

 

As it was clear already around 2010 that Greece would never be able to pay back its debt, it made no economic sense to continue giving Greece more loans. Also, such a move would violate the IMF's rules for loans. But, as IMF Batista explains here, the IMF broke their own rules over night to be able to add more debt to Greece. The loans cleared the big private creditors/banks in France, Britain, Germany etc., and meant that the finance creditors would get an even firmer grip to claim Greek infrastructure, islands etc. from the Greek people: 'Talking to Paulo Nogueira Batista, Executive Director for Brazil at the IMF (Harald Schumann on the trail - the complete interview' Released March 2015

 

"Yves here. The European press and most of the rest of the world averts its eyes from the continued punitive, economically counterproductive austerity being inflicted on Greece. Be sure to read this interview in connection with Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s story on the report by the IMF’s internal auditor. It lambasted the Fund for its conduct with European programs, most importantly, the one in Greece. The overview:

The International Monetary Fund’s top staff misled their own board, made a series of calamitous misjudgments in Greece, became euphoric cheerleaders for the euro project, ignored warning signs of impending crisis, and collectively failed to grasp an elemental concept of currency theory." Yanis Varoufakis: Greece Was Never Bailed Out and Remains in Debtor’s Prison – Bild Zeitung Interview, 2018, Naked Capitalism

 

 

Between Regional Breakdown and Full-Blown Dictatorship, 2016, Korybko

 

 

Adults in the Room – reviewed by Adam Tooze - Adults in the Room, Paul Mason, Guardian

 

 

Why Angela Merkel’s Is Wrong On Greece, by Jürgen Habermas on 25 June 2015