One thing the Right is really good at is turning a blind eye as diaster steadily builds up and then blaming everyone else when it happens. Osborne is a past master at this, ignoring the riskiness of deregulated banks and then trying to make the victims pay (‘We’re all in it together’). But Lagarde at […]
Posts Tagged ‘Euro’
Tsipras confronts neo-liberal blackmail – vote on austerity, not euro
May 23rd, 2012 by Ben Folley.At the weekend, Europe’s neo-liberals stepped up their attempts to blackmail the Greek people into accepting the painful terms of austerity by creating a false debate on Euro membership being the decisive issue in the election. David Cameron, speaking in Chicago, said to them, “you can either vote to stay in the euro, with all […]
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Greek Apocalypse Now? Not quite
May 21st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Robert Chote, the OBR chair, is normally a serious and measured man, but to say, as he did, that the UK would suffer ‘irreparable damage’ from a Greek default or that the UK ‘may never recover’ is grossly overdoing it – more reminiscent of the saloon bar than the forum of the Government’s leading economic advisers. […]
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Greek exit won’t save euro: fundamental restructuring needed
May 15th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.With the smart money on an early Greek exit, the two main questions to arise are: what will happen to Greece, and what future then for the Eurozone? If Greece leaves, the exchange rate will drop sharply from 340 drachmae to €1 at entry to the euro to perhaps 1,000 drachmae, a loss of value […]
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The odds for the euro are shortening in 2012
Dec 23rd, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The take-up by the eurozone banks of €489bn from the European Central Bank (ECB) ought to be good news as a sign that the ECB is now at last, having refused to do so in 2011, ensuring eurozone banks can fund themselves adequately next year. The ECB believes they will need €720bn of loans in […]
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Is this the end of the European project: German hegemony in an age of austerity?
Dec 12th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.The European project began at the end of the World’s most devastating war because Germany (with the support of France) wanted to put its past behind it. Now an age of austerity is being inscribed into the foundation of a European super-state because Germany (with the support of France) wishes to put its future first. Fiscal […]
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The euro lurches towards the abyss, does the Left have a Plan B?
Sep 14th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.The eurogame is up. The banking crisis that started with the unpayable debts of the US sub-prime sector, and has now moved on to include the unpayable debts of sovereigns. It is increasingly clear there is declining political and institutional support for further private bank bailouts.
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The EU’s unnoticed power grab
Aug 21st, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Just as the rioters are now at the receiving end of severely punitive treatment, so the licentious members of the eurozone (EZ) are having similar punishment meted out to them for their financial wickedness. Under the EU-IMF bailouts, Greece and Ireland have had their domestic fiscal policy-making amputated. This has been done without anaesthetic by […]
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Tobin Tax: not quite the Fourth Reich
Aug 17th, 2011 by David Osler.I suppose it is a short step from accusing both Gordon Brown and David Cameron of wanting to ‘Sovietise’ Britain to proclaiming Angela Merkel guilty of stealing pages from the Hitler playbook. But it is analysis and insight of precisely this calibre, nuance and measured tone that has made rightwing commentator Simon Heffer the intellectual power […]
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Labour must oppose the Greek “bail-out” and support the dismantling of the Euro
Jun 22nd, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Opinion within Labour appears to be moving on the Greek “bail-out”. First, Ed Balls contemplates working with eurosceptic Tory MPs to oppose the use of British cash to fund the bail-out. Not quite principled opposition to the bail-out itself, and not surprising therefore that he was accused of opportunism. Then this week Jack Straw, always […]
