RANT: The Strain of the Pain in Spain

Photo courtesy of The Sun online

So the streets of Madrid are awash in angry protesters and violent police. The protesters chant against the gross injustices of the austerity measures implemented by the Spanish government due to the ongoing eurozone crisis, whilst the police charge with batons and batter and beat away at the protesters with a viciousness that only neo-fascist police can muster.


The violent protests (made violent by the shocking actions of the police, by the way) on the streets of Madrid are a mirror to the entire financial crisis that has gripped the world in a sickly vice since 2008: the downtrodden, increasingly impoverished masses in supposedly democratic countries are met by police violence and violation that is so massively undemocratic that it makes the entire notion of democracy in those countries nothing but a sham. The actions of these authorities (read: authoritians) on the streets of Madrid, Athens, London, New York, Oakland and countless other Western countries is nothing short of neo-fascism.
The marches and violence of Madrid were inevitable. Gone is the welfare state that protected all with free healthcare, affordable education, generous (and just) unemployment and pension schemes and labour laws that protected those who needed protecting, i.e. the worker. All of that has been slashed due to the Eurozone crisis owing to ‘huge public debts’ due to ‘unlimited public spending’ and other such excuses pontificated by European leaders, the European Commission and other shameless liars. It’s all rubbish – we all know that the entire ‘crisis’ is due to the criminal and amoral actions of traders, speculators financiers and bankers and their political acolytes (read: paid out whores) and, instead of all being put out of business or even hauled off to prison, they’ve all been bailed out with huge amounts of public money. Simple as that, folks.

And someone had to foot the bill. Of course – the unemployed, the working poor, the elderly and the middle classes of Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, the UK and many other countries have had to pay with their hard-earned rights and safety nets so that the rich could get more obscenely rich.

The protests in the streets of Madrid and the violence with which they are being met are analogy to the times in which we live – cynical times in which we the people are being pillaged and our rights imprisoned by those who supposedly represent and protect us.

And it will only get worse if all of us do not keep vigilant. Forewarned is forearmed.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Cuidado Portugal y España, Careful Ireland

My rant for today is essentially three words: Portugal, Ireland, Spain.

It's very simple - if the European Union saw fit to literally throw Greece to the proverbial wolves (i.e. the detestable IMF), then what is stopping it happening to these three countries?

The cartoon here by the brilliant Brazilian Latuff says it all...

The plates to be broken here are those of Portugal, Spain and Italy. However, although Italy was cited as being 'in trouble' a few weeks back, to my understanding it really is Ireland that is the actual 'I' in 'PIGS'...at least for now.

'PIGS' is the frankly disgusting acronym given to these four Eurozone countries, all in apparent trouble with their so-called 'sovereign debt'. Greece was in the worst trouble, hence it being sold down the river last week. But the public coffers in Portugal look pretty bad too, as is the case for Ireland. And Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the Eurozone, is said to be in very bad shape too.

So, will the EU allow three more countries to go the way of Greece? Certainly, Portugal and Ireland look quite expendable, for want of a better word. Portugal never seemed to ride very well on the EU bandwagon (must be that 'Club Med-southern European thing', methinks). But it's quite ironic that Ireland is in the 'PIGS club' given that it was a shining beacon of free market, neo-liberal economics until just recently. Ireland was the place to be in the EU, a true 'success story' it seemed - especially for those in IT, direct marketing, business or anyone with a bit of cash or an entrepreneurial streak.

How the tables have turned. Now Ireland is just another basket case. Hmmmm, yet another strike for neo-liberal Friedmanite economics.

And what of Spain? Can the EU really afford to let a country of that size and importance falter and possibly even be in danger of defaulting on its debt obligations? What then? And what will be of the Euro?

How much longer can this madness go on? Are Germany and France going to snub these countries too? Will the IMF simply become the de facto bank for the Eurozone?

For now, I am very worried for these three countries - not to mention all of the European Union.

I am half-Portuguese, a heritage of which I am proud, and I lived in Lisbon for a few years, a city in which I finished my schooling and which I visited every opportunity I had during my university vacations, it being a city I love and know so well. I do not want to see that beautiful country thrown to the dogs.

When will this European club ever finally come together and be united and there for all its members?

After all, is the second word in the letters 'EU' not union? Where is the union in this band of misfits?

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Scam that is 'Sovereign Debt'

'Sovereign debt.' The latest chapter in the mess that is the ongoing financial and economic crisis hitting most of the Western world, and many other countries aside. In short, sovereign debt is supposedly what a country's treasury (i.e. government coffers) has in terms of debt.

And, oh boy, are many countries now on the verge of sovereign debt default, i.e. the inability to pay national debt, whether it to be foreign creditors, pay for social programs at home, raise sufficient capital through treasury bonds issuance, etc. The effect on local economies, not to mention the global economy, if countries start to default on their own national debt, could be quite catastrophic.

Greece is first up.

Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its debt payments. The European Union is freaking out. The Eurozone is freaking out. I mean, countries in Europe don't default on their payments, do they? That's something the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Nigeria did back in the 1980s. Not an EU and euro-based country. Right? Well...no. Greece is on the verge of default. That is fact.

The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, has blamed his country's economic crisis on international speculators (i.e. the likes of Goldman Sachs and their fellow blood-sucking brethren in the international financial world) with their buying up of Greek treasury bonds and, now, dumping of them. Some pooh-pooh that notion (always international financiers or Wall Street apologists, by the way), but don't get analysts like my man, Max Keiser, started on that notion. For him, and many others, the imminent collapse of Greece is entirely the fault of international speculators that are playing havoc with entire national economies.

I, for one, totally believe what Papandreou accuses Wall Street of doing to Greece.

And there are others too who may almost be on the verge of national debt default...

Spain





Ireland





Italy - beautiful land of my ancestors...





Portugal - the other land of my ancestors and a beautiful country I know so well...what a shame...




And don't let's forget about a country that has already defaulted on it's so-called 'debt'...

Yes, Iceland




The land of geysers and volcanoes, the fabled Blue Lagoon, green energy - and, now, the highest debt per capita load on the planet...

Poor Iceland. A canary in the coalmine of what is fundamentally sick - nay, perverted and twisted - about the current global uber-capitalist model.

Sovereign debt is a scam because how can national treasuries be in control of their economies when they are at the mercy of international financial and currency speculators? There's nothing sovereign about this debt any more, hence the total and utter scam thereof.

It's a farce and just the latest chapter, writ HUGE, that demonstrates just how fundamentally flawed, corrupt and outrageously amoral the current neo-liberal, profit-at-all-costs, unregulated financial markets a la Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys that is world capitalism. It's sick to the core. Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes must be turning in their graves with just how sick the system has become.

Yet, national governments in Europe must also take the blame (not to mention that of the United States, now in debt to the tune of 14 TRILLION dollars, although that endless warmongering is hardly cheap, now is it?). This is what you get when you bail out banks and financial institutions that were reckless and perverse in how they played the stock markets and economies of the world.

Using public money (i.e. the money of citizens) to bail out, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars and euros, the very crooks and scheisters that got us into the mess, was not only madness, but MORALLY BANKRUPT of all those politicians who allowed this to happen. You bloody bastards, all of you.

So what would I like to see? I would like to see the likes of Greece, Spain, Portgal and Ireland DEFAULT on their so-called sovereign debts. And, better still, give the IMF the biggest middle finger ever seen in financial history by saying 'NO! We will not take your loans!' Because these countries should know these IMF 'loans' will come laden with Friedmanite and Chicagoesque preconditions to 'liberalize' economies, slash public spending, 'open up markets even more', and all the other Friedmanite bullshit that got us into this horrific and amoral mess in the first place.

But, of course, I have better chances of seeing pink elephants having a full-scale Grand Prix in the sky than I do of those countries having the courage and the foresight to do just that.

THIS is the perfect time for a complete review and even overhaul of capitalism as we know it. It has never been more perfect - or more needed. I'm certainly not advocating communism or any other 'ism' for that matter. What I am advocating is that we stop this madness where 0.01% of the richest people in the richest economies can hold entire countries to ransom. And, in the process, destroy the very fabric and social and human rights within those countries. I don't want to see European countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain collapse or relegated to economic basketcase status. I'm funny that way.

Stop this obsession with Friedmanite uber-capitalism and the 'Stock Market is King' economic mentality, like some demented mantra. It is NOT working.

Enough is enough. Basta!

Do you get my point?