Re: <nettime> Europe: from bad to worse (should be Greece, from

["Patrice Riemens" <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

> Because they are not within the eurozone, obvs.
>
> It didn't take long for the 'feckless Greeks' line to surface on
> Nettime now did it?

Ahem, with some nettimers only ;-)

> While Greek capital has been in trouble since
> the 1970s, the current set of problems stems from the financial
> structure of the Eurozone - namely, its set up so as to circulate
> surplus German capital (where the currency is undervalued vis-a-vis
> the old Deutschmark)

That's most probably true, and a taboo subject in Deutschland (correct me
if wrong). But in Deutschland's economic vassal state, the Netherlands,
whose currency was solidly tied to the Deutschmark since the seventies, it
was recently discussed thanks to the petulant former minister of finance,
Gerrit Zalm, now boss of the nationalised (bailed out) ABN-AMRO bank, when
it surfaced he had deliberately undervalued (by at least 10%) the Guilder
in its transition to the Euro so has to bolster Dutch exports, the
principal - and traditional, for centuries -  mainstay of the Dutch
economy (with disastrous consequences for domestic incomes and
consumption, but that's another story)...

> to Southern Europe, where the currencies are
> overvalued.

... On the other hand, the clear overvaluing of the Greek Drachma in the
Euro transition, and it was clear even at the time, was also deliberate
act of 'national pride' by the then Greek government. It was accepted by
Greece's European partners as part of the general euphoria about all the
good things the new currency would bring about.

> This all went to hell in the financial crisis of 2008,
> and instead of letting the investor banks in the Greek economy go
> bust the ECB/EU/et al set out to save the French and German banks
> via the Greek government (moral hazard anyone?). So what we are
> witnessing is a conflict over French and German investments, and who
> is to pay for the bail out of them (sound familiar?).

As I wrote in my previous post (sorry), but was possibly not clear enough,
one of the characteristics of post-modern political actors is total denial
about what has happened before, especially if they had a hand in it.
That's why any mention ('lecturing') by 'the Greek' on the background of
today's predicament is declared irrelevant, null and void by their
interlocutors. And they are succesfull, since they do this 'by default'.
They genuninly can pretend they don't understand what, e.g., Varoufakis is
talking about and why he does it since it has been blanked out from their
mind.

Yesterday is History, To-day is a Gift, To-morrow is Mystery!


> But if its
> orthodox marxism on the crisis you want, you could do worse that
> Michael Roberts...
>
> https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

Looks like great stuff!

Cheers to all, and  ... Don't Happy, Be Worry! (-Rambo Amadeus)
p+2D!


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org