6.16.2012

The European Troika Cooks Their Own Goose


With just a few hours to go before the polls open in Greece The Mud Report would like to extend its deepest thanks to the three tethered horses of the European Troika, the European Commission (EC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB), for so overplaying their hand that they've cooked their own golden egg laying goose. The last straw was added today when prominent German newspapers endorsed the pro-bailout conservative New Democracy Party in tomorrow's election.

The Troika currently have control over the modern European Union’s financial structure and are totally responsible for the austerity measures that have driven Greece to its knees. They and the northern European countries, especially Germany, have financed loan after loan to their southern European 'partners' to buy unnecessary military hardware, to build wonderful empty condos and to pay for the graft and corruption of the elites. Now, by copying the 'structural adjustment' programs the IMF has been using for decades around the globe to rob countries of their commonwealth, the Troika is using its power to destroy the social programs of the people of Europe.

When you or i make a bad decision like lending money to a junkie or whatever - we take our losses, chalk them up to naivety or stupidity, hopefully learn our lesson and not do the same thing next time. Banksters don't. As Luis Garicano professor at the London School of Economics says, “Those who lent to our [southern European] financial system were the banks and the insurance companies of Northern Europe, which should bear the consequences of these decisions. But of course they will not."

The Troika, despite holding all the cards and owning all the chips in this ridiculous game of European financial poker, have decided that they want the rest of it too. They've decided that hunger and poverty aren't enough, that simply bleeding southern Europe of wealth for decades to come as they have in the past two decades where they've grown fat by exporting their goods in Euros undervalued by their southern 'partners' relatively low productivity, they now want to humiliate a proud people who's long history of standing up to oppression from outsiders is legendary.

For this last bit of hubris, for trying to humiliate the Greeks, The Mud Report thanks them because it will be the final straw. The Troika in their imperial fury have forgotten the fact that the southern European players in this one-sided poker game also have the choice of calling it a night, getting up from the table and quitting. Of walking out the door and breathing the free sweet fresh air of a new day.