Whatever you do, don’t tell it like it is
By John Ward: As
the disaster that is rigidly monetarist neoliberalism pushes its
fanatical promoters into a smaller and smaller corner, the attacks upon
anyone with a contrary opinion become increasingly brazen.
Barely a week passes in the UK without some partisan attack on our liberties. And as is increasingly apparent, the focus of the attack narrows inexorably down into the Blogosphere.
New French laws about blogging have already claimed victims. Global economics guru Mike Shedlock has been fined
€8000 for merely for quoting a French blogger, and agreeing with his
estimate of CreditAg Bank’s over-leveraged situation. As Shedlock
writes, ‘By its own account, Credit Agricole’s tangible common equity is
just 2.1% of its assets—which means its €1.6 trillion balance sheet is
leveraged nearly 49-to-1.’
He is correct. But he is also incorrect, in the Orwellian pc sense of the term.
Now we have the Greek prosecutor’s office
in Athens ordering an investigation today into an “unsubstantiated
rumour” that appeared on a popular blog claiming that deposits at
National Bank were going to be forced to take a haircut. The blogpost alleged
that even deposits under €100,000 would be affected by the measure. The
bank took legal action – and so now the author of the blog faces
charges of attempting to manipulate the stock market, spreading false
news, attempted fraud and “undermining faith in a currency”.
Ahahahahahahaahhaaaaaa: what f**king faith?
Yet again here, I’m afraid, we have a rule of law meant to protect
the weak in fact supporting the mighty: does anyone with a brain in 2013
seriously doubt that Greek banks have balance sheets that only last
Friday, Merrill Lynch described as “far from clean”?
What next….New Democracy censoring data from its own central bank? We
should all remember that – as recent events have proved over and over
again – today’s “rumour and innuendo” is tomorrow’s unforeseen
consequence.
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