TROIKA LUNACY: Time for ClubMed to grow some balls + The Rape of the Depositors

The Slog: It’s been obvious today that the Troikanauts haven’t been remotely chastened by the global outcry in relation to Brussels-am-Berlin’s treatment of Cyprus. Rather, what’s happened since the Rape of Nicosia is the usual Tsunami of anti-Cypriot briefing against depositors and senior pols there, half-truths about the nature of the former Cyprus economy, pressing ahead with global looting via the Greek private pensions, and pushing austerity demands as if society was a collection of vehicles, shops, ports and buildings rather than human beings.
The Greek finance minister Stournaras was (I’m told) moved to ask one Troika negotiator this morning if he’d rather negotiate with Alexis Tsipras. It evoked the usual goldfish-faced blank response. Schäuble’s response to Portugal’s constitutional court throwing out the austerity programme there was to offer a statement suggesting he had full confidence on the Lisbon PM’s ability to ignore the verdict and find a way round it. (The little hobgoblin in the wheelchair gave a similar reaction when the German equivalent said the FiskalUnion was illegal under Bundesrepublik law).
But not too deep down, we have all become used to the reality on these issues: that there will be brinkmanship and threats…followed by Troika victory. Until recently, ClubMed had the excuse that it was genuinely frightened of what disaster might befall them – and the global economy – if they didn’t obey those they increasingly see as the masters…as opposed to the masturbators they really are. That kop-out no longer applies: in terms of economics, fiscal prudence, currency markets and ECB diligence, by far the best option for Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy now is to default.

What is the alternative? Very simple: increasingly risible lies from Brussels to shatter any remaining confidence in euro-bond markets; a quick, tall spike in French borrowing costs; the ECB printing more and more money to put off bigger and bigger crashes; increasingly severe austerity flogging a collection of rotting horses; a German public turning to protectionist self-pity and demanding a euroexit for the Fatherland; and then an almighty crash forty times more serious than forgiving Greek debt way back in 2009.
Let’s get real here: if ClubMed told the Troika to insert its scorched earth where monkeys are alleged to keep their nuts, history would rapidly thank them for so doing. For they would have engineered a win-double: the destruction of a fascist Supersovereign, and the cushioning of a potentially mortal uppercut to the global economic  system.
So far, only Grillo in Italy looks to have a real chance – and the cojones – to do so.  Stournaras should stop venting his spleen at hastily prepared news conferences, and instead show some dignified courage by asking the Troika politely to leave…on a one-way ticket.
Fine words from the blogger in the armchair? Hardly: Nazi tank jokes aside, ClubMed is holding a royal flush, and B-am-B aces and eights….the dead man’s hand. But it takes balls to play poker…and a sound grasp of when the other bloke’s bluffing. Not many politicians have either. It’s time they worked it out.

Source

The Rape of the Depositors - WB7 

banzai7