Operation a success, but patient died

This is as good an update on the situation in Greece
as you'll find in the Guardian.

Another source says that Prof Arweiller of Paris
was talking with a BIG international money
man, like Soros perhaps, who told her that Greece
will have a government at least until the
German elections. After that, it's all open.

Here's the review:

In a few words: Greece is still in freefall

checkit: Guardian

Talk of recovery in Greece is premature – and all about justifying austerity

Bank bosses and politicians are trying to convince the world that Greece is on the mend – but this boosterism is all about justifying the shock therapy imposed on the eurozone

        Aditya Chakrabortty  

        Monday 3 June 2013 19.59 BST       

Perhaps you remember reading about a basket case called Greece. The first domino to fall in the eurozone crisis, it was officially broke and only kept afloat by hundreds of billions in euros from Europe and the IMF. To secure the loans, Athens had to slash spending, lay off or cut pay for thousands of public servants and flog state assets. The result was social uproar, political turmoil and economic collapse. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks took to the streets. The country faced ejection from the euro, what economists drolly dubbed a "Grexit". In short, it was in a deep hole. But if that's your image of Greece then you need to update it: that's so spring/summer 2012.

Over the past few weeks, Athens' top brass have been trying to convince the world that happy days are here again. Prime minister Antonis Samaras now talks of the Greek "success story". The boss of the central bank and the finance minister say Greece has turned a corner. Editorialists in the national press and parts of the international financial press dutifully nod their assent. And those with Greek or European assets to sell clap along: "Forget Grexit – it could be Greecovery instead," ran one particularly bone-headed "research" note I received on Friday.

What's at stake here is a much bigger prize than whether an economy worth 2% of Europe's annual GDP really is on the mend. It's about justifying the shock therapy imposed on distressed members of the eurozone.

This was frankly put by Maria Paola Toschi, a market strategist at JP Morgan, in the FT last week. "If Greece can present itself as a recovering economy, having taken the medicine of fiscal austerity and supply-side reform, then the reform agenda of the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund will be given a further boost."

If the elites of Europe and Washington can claim to have "healed" Greece, then they can shrug off criticisms of eurozone austerity. And they can also defend an economic model that just three years ago looked as if it had crashed into a wall.

Yet the exhibits the boosters are using do not a case make. Athens shares doubled in the past year? Cheap money from central banks and investors desperate for returns can play funny tricks. Wages have fallen? Yes, but the business investment that was meant to follow on from that hasn't materialised. The public finances are back in some kind of order? Taking an axe to the welfare state and public services will do that; still, few think Athens could go a day outside the sovereign version of debtor's jail.

And no one is seriously disputing that the economy remains badly sick; the OECD predicts Greece will face its seventh year of recession in a row in 2014. More than one in four Greeks are out of a job; of young Greeks, nearly two in three. Around 60% of those out of work haven't been employed in more than a year. According to a recent piece by Nick Malkoutzis and Yiannis Mouzakis for Ekathimerini, there are 400,000 families in Greece without a single breadwinner.

Although I was one of those who opposed the austerity imposed in Greece from the outset, I would far rather have been proved wrong. As someone who reported from Athens on a few occasions in 2011, and who has a number of Greek friends, I'd like to see them flourishing.

As it is, the most that can be said for the elusive recovery is that Germany and the rest of Europe have decided to keep Athens in the single currency and to keep supplying it with euros. From that has come a measure of financial stability which has attracted investors. The silent run on the banks, with savers pulling out their money, has stopped; but the financial institutions now function more like deposit vaults than dispensers of credit. And there have been some important cultural and institutional changes, as fund manager Jason Manolopoulos points out. Before the crisis, the government didn't know how many civil servants it employed; now it does. And, should you wish to trade in the middle of a depression, it has got easier and cheaper to set up a business.

But pit those gains against the near-collapse of the health system, the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn and the clampdown on investigative journalists such as Kostas Vaxevanis, persecuted for publishing a list of super-rich tax dodgers.

While the economy remains catatonic and civil society is in crisis, all such boosterism amounts to is a 21st-century version of claiming the operation was successful; it's just a shame the patient died. It's a more dramatic variant of something George Osborne and the austerity crowd are trying in the UK, too: to define down what success looks like.

Two summers ago, I sat with economist Yanis Varoufakis on his balcony overlooking the Acropolis, and asked him to sum up the outlook for Greece. "It's in freefall." Last night, I asked him the same question. "It's still in freefall."

Then he told me a story. Last year, his book The Global Minotaur was a bestseller in Greece, ahead even of Fifty Shades of Grey. But, he said, he had not received a cent in royalties. Why not? His publisher hadn't received any money from the bookshops, which were all bust. Rather than chase them, put booksellers out of business and finally kiss goodbye to getting any money, the publisher preferred to leave it be. So the shops, the imprint and the author all got by on nothing.

That sweet little story of economic inertia seems to me to say a lot.

IN-EPT. Greek government cries for help

In a few words, the Greek government has shut down
the national broadcaster, the equivalent of the BBC, CBC
and so on.

They have said that it wastes money, but Greeks are
charged, on their electric bills, well over a hundred
euros a year for this, so it should not necessarily be
government money that they're "wasting".

The gov says they need to cut 15 000 government jobs
by next year. I think if they waited, smoking employees
living in Athens would die at that yearly rate anyway.

It is true that the gov has difficulty firing employees
because most of them were installed due to favours
to one or another politician.

But when they shut the national broadcaster just to
cut 2900 jobs, temporarily, they're crying out for help.

Their desperate. Either that or they're simply suicidal.

How do you cut the "voice of the people" in a nation
like that, and not expect the streets to be filled with
protesters.

The channels are still going.
http://topontiki.gr/article/54289/Sugkentroseis-allilegguis-gia-tous-ergazomenous-tis-ERT

checkit: from Boing boing
1

European Broadcasting Union steps in to keep the Greek national broadcaster on the air after police shut it down Cory Doctorow at 5:09 pm Wed, Jun 12, 2013 Yesterday, the Greek government forcibly shut down the state broadcaster, ERT, sending in the police to drag journalists away from their microphones. The government claimed that the shutdown was the result of inescapable austerity measures. In response, the European Broadcasting Union -- an umbrella group representing public broadcasters across Europe -- has set up a makeshift mobile studio where ERT broadcasters can continue to work and stay on air. This is being fed around Europe on an EBU satellite as part of its European news exchange operation and can be picked up by commercial stations in Greece but not the general public. A spokesman for the EBU, which is headquartered in Geneva, said a "high-level meeting with a conference call" with the director general of ERT would take place later on Wednesday to decide on next steps. Roger Mosey, the BBC's editorial director, who is on the EBU board told the Guardian: "We're watching events in Greece with great concern. When countries are in difficulty, there's an even bigger need for public service broadcasting and for independent, impartial news coverage. I hope that's restored in Greece as soon as possible." The EBU spokesman said ERT staff in contact with the organisation have told them the power has not yet been cut by the government, but email servers have been taken down. They are now contacting the EBU through smartphones, using Facebook and personal email accounts. "This is unprecedented, stations have closed and re-opened for a number of reasons, but never with such abruptness," said a spokesman for the EBU. ERT shutdown: European Broadcasting Union sets up makeshift studio [Lisa O'Carroll/The Guardian]

Lagarde's stun grenade

It echoes around Greece, but only
wipes out journalists.

Now, Kostas Vaxevanis is a well-known
journalist who is being persecuted by the
Occupied Greek Government, or as it's known
in Greece, the Tsolakoglou, for publishing a
list of HSBC Swiss bank account holders.

So, he sent an open letter to the EU, just so that
Barosso can't manipulate his words. And he
said many things which, in the need to build an
argument, may be excused, if you can stop
laughing long enough to type it. Case in point:
"[Greece] claims to embrace European democracy "

Although the Tsolakoglou is very corrupt, I think
it's extra funny that Kostas would say that, seeing
as Barosso and Co. are presiding over the deaths
of Greeks, at the behest of the banks. I'm pissing
myself laughing. European democracy,ppffffft.

So Kostas wrote this "if anything happens to me,
tell my mommy" letter to tell the Capo Di Tutti
Commissioni about how his underlings, the
Tsolakoglou, are being wiseguys. OOOooh.

Not too smart, Kostas. 

Checkit: index on censorship

An open letter to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso

04 Jun 2013

Dear President Barroso,

I will be standing trial on 10 June because, as a journalist, I published the names of Greek bank account holders contained on the Lagarde list in my anti-corruption magazine, HOT DOC. I am being accused of violating privacy laws.

On 28 October, a special section of the Hellenic police, under orders from the public prosecutor’s office, arrested me before the ink was dry on the issue of the magazine containing the names of people who should have been investigated for alleged tax evasion.

I was ushered hastily into a trial which ended with my acquittal. The court found that I had violated no privacy laws. I had published only the names of people who held bank accounts at HSBC without any other details, such as the amount of their deposits. My argument to the court was that someone’s relationship with a bank is not a personal detail, since no one covers their face to walk up to an ATM. The court also accepted my contention that there were reasons of public interest for the publication of the names on the Lagarde list.

As you may already know, a disk with the names of the Lagarde list was officially handed over to the Greek government for purposes of investigating corruption and tax evasion. This investigation never happened because ministers said the list is illegal and cannot be utilized. They reached to the point of claiming that they’d lost the data.

The lack of an investigation created an atmosphere of mistrust in the political system. Greek governments appeared to be protecting alleged tax-dodgers making the public angry. At the same time, behind the scenes, the list was being used for blackmail and defamation.

At HOT DOC, we decided to publish the list as soon as we reached the conclusion that the data we had was valid. This was our duty, as citizens and as journalists. This is when we found ourselves confronted with the events described by the New York Times and other international media: “Instead of hitting tax evasion, they chose to hit the journalist who exposed it.”

The Lagarde list is not only a list of potential tax dodgers. It captures the way corruption functions in Greece—with, unfortunately, the support of the political system.

After I was acquitted, the public prosecutor’s office did something unheard of in the annals of the judiciary for a court chaired by a single judge. They appealed my acquittal, claiming that not all the incriminating evidence was taken into consideration. The original case file did not include a single element of evidence, not even the incriminating issue of the magazine. The charges were so hastily put together that they even forgot to put the official stamp of the prosecutor on the file.

President Barroso, this is a targeted and selective persecution against a magazine that fights corruption. We had to be punished. Since HOT DOC published the Lagarde list, three Greek newspapers also published lists of taxpayers who are being investigated. One of the papers even ran the Lagarde list names with the amount of individual deposits. No charges were brought against them.

The trial on 10 June is not my trial but the trial of the independence of the Greek press. The current climate is asphyxiating freedom of the press, as independent media is heavily indebted and owners of TV channels pressure the government for contracts. Greece ranked 71st in press freedom this year, behind several developing countries and military regimes. A Greek minister recently said he would sue The Guardian for revealing that Greek police were using torture.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion with regard to addressing the Greek crisis. But the crisis cannot be addressed without democratic principles. Greece is drifting away from the standards of western democracy as they were established after World War II. Truth in the media is the first victim.

I would like you to know that, if I am found guilty, I will not ask for a suspension of my sentence. I will let myself be taken to jail. This is the only way for me to show what is truly happening in this country, which has its roots in ancient Greek democracy and claims to embrace European democracy. A corrupt system of power in my country is persecuting me for the very same reasons for which I was awarded two international journalism prizes this year.

I believe that Europe is able to preserve democracy, to highlight its civilization and to unite its citizens. This cannot be achieved when people are not free and when the press is silenced.

Thank you for your attention.

Kostas Vaxevanis

Kostas Vaxevanis is a Greek investigative journalist and Index on Censorship Award-winner.

 

Athens Stock Exchange moves to Basel post box

The Athens SE has seen the destruction of many a 

saving account. It used to be that the Greek 

government used the ASE to rob its own

citizens. 

Now , with the crisis, the only value left there is

in Starvation Derivatives with Goldman.

check this: Swiss info

Coca Cola found Switzerland more attractive than Greece

by Matthew Allen, swissinfo.ch

In happier times, the relocation of a Greek-based Coca Cola subsidiary to Zug would have been met with unreserved Swiss joy. But the move in mid-October actually masks a deep crisis unfolding in Swiss cantons.

A showdown with the European Union over corporate tax breaks now has cantons at each other’s throats, with billions of francs of annual revenues at stake. On the line is also Switzerland’s reputation as a tax haven for multinationals.

Waiting on the sidelines are thousands of foreign holding firms that benefit from cantonal tax breaks on profits earned outside of Switzerland. The EU wants these financial perks, which tax domestic and foreign profits at different rates, to end, and the cantons fear a company exodus.

“There is an emerging understanding that these discriminations have to be renounced,” Thomas Cottier, a professor of international tax law at Bern University, told swissinfo.ch. “The alternative would almost certainly be to face retaliatory measures from the EU.”

Western models don't work in Greece

I know that ZH are a good bunch of investigative reporters,
but they doesn't know much about Greece and its economics.

You'll see from this that milk costs too much in a country with
a 30% drop in its GDP. What they're forgetting that Greeks
were never accustomed to fresh milk in urban areas, until the
last 30 years; one generation. Greece is a country which, for
the most part is too hot to supply enough grass to feed cows.
Greeks occasionally bought imported evaporated milk from
Holland.

So, naturally, some forward thinking guys have brought in
cattle feed which is invariable from the Americas and is
GMO crap. That is lawful, but they just don't tell us.
I found out from a news program, just recently.
So, was Greece winning because it had milk? 

Or, is this article a sign that Greece needs to open up
for competition. I'm guessing from the article that these
farmers all have houses in Monaco, so they don't care
about inflation in Greece @sarc.
They're surviving, but if you open up the Greek market
it will just mean more unemployed Greek farmers and
more importing of expensive food products.

Small countries don't need the Euro or globalisation.

Checkit:  Zerohedge

[You'd think, looking at the title that suicides are up, because milk is too expensive]

Greek Milk Costs More Than Anywhere Else In Europe As Suicide Rate Rises By 37%

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/22/2012 13:56 -0500

That Greek suicide rates have exploded over the past two years is very much expected: after all, in order to preserve the sanctity of the failed monetary status quo, the Greek economy and its less than prosperous population have been sacrificed by the legacy elite and the wealthy. The socio-economic collapse has resulted in a total crash in economic production of goods and services, an nosebleed-inducing unemployment rate which increasing at a mindboggling 1% per month, and the rise of neo-nazism, with the Golden Dawn party now the third most popular political organization in the country (and rising rapidly). Sure enough, Kathimerini has confirmed that the" Greece's suicide rate increased by 37 percent between 2009 - 2011, To Pontiki newspaper reported quoting police data. The data, which was presented in Parliament by Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias following a request by SYRIZA MPs, showed that 3,124 suicides and attempted suicides have occurred in the debt-stricken country since 2009, the weekly newspaper said." As noted, no surprise in this very tragic headline on the day in which the world's still wealthiest nation gives gratitude for all its "wealth."

...[THE LAWS FOR FARMERS] Cost of milk in Greece a problem for consumers and producers

To understand why milk costs more in Greek shops than anywhere else in the European Union, Stathis Aravanis's farm is a good place to start.

Tall elm trees screen the 4 hectares (10 acres) of land that Aravanis farms outside the small town of Orchomenos in central Greece, not far from the ancient city of Thebes. The silence is broken only by the sound of grazing cattle and a passing tractor.

Each day 200 or so cows produce 5.5 tons of milk that he has been selling to Delta, a division of food conglomerate Vivartia, since 1990. Delta, which collects the milk every two days, pays him 45 euro cents a liter.

That is in line with the average farm-gate price in Greece of 44.79 cents, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistics office. Only in Finland, Malta and Cyprus is the price higher.

Aravanis said his running costs made it impossible to produce more cheaply.

His farm is too small for him to grow fodder for his total herd of 440 animals, so he has to buy in clover, maize, oats, hay and soya, which is imported from the United States.

"If the price fell to 40 cents none of us would be able to survive. We are barely getting by at these prices,» he said.

Aravanis reserves his harshest criticism for government bureaucrats, who he says make it hard for farmers to obtain land permits to expand and reap economies of scale. «It's not as if cows are going to be grazing in their living room,» he said.

...[CONSUMERS WITHOUT MONEY FOR THE MOST EXPENSIVE MILK IN EUROPE] At the other end of the dairy chain stand Greek shoppers, who wonder why they have to pay around 1.50 euros for a liter of fresh milk.

Agnes Papadopoulou, 46, a mother of two young children who lost her job as an accountant in January, stopped buying fresh milk months ago because she could no longer afford it.

"It's too expensive. It's impossible to get by when you need two liters a day, plus bread, plus food, never mind all the bills and taxes we have to pay. Fresh milk is a luxury,» Papadopoulou said, pushing a trolley stacked with pasta, lentils and tinned food in an Athens supermarket.

Attempting direct comparisons with prices elsewhere in Europe is treacherous because so many variables are in play, such as transport costs, rents and consumer preferences.

But Eurostat says the price in Greece of dairy produce -- milk, cheese and eggs -- was 31.5 percent above the EU average in 2011, the highest in Europe.

Greek dairy firms say they charge a fair price and their sector is one of the least profitable due to high costs.

But many Greeks assume that milk prices are rigged, a suspicion reinforced by a fine of 75 million euros that the Competition Commission slapped on several firms in 2007 for fixing prices between themselves and with supermarkets.

...[GLOBALISATION REARS ITS HEAD Dairy farmers oppose a long-standing proposal to extend the shelf life of milk to 10 days, as is common elsewhere in Europe.

This could be done relatively simply in the pasteurisation process, but Skordas said cattle breeders feared -- unnecessarily, in his opinion -- that this would open the door to increased competition from imported milk.