I have been doing some research on Brexit. I vowed to stay clear of the topic because of all the stupidity surrounding it from both sides, but most galling are the Labour Remainers who think the European Union is some sort of nirvana (with a few problems) and is on the road to redemption through some amorphous ‘reform’ process. Pigs might fly! I mentioned the recent publication by Open Britain (January 30, 2018) – Busting the Lexit Myths – in yesterday’s blog. This document seeks to state the case for British Labour’s “Campaign for the Single Market”. The ‘single market’ is held out as some sort of security blanket for all and sundry. Without it, Britain will apparently lapse into a state where the government will be unable to maintain services, where “genetically modified foods, chlorinated chicken, and access to procurement of protected sectors like healthcare” overwhelm the local economy, where environmental and working standards disappear and that hapless island floats off into a shocking dystopia. It is really the stuff of fantasy. But the image it evokes of the confidence in British democratic systems and its own capacity for volition is quite stunning. Without the EU, Britain becomes hapless. You laugh then cry. Pathetic.

When the latest Greek bailout deal between the Greek government and the European Commission/IMF) was concluded on June 16, 2017, I concluded that it was designed to fail. Please read my blog – Latest Greek bailout – a recipe designed to fail. Despite all the statements from the European Commission and the IMF to the contrary, the terms of the deal with the Greek government confirms that these institutions had abandoned any pretense to being interested in serious economic policy. For the European Commission, the desired irrevocable status of the euro, as a political statement, is all it seems interested in when it comes to Greece. They just don’t want to admit that Greece cannot reasonably function in this monetary union. This deal only stalled reality for yet another day and the only goal it serves is to keep Greece using a currency it cannot afford to use. And now the reality is emerging that the Greek economy will need a further bailout to survive for another period. The latest analysis from the German research group – Centrum für europäische Politik – shows that Greece remains close to insolvent and cannot survive within the Eurozone on its own. One has to ask what has all the austerity been for if the patient is still on life support some 10 years later. We know the answer.

This is the final part of my four-part discussion of a so-called progressive proposal advanced by German academic Fritz Sharpf to reform the Eurozone into two tiers: a ‘Northern’ hard currency tier and a ‘Southern’ non-euro tier with the latter nations tying their currencies to the euro. We have seen that rather than providing a framework for convergence between the current Eurozone Member States, Sharpfs’ proposal would not liberate the weaker nations from the yoke of the euro, In fact, the proposal would just tie the exiting nations to the euro in a slightly different way – one that will not provide sufficient flexibility to make much difference. Further, Sharpf recommends that the ‘Northern’ nations should retain the euro and operate within the current European Commission orthodoxy. Yet he admits that this regime kills the democratic process. In other words, his proposal sustains that technocratic illegitimacy which would not appear to be the basis for a progressive solution. Finally, while he dichotomises the current 19 Eurozone Member States into a Northern and Southern grouping, there is no reliable way to allocate the Member States across the groups that would remain in the euro and those who would exit. What criteria would reasonably allocate nations to stay in the so-called Northern hard currency zone with the euro? For example, I do not think that a democratic France can ever function reasonably in a hard currency arrangement with Germany. The hard currency zone would effectively just revert to a ‘mark zone’ tantamount to the last EMS arrangement prior to the euro. That configuration was totally unworkable and that dysfunction would repeat itself. In other words, the proposal makes little operational sense. My view is that the vast majority of the Member States would be in the ‘Southern’ group, which would effectively end the EMU in any functional sense. Hardly a proposal for reform.

Just how poorly the Eurozone is performing is usually illustrated with reference to Greece, then Spain, then Italy and Portugal. The weakest links among the Member States. Not to mention Cyprus, Finland and then some. But the other way of looking at the same question is to focus on the strongest link in the currency union – Germany. A new report from DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research) (released July 5, 2017) – Einkommensschichten und Erwerbsformen seit 1995 (Income levels and forms of employment since 1995), which is only available in German, tells a pretty sombre, if not bleak story as to what has been happening in the Eurozone’s powerhouse over the last 18 years. It demonstrates that not only is the German model wrong for the rest of the Member States, but it is also not generating sound outcomes for its own citizens – well the lower- and middle-classes to be more exact.

I have been looking at the latest Greek bailout deal between the Greek government and the European Commission/IMF), which was concluded last week (June 16, 2017) and released a further 8.5 billion euros in new loans to the Greek government which means it can make bond payments due in July. Despite all the statements from the European Commission and the IMF to the contrary, the terms of the deal with the Greek government confirms that these institutions have abandoned any pretence to being interested in serious economic policy. For the European Commission, the desired irrevocable status of the euro, as a political statement, is all it seems interested in when it comes to Greece. They just don’t want to admit that Greece cannot reasonably function in this monetary union. Just like the previous bailout agreements, this deal will fail. It actually only stalls the reality for yet another day and the only goal it serves is to keep Greece using a currency it cannot afford to use – afford in both monetary and real terms.

The Eurozone flash National Accounts estimates for the fourth-quarter 2016 was released yesterday by Eurostat – GDP up by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU28. The annual growth rate for the Eurozone in 2016 was 1.7. The news also indicated that the Greek economy fell back into its Depression and was followed by the other basket case, Finland. Both recorded negative growth in the December-quarter, Greece -0.4 per cent, Finland -0.5 per cent. Both results reflect the on-going fiscal austerity. Spain, on the other hand, allowed by the European Commission to run large structural deficits (to keep the PPP in power) recorded another strong growth result. Perhaps if Syriza had demonstrated some spine, they too could have got away with the Spanish solution – where Brussels turns a blind eye to the blatant breach of the Stability and Growth Pact rules, while its economy starts to growth strongly. But, then history tells us that Syriza caved in almost immediately and the continued decline of the Greek situation is a direct result of the policies they were then co-opted to inflict on their own people. Deeper analysis of the Greek situation reveals how dire the future is likely to be. I present a few indicators of that future in this blog. As the neo-liberal colony of Greece takes another step backwards, it isn’t hard to understand why? Basically, the Troika conspired to destroy the prosperity of Greece as a nation and its political leadership joined that conspiracy by refusing to broach an exit from the Eurozone. Simple really.

The new US President has now scrapped the TPP and is turning his attention to NAFTA. These are developments that those on the Left should applaud. No so the conservative, neo-liberal government in Australia which is claiming it is pushing ahead with the TPP (sure, with Indonesia) and hinting that China might be part of a new TPP arrangement sans the US. That, in itself, is incredible given that the TPP was designed to counter the growing trade strength of China. But the ground is certainly shifting. Even the IMF is embracing China and added the Renminbi to the Special Drawing Rights basket last September (along with the USD, the euro, Yen and pound), which is recognition that the IMF doesn’t think the Chinese have been manipulating the currency – one of the paranoid claims of the new US President. But in Europe, people are getting anxious after the President of the ECB Mario Draghi decided to put pressure on Italy with threats they would owe the Eurosystem (through the Banca d’Italia) some 358.6 billion euros, which are that nation’s TARGET2 liabilities as at November 2016. The real currency manipulator, German who continues to game its Eurozone partners (via an undervalued euro) is also claiming it is owed cash as a result of its increasing TARGET2 assets. The threat from Draghi is hollow and Italy should just ignore it and get on with leaving the Eurozone and restoring its prosperity as an independent currency-issuing state.

I read a short discussion paper this morning – What model for the future of the eurozone? Critical actions – released by France Stratégie, which is formally known as the Commissariat général à la stratégie et à la prospective (CGSP). It is a government body attached to the Prime Minister’s office. It was created in April 2013 Its mission is to provide broad discussion parameters to aid future policy directions for the French government. The discussion paper provides nothing new and seems to avoid the realities of the European cultural and historical milieu that really dominates or constrains (whichever way you want to think about it) the possible routes back to prosperity for the continent. It lists three options for reforming the Eurozone: (a) Return to original principles (Maastricht 2.0) where nations were fiscally separate and there would be no bailouts; (b) Reinforced fiscal integration with “joint liability for sovereign debt” and control of “national parliaments’ fiscal sovereignty’ by some European-level institution (Commission/Parliament); and a (c) a US federal model. They are motivated by the conclusion that the current situation is “ineffective”, which is a euphemism for total dead-in-the-water failure. They do not broach the most obvious and, in the long-run, best solution, which is consistent with the cultural and historical realities – orderly breakup and return to true currency sovereignty. So the discussion paper really offers very little by way of a path out of the maresme that the elites in Europe have created to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else.

I spend a fair bit of time in various airports each month and hate the onerous security checks, which at times seem petty in the extreme. It always amused (not the right word) me that a passenger could just walk straight on with a bag full of duty free whisky which would make a lethal weapon if smashed, yet characters like me with pins in my legs (old bike crashes) have to nearly strip each time we have to fly. Now I suppose they will have security screening outside the terminal entrance just to enter. The authorities would have been better ensuring that their youth had access to employment rather than allowing them to wallow in unemployment and the resulting social exclusion. It is too simplistic to attribute the growing dangers in Europe and elsewhere to concentrations of high unemployment. But if a society deliberately denies a particular generation of the chance to gain employment and, instead, vilifies them as lazy, wanton individuals then it is easy to see why those characters will conclude that society has nothing to offer. In Europe where these manifestations are becoming increasingly obvious, the flawed monetary system is at the heart of the problem. It has failed categorically and the fall out of that failure is multi-dimensional.