Episodes
Saturday Feb 14, 2015
Saturday Feb 14, 2015
Jack Rasmus provides updates on the continuing negative effects of the Eurozone QE announced last month, the Greek Debt-Troika negotiations over the past week, and details on last week’s announced IMF-Ukraine bailout #2. In the first half hour, Jack describes how the Eurozone QE is intensifying currency wars and forcing other Euro countries into introducing negative interest rates, which will have major negative economic effects. Then an update on how the Greeks are succeeding to push the Troika closer to their (Greek) bargaining position, to provide them bridge loans and renegotiate the debt based on an ending of austerity. In the second half of the hour, Jack provides details on the 2nd IMF bailout deal for Ukraine also just announced this past week. How the bailout package has risen from $17.1 last April 2014 now to $40 billion—now approaching Jack’s forecast last April that Ukraine would need a minimum of $50 billion. Jack’s 2014 forecast of a collapse of Ukraine’s GDP of 10%, of its currency, and other indicators are now also realized. The second IMF bailout will not stop the decline of the Ukraine economy either, Jack argues. The show concludes with an analysis of the ‘Grand Strategies’ of the USA, Germany-France, and Russia with regard to the Ukraine, the conflict over which has always been a proxy for a larger strategic fight between the USA and Russia, over the future of Europe it self and which way Europe will orient economically in the decades ahead.
Saturday Feb 07, 2015
Alternative Visions – ‘Troika v. Greece Debt Negotiations, Week One’ – 02.06.15
Saturday Feb 07, 2015
Saturday Feb 07, 2015
‘Jack Rasmus provides a recount of negotiations between Greece’s Syriza party and new government with northern Euro bankers, the ECB, and Euro Commission in Brussels during the past week. What’s at stake for the Troika (ECB, IMF, and European Commission) in the current negotiations and why they are playing ‘hard ball’ during the first week of negotations. Greek president, Tsipras and Greek finance minister, Yani Varoufakis’, tours of European capitals last week and the outcome of their meetings is discussed. Tsipras’ modest successes talking to France and Italy politicians, Renzi and Holland. Varoufakis’ less than productive meetings with European Central Bank chair, Mario Draghi, on Feb. 4, and German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauebel on Feb. 5. Draghi’s refusal to continue providing ECB loans to Greek banks as a punishment for Greek refusal to simply extend the bailout program as is with austerity past Feb. 28. Schaubel’s refusal to agree to any changes. Syriza’s strategy: lift austerity first and discuss debt over next several months; Troika strategy: continue austerity first, agree tp extend bailout, and then discuss changes—maybe. Potential for a run on Greek private banks if Greece’s central bank runs out of money to lend its banks. That will mean Greek exit, and unleash many unknowns for Greece, the Euro and Eurozone future. (Read Dr. Rasmus latest published article on the topic on the PRN website). Next week: the ‘Dud’ (part 3 of ‘The Bomb, the Fuse, and the Dud’ series). What’s the Dud? Tune in and find out on Feb. 14’s show.
Saturday Jan 31, 2015
Saturday Jan 31, 2015
Jack Rasmus continues the three part series (last week: the ECB’s QE ‘Bomb’), this week focusing on last week’s election of Greece’s Syriza party, which has promised the Euro ‘Troika’ (IMF, ECB, European Commission-SFSF Fund) forgive at least a third of Greece current 317 billion Euro debt. How is it that Greece ended up with 317b of debt? Why is 270b of that (85%) in hands of the public entities, i.e. the Troika, and only 15% held by private investors? How did Germany, Holland, and northern Euro banks benefit the most from creating the debt? And why have they been insisting on continued austerity, and therefore depression, in Greece? Jack explains how the origins of Greece’s debt lie in policies that followed the creation of the Euro currency union in 1999 and how that union specifically benefited the northern Europe economies at the expense of Greece and the rest of the Eurozone periphery. The arrangements, Jack explains, constitute Eurozone’s version of Neoliberalism, a now failing caricature of the USA created global neoliberal policy answer to the crisis of the 1970s. The USA’s ‘twin deficits’ and global money capital circular flow neoliberal solution after 1980 was replicated in Europe on a smaller scale after 1999, but Eurozone neoliberalism began to fail after 2010, as Germany and northern Europe abandoned providing capital to Greece and the Eurozone periphery in favor of focusing on China and emerging markets after 2010. The residue left is unsustainable debt levels in Greece and elsewhere and the prospect of never ending austerity that ensures decades more of a debt driven depression in Greece. The current negotiating positions of the northern Troika and banks vs. Greece’s new Syriza government are explained, and possible scenarios in coming weeks. Meanwhile the ‘fuse’ is lite in Greece for the Euro economy, as a 10 billion euro payment comes due in 90 days. Which side will ‘blink’? How will the standoff be resolved? Listen this week’s show for some possibilities to come. (Next week, part 3: ‘the Dud’)