The
implications of Greece’s political-financial struggles are huge—we
could be seeing the beginning of the end of not only the Euro
monetary union, but also the half-baked EU political union as well.
We could also see a more globalized unraveling, but thanks to the
financial world’s intentionally shady machinations, we won’t know
until we know. Greece is also a major ideological battleground
between a re-emerging and more radicalized western Left—Syriza—and
entrenched neoliberalism, which has dominated the political ecosystem
for the past few decades. The outcome could affect the fate of a lot
of fledgling neo-leftist politics across the globe, and in the West
in particular
Mark
Ames at pando.com
This year’s
political drama in Greece stands out as perhaps the least-understood,
worst-reported major story of 2015.
Greece is
mired in debt, and locked into the Euro monetary system, which means
Greece’s political destiny is in the hands of the European Central
Bank, the IMF and the powerful nations that dominate the Eurozone,
Germany and France —and not in the hands of Greece’s “demos,”
its voting public.
The
implications of Greece’s political-financial struggles are huge—we
could be seeing the beginning of the end of not only the Euro
monetary union, but also the half-baked EU political union as well.
We could also see a more globalized unraveling, but thanks to the
financial world’s intentionally shady machinations, we won’t know
until we know. Greece is also a major ideological battleground
between a re-emerging and more radicalized western Left—Syriza—and
entrenched neoliberalism, which has dominated the political ecosystem
for the past few decades. The outcome could affect the fate of a lot
of fledgling neo-leftist politics across the globe, and in the West
in particular.
Finance
stories are always complicated and by design murky—add in the
layers of EU politics, and you have a story that can only be told by
someone with deep finance knowledge, a grasp of the larger political
and cultural inputs, and the rare ability to translate it all into
vivid, sharp-tongued, and aggressively readable prose.
Which is why
you should be following Yves Smith’s great finance blog,
NakedCapitalism.com. Yves Smith is the nom de plume of Susan Webber,
a 35-year veteran of the financial world at firms ranging from
McKinsey and Goldman Sachs to Sumitomo Bank. Her blog has been highly
regarded from its inception in late 2006, earning Top 25 ranking in
Time magazine and CNBC and plaudits from Wired; regular appearances
on the Bill Moyers Show and Harry Shearer’s Le Show, and praise
from the likes of economist Nouriel Roubini. Yves Smith is the author
of ECONned, a merciless takedown of the economics profession and its
relevance to finance, and is a Harvard grad who spent her formative
years in quite a few American small towns as a “paper mill brat.”
NakedCapitalism
is a living refutation to the meme that “blogging is dead”—hers
is alive and vital, and always featuring a range of voices from
around the world of finance and politics. One of her closest
collaborators, Lambert Strether, runs the Correntewire.com blog.
Other longtime collaborators at NakedCapitalism include journalist
David Dayen; Ed Harrison at Credit Writedowns; economist Michael
Hudson; political strategist Matt Stoller; and a bevy of guest
writers and human inputs, including your humble interviewer. [Full
Disclosure: I have written for Naked Capitalism, and am an unabashed
fan of Yves Smith’s prose and person.]
Full
interview with Yves Smith:
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