A Good Straightforward Analysis Of Whats Going On In Europe

international | anti-capitalism | other press Monday April 30, 2012 05:19 by lefty

For the last while we have been cultivated like proverbial economic mushrooms, "kept in the dark and fed a lot of economic shit". The fact is the current conditions have been deliberately cultivated to achieve exactly the effect they are having.

2 good articles from counterpunch relating to the EU situation. The first, by Mike Whitney looks at what approach the EU technocrats have taken and draws the obvious conclusion as to why they could be doing this in the face of clear facts and known economic theory indicating the inevitable consequences of such steps.

Quote:
"Draghi’s ”debt consolidation” and “structural reforms” have increased deflationary pressures and deepened the slump. They’ve been a total flop as anyone with half-a-brain could have predicted.

So, are we supposed to believe that the ECB president didn’t know what the effect of his policies would be, that he didn’t know that contractionary policies would result in economic contraction?

Of course, he knew. Draghi’s not an idiot; he’s a very competent economist. This just shows that he had an ulterior motive, that the policy was crafted to serve the interests of his banking buddies and not those of the 99%. After all, the real purpose of austerity is not to cut deficits or spur growth, but to stuff government into a fiscal straightjacket so that private industry and big finance get a bigger slice of the pie. Isn’t that what this is really all about?"

Full article here....

The second article by Alex Cockburn deals with the potential political landscape shifts and consequences of this policy (and also some other interesting issues including some very interesting stuff about the huge vioxx scandal in the US and the possible links to significant reduction in mortality in over 65 age group following the removal from sale of the drug, not properly explored by a servile corporate media of course. :

Quote:
"Elected governments have already been swept away – or replaced by EU technocrats without a vote, indeed to prevent a vote – in every eurozone state where unemployment has reached double-digits: Spain (23.6 per cent), Greece (21 per cent), Portugal (15 per cent), Ireland (14.7 per cent) and Slovakia (14 per cent).The political carnage has been striking. Ireland’s Fianna Fail, creator of the Irish free state, has lost every seat in Dublin. Greece’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) – torch-bearers of Greek democracy since the Colonels – has fallen to 14 per cent in the polls and faces ruin next month....."

Regarding Vioxx:
"We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn,” says Unz. “Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial changes in the national death-rate were completely concentrated within the 65-plus population.

“The FDA studies had proven that use of Vioxx led to deaths from cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes, and these were exactly the factors driving the changes in national mortality rates.”

“Patterns of cause and effect cannot easily be proven,” Unz continues. “But if we hypothesise a direct connection between the recall of a class of very popular drugs proven to cause fatal heart attacks and other deadly illnesses with an immediate drop in the national rate of fatal heart attacks and other deadly illnesses, then the statistical implications are quite serious.”

Full article here....