Saying that it was beginning to feel like Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, John Kerry recently got a laugh out of the staid company of nuclear weapons negotiators on the occasion of the Iran talks breezing on past the June 30th deadline set by the U.S. Congress for an expedited 30-day review of the deal.
http://www.reuters.com/...
But that isn't the only Groundhog Day this summer ... we have also had the off-again-on-again but seemingly never-ending talks between the government of Greece and the Troika (aka, 'the Institutions' of the ECB, IMF and German banks). Finally, today, the Greek parliament votes 'yes' and it looks like (holding fingers crossed!) like maybe one of our Groundhog Days is coming to an end ... we hope.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The story on Greece has been all about monetary issues. There are numerous and competing explanations by economists of what 'monetary' issues are all about. Basically, it kinda boils down to Plato's well-known dictum: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Ooops. Did I say that was from the Greek philosopher Plato? No, no, no. Or was it said by Karl Marx in Das Capital? Or was it said by Hitler in Mein Kampf? No, no, no.
Generally, the sentence is attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild ... but no, no, no. Research reveals that any connection with the Rothschild family is highly suspect. More likely,as Research at stackexchange.com reveals, the statement was adapted from a saying of the Scots poet Andrew Fletcher: "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." (But I am herewith spreading a myth that Fletcher stole it from a verse of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land"!)
Getting serious about monetary policy ('monetary' means money)
Elsewhere here at DK, I have stated my view that Greece will stick with the Euro come what may, because (1) the Obama administration with the Federal Reserve (working through the IMF) have put pressure on the Europeans to come up with something that the Greeks can live with, and, (2) the Greeks want to stay with the Euro come what may because of the reality that tourism is, as the Greeks like to say, the 'heavy industry' of Greece.
Many observers and more-or-less radical economists have dreamed out loud of the day when Greece walks away from the EU and tells the arrogant Frankfurt-Berlin bankers, and the even-more-arrogant superbureaucrats of Brussels, to stuff it. For example, here at DK, we have seen an excellent article by Ian Welsh, posted as a diary by NBBook.
How heated the negotiations have been was revealed a week or so back when the ECB proposed a Crete-style 'bail-in' whereby large depositors in Greek banks would have their funds subjected to a 'haircut' to restore liquidity to the Greek banks, but this was rejected by the Greek government in no uncertain terms. The Greeks countered the Troika's 'bail-in' proposal with three 'nuclear' proposals of their own (all perfectly 'legal' within the EU-Euro structures). As reported in Zerohedge (financial blog), the government was prepared to pursue three "nuclear options" to protect the deposits of the Greek people: "(1) nationalize the banks, (2) launch a parallel currency in the form of electronic California-style IOUs, and (3) use the Greek central bank's printing press to issue euros." And, yes, it appears that if you read all the fine print, Greece would indeed be entitled under EU and Euro laws to implement all three of those 'nuclear' options - incliding printing up Euro notes in Athens (they already had the printing presses, the paper and the plates).
So now what? Well, as I prepared to post my diary this evening, I see a diary by Lib Dem FoP with the word "BREAKING"
Earlier, according to USAToday,
"Dow up 212 as Greece 'yes' vote anticipated"
But - the way things have gone lately - I couldn't trust that until Lib Dem FoP reported the official vote out of Athens ... and then it's back to Brussels, I guess ...
Now, if sanity could prevail in Vienna, maybe we could get out of the mid-summer Groundhog Day loop ... it gets old, y'know!