Tag Archives: troika

The Wall Street Journal and the Troika Fear they Have Not Adequately Terrorized Greece

Posted on January 6, 2015 by | 4 comments

By William K. Black
Washington DC: January 6, 2015

I’ve written recently about the embarrassing nature of the New York Times’ coverage of Greece (and the eurozone more generally), so it is time to describe the even more appalling coverage by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ has published a series of articles that contain facts that demonstrate how self-destructive the troika’s infliction of austerity has been to the eurozone, but those articles do not express that conclusion.

Worse, the WSJ publishes a steady dose of articles by Simon Nixon that are presented (at least on the web where I read them) as if they were news articles. Nixon’s job title with the paper is “Chief European Commentator,” but that title is not stated in the series of recent articles about Greece and the eurozone. He appears to have a B.A. in History and once worked as an investment banker. I assume that the WSJ’s defense of his columns is that he is a “commentator” rather than a reporter of the news though on the web I see no indication that readers are warned that they are not reading a news article.

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Greece, the Troika, and the New York Times

Posted on December 31, 2014 by | 8 comments

By William K. Black
Bloomington, MN: December 29, 2014

As I have explained in prior articles, there is an excellent chance that the Troika’s infliction of austerity on the eurozone’s periphery could, as with the austerity inflicted under the Washington Consensus continue to produce such long-term rolling recessions that it creates a political dynamic that discredits such economic malpractice and brings to power leaders elected on the promise that they will adopt economically literate policies. The first case of this in the eurozone could be Greece. (Hollande won office on a platform of opposing inflicting austerity on France, but purged his government of those that most strongly opposed austerity and implemented policies that moved increasingly toward austerity. The French economy stagnated and Hollande’s approval ratings are dismal.)

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Germany’s Leaders Denounce those who “Take an Axe to European Solidarity”

Posted on November 7, 2014 by | 2 comments

By William K. Black
Kilkenny, Ireland: November 7, 2014

The news in Europe (I’m in Kilkenny, Ireland participating in Kilkenomics V) is filled with coverage of the latest travesty of the Troika – a leak disclosed the “let’s make a (secret) deal to virtually eliminate your corporate taxes” practices of Luxembourg under the reign of Jean-Claude Juncker. The leaks show that over 300 corporations have used such deals to produce what German leaders aptly describe as “non-taxation.” I described the resultant “magical fairyland” of tax havens that resulted in an earlier column. Juncker is the newly appointed head of the European Commission (EC). The EC is the most deranged member of that Troika – the home turf of those that insist on inflicting the most ruinous austerity and the war on workers’ wages. Juncker was chosen by the Germans to run the EC as a reward for his willingness to support these twin German diktats.

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The “Magical Fairyland” of Corporate Tax Scams

Posted on November 6, 2014 by | 3 comments

By William K. Black

I’m in Kilkenny, Ireland where Kilkenomics V begins tonight. Kilkenomics is the economics festival in which economists and professional comedians combine to produce a blunt presentation of issues involving economics that have enormous effects on our lives. One of the traditions of Kilkenomics is that the travesty of some act by the Troika (the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Commission (EC)) is revealed just in time to kick off the festival. This year, the Troika produced a double-barreled blast. First, the ECB’s November 2010 letter extorting the Irish government to inflict austerity and produce a second Great Recession in Ireland was leaked.

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The EU Austerians Attack Each Other

Posted on October 14, 2014 by | 7 comments

By William K. Black

As things go from bad to worse in the eurozone the putative adults have begun to fight openly in front of the kids.  The putative adults, of course, have refused to act like adults for six years and instead have lived in a fantasy world in which austerity – bleeding the patient – is the optimal response to a recession.  As many of us have been warning for six years, this is a great way to create gratuitous recessions and even the Great Depression levels of unemployment in three nations of the periphery with 100 million citizens.

Italy has been forced by German demands for austerity into a third recession in six years, with France likely to experience the same fate.  Even Germany has stagnated and could fall into recession.  Instead of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the three horses that make up a troika consist of the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Commission (EC).  The troika combined to force the entire eurozone to inflict austerity in response to the Great Recession.

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The New York Times’ Coverage of EU Austerity Remains Pathetic

Posted on September 17, 2014 by | 6 comments

By William K. Black

I have explained in depth why the New York Times’ coverage of the EU troika’s infliction of austerity on the eurozone is dishonest and routinely indifferent to the suffering of the peoples of much of the periphery who have been forced into a second Great Depression.  The latest travesty was in an article entitled “French Premier’s Push Toward Center Opens Rift on the Left.”

The article focuses on the betrayal of the people of France and his own Party by President Hollande, but you won’t learn that by reading the article.  Instead, you’ll learn that Hollande is following the pattern of Tony Blair.  Of course, the article doesn’t mention four things about Hollande’s copying Blair’s neo-liberalism, slavish devotion to big finance, his view of even the most helpful and desirable budget deficits as undesirable, and his betrayal of labor.

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Matteo Renzi Puts the Lie to “There is not alternative” (TINA) to Austerity

Posted on July 3, 2014 by | Comments Off on Matteo Renzi Puts the Lie to “There is not alternative” (TINA) to Austerity

By William K. Black

In a recent column I responded to a conservative scholar’s (Victor David Hanson) claim that U.S. “employment rates for college graduates are dismal” by showing that the employment rate for college graduates seeking employment was 96.8% – and rising.

Employment rates for recent college graduates are far worse than “dismal” in the periphery of Europe because the EU troika (the ECB, the EU Commission, and the IMF) have inflicted austerity on these nations.  This produced a gratuitous second Great Recession in the Eurozone as a whole, but it also caused Great Depression levels of unemployment in Spain, Greece, and Italy.  Those three nations have over 100 million in total population – roughly one-third of the eurozone’s total population.  College graduates in these nations have unemployment rates ten times greater than in the U.S.  (Hanson is a big fan of austerity, so he managed to get everything – the facts and the cause – reversed in his fable.)

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The Tories Refuse to Take Responsibility for the EU “Fault Lines” They Decry

Posted on June 5, 2014 by | 1 comment

By William K. Black

The Tory insider and journalist Matthew D’Ancona has written a remarkably disingenuous op ed in the New York Times entitled “Europe’s Dangerous New Fault Line.”

The setting for the op ed is three related crises that D’Ancona’s dogmas have helped create (and a fourth one that is likely in the process of being created).  D’Ancona, of course, ignores causation and his responsibility for the policies that caused each of the crises.  The three crises are the Great Recession, the gratuitous second recession (Second Great Depression in the case of Spain, Greece, and Italy), and the rise of fascist and racist parties in the EU.  The fourth crisis that may be developing is the troika’s austerity policies forcing several EU nations back into a third recession.

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Where Do the Troika, WSJ & NYT Think Deflation Comes From?

Posted on June 4, 2014 by | 5 comments

By William K. Black

If the troika (the European Commission, ECB, and IMF) taught sex education students would believe that storks brought children, that sex had nothing to do with pregnancy, that confident women never got pregnant, and that women should be forced to lose weight when they became pregnant.  The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times would repeat these myths as science. The NYT would employ one of the world’s top gynecologists (Dr. Krugman).  Dr. Krugman would debunk these myths nearly every week – and neither the troika nor the reporters for the NYT and the WSJ would ever listen to him.

The last several days have led to a flurry of WSJ and NYT stories about “deflation.”  I just posted critiques of some of the earlier stories here and here.

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The Troika Continues to Harm the Eurozone and the WSJ continues to Miss the Story

Posted on June 3, 2014 by | 4 comments

By William K. Black

The European Central Bank’s (ECB) written policy is to maintain the eurozone inflation rate at just under two percent.  The ECB has consistently failed to achieve that goal.  Indeed, its failure has been growing steadily.  The ECB’s failure tells us something enormously important about what is wrong with the eurozone’s economy and the troika’s bleeding of that economy through austerity.  The ECB’s increasing inability to even come close to its inflation target demonstrates that demand remains woefully inadequate in the Eurozone – making austerity an insanely self-destructive policy. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the ECB’s latest failure in an article entitled “German Inflation Rate Plummets as Manufacturing Slows.”

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