Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Greece will fail


"Greece will not be allowed to fail", says the Failygraph, inviting the comment: "What a ludicrous and. ill-informed editorial. This is what happens when AE-P (Ambrose Evans Pritchard) is not around". And there is no dispute that the commenter is right.

But then I have it on very good authority that the bubble-view in the Failygraph office is that the Greek issue is a minor affair and will soon be sorted. Here you have it leaking out into the public domain, offering the idiot sentiment that there is no real alternative to shoring up Greece. We are told that its economy must then be stabilised before serious thought can be given to the long-term restructuring of the single currency, which must now surely be unavoidable.

There is some consolation for this country in that we will not be expected to contribute to this latest rescue mission, other than through our subscription to the International Monetary Fund, we are then told, by a paper that does not seem to understand that our IMF contributions are running to tens of billions.

The big questions now, says the Failygraph are whether the Greek people will swallow their medicine and, even more pertinently, whether long-suffering German taxpayers will continue to stump up billions for their prodigal eurozone partner.

There is so much wrong with this piece that one just needs to highlight it. It does not need fisking – the ludicrous assertions are self-evidently so. That is what happens when you convert a newspaper into part of the entertainment industry.

The fact is though that Greece is beyond saving. The "colleagues" will keep trying, right up to the end, alongside the IMF. But they will fail. If we had a grown-up newspaper, it would tell us that, and then write an intelligent editorial, perhaps telling us what might then be the consequences.

Even the BBC is doing a better job (above), telling us that "some very serious thinkers are starting to think the unthinkable". But even that is "bubble speak". What is about to happen was always going to happen - the really "serious thinkers" were on to it years ago.

It was predictable and predicted. The "colleagues" fudged the euro launch, they fudged the figures to get Greece on board, and now we are all going to pay the price. As yet, there is no one on this planet who can tell us with any confidence what that might be. The only certainly is that Greece is going to fail - and it is going to take the euro with it.

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