Hail the MSM! - by Richard... Saturday, February 18, 2012

Hail the MSM! - by Richard... Saturday, February 18, 2012

All those resources, the gifted staff, the fact-checkers and the budget of millions, and this is the best they can do? I don't know whether to weep or laugh.

Yes dears, you who are so wedded to the soap opera. There is a schism … between Greece, the commission and France on the one side and, on the other, Germany, with Finland and Holland – plus other as yet undisclosed backers.

Angela Merkel, Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos are "confident" of a deal on Monday? Yeah, right! According to Mr Monti's office in Rome, as copied off the press release by the agencies and then rehashed by The Guardian "man-on-the-spot" … in Brussels. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how news is made.

And there are "concerns growing behind the scenes"? You don't say! I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you! What on earth would we do without our wonderful media to keep us informed?

It tells us that, in Berlin officials "rebutted" widespread reports of a growing rift between Merkel, who backs Greece staying a member of the euro, and Schäuble … unsurprising, because the only report of a "rift" is the Financial Times relying an unnamed "Eurozone official".

Then they then go to another part of the opposition, Francois Fillon, French premier. He "effectively confirmed divisions within Berlin". But he urged France's allies "not to play with" a Greek default and strongly backed Athens: "The Greeks have promised very important reforms. The Europeans now have to keep their commitments", he is cited as saying.

Seriously, this is actually how news reports are cobbled together. This is what thousands of people will be reading at their breakfast tables this morning and, worst still, believing it. Perhaps it is just as well we don't have to rely on the media for any serious news.

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The Camekozy is born - by Richard... Friday, February 17, 2012

We saw it coming in November 2010 when Liam Fox announced a new deal with the Kermits in the form of a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) of around 6,500 troops from the France and Britain under a 50-year deal for closer military "co-operation".

More recently, we've seen plans for an integrated the carrier fleet (when we have a carrier to integrate) and now, in the next phase of defence integration, we now see Cameron and Sarkozy agreeing to accelerate plans to create a joint control and command centre for future military operations.

In a logical and continuous development of Blair's 1998 St Malo agreement (which was based on initiatives started by John Major), the two leaders also agreed to push ahead with the next phase of plans to build a new generation of UAVs.

This is the EuroMALE project which the French have been pushing since 2006, and represents a move away from US and Israeli technology in a field where neither the French nor the British have covered themselves in glory.

And if this is not bad enough, it gets worse. The "real and substantial" co-operation on defence discussed today will cover not only the new command centre and UAV production, but also nuclear weapons.

Speaking alongside Sarkozy at a press conference in the Élysée Palace, The Boy – without so much as a blush – told us all: "I don't think that there has been closer French-British co-operation at any time since the Second World War, not just in Libya but also on the vital issues of Syria, Iran, Somalia and defence co-operation".

We know The Boy is not very good at history, but this puts him into a different league. "The defence co-operation is real, it is substantial, it is going to make a big difference to the military capabilities of both Britain and France," he says. "We are similar-sized powers, with similar-sized armed forces, with similar ambitions.

"It is partly about new capacity - the investment that we are going to make in a drone programme. It is also about making the most of our existing capacity, as we will be combining and using it together. It is also about operational capacity and ability to take action together".

"If you look at the detail of what Britain and France are doing together on defence co-operation, not just building new drones together but co-operating on the most sensitive dossiers of all, including nuclear, I think that demonstrates an incredibly strong relationship based on our countries' shared interests".

Thus we have the next stage in the play. After running down our own armed forces, to the state that they are barely if at all capable of independent operation, our masters then enter into defence agreements with France, the Trojan Horse of European defence integration.

The Camekozy is born. The betrayal continues.

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The full Monti? - by Richard...

Says ZeroHedge, "reactions such as the one yesterday confirm that the market is not only broken but also very stupid. Which is just as those in charge like it". Of course, the media loves quoting market reaction. It gets endless, easy headlines which save the jornos having to think. But more and more, we see day-to-day market movements as being irrelevant. The markets, like the politicians, inhabit their own little bubble.

At the risk of becoming ZeroHedge groupies (which we are not), we also take note of this piece, which observes that Papademos and Samaras are both out their creating dire images of a post apocalyptic Greek state if a default occurs.

Maybe, we are cautioned, it is a good time to remember what Papademos' job is:

He wasn't elected. He doesn't represent the Greek people in a fashion that we are used to – running for election and winning the election. He was foisted on the Greek people by the EU – the very people he is going through the motions of negotiating with. His JOB was to get the Greeks to accept what the EU wants. If he isn't the most conflicted politician of all time, he is right up there.

Samaras may believe it, or may have decided this is his best route to power when the vote is passed and the Greek people decide to kick Papademos out.

These are important truths. We are not dealing with a monolithic bloc, with a single message that TPTB are anxious to get over to us, the plebs. The players in this game are divided and highly factionalised, each trying to sell their own versions of reality, in an attempt to make them come real.

Thus, not only does one have to take care when exploring what is said, equally important is whosays it, and when.

It is in this context that we look at the latest Reuters report. This has it that Merkel, the Italian prime minister Mario Monti and Papademos "are optimistic that an agreement can be reached on Greece at Monday's Eurogroup meeting". The source here is Monti's office, in a statement issued after the three leaders held a conference call earlier today.

But, we are told – in an unsourced interjection - negotiations with lenders in the European Union and International Monetary Fund are again going down to the wire, straining ties between Greece and northern members of the currency bloc.

This is then bolstered by citing Der Spiegel magazine, which quotes Austrian finance minister, Maria Fekter. She says: "The skepticism is especially strong among the AAA states over whether Greece will be able to make it". Thus, she says: "The risk of a Greek insolvency is not off the table".

It must be assumed here that Monti is a creature of the EU commission, and can safely be taken as a spokesman for it – the organisation that wants, above all else, to keep Greece in the single currency, and maintain the integrity of the eurozone. He thus will be bound to put a "pro-bailout" spin on the outcome of talks, whereas, one assumes (with no evidence to support it) that Maria Fekter is a Merkel proxy.

Monti – according to Bloomberg - is emerging as a game-changer in Europe's debt crisis, "as German Chancellor Angela Merkel tackles a domestic political crisis and French President Nicolas Sarkozy focuses on his re-election bid".

Monti was scheduled to meet alone in Rome today with Merkel. First set for 20 January, with Sarkozy, it was rescheduled without him and then cancelled today as German President Christian Wulff resigned amid the threat of a legal probe into corruption allegations. "Monti is extremely important because Italy is really the make-or-break country in the euro crisis", says Christian Schulz, an economist at Berenberg Bank in London. He has "re-established Italy as an important force in European politics".

So it has come to pass that we have had the three-way telephone conversation today with Merkel and Papademos. Monti and Merkel will also stay "in close touch" before the Eurozone meeting on Monday. Seasoned watchers may immediately notice something missing … Sarkozy. The Merkozy is no more … is it being replaced with the Merkonti?

Actually, that would be a misinterpretation of the relationship, as the two are ostensibly antagonists, and indeed Merkel and Sarkozy have become. With French exposure to Greek debtmuch greater than Germany's (see also pic), French banks are expected to take a battering. Germany, on the other hand, will be expected to pick up the bill.

Either way, though, time is running out. The FT blog has documents which "make clear the schedule is slipping dangerously". The Wednesday meeting of eurozone finance ministers, that was cancelled, was supposed to approve the launch of the restructuring so the process can begin today. Instead, we have the three-header with Monti in the chair.

All of this adds complexity upon complexity, unless of course you are the British MSM. Then all you have to do is plant the flag and talk in trite generalities, as does the Daily Mail today.

All its audience needs to know, the paper decides, is that Lord Howell, father-in-law to the Chancellor George Osborne, told peers (yesterday) that Britain was pressing for a "realistic and sustainable" solution to Greece's debt crisis, which he warned was having a "chilling effect" on the British economy.

He said "uncertainty in Greece must be brought to an end ... without utterly destroying that noble country". It seems that "infighting" is the problem, and if only these damn Johnny foreigners would stop it, and jolly well get down to sorting the problems, everything would be tickety boo.

So there you are then. These are your orders – over the top with you …

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A reality check? - by Richard...

Pulling together the disparate strains of events, there is appearing – as one of our forum members remarks – an extraordinary divergence in reports on the impending (or not) Greek collapse - some optimistic and some pessimistic.

Leader of this morning's stock of optimists (which include The Guardian and Reuters) is the Wall Street Journal - a paper with a recent history of optimism. It is telling us that a debt restructuring and second bailout for Greece "appeared likely to go ahead according to plan".

German officials, this paper advises, have scrapped an idea to pressure Greece by withholding part of the bailout and the European Central Bank developed a plan to protect its holdings of Greek bonds from the restructuring.

The source for news of this turnaround, it appears, is German deputy finance minister Thomas Steffen, but the intelligence is not direct from the horse's mouth. He is said to have told German "lawmakers" that splitting the bailout is off the table, by "a lawmaker who was present" – upon whom the paper relies.

Thus we learn that he said (Steffen or the "lawmaker"?) he was "cautiously optimistic" that finance ministers at a meeting on Monday would approve the second aid package.

So, all is well in the world, at least until 23 March when the sky is going to fall in, according to lots and lots of unnamed sources. This, presumably, is to coincide with the total eclipse, as German troops march across the Polish border, supported by US Armoured divisions.

We will try to make sense of this and much more, as the day unwinds.

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The fat lady clears her throat - by Richard...

The rhetoric has turned poisonous, says Ambrose as he catches up with events. He judges that Berlin, Helsinki and The Hague show every sign that they intend to eject Greece from the euro whatever it now does, calculating that the eurozone is at last strong enough to withstand contagion.

Theoretically, we should be seeing a resolution on Monday, when the Eurogroup finally meets. But Dutch minister of Finance Jan Kees de Jager is indicating that the Netherlands will block the bailout.

From that source, we learn that, even if everything goes well, Monday will only deliver a "preliminary agreement", creating a parliamentary reservation for the Netherlands, Germany and Finland. The German parliament debates the issue on 27 February and then, as we reported earlier, there is the European Council pencilled in for 1 March.

The Financial Times, however, sees in the German position a split, with Schäuble pushing to let Athens default while Merkel is firmly against.

For this, the paper relies on unnamed German and eurozone officials – and I don't buy it. But it does helpfully add that the Monday meeting is going to cover only the restructuring of Greece's sovereign debt - and the provision of a bridging loan until April is also under consideration.

Others, though – in addition to the Economist - are still totally in fairy land. This hilarious account from Reuters has Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, preening himself on getting " … this incredible flow of good data".

The eurozone, we are told, is putting the finishing touches to a second bailout deal for Athens that could be approved on Monday, moving closer to averting a disorderly default by Greece. "People are increasingly of the opinion that although Europe will continue to have flare-ups, it's not likely to become a calamity for the world economy", Paulsen says.

On this, then, we have to turn to ZeroHedge. It's view is:

While next to impossible, now may be a good time to ignore the constant barrage of meaningless noise and flashing red headlines, which not only are contradictory but prove that Europe is literally making it all up as it goes along. Today is a great case in point of a tangential detour which does nothing to change the reality that Germany no longer wants Greece in the Eurozone …

Not yet do we hear the dulcet tones of the fabled fat lady, but somewhere in that lot, we can hear her clearing her throat for her warm-up routine. It can't be long now. Despite that, though, we need to be careful what we wish for. It might be worse than we think.