by Joseph M. Firestone, New Economic Perspectives
The Eurozone is an instrument of the globalization process that is setting financial elites over all nations of the world, including the democracies. The situation in Greece exposes the true nature of the Eurozone institutions as a naked fact, beyond spinning, for all to see. They are popular sovereignty-thieves and democracy-killers, with the power necessary to shut democratic governments down.
The architectural flaw in the Maastricht Treaty: that the nations of Europe were giving up their monetary sovereignty, was immediately recognized as fatal by acute economists, and many predicted failure. But, what was not seen clearly were the political implications of giving the ECB, the ability to deny liquidity to the banking systems of nations, and, in so doing to perform, essentially, coups rendering elected governments of democratic nation states powerless to enact policies they were elected to pass. This “theft of democracy” contradicts the EU’s commitment to advance democracy. It steals from the peoples of Europe what was so hard won.
I have written a book which provides a detailed narrative about the proceedings of a panel of well-known economists convened by Senator Bernie Sanders at the Hart Senate Office Building on 30 July 2015. The panel discussed the Greek debt crisis, and its implications for austerity, the Eurozone, the looming crisis in Puerto Rico, and democracy. The panel session included introductory speeches by Senator Sanders, Greece’s Ambassador to the United States, Cristos Panagopoulos, and panel presentations by economists, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, and James K. Galbraith. The panel was moderated by Stephanie A. Kelton.
The book also provides a detailed analysis and commentary on the Senator Sanders’s opening speech, which I found revealing, the panel presentations, which I found of great interest, and also very acute, and the Q & A period, which brought certain matters about what to do in order to Grexit to a head. It concludes with chapters on uncooperative “Grexit”, Information Technology problems of Grexit, and the death of democracy. These address issues that came up but, I think, were unresolved in the panel discussion.
The additional chapters review issues brought up at Naked Capitalism and at other progressive blogs on how to manage Grexit, and how to solve its Information Technology problems (or not), as the case may be. These issues are very important for the future of the Eurozone.
Here’s the link to the Kindle e-book at Amazon. There will be a free promo on August 16, and I have no plans to do another. So, if you’re at all interested in the book please download it when you see this post. Also, I’m reminded that not everyone who sees this post will know that even if they don’t have a Kindle brand tablet, then can still read Kindle e-books by downloading Kindle software for the Mac, PC, and Android, just below the book cover image at no charge, and then proceeding to download the book and read it. So, please just download the software, and proceed from there. And enjoy! Also, please review the book, that will help!
(Cross-posted from New Economic Perspectives.)
