NYTimes on Greek crisis

If you haven't guessed, I'm totally unimpressed with the NYTimes. They're utterly clueless not only in their "news" and politics but also in their own business model.

Example is this article from yesterday, about Greece's financial crisis.

In particular, note the third 'graf:

talks broke down Friday between the Greek government and private lenders over a plan to reduce Greece’s debt by $130 billion, a “voluntary” default that the troika has demanded before extending more aid. Those negotiations, aimed at forcing hedge funds and other private holders of Greek debt to accept large losses in order to make the country’s debt load more manageable, will resume Wednesday....

You'd think "...a plan to reduce Greece's debt by X" would mean the government spending $130 Billion less than now.  No such luck:  It's Timesspeak for a plan to ask holders of Greek government debt (bonds) to "voluntarily" just write off their loans.

Wow, pretty slick, huh? Who knew huge debt problems could be solved so easily??

But of course the Times didn't want to use the term "writeoff" because that would reveal what's really being pushed here. They don't want to do that for two reasons: First, it would come too close to showing the world how bankrupt the whole left-wing governing principle of "we'll take money from the productive and give it to everyone else, and there won't be any negative consequences--because we say so" is.

Second, if the masses in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and the like see that *Greece* got this kind of deal, they're certain to insist that they get the same deal for themselves. And pffffft, there goes the world's economy.

But the Times isn't finished yet:

As recently as November, Greece and its lenders were optimistic that the country’s newly installed prime minister... a well-respected financial technocrat, would stabilize Greece’s soaring debt and help nurse the country back to health.
But since then, his interim government — stocked not with technocrats but with politicians gunning for [re-election] — has been paralyzed. [T]he 2012 national budget...failed to put into effect most of the unpopular changes mandated by the loan agreement that the previous government made back...when the country first admitted it was broke.

Get outta here! Really?  Politicians broke a solemn agreement negotiated by the prior government to cut spending? I'm...shocked! In fact that sounds more like the kind of trick some banana-republic would pull--like the U.S. congress, frinstance, managing to find a whole billion dollars in savings over ten years, even as actual spending *rose* by ten billion.

Greece may yet find a bunch of soft, unaccountable central bank wallahs who're willing to give 'em tens of billions to keep the fiasco going for another few years. And that may well happen with us--since all the nations of the world will probably be so eager to help us out of a financial bind, seeing as how we've been so generous to help *them* in times of need.

Hahahahahahaha! Yeah, good one!