Through this blog and my website, Kyklosproductions.com, discounts of 25%-33% are available on my two published 2016 books–‘LOOTING GREECE: A NEW FINANCIAL IMPERIALISM EMERGES, Clarity Press, Sept. 2016 and ‘SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, Clarity Press, January 2016. A discount of 25% on ‘Looting Greece’ and 33% on ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’ are now available.
Click on the book icon on the sidebar, to go to Paypal and order. ‘Looting Greece’ is $20 and $4.95 off list and Amazon price. ‘Systemic Fragility’ is $20 and $9.95 off. Table of Contents for both books follows:
1. LOOTING GREECE Table of Contents
Chapter One
THE MEANING OF THE GREEK DEBT CRISIS / 11
Syriza’s Poorly Bet Hand / 14
The Troika’s Stacked Deck / 17
Greek Debt Crises and ‘Weak Form’ Euro-Neoliberalism / 21
Generic Neoliberalism / 23
Eurozone Neoliberalism / 28
The Greek Debt Crisis and Euro Social Democracy / 34
The Emerging New Debt-based Imperialism / 36
Chapter Two
THE GERMAN ORIGINS OF GREEK DEBT / 45
The Lisbon Strategy and ‘Internal Devaluation’ / 47
Germany’s Lisbon Strategy Implementation / 49
Germany’s Bundesbank Dominates the ECB / 51
Greek Debt as Private Bank-Investor Debt / 55
The Myth of Greek Wages as Cause of Debt / 56
From Private to Government Debt / 57
The German Origins of the Greek Debt / 61
Chapter Three
PASOK AND THE DEBT CRISIS OF 2010 / 66
2009: PASOK’s Strategic Error / 66
PASOK’s Voluntary Austeriy Program / 68
Bond Vigilantes Escalate the Debt / 72
The 2010 Debt Agreement / 74
Who Was Really Bailed Out? / 75
Chapter Four
THE SECOND GREEK DEBT CRISIS OF 2012 / 79
A Brief Recapitulation / 79
Some Defining Characteristics of the 2012 Debt Crisis / 82
2011: Interim Preceding the Second Debt Crisis / 84
The 2012 Debt Crisis and the Three-Way Negotiating
Farce / 87
The ‘German Hypothesis’ / 90
The Second Debt Restructuring Deal of 2012 / 92
Chapter Five
COLLAPSE OF NEW DEMOCRACY & RISE OF SYRIZA / 103
New Democracy Pleads to Renegotiate / 104
The Bond Buyback Boondoggle of December 2012 / 107
Who Benefits? / 109
Muddling Through: 2013-2014 / 112
Syriza Comes of Age / 113
The Eurozone Stagnates Once Again / 114
Chapter Six
SYRIZA TAKES THE OFFENSIVE / 120
The Troika’s $2.8 Trillion Grexit Firewall / 121
Troika Strategy to Defeat Syriza at the Polls / 123
Syriza’s Electoral Offensive / 126
Chapter Seven
THE TROIKA COUNTER-ATTACK / 136
The Debt-Swap Proposal and Euro Tour / 139
The February 20 Interim Agreement / 146
The Lessons of Bargaining: February-March 2015 / 154
Chapter Eight
FROM CONFRONTATION TO CAPITULATION / 158
Troika Economics: 1932 Déjà vu / 161
Varoufakis Marginalized / 163
Brexit Before Grexit? / 165
The Troika’s ‘Final and Best’ Offer—June 2015 / 167
Greece’s Interim ‘Final’ Offer / 172
The Road to Referendum / 176
Referendum and Fallout / 182
Chapter Nine
SYRIZA TAMED / 188
Greece as an Emerging ‘Economic Protectorate’/ 190
Party Restructuring as a Precondition for Economic Restructuring / 191
The Third Debt Deal of August 2015 / 193
The Parliamentary Election of September 20, 2015 / 197
General Strikes and Grexit / 198
Feints, Rear-Guard Actions, & Longer-Term Agreement / 200
The IMF’s Secret Concerns in Negotiations / 202
The IMF-EC/Germany Split / 204
Debt Restructuring by Another Name? / 207
Observations on the Third Debt Agreement of 2015-18 / 209
Chapter Ten
WHY THE TROIKA PREVAILED: INTERPRETATIONS AND ANALYSES / 216
An Overview of Greek Economy 2015-2016 / 216
The Greek Debt Crisis as a Banking Crisis / 217
The Big Picture / 220
Eurozone Structure and the Greek Crisis / 223
Syriza’s Fundamental Error / 228
Syriza’s Objectives / 231
Could a Grexit Have Succeeded / 233
Syriza Strategies / 235
Troika Strategies / 241
Tactics—Troika vs. Syriza / 247
The Individual Factor in Syriza’s Defeat / 251
Organization and Public Consciousness Factors / 253
Is a Fourth Greek Debt Crisis Inevitable? / 257
Conclusion
A NEW FINANCIAL IMPERIALISM EMERGES / 264
The Many Meanings of Imperialism / 264
Colonies, Protectorates, and Dependencies / 266
Greece as an Economic Protectorate / 269
Wealth Extraction as an Imperialist Objective / 271
‘Reflective’ Theories of Imperialism / 273
Alternatives to Hilferding-Lenin / 278
Greece as a Case Example of Financial Imperialism / 284
Private Sector Interest Transfer / 287
State to State Debt and Interest Aggregation and Transfer / 289
Financial Imperialism from Privatization of Public Assets / 297
Foreign Investor Speculation on Greek Financial Asset Price Volatility / 299
2. SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Fundamental Trends & Determinants
Key Variables and Forms of Fragility
Instability in the Real Economy
Financial Instability in the Global Economy
Outline of the Book
PART I: STAGNATION AND INSTABILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
Chapter 1: FORECASTING REAL & FINANCIAL INSTABILITY
The Chronic Problem of Over-Optimistic Official Forecasts
2014: Transition Year for the Global Economy
Europe
Japan
China
Global Oil Deflation
EMEs
USA
The Prediction Dilemma Posed by SWANS—Gray and Black
IMF’s Global Economic Forecasts
World Bank Forecasts
OECD Forecasts
Global Central Bank Forecasts
The Inability to Forecast Financial Instability
Chapter 2: THE ‘DEAD-CAT BOUNCE’ RECOVERY
Dead Cats and Epic Recessions
Five Realities of the Post-Crash ‘Bounce’
Secular Stagnation—A New Normal?
Industrial Production and Trade Recessions Are Already Here
Redefining GDP to Overestimate Global Growth
One More Bounce?
Chapter 3: THE EMERGING MARKETS’ PERFECT STORM
What’s an EME?
External Forces Destabilizing EMEs
The China Factor
The AE Interest Rate Factor
Global Currency Wars
Global Oil Deflation
Who ‘Broke’ the EME Growth Model?
Internal Forces Causing EME Instability
EME Capital Flight
EME Currency Collapse
Domestic Inflation
Brazil: Canary in the EME Coalmine?
EME Financial Fragility & Instability
Chapter 4: JAPAN’S PERPETUAL RECESSION
Japan’s ‘Made in the USA’ Bubble and Crash
Japan’s Rolling Banking Crisis
Lessons of 1990-2005 Ignored
Japan’s Five Recessions
Japan’s Response to Recession, 2008-2012
Shirakawa’s Warning
‘Abenomics’ 1.0: Back to the Future
Abenomics 2.0: Doubling Down on Policy That Doesn’t Work
Growing Fragility in the Japanese Economy
Chapter 5: CHINA: BUBBLES, BUBBLES, DEBT AND TROUBLES
China’s Successful Fiscal Recovery Strategy: 2009-2012
AE’s Failed Monetary Recovery Strategy: 2009-2015
China’s Liquidity Explosion
The Inevitable Debt Crisis
China’s Shadow Banks
China’s Triple Bubble Machine
China’s Real Economic Slowdown: 2013-2015
China Global Contagion Effects
China & Global Systemic Fragility
Chapter 6: EUROPE’S CHRONIC STAGNATION
The Limits of Exports-Driven Recovery
German Origins of Eurozone Instability
Eurozone’s Double Dip Recession: 2011-2013
ECB Opens the Money Spigot … Just a Little
Germany’s Export Pivot to Asia
Eurozone’s 2nd Short, Shallow Recovery: 2013-2014
Eurozone’s QE Money Firehose: 2015
‘Triple Dip’ Recession on the Horizon?
Lessons the Eurozone Has Yet to Learn.
PART II: THE DEAD CAT’S 9 LIVES: KEY TRENDS OF SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY
Chapter 7: SLOWING REAL INVESTMENT
Chapter 8: DRIFT TOWARD DEFLATION
Chapter 9: RISING GLOBAL DEBT
Chapter 10: MONEY, CREDIT & EXPLODING LIQUIDITY
Chapter 11: THE SHIFT TO FINANCIAL ASSET INVESTMENT
Chapter 12: STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN FINANCIAL MARKETS
Chapter 13: STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN LABOR MARKETS
Chapter 14: MONETARY POLICY & GOVERNMENT FRAGILITY
Chapter 15: FISCAL POLICY & GOVERNMENT FRAGILITY
PART III: THE FAILED CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 16: HYBRID KEYNESIANS & RETRO-CLASSICALISTS
Conceptual Limits of Classical Economics
Postscript on Marx’s Economics
The Neoclassical Detour: 1870s to 1920s
Keynes’ Original Contributions
The Limitations of Keynes
Austrian Credit Cycles
The Hybrid-Keynesians
The Retro-Classicalists
CHAPTER 17: MECHANICAL MARXIS
Critiquing the Propositions of Mechanical Marxism and Falling Rate of Profit
-Falling Rate of Profit Explains Short Run Business Cycles
-Negative Productivity, Supply Side, and Collapsing Long Run into Short Run
-Only Productive Labor in Goods Production Creates Surplus and Profits
-Only Primary Exploitation of Productive Labor Determines Changes in Profits
-Redefining Profits to Fit the Theory
-Profits Determine Real Asset Investment
-Real Investment Drives Financial Investment
-Financial Assets are ‘Fictitious’ Capital Independent of Real Investment & Cycles
-Financial Asset Prices Are Not Responsible for Economic Instability
-Banks Are Intermediaries Redistributing Profits as Credit
-Money, Credit and Debt
Summary
A Note on Marx on Finance in Vol. 3 of Capital
CHAPTER 18: THE CONTRIBUTIONS & LIMITS OF MINSKY’S ‘FINANCIAL INSTABILITY HYPOTHESIS’
Marx and Keynes Were Before Their Time
Minsky on Financial Instability
Minsky’s Contributions
The Limits of Minskyan Analysis
The Missing Dichotomy of Investment
The Burden of Kalecki’s Theory of Profits
Two- vs. Three-Price Theory
Flow vs. Income Analysis
Fragility’s Undeveloped 3rd Key Variable
Government as Solution vs. Source of Fragility
Dynamic & Systemic v. Financial Fragility
Transmission Mechanisms
Institutional Framework
Origins of Debt
Money v. Inside Credit
Business Cycles & Phases of Profits-Debt
PART IV: A THEORY OF SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY
CHAPTER 19: A THEORY OF SYSTEMIC FRAGILITY
The Historical Context
Some Queries from History
Excess Liquidity at the Root of Debt Accumulation
Money Liquidity
Inside Credit Liquidity
From Excess Liquidity to Excess Debt
Debt and the Shift to Financial Asset Investing
Financial Asset v. Real Asset
Financial Asset Investing Shift
The New ‘Spread’: Financial v. Real Investment
From Stagflation to ‘Definflation’
The Irrelevant ‘Money Causes Inflation’ Debate
Liquidity As Brake on Real Growth
Restructuring Financial and Labor Markets
Financial Market Structural Change
Labor Market Structural Change
Structural Change and Fragility
Fiscal-Monetary Policy: From Stabilizing to Destabilizing
What Can Be Done
A Brief Recapitulation of Key Trends & Systemic Fragility
Measuring the Three Forms of Systemic Fragility
Fragility Feedback Effects
Transmission Mechanisms of Systemic Fragility
Price Systems as TXM
Government Policy as TXM
APPENDIX
Preliminary Equations for a Theory of Systemic Fragility
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 
Just got my copy in the mail today, eager to dive in. Meanwhile enjoyed your latest Alternative Visions broadcast – when you do dig into the latest Census figures claiming a miraculous income boost for the masses, maybe you can check to see if you agree with this assertion, which is reminiscent of your own comments a few weeks back about self-serving upward redefinition of the GDP: http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/deconstructing-median-income-bs/
ps – error p. 51. lines 13-14 of Looting Greece: trade surplus figures simply repeat total exports from previous paragraph, don’t tally with cited figure for total five year surplus of 853 billion Euros.