Brits Geek on Greece: “The Dam Has Burst”

British policy outlets are displaying unalloyed fear over what Greece portends for the future of the Eurozone, and their entire trans-Atlantic financial system.

“The dam has burst,” wailed Jeremy Warner, the assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph.

“There’s not much doubt where the biggest threat to global economic stability comes from right now—it’s the pesky euro.”

Fellow Telegraph columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, after cataloging the recent raft of threats against Greece coming from hysterical European bankers and politicians, stressed that the Tsipras government in Greece has given no indication of buckling under the pressure. Evans-Pritchard concluded that “this spectacular game of chicken” is going to continue “until one side or the other blinks.” But, he warned, things may not go smoothly, quoting Professor Ashoka Mody, a former IMF bail-out chief in Europe, saying that the ECB’s actions are

“extremely irresponsible… I have never heard of such outlandish threats before. The EU authorities have no idea what the consequences of Grexit might be, or what unknown tremors might hit the global payments system. They are playing with fire… What they ignore at their peril is the huge political contagion. It would be slower- moving than a financial crisis but the effects on Europe would be devastating.”

An even more pointed warning was issued on Jan. 28 by Ian Bremmer, head of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Eurasia Group, who argued that Greece could well bolt from the trans-Atlantic sector altogether (both the eurozone and NATO), and align with Russia and China and the BRICS process—although Bremmer doesn’t dare mention the BRICS by name. The way he put it was:

“The Russians could push the issue and tell the Greeks, ‘Hey, we’ll bail you out, but you have to leave NATO and join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And you’re giving us access to the base’ [a warm water port]. That would absolutely be attractive for Syriza. And frankly, I might even see the Chinese joining in, since they’ve already put a lot of cash into the Port of Piraeus, for example.”