"When It Becomes Serious, You Have to Lie.", May 10 2011

Tyler DurdenZero Hedge
On Friday the misinformation floated about the Greek expulsion event hit a fever pitch: while we correctly speculated that nobody would be expelled from the Eurozone, the amount of conflicting info was at an all time record, with glaring inconsistencies between various quoted authoritarians. Now, courtesy of the WSJ blog, we learn that, for the first time in history, a spokesman for Jean Claude Juncker, the PM of Luxembourg, and the head of the Eurogroup council of eurozone finance ministers, admits openly to having lied to media outlets. “In a phone call and text messages with two reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Schuller repeatedly said no meeting would be held. He apparently said they same to other news outlets; at least one more moved his denials on financial newswires. Of course, there was a meeting–although not, apparently, to talk about Greece quitting the currency, which would be an extreme step to say the least. Mr. Juncker even said a few words to reporters who had hustled to Luxembourg to stake out the gathering. So why the lie? “I was told to say there was no meeting,” said Mr. Schuller, reached by telephone Monday. “We had certain necessities to consider.”  Necessities? Why yes: such as perpetuating the now open lie that is the ponzi market: “Evening in Europe is midday in the United States. “We had Wall Street open at that point in time,” Mr. Schuller said. The euro was falling on the Spiegel report, which had overhyped the meeting. “There was a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place.” It was, he said, “self-preservation.”” And there you have it: the Eurozone itself now admits that it will sacrifice credibility at the expense of a few FX pips and a few basis points in the ES.Everything else is smoke and mirrors. And people think that central bankers will consider the threat of inflation should the Russell 2000 ever retrace back into bear market territory…

And it gets even more surreal:

Asked whether such deliberate misinformation would undermine the market’s confidence in future euro-zone pronouncements, Mr. Schuller, lamenting that the market had practically no confidence in pronouncements already, said “not at all.”

When Mr. Juncker, or European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, or French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde says something to the markets, Mr. Schuller said, “nobody seems to believe it.”

Mr. Juncker has voiced support for the practice of lying before.

The Web site EUobserver has video of Mr. Juncker, at a conference on economic governance in April, expounding on the practice and reasons for lying in financial and economic communications.

Asked whether such deliberate misinformation would undermine the market’s confidence in future euro-zone pronouncements, Mr. Schuller, lamenting that the market had practically no confidence in pronouncements already, said “not at all.” When Mr. Juncker, or European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, or French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde says something to the markets, Mr. Schuller said, “nobody seems to believe it.” Mr. Juncker has voiced support for the practice of lying before. The Web site EUobserver has video of Mr. Juncker, at a conference on economic governance in April, expounding on the practice and reasons for lying in financial and economic communications.

On the tape, Mr. Juncker says he has “had to lie” and, speaking about touchy economic topics, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”

At this point Europe no longer even attempts to hide that everything is one big lie, and that should the truth emerge the market will crash more than ever in history. And why would the US be any different? It woulnd’t which is why we can now safely say that pretty much any information coming out from the government and its proxies that has a stock market impact is false until proven true. Of course, for everything else, one can blame the conspiratorial blogs…