Posted on 11/02/2011 3:17:24 AM PDT by markomalley
“Instead of pouring euros down the drain, it would be much wiser for Germany to sponsor a military coup and solve the problem that way.” No, this extract is not from a fascist blog. It is from Forbes magazine and it’s just another one of the provocative articles that follow this insane ongoing anti-Greece campaign of international media.
The article circulates a joke going around the financial markets at the moment that Greece’s only chance to be saved is a junta. “What’s so sad, or bitter if you prefer, about the joke is that, if we ignore the little problem of it being a military dictatorship, this would in fact be a good solution to Greek woes.” This “little problem” Mr. Worstall so cynically refers to, doesn’t sound very funny to Greek people who have already been through one dictatorship, from 1969 to 1974 during which Greek people suffered enormously.
In fact in two weeks time Greeks will be celebrating the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973, an open anti-junta, revolt that ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a tank crashed through the gates of the Technical University of Athens. This revolt was the beginning of the junta’s collapse. What’s really ironic is that the junta was in fact the result of foreign interference and oppression by right-wing governments that simply didn’t care about their people’s fate. Thirty seven years on, Greeks experience a new junta, this time financial while the prejudice against them has taken absurd proportions.
Ever since September of 2009, the propaganda machine has been running at full speed. The mainstream media provides Europe and America with a convenient scapegoat to exploit. Greeks are an easy target. “They are cash junkies”, “They are lazy”, “They are useless”. All these stereotypes of Greeks being lazy couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most Greeks are struggling just to survive. Yes, there are Greeks benefiting from high and early retirement. Yes there are civil servants making 4,000 euros a month without actually showing up to work and yes some of them are getting bribed. But they are an exception, not the rule.
Numbers don’t lie. The national blues literally kill Greeks. Suicide rates have doubled since last year. Private sector employees work endless hours for 400 euros a month. Young couples don’t have children simply because they can’t afford to while thousands want to emigrate. The majority of Greeks are not, in other words, chilling on the beach drinking frappe and ouzo.
But none of this matters to the leaders of the European “Union”. For them it seems that the question is always about getting their money back with maximum profit when it really should be about helping a country to recover since they are also largely responsible for its troubles.
Why don’t Brussels technocrats push the government to take money from those who are actually responsible for this tragedy? Why don’t they hunt down the country’s elite, the tax evaders, the corrupted politicians, the businessmen and the ship owners who made trillions at the expense of ordinary Greeks? Why is it logical that the already deprived pensioners and workers have to pay for something they have no share of responsibility in whatsoever, when those who caused it still live in Athens exclusive suburbs, drive Porsche Cayennes, have their kids in expensive private schools and when they are sick they don’t run to overcrowded public hospitals but prefer private clinics that look like five star hotels?
It is the same people who now have hundreds of millions of Euros in off-shores and bank deposits in Switzerland and couldn’t care less if this country is going to burn down. In fact, they would probably prefer Greece to go bankrupt and return to the drachma as they would buy everything off for peanuts!
It is as if the EU’s only goal is to turn the Greek middle-class to a new underclass and to be fair they’ve done an excellent job! And what exactly is the goal of this “rescue plan” and the “task force” that from now on will be permanently placed in Athens?
Will the “task force” actually force all these people who will not be able to pay their mortgages out of their homes and make them homeless? Will they cut defaulters’ water and electricity and force them to die of cold and thirst? Will kids in villages be forced out of school simply because it’s too expensive?
Maybe the Europeans should rename this plan to the “Elite Rescue Plan” because when it comes to pensioners and workers it sounds more like an “execution plan”.
Oh, and by the way, I should have tagged the post with a “barf alert” — my apologies.
Default is inevitable, and not just in Greece.
Wow.
Writer posted an update that makes it clear that he was not advocating a coup...per se, he was pointing out that it would theoritically solve some of the problems.
The EU was so hungry for expansion they made a huge blunder in admitting Greece to the EU, and pretty much everyone with half a brain knew it at the time, now the bill is come due and no one wishes to pay it..in true socialistic fashion.
As long as Govt’s continue to guarantee investor’s profits, this will happen over and over and over again, at least the people of Iceland stood up for National Sovereignty and said “tough luck” to the banksters who duned them for payment.
Greed Works
As Jim Manzi said, millions of people are depending on promises that cannot possibly be kept: municipal pensions, Social Security, Medicare, Greek debt. The list goes on and on.
Uhhh ... I take it you think governments should default on their bonds?
The problem here, and ultimately in the U.S., is not private sector greed. It is government profligacy and sovereign debt. And the problem is, when the governments default, they'll take every bank down with them.
Will Pappendreau plebicite grease Greek slide into a Hell(istic) hole ?
Hell, it worked out really in Chile. OK, it was a little messy to start with but look where Chile is today.
“The EU was so hungry for expansion they made a huge blunder in admitting Greece to the EU”
They made many more blunders than just greece. Of course the purpose wasn’t just expansion of the EU but expansion of power over all of Europe.
Correction that’s Papandreou, but then it’s all Greek to me.
So, whatever the EU does re. Greece, they can't help these people. Greece is too far gone.
Forcing Greece into default & out of the EU MIGHT convince the rest of the PIIGS & their people to do the difficult things necessary to get their budgets in order & remain in the union. The EU is throwing good money after bad with these futile, unappreciated bailouts.
Useful idiots take not. Greece was the perfect leftist-socialist state. Lavish social and public sector spending far beyond its capabilities.
What happened? It excess eventually threatened the greater socialist machine, and that machine turned on it in a second.
Those on the government teat here, should take a good hard look at what their masters are willing to do with them when the time comes.
Have there been any good estimates of where all the money went?
Greeks and USA?
We all know it went down some rat hole, where?
Logical—and something that looks like it will happen in time. In a democratic state no political leader can stand against the Will of the Mob. The strikes will always win—until the public treasury is empty and the rich folks are poor or leave.
What if Germany invaded and ran the nation for them? Or if they gave it to the Turks to run? They need a despot rather than a never ending bail out.
Papandreou threatened leaving NATO and the EEC to secure constant funding from the West. In fact, in 1985, he blocked the admission of Spain and Portugal into the EEC until he was given nearly 30 billion in EEC funds. Jaques Delors finally caved! There is a constant and overriding theme in post WWII Greek politics: the world has used Greece as a pawn, and hence the world owes us. The Germans, the British and the Americans kept Greece from democracy and freedom until the late 70s. It suited their wartime aspirations. And while we in the US were going through the Reagan revolution in the 80s, the Greeks were still trying to right the many perceived wrongs from the WWII and Cold War battles. Much of Greece's debt troubles can be traced back to reparations for the tragedies associated with those two wars. There are strong senses of entitlement, retribution and redistribution that have taken Greece down this path of excess debt for the last 30 years. The political culture of redistribution that came with freedom in the 1980s, morphed into a culture of unsustainable state entitlement.
Uhhm
Default on bonds, or default on deposit insurance?
What has happened is banks would offer high interest rates on deposits, the money flows into the bank because the State is insuring the deposts, when the scheme collapses, and it will collapse, the people of the country are on the hook for the insurance.
The banksters leveraged the debt instruments using credit default swaps, as the situation worsened the cost of insuring the swaps went up, if there is no “insurance” then the spread for the bonds collapses rendering the State insolvent.
The Icelanders said “tough luck” and gosh, they seem to be doing alright, of course that also means their govt can no longer leverage their productive capacity to offer freebies for votes, but for me, that is a good thing.
Then the rush on the banks will topple it all...which frankly won't be a bad thing in the long run for Greece who has a history long at defaulting. At some point let it fall and then elect officials who care about the nation..if possible in Greece?
One of the problems in Greece is the Govt was able to bribe Goldman Sachs to hide their financial condition so they could take on ever more debt.
Which is one of the recurring themes to all of this, there were no “honest brokers”, from Goldman to Fitch, they all had their hands out to be bribed...and they were.
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