So far as I can follow, the Greek electorate now have the choice between voting Yes and agreeing to the IMF austerity package, and voting No and having their leaders agree to any “face-saving” variation, however miniscule, before accepting the IMF austerity package. You can be quite sure that the international elite will thoroughly humiliate Syriza by making abundantly clear that if they offer any change at all, it is absolutely miniscule. A change of nominal leader of Greece may result from the referendum, but nothing that changes the life of anybody who is not a politician. Either way in six months time we will be exactly back where we are now, only with opposition to the IMF broken as the next wave of pillage of the public sector comes.
The Euro project will continue to be extremely strong. New money will be funnelled into the pockets of bankers. It is important to recall that 100% of these bailout funds go to bankers, none of it goes to the Greek people and none of it stays in Greece. The same bankers will become the beneficiaries of servicing of new loans provided to vast corporations to buy up Greek public assets, cheap.
It would require a particular heartlessness to be indifferent to the demise of the idealistic hopes that backed Syriza. But in the end it proved they did not offer any actual choice of any significantly different outcome. There is no real choice on Sunday, no difference in outcome from which way people vote. Beware Greeks bearing rifts.
They should simply refuse to pay. The fraudulently constructed economic ‘agreements’ with the EU are pretty common knowledge amongst economists – they know it was a big fudge. And usury is immoral. For Greece to say ‘away with you’ will come with quite a bit of pain, but IMHO it’s the best way. The ‘new’ Iceland. Besides, no agreement a previous govt made has total bind on any current govt. Go for it Greece. Be brave.
I think it can be said though that the money when originally borrowed went to Greece. The fact that the bankers are now being paid off by other bankers on Greece’s behalf does not mean that the money was not originally spent.
Cammy,
Actually an awful lot of it was whisked immediately offshore again in all kinds of corrupt deals. Perpetrated or partnered by the Greek elite, I grant you.
Strange analysis, and yet again no real criticism of your beloved EU; again painting it as ultimately the victim’s own fault.
Well, Cyprus managed to pull through EU banditry, and so will Greece;
https://euobserver.com/economic/128244
[mod: spam filter false positive at 13:51]
Perhaps not 100%, perhaps more like 90%?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/where-did-the-greek-bailout-money-go
Its about time the money lenders were jailed were ever they are.
http://internationaltimes.it/why-icelands-decision-to-jail-its-bankers-is-triggering-a-revolution/
Athens Diary 6 which is dedicated to the late Mike Lesser.
http://internationaltimes.it/athens-diary-6/
I understand a lot of the debt was sold very hard to the Greeks by German and French arms firms exploiting Greek fears regarding Turkey (which at the time was no real threat)
H γριά δεν είχε δαίμονα κι’αγόραζε λαχτέντα.
Greece has a history of ending up under military juntas. The situation now would be conducive to a replay of this. With hindsight, it’s easy to see that Syriza didn’t have a scoobie about how Greece was going to get out from under the loansharks, also that the EU didn’t fully appreciate that financial traditions are very different in Athens and Riga.
The flying pigs are making way for the chickens coming home to roost.
Cyprus managed to pull through EU banditry
Really?
http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/06/05/prudent-planning-is-not-the-same-as-austerity/
Wonder if Osborne wrote that line for him?
Mr Murray,
Agree that bailout money will go to the bankers and will benefit them. But vast debt accumulated by Greek public sector was due to disproportionate pay packages and other social initiatives which most Greeks have enjoyed.
That is the nature of current debt driven economics. They (bankers) encourage to take money from them (so that you can afford huge plazma TV, new car, loft extension, all inclusive holiday or even better beach house) they then force you to work hard to pay them interest. People do not live by their means anymore. Everyone wants something they cannot afford without debt. Consumerism is wide spread. But Greeks behaved particularly bad, taking on huge debt they knew that cannot repay.
Ba’al; “a lot of the debt was sold very hard to the Greeks by German and French arms firms”
Correct;
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42283.htm
Ba’al; “Greece has a history of ending up under military juntas”
Courtesy of our regime change fixated American friends.
Ba’al; “The situation now would be conducive to a replay of this”
It’s exactly the plan, regime change by banks rather than tanks.
Ba’al; “Syriza didn’t have a scoobie”
Is that why many commentators state that the Greek proposals were serious & honest, and that the Greeks ran rings around their negotiators.
Ba’al; “Wonder if Osborne wrote that line for him?”
Your cynicism is betrayed by the fact that the Cypriots haven’t & aren’t suffering anything like the Greeks, and that the Cypriot economic plan is not far different to what Tsipras offered, but was turned down.
Given that the USA’s NSA has been listening in closely to much of the German Government’s telephone conversations concerning the Greek crisis (information recently released by Wikileaks not just to the German Government but also to leading media outlets there – you won’t see this highlighted in the UK’s equivalent!), it seems unlikely that the German Government has not been put under pressure by the USA and that well-known front for corporate takeovers of essentials, the IMF. The result? A German Government that bends to the will of unelected officials like the non-taxpaying Christine Lagarde instead of to the wishes of voters. As a carve-up of the soft underbelly of Europe begins, we in the north can only expect that our turn will come once Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal have been swallowed up by corporate interests. Unless, of course, we’re lucky and sell our resources off to China first. 😐
The alternative is to set the German Government back on the path of pro-European policies and get it to repudiate the stances of the IMF and the USA. That may not be likely, but it’s probably the best hope for a European future without a corporate takeover of all our lives. After all, who in Europe seriously wants to see the generals back in Greece and the Francoists back in Spain?
Craig,
No doubt as always with huge amounts but I see a lot of people now saying that the loans never went to Greece and just from IMF/EU to German banks. While this is true for this round of payments, in reality the German(or whoever) banks previously transferred it to Greece(somewhere) from outside of Greece.
The situation I find very distasteful but I don’t think there is a simple straightforward answer. All those involved from the Greek Govenment now and in the past to the banks who lent to them originally to the IMF and EU seem to bear some level of responsibility. The person paying the biggest price seems to be the ordinary man in the street who not doubt has the least liability.
Some (£9bn) of the debt is represented by these decaying sites.
Abandoned Athens Olympic 2004 venues, 10 years on – in pictures
On 13 August 2004, the Olympic Games came home to Greece for the XXVIII Olympiad at an estimated cost of approximately €9bn. A decade after the sporting extravaganza, many of its once-gleaming Olympic venues now lie abandoned. For many Greeks who swelled with pride at the time, the Games are now a source of anger as the country struggles through a six-year depression, record unemployment, homelessness and poverty, with many questioning how the nation has benefited from the multi-billion-dollar event’
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures
Offer it back to Goldman Sachs in lieu or perhaps Mr Blatter could replace the Russian World Cup bid with Athens. I am sure that would go down well with the ^ankers.
PS Why is Blatter still there? Surely all the document shredding has been completed.
Re the 2004 Olympic Games; not only did the General Recession hit most countries shortly following this, but the 2004 Athens Games were the first to be held after 911, so the sudden increased security costs meant that the original budget overshoot by several factors of unaffordable magnitude, however Greece had already committed & didn’t want to lose face, as it had already become a matter of national pride due to all the negative sniping from others, that the Greeks weren’t capable of hosting them, even right up to the very start of the Games.
“Some (£9bn) of the debt is represented by these decaying sites.
Abandoned Athens Olympic 2004 venues, 10 years on – in pictures
On 13 August 2004, the Olympic Games came home to Greece for the XXVIII Olympiad at an estimated cost of approximately €9bn.”
__________________
Did anyone force the Greek govt to bid to host the 2004 Olympic Games? Was it an evil American plot? Did the bankers or the EU, or Uncle Tom Cobbly blackmail the govt?
Answer : no.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I could write quite a lot on this theme of Craig’s as I probably have much more expertise than the rest of the usual posters (and Craig) put together. But experience on here has taught me it’s pointless. 🙂
Uzbek in the UK; “People do not live by their means anymore. Everyone wants something they cannot afford without debt.”
Very true, and although this makes exactly the same point, I’m not sure you will appreciate it !;
http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-care-and-feeding-of-financial-black.html#more
I sympathise with the Greek plight, austerity seems to be the only answer they’ll get from the IMF, the poor folk are frightened, and the referendum, which ever way it goes will leave them stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Last night the (RIC) Radical Independence Campaign staged a demo in Glasgow, a kind of solidarity if you will with the people of Greece, urging them to vote OXI (No).
It’s a cause many people can relate to, the anti-austerity movement in Scotland and indeed the UK, see what the Tories have planned for the poor, disabled and sick, not forgetting the children who’ll undoubtedly suffer the most,at the hands of the cuts.
The powerful banks such as the ECB and IMF, are treating Greece, and other Mediterranean countries, such as Spain,Portugal and Italy, like third world countries, when it comes to debt colle ction.
The UK, could’ve been in a similar positions, due to it’s horrendous national debt acquired mostly by the last two chancers of the Exchequer,and the lack of acumen by the present one.
Only the selling of Gilts, have stopped such, folly, though future generations will carry the burden this debt.
The fundamental problem is one a debt-based currency, where private banks create more than 90% of the money supply. In that situation, it is inevitable that eventually debts accumulate faster than growth, and eventually become unpayable. The Euro compounds this problem further by depriving countries of a central bank which could finance government spending, and restart the economy.
What Greece (and the world) really needs is a debt jubilee, where debts are written down to the ability to pay, and a move to a sovereign money system with 100% reserve banking (http://positivemoney.org/). But this would deprive the financial sector of their enormous profits for doing nothing, and is therefore not on the cards.
I’ve long held that Greece presents a useful lesson for Scotland. Had Scotland become independent without it’s own currency, it would have found itself in a similar (not identical, Scotland’s economy is far healthier) situation to Greece. It would have no central bank to finance government spending, and would be forced to borrow on the bond market. Austerity would be thrust upon it whether it liked it or not.
Something along the lines of what Iceland is considering is the only way forward: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/04/08/2125780/icelands-grand-monetary-experiment/
You will never have independence without democratic control of the money supply. Period.
Macky,
Anyone who claims “A while ago I had the pleasure of hearing Sergey Glazyev” is not someone I would appreciate. But nonetheless, sometimes I could have some common grounds (on some separate points) even with such people.
You are correct Macky. $14bn and that was 11 years ago.
July 05, 2005
The Great Olympics Scam
Cities Should Just Say No
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/07/05/cities-should-just-say-no/
The author is Dave Zirin who is very knowledgeable on the subject.
http://www.edgeofsports.com/bio.html
Many cities have fallen for it. Remember Jowell and Coe’s vanity project. Cost £12bn. Did we ever see the final balance sheet? No.
How will Rio fare?
“You will never have independence without democratic control of the money supply. Period.”
____________________
Yes Sam good comment I agree an independent Scotland would in reality be better with it’s own currency, as you highlight a central bank would need to be formed, I wasn’t keen on the idea of sharing the pound (Sterling) or pegging a pound currency to Sterling.
Of course Scots were forever being told by Osborne, not so much Carney, that Sterling would be off limits if independence came to fruition.
Ba’al; “Syriza didn’t have a scoobie”
Is that why many commentators state that the Greek proposals were serious & honest, and that the Greeks ran rings around their negotiators.
I too was impressed by Varoufakis. Unfortunately he didn’t deliver. My bad. Happy to admit it. In retrospect (as I said), I stand by Syriza not having a scoobie: all mouth, no trousers.
Your cynicism is betrayed by the fact that the Cypriots haven’t & aren’t suffering anything like the Greeks, and that the Cypriot economic plan is not far different to what Tsipras offered, but was turned down.
The Cypriots have a far smaller economy, some of it informal. Up till a couple of years ago, it was a tax haven. There’s a lot of Russian money there still, for instance, though that is now moving out, and it remains to be seen what effect that will have. And – please tell me, I don’t know – was Tsipras offering anything like this?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/customers-at-cyprus-biggest-bank-stung-by-60-raid-on-savings-8555078.html
Mary; “You are correct Macky. $14bn and that was 11 years ago.”
Thanks Mary, for the David Zirin article, which also points out the human & social costs of hosting the Games, which sometimes gets forgotten.
Greek debt situation is yet another argument in support of moral hazard. Someone down the line (of this huge debt) has made a lot of money. Some of it went into the public pockets in forms of pensions, salaries, developmental projects, social payments, ect. but until moral hazard becomes criminal offense there is nothing that can be done to prevent cases like Greek debt happening again and again.
Looking at larger picture US has huge national debt too. It has been a while since what US government spends match to what US government collects in taxes. But despite this US dollars and US bonds still the most safe investment in the world. is this not yet another moral hazard?
Ba’al; “I too was impressed by Varoufakis. Unfortunately he didn’t deliver.”
Your opinion, which perhaps you should at least hold-onto, until it’s clear how it still may pan out.
Ba’al; “was Tsipras offering anything like this?”
Of course not, good that you remind people again that the answer to the EU concern about suspect Russian money in Cypriot bank accounts, was to STEAL money from EVERY Cypriot who had managed to save some money; the justification/pretext that EU had argued that Cypriot banks had become a haven for money laundered by Russian businessmen, is really YCNMIU, especially when you consider the real money laundering centers of London, Switzerland, & even Monaco !
I was actually reffering to the Cypriot “prudent planning” as detailed in your link.
Have a look at the comments under the ‘prudent planning’ link for a different take, Macky. Several of them don’t seem too impressed with a snake-oil salesman speaking fluent managerese – surprised you are. In any case, is it ethical to rob Russian crooks to pay European ones without convicting them first? Call me a cynic…oh, you did. Fine.
“The Olympics in Athens basically saw the intensification of neoliberal processes that were already under way in Greece, which significantly contributed to Greek debt: gentrification, environmental degradation, an increase of homelessness and the fortification of the city with mechanisms of control and repression, including a permanent military presence and measures, such as the demarcation of red zones in public spaces where the gathering of crowds is now banned. The fortification has been used against those resisting austerity measures. The acceptance of this ideology of security, whereby for ‘special occasions’ the army can be deployed, was the main legacy of the Games.”
http://www.corporatewatch.org/news/2012/sep/25/where-now-international-resistance-corporate-olympics
And the Olympic area is now the haunt of owls and spiders….
Uzbek – “vast debt accumulated by Greek public sector was due to disproportionate pay packages and other social initiatives which most Greeks have enjoyed.”
This is a meme that continues pretty much unexamined.
Hababkuk – “I could write quite a lot on this theme of Craig’s as I probably have much more expertise than the rest of the usual posters (and Craig) put together. But experience on here has taught me it’s pointless.”
Maybe you could enlighten us?
I suspect that the image of the average Greek as a benefit scrounger is as far from the truth as the image of the unemployed here as portrayed by the MSM. But I dont know. I’m genuinely interested
Ba’al; “surprised you are”
You are misreading me; I only refered to Cyprus to show that despite its own IMF/EU savaging, it has now managed to recover & stabilise enough, to at least end the two year period of capital controls, etc, which has only just started in Greece.
I do believe in a mix-market economy, but don’t endorse most of measures that Cyprus or Greece are being forced/blackmailed into implementing, against the wishes of their people.
The EU Project without democratic reform is doomed.