Posted on 01/30/2015 6:53:11 PM PST by Toddsterpatriot
We will find out the answer to the question posed in the title in the outcome of the contest between the new Greek government, formed by the political party Syriza, and the ECB and the private banks, with whose interests the EU and Washington align against Greece.
The Spartans, whose red cloaks and military prowess struck fear into the hearts of both foreign invaders and Greek opponents in the city-states, are no more. Athens itself is a ruin of its historical self. The Greeks, who were once to be contended with, who were able with 300 Spartans, supplemented with a few thousand Corinthians, Thebans, and other warriors, to stop a one hundred thousand man Persian army at Thermopylae, with the final outcome being the defeat of the Persian fleet in the Battle of Salamis and the defeat of the Persian army in the Battle of Plataea, are no more.
The Greeks of history have become a people of legend. Not even the Romans were able to conquer Persia, but little more than a handful of Greeks stopped the attempted Persian conquest of Greece.
But the Greeks, despite their glorious history, could not stop their conquest by the EU and a handful of German and Dutch banks. If the Greece of history still existed, the EU and the private banks would be cowering in fear, because the EU and the private banks have ruthlessly exploited the Greek people and represent the same threat to Greek sovereignty as Persia did.
Greece, stripped of its independence by its EU membership and acceptance of the euro as its currency, has lost is sovereignty. Without control over its own money, Greece cannot finance itself. Greece must rely on private banks from other countries. In the 21st century European private banks are not allowed to lose money simply because they are incompetent and over-lent to EU member countries. This is not considered to be the fault of the banks, but of the borrower governments and populations.
According to reports, the American bankster firm, Goldman Sachs, sometimes known as Gold Sacks, hid Greek debt from view in order that banks would extent more credit to Greece, thus setting the Greek people up for looting.
The EU’s disingenuous argument is that this bankster trickery benefitted the Greek people. The people enjoyed the resources from these loans. Therefore, the Greek people must pay back the loans through reductions in old age pensions, through unemployment, through lower wages, and through the sale of Greek national assets.
This is the austerity that has been imposed on ordinary Greek people by the EU and Greece’s creditors.
Greece is prostrate. Greeks are actually committing suicide, because Greeks cannot provide for themselves in the depressed conditions that the EU and the private banks have created for them for no other reason than that the private banks must not have to write down the loans.
So, one result from “democracy” in Greece is suicide. With enough democracy, we can control world population and halt the destruction of nature’s capital. All we have to do is to enable the banksters to loot the entire world.
What can Syriza do?
Without Spartans, very little.
The party’s intentions and that of its leaders are honest and deserve our respect. Syriza is a people’s party, and that is what marks it for doom. The voice of the people is no longer permitted to affect politics in the Western world. The powerful rich interest groups that rule the West could not care less about the people over whom they rule.
No sooner was Syriza in office than Bloomberg, a business news service, conveyed to the new Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, that Syriza needs to play by the creditors’ rules. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-28/tsipras-plans-to-avert-catastrophe-as-greek-markets-sink-further
Tsipras stated that the new Greek government does not intend a “catastrophic clash” with its creditors, only an acceptable amelioration of the unreasonable conditions imposed on Greece, in order that Greece can give some satisfaction to its private bank creditors and also avoid social, political and economic instability in Greece.
Against this reasonable statement, Bloomberg reports that the new Greek cabinet contains communists who favor closer ties with Russia. To remind the newly elected Greek government of the whip that is held over Greek financial markets, Greek bond and stock prices were assaulted and driven down.
The warning from the EU and Wall Street is clear: Defy us and we will destroy you.
The punishment of the new Greek government was instant. This from Bloomberg:
“Greek stocks and bonds slumped for a third day, after new ministers said they will cease the sale of some state assets and increase the minimum wage. Yields on three-year bonds rose 2.66 percentage points to 16.69 percent. The benchmark Athens General Index decreased 9.2 percent to its lowest level since 2012, led by a collapse in the value of banks.”
Does Tsipras understand that Greek financial institutions will continue to be punished if they stand behind his government? Bloomberg makes it clear: “Germany warned the Mediterranean nation against abandoning prior agreements on aid, after analysts said that setting Greece on a collision course with its European peers might lead to its exit from the euro region.”
Statements of newly appointed ministers “imply confrontation and tense negotiations in the near future,” Vangelis Karanikas, head of research at Athens-based Euroxx Securities, wrote in a note to clients.”
What is Syriza’s “collusion course”? The new government wants to moderate the agreements made by previous Greek governments that sold out the Greek people. The new government wants to stop giving away at bargain prices Greek public assets to clients of its creditors, and the new Greek government wants to raise the Greek minimum wage so that the Greek people have enough bread and water on which to live.
However, for the private bank creditors, for Merkel’s Germany that stands behind the banks, for Washington which could care less about the Greeks, for the Greek elites who see themselves as “part of Europe,” Syriza is something to be rid of.
And so the Greek bonds are attacked, the Greek stocks are attacked, threats are issued that arouse fear in that part of the Greek population that is propagandized into the belief that Greece must be part of the euro and the EU or be bypassed by history.
What it boils down to is that the Greek people, like the Americans, are insouciant. Only about 37% of the voters voted for Syriza. That is far more votes than any rival party received, but it is not enough to show Washington, the EU and creditors that Greeks stand behind their government.
Instead it shows that the new party had to form a government with another party that money, perhaps, can buy off. It shows that Syriza can be demonized in the Western media and presented to the Greek public as a threat to Greece.
The new government is aware of its weakness. The new prime minister says that he does not want confrontation, but that the new government cannot continue the kowtowing of previous Greek governments. A reasonable accommodation must be reached.
Accommodation is unlikely to occur, because a reasonable accommodation is not the desire of Washington, the EU, or of Greece’s creditors.
A purpose of the “Greek financial crisis” is to establish that EU members are not sovereign countries and that banks that lend to these non-sovereign entities are not responsible for any losses with regard to the loans. The population of the indebted countries are the responsible parties. And these populations must accept the reduction of their living standards in order to ensure that the banks do not lose any money.
This is the “New Democracy.” It is a resurrection of the old feudal order. A few super-rich aristocrats and everyone else serfs obliged to support the ruling order. The looting that began in Greece has spread into Ukraine, and who knows who is next?
With only 37% of the vote, does Syriza have the clout to stand up for Greece against the looters? Can Greece escape from a situation comparable to the European Dark Ages when populations were ravaged by marauding raiders? Perhaps if Greece realigns with Russia and gains financing from BRICS.
PCR, still crazy after all these years.....Ping!
Ruthlessly exploited the Greek people.....by lending them more money to waste on their bloated government? Money the Greeks will never repay? LOL!
That's some funny exploitation.
When the Politicians get tired of all the reelections , yes
A more interesting question is, is freedom dead in the west?
I might comment here, you can’t be free on borrowed money. Sooner or later the lender calls the tune.
Can democracies remain free? Not if the voters think they can remain free on someone else’s money.
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. -V.I. Lenin
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx
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On the otherhand....
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.~Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Winnie KNEW what democracy WAS ....and.... WASN'T
Better question... Is Liberty dead?? Too many conflate the two but Athenian Democracy executed Socrates. Ordered Liberty requires ordered not unbridled Democracy.
City of God. Augustine.
Democracy is alive and well. That’s the problem.
L
Roberts absolves the Greeks of any and all responsibility for their predicament. Totally bogus article.
Democracy is kickin a$$.
It’s the idea of constitutional republicanism that’s dead.
Without control over its own money, Greece cannot finance itself.
They're deadbeats who couldn't finance themselves before, that's why they joined the Euro. Easier to borrow and lower rates. Now, when they have to at least pretend to pay it back, they whine and elect lefties who promise "we'll protect you from the bankers"
Bankers they still need new money from, to pay for their bloated government and bloated pensions.
I’m of two minds about Greece. On the one hand, the Greeks have been absurdly profligate with public funds and run up huge debts. On the other hand, everything that is being done is being done to ensure that creditors who were foolish enough to lend money to the Greek government under those circumstances don’t take a loss on their bonds.
Quite frankly, Greece ought to leave the Eurozone, if not the EU, issue its own worthless fiat drachmas, and its creditors, the ECB and IMF included, should get their money back in new drachmas or not at all for being fools with their money and lending it to fools.
It's where guys like him go when they lose their mind.
9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for establishment of a great incorporated bank. the use of such a machine is well understood. If the Constitution, according to its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so much the better. Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt…
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest against their constituents, and to ensure the part they are to act.
10. “Divide and govern”...
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks.
Rules for Radicals? No…
Rules for Changing a Limited Republican Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One - 1784-1796 - Philip Freneau
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/freneau/republic2monarchy.htm
PCR didn't explain it well, but you missed his point. Certain "Greek people" benefit from the loans and other "Greek people" pay them back. Your point would be valid if those were mostly the same people. The problem is that they are not. The Greek people got their chance to save and invest being overpaid in the much stronger currency that did not deserve. But predictably they spent it on imports and had nothing to show for it. The real beneficiaries were Euro (e.g. German) exporters, China, and rent seekers within Greece.
Around 2010-2011 they were declared to be a PIIGS domino and thus were not allowed to restructure and therefore had no chance whatsoever of avoiding their present fate: too much to repay and no way to repay it. The productive Greeks who are now a minority are the ones who have to repay. The unproductive Greeks who just voted for a bigger slice of pie are in the majority and have screwed themselves.
The obvious solution is still restructuring or default and removal from the Eurozone. The Greeks need their own currency so they can have 100% inflation to culminate their experiment with socialism. It will be ugly but that's the only way to fix that kind of stupidity.
His point is the banks are exploiting the poor, noble Greeks. Banks that the Greeks have already stolen billions from and will soon default on billions more. His point was idiotic, but that's what he does, so I'm not surprised.
Certain "Greek people" benefit from the loans and other "Greek people" pay them back.
I've heard the Greek government spends 56% of GDP and even after 5 years of austerity, still had a deficit of 12% of GDP. That tax evasion is the norm.
So it's not like only a few benefit from the bloated government pensions, bloated government spending and the, until recently, idiotically low retirement age.
Around 2010-2011 they were declared to be a PIIGS domino and thus were not allowed to restructure and therefore had no chance whatsoever of avoiding their present fate:
What restructuring did they want to try that was disallowed?
The productive Greeks who are now a minority are the ones who have to repay.
The unproductive ones will have to pay with lower benefits and reduced pensions as well.
The obvious solution is still restructuring or default and removal from the Eurozone.
They could reduce government employment, pensions and salaries, slash bureaucracy and impediments to business.
The Greeks need their own currency so they can have 100% inflation to culminate their experiment with socialism.
Yes, paying those employees and pensions with a crappy currency will also have the same effect. And then they can blame the EU for their problems, without fixing them.
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