This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
How Fascist Capitalism Functions: The Case Of Greece
Authored by Eric Zuesse,
There is democratic capitalism, and there is fascist capitalism. What we have today is fascist capitalism; and the following will explain how it works, using as an example the case of Greece.
Mark Whitehouse at Bloomberg headlined on 27 June 2015, “If Greece Defaults, Europe’s Taxpayers Lose,” and presented his ‘news’ report, which simply assumed that, perhaps someday, Greece will be able to get out of debt without defaulting on it. Other than his unfounded assumption there (which assumption is even in his headline), his report was accurate. Here is what he reported that’s accurate:
He presented two graphs, the first of which shows Greece’s governmental debt to private investors (bondholders) as of, first, December 2009; and, then, five years later, December 2014. This graph shows that, in almost all countries, private investors either eliminated or steeply reduced their holdings of Greek government bonds during that 5-year period. (Overall, it was reduced by 83%; but, in countries such as France, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, and Belgium, it was reduced closer to 100% — all of it.) In other words: by the time of December 2009, word was out, amongst the aristocracy, that only suckers would want to buy it from them, so they needed suckers and took advantage of the system that the aristocracy had set up for governments to buy aristocrats’ bad bets — for governments to be suckers when private individuals won’t. Not all of it was sold directly to governments; much of it went instead indirectly, to agencies that the aristocracy has set up as basically transfer-agencies for passing junk to governments; in other words, as middlemen, to transfer unpayable debt-obligations to various governments’ taxpayers. Whitehouse presented no indication as to whom those investors sold that debt to, but almost all of it was sold, either directly or indirectly, to Western governments, via those middlemen-agencies, so that, when Greece will default (which it inevitably will), the taxpayers of those Western governments will suffer the losses. The aristocracy will already have wrung what they could out of it.
Who were these governments and middlemen-agencies? As of January 2015, they were: 62% Euro-member governments (including the European Financial Stability Facility); 10% International Monetyary Fund (IMF), and 8% European Central Bank; then, 17% still remained with private investors; and 3% was owned by “other.”
Whitehouse says: “Ever since the region's sovereign-debt crisis first flared in 2010, European nations have been stepping in for Greece's private creditors -- largely German and French banks -- by lending the country [Greece] the money to pay them off. Thanks to this bailout [of ‘largely German and French banks’], banks and [other private] investors have much less at stake than before.”
So: what got bailed-out was private investors, not ‘the Greek people’ (such as the ‘news’ media assert, or try to suggest). For example, a reader’s comment to Whitehouse’s article says: “A reasonable assumption is that a large part of the Greek debt to the Germans was the result of Greek consumption of German goods and services bought with the German provided credit. In that case, the Germans have lost the Greek goods and services that could have potentially been bought with the money that is owed to them.” But this is entirely false: that “consumption” was by the aristocracy, not by the public, anywhere or at any time. After all: It’s the aristocracy that get bailed-out — not the public, anywhere. (The same thing is happening now in Ukraine.)
The assumption that the aristocratically-owned press want to convey is, like the sucker there said: consumers, and not bondholders, receive these bailouts from taxpayers. They actually receive none of it. They didn’t receive the loans, and they certainly aren’t receiving any of the bailouts. In fact, the contrary: Greek consumers have been getting hit so hard by the aristocracy’s system (dictatorial capitalism, otherwise known as fascism), that they’re suffering an enormous depression — this is even a condition, a requirement, of such “bailouts.” It’s called “austerity,” and it’s imposed by the IMF. And yet, millions of suckers go for the inference that the aristocrats’ ‘news’ media convey. After all: would people such as Mark Whitehouse have been hired or keep their jobs at major ‘news’ media such as Bloomberg ‘News’ if they didn’t convey this false impression? He’s just doing his job; he’s doing what he’s paid to do. It’s enormously profitable for his employer and for “the investment community” worldwide.
The whole system is a money-funnel, from the public, to the aristocracy.
The independent economics-writer, Charles Hugh Smith — who was one of only 29 economists worldwide who predicted the 2008 crash in advance and who explained accurately how and why it was going to occur — has provided a more honest description of the sources of Greece’s depression:
1. Goldman Sachs conspired with [actually: were hired by] Greece’s corrupt kleptocracy to conjure up an illusion of solvency and fiscal prudence so Greece could join the Eurozone [despite Greek aristocrats’ massive tax-evasion, which created the original problem].
2. Vested interests and insiders gorged on the credit being offered by German and French [and other] banks, enriching themselves to the tune of tens of billions of euros, which were transferred to private accounts in Switzerland at the first whiff of trouble. When informed of this, Greek authorities took no action; after all, why track down your cronies and force them to pay taxes when tax evasion is the status quo for financial elites?
3. If Greece had defaulted in 2010 when its debt was around 110 billion euros, the losses would have fallen on the banks that had foolishly lent the money without proper due diligence or risk management. This is what should have happened in a market economy: those who foolishly lent extraordinary sums to poor credit risks take the resulting (and entirely predictable) losses.
The Greek Government currently owes 323 billion euros — almost three times as much. The debt rose 213 billion euros, during 5 years of IMF-imposed “austerity” — the Greek depression.
What even Smith fails to recognize is that this money was not ‘foolishly lent.’ (No more, for example, than the Wall Street banks that had tanked the U.S. economy but grew even larger by doing so, had ‘foolishly lent’ it.) The foreign lenders were deceived by lies from the Greek aristocrats’ agent, Goldman Sachs, but, even so, were ultimately able to sell their garbage to Eurozone taxpayers, not always at a loss as compared to what they had originally paid for those bonds; and the original owners of those bonds were receiving interest from those bonds, throughout. Even Smith has been somewhat duped by the aristocracy’s blame-the-victim basic message, that the people who walked off with this money were the Greek public — not Greek aristocrats.
Another well-informed economics-writer, Peter Schiff, likewise is suckered by that false message from aristocrats. He writes: “It's hard to feel sorry for the [Greek] people standing in lines at the ATMs when they knew this was coming every day for the last four years.” As if they necessarily did. But, even though some did, the accusation that those people are to blame is still off-base. Schiff, a libertarian, goes on to say: “When you borrow more than you can pay back and your creditors have cut you off there are no good options. Your life tomorrow is going to be worse than it is today; it is just a question of how you want to take the pain.” He’ too, implicitly cast blame at the public, not at the aristocrats, who actually have been bailed-out by the public.
In way of contrast, democratic capitalism is bailing out only the public, when times go bad, just like FDR did during the Great Depression, and like socialist countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, being examples) still do. The aristocracy have managed to fool the public to equate aristocrats’ fascism with ‘capitalism,’ and to equate democracy with ‘socialism’ (meaning, to them and their suckers, communism, or even fascism itself), so that the public will falsely think that what we now have is ‘the free market’ — something that cannot even possibly exist, anywhere, because every economy (every market) is based upon laws that determine who owns what, and who owes what, and under what circumstances, in accord with what laws and economic regulations, all of it being subject to the police power of the State. This ‘free market’ is all a big aristocratic con. It’s just as big as the con that the present Greek government — which had promised, and whose voters a few days ago reaffirmed with a 61% to 39% vote for no more “austerity” — are now delivering, to their victims.
This is not democratic capitalism. It is not socialism. It is, instead, fascism. It is dictatorial capitalism. We have it in the United States. And it predominates also in the Eurozone.
In fact, it predominates around the world. And its grip gets tighter every year now in the United States.
* * *
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
»
- 34484 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Given the acceleration of important (and ominous) events around the world, I'd like to offer this modest warning:
Prepare for some additional glitchez, bitchez.
consume the propaganda...move along
"Fascist Capitalism"
Is that like star planets, tree rocks, theft investment, and counterfeit money?
yeah and they are both mutual redundant
Of what you speak, then, is true false?
nah, it is the false true, you got it wrong
no yes I you was am right wrong and less yes no you I am was wrong right!
There here, perfect imperfect!
(...Cause, you know, that is what fascism captitalism is all about.)
"when times go bad, just like FDR did during the Great Depression"
There is your cue that this is another deluded fucktard.
No, there is no contradiction in the title, unless you pretend to understand economics. The author explicitly states the exact response from the oligarchs to the 2008 financial collapse not just in Greece, but throughout the Western Democracies.
This whole spiel is positively negative.
Fuckin' Christian Facist Sloths and their lazy-fair market sucks.
He gets a lot of it right . . . and then steps into it with FDR.
So, that cost him a little in the rating.
But its difficult to find an article that gets most of the big picture right nowadays. IMO the author did a good job overall.
Now, undoubtedly, the usual fools will now write about 'the lazy Greeks' that they hear about on msm. Just like 'the lazy, greedy American factory workers' whose jobs were sent to overseas sweatshops.
People of the world unite . . . because we're all getting screwed over by these greedy psychopaths.
One acceptable defintion of "deluded fucktard" is to engage in personal attacks and avoid a logical debate about the premises and conclusions being presented.
Clearly the shoe fits quite nicely on your foot.
yeah i know logic is hard especially for retarded, so some reference if enough reading skills available
https://books.google.ca/books?id=mMniKXPyTAAC&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&dq=mutu...
Very good. Here is a fun one too:
"...The same holds good of those who have expressed views about the truth; for from the better thinkers we have inherited certain opinions, while the others have been responsible for the appearance of the better thinkers."
http://genius.com/Aristotle-metaphysics-book-2-annotated
u know i stick with math & history - al the respect for old man Aristotle but he just made it to this world kind of early. and also some retards succeed to make it trough the gymnasium classes but nothing sticks to them like history for example
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/221166.Benito_Mussolini
for nay sayers i see - math & history are fucking damn hard ... especially when going behind 8 grade is sooo hard ... sets theory, political history fuck ... Kim Kardashian doesn't explain these topics on the dumbing-down machine ...
By "this world," I can only presume that you mean post-Dark Ages. Did you know that the "ancient world" had a Dark Ages too and that "we" are removed from "ours" at a lesser distance than Aristotle was removed from "his?'
So much for your history. Now, your math? How many Dark Ages were there?
the only one i care philosophically is the current one I live in - i care of present, the one of fascist capitalism
and yeah, vs math and political history your diversion is just superfluous and sooo childish
btw, didn't expected gov agencies to go so low, outsourcing trolling or hiring on the lower bottom of the skills/pay scale ...
budget must be tight man, very tight ... not a surprise in fascist capitalism, at the end u also cattle for them :) ?! moooo ...
They are far from opposites. They are actually two different stages of the same system.
So back to Kings and Queens, Lords and Ladies, and countless Serfs toiling in the "fields" while having their children raped or sent off to war to die or be maimed for "King and Country"?
Brilliant.
Modern times has no need for countless serfs. Technology will ensure never ending production with robots so only a few key educated serfs are needed. Look to the Georgia Guidestones as the template.
Miffed
Technology will ensure never ending production as long as you are willing to put up with substandard, poorly-engineered crap that lasts just over a year. Bought a new dishwasher lately? I just bought a 16-month old $700 dishwasher for $75 Friday; it needs a ribbon cable which will survive in a humid environment. Since the manufacturer does not make such a cable, those of us with an eraser and a tube of silicone can continue buying our new appliances for 10% of sunk cost.
So those robots will never break or require maintenance?
I spent the last 3 days trying to fix a robot DNA extractor. It took 2 field engineers, a design architect, the global support group and me, the operator. Finally after listening to them argue for hours where the problem really was occurring, I convinced them to consider a bad board. They were convinced it was a bad sample loader motor but couldn't reproduce the error consistently. When the board was replaced the error was resolved but they replaced the motor anyway " just in case I was wrong".
Robots are a damn pain in the ass. Their only claim to fame is they dramatically increase throughput... when they work. So, yes I have some value as an educated serf. At least if I maintain my usefulness.
I pity the other serfs who will provide entertainment playing human chess or spare organ donation.
Miffed
Yes, those robots will set new production records. But our maintenance guys were making over $100k/yr with overtime. That is more likely the 'drive it like you stole it' production philosophy, but said philosophy is not that uncommon.
Yup, these eugenicist elite psychopathic bastards all want us dead, and it's harvest time. That's why they are putting the pedal to the metal now, since chemtrails/fluoride/ebola/GMO's/vaccines etc. isn't doing the job fast enough. So, on with WWIII...
Only, there's a problem with that. Mainly, we are waking up en masse and don't consent to their bullshit any more. When they try to pull that nuclear trigger/start martial law/take our guns, they will start a chain reaction that will be beyond anything their models ever predicted. So, enjoy this shit show while it goes down, knowing that every day they keep adding to these horrific headlines they are advancing their own date with destiny.
That's clearly what they presume...
However, why would they expect their computer controlled machines (a.k.a. Robots) to require Tech minions less than their computers do?
If their computers can't keep the NYSE running, or UAL running...why would they expect them to keep robots running?????
What does an NYSE-type outage look like when the robots are producing your food? Your housing? Your air?
What happens when you have self-driving wrecking balls, bulldozers and backhoe's...and there's an outage?
"Sorry folks. Computer glitch due to a sun spot. A robo-dozer drove into into a power substation, where it collided with a high-voltage transformer, cutting power to about a quarter of the country. Meantime, a Robo-backhoe working on a construction site dug into the road, and fractured one of the city's dozen water-mains. The water is still pumping out, flooding lower manhattan. All the valves are frozen open during the power-cut, because that's the failsafe to ensure the water supply. But because of the pressure leak from the breach in the mains, the system is unpressurized, and the water is mixing with sea and sewage water...and hence unusable. The Robo-manufacturing center will make a new transformer in about a week after the power comes back on. So we'll have to live on bottled water until then."
"Mr Mayor...how will the power come back on so the transformer can be made, the transformer must be made so that the power can be back on?"
<crickets>
These folks are rich.
But they clearly cannot be branded as intelligent.
Neo Feudalism, the Feuds this time owned by companies. Great times to be had. I'd pick Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator!
always get confused over all the isms
Capitalism
socialism
communism
fuck the isms just let us plant tomatoes and live in peace
We have been making a lot of trouble...here and everywhere...of late.
Got two buddies who do that...the one that is financially secure doing way better even with the kids etc.
Reminds me constantly to maintain the spiritual side actually...sets a good example by it too.
We do need to do more than think about problems.
Of course "growing tomatoes" might not be enough this time around.
Used to be...
Well, there is some good news in all of this. To wit: all of the shenanigans described in this well-written piece will become blatantly obvious even to the general public, once the Greek default becomes a done deal and said public is stuck with the bill. As a result, none of the other ailing economies in the Eurozone will get a Greek-style "bailout"; that is, the banks will not get rid of e.g. their Portuguese debt as easily. When Portugal (or whoever is next in line) blows up, the banks will actually take the hit, since it won't be politically possible to pass it on to the public any more.
Ace the same thing was already done in Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain in 2010 - look at the debt to GDP by year 2000-2015 - you can see when they made the transfer
easiest one to read about is Ireland with practically no debt before private bank debt transfer to public treasury
Reinserted comment higher lower.
Any article that uses terms like the aristocracy or the oligarchs or the elite or fat cats that doesn't name names is a worthless puff piece of shit.
If you really want to make the case that a few fat cat aristocrats got all the money then why not grow a pair of balls and tell us their fucking names.
Otherwise don't even bother -
We are restring to a "number" that is why we are all so prone to conspiratorial and "aggravational" rhetoric.
No one really thinks about "the Federal Budget" nor obviously is any told about the war we have been fighting since 9/11 and the fallout from it.
So Umpires call balls and strikes but the announcer calls the Game.
That's all we're doing here.
It's what PAID media SHOULD BE DOING actually...and certainly used to when America (the USA part) was a place people aspired to being in.
Very frustrating that so much money is poured into "controlling the message" when in fact the whole "thing" appears to me to be a computer game.
People do bad things to each other...easy to "default to a machine" and a big pile of bullshit.
"Greece" sure looks like a Mafia Hit gone wrong to me though.
That is a country with an Air Force too. They can start a lot of trouble if they want...and I don't mean economically.
"Balkan Powderkeg....
Eric Zeusse, you wrote:
"So: what got bailed-out was private investors, not ‘the Greek people’ (such as the ‘news’ media assert, or try to suggest)."
Pure Bunk!
Anyone who actually researched the history here KNOWS that the European leaders announced a deal in 2011, that private investors in Greek government debt would take a 50% WRITEDOWN on the value of their holdings as part of a wide-ranging package of measures designed to stem the Greek debt crisis.
The aristocracy was not "paid off with German and French" bailout funds.
This just the usually lies told by Socialists/Communists to stir up the masses (of useful idiots) to do their bidding.
The Greeks themselves squandered the bailout money and did not implement the necessary reforms (either at all or fast enough).
Greek government spends 58.5% of the country's GDP. No austerity countries like Singapore government spends 14.4% of GDP. CHINA spends 25%. Anyone starting to see the problem here??
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/greek-bondholders-to-take-50-haircut-20...
no, it's not facist capitalism, it's just plain fascism, ala the bushes. clintons, empire , eu, japan, fox, nbc, ge. ad infinatium.
Well, yeah, but ... maybe it was a valid function of the Eurozone to support Greece until they didn't want to support it anymore, so it is appropriate that "the taxpayers" take the principle loss.
What is not valid is that the banksters took their 1% transaction fees on $350b of said debt, selling and reselling. We have to carefully parse the outrages here. You can argue that the banksters burned $350b to get their $3.5b, just like some idiot vandal breaks a $300 windshield to steal a $200 radio that they fence for $10.
Best post so far. Except in this case the valdals repo all the cars in the parking lot even though they were paid for.
How could Greece have had austerity if it spent in five years 213 billion euros more than it produced. The number shows they had five years of excesses, not austerity. If not, can someone say where that money went?
Nothing capitalistic about this.
Crony socialism is the closest term i have heard.
Are you talking about Greece or any other country, including the USA?
Iy is the evolution of capitalism towards full ditcatorship.
Take heart Eric. Pearls before swine and all that.
FDR is an example of "democratic capitalism" because he supposedly bailed out the public? Is that what this post is trying to say? What a load of crap. It's not even debatable, that the pinko FDR (his wife called his Commie buddy who murdered millions "Uncle Joe," big surprise) prolonged the Great Depression by his actions. This guy thinks he's smarter than God -- after all Dawkins endorsed his utterly-forgetable book in which he thinks he debunked Christianity -- when he's actually nothing but a blithering fool.
Another level of shittiness. Capitalism cannot be fascist. It is no longer capitalism when it is controlled no matter how much you might try to spin it.
Just like "progressives" cannot be liberal, they are commuinsts no matter how much they lie to themselves and to us.
Why did the author ignore the actions of Strauss Kahn (J) and Sarkozy (J). Why did the author ignore the actions of Obama and Geithner? It is already known that Obama and Geithner were sent by their financial puppet-masters in Wall Street, to then coerce the loan.
What about the two J's who were maneuvering to maintain tribe control over France? They also wanted their "banks" bailed out with the Greek loan. Take a look at what has happened since then; QE has already shifted Greek bonds from France to then expand the balance sheet at ECB.
I think the better and more accurate term is crony financial capitalism. Fascism implies some sort of political control over industry. Politically it would be Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Conservatism, with both of the Neos, subordinate to finance.
With crony financial capitalism, the bond holders and private banks direct politics. In the case of Greece, they present their sovereign bonds to commercial banks in order to have them monetized, ergo, banks are often bond holders.
Crony finance capitalism has been trying to take over since Bank of England inception in 1694. America had a form of Industrial Capitalism that gave way to finance capital in 1912. Germany had industrial capitalism and advanced rapidly, which is a major reason why she was attacked by Finance Capital in WW1 the interwar years, and also before WW2. (Communism was an outgrowth of banker private credit, and communism’s creation was funded by J street banks, especially Kuhn Loeb. This is why Stalin was "Uncle Joe" and communism was supported by Wall Street Finance Capital.)
Finance Capital is private CREDIT AS MONEY, and it wants to be INTERNATIONAL. Finance Capital does not want sovereign countries to exist. Finance capital is a pyramid scheme, where hidden money power then directs society. Witness the tied corporations meeting at Davos to then coordinate their actions. This hidden money power is funded by Usury derived by owning the credit means that a country must have to transact it output. In other words, finance capital has usurped the money power for itself, when it is clearly should be a commons owned by a country’s citizens.
Industrial Capitalism has/had State money, e.g. exogenous money spent by the sovereign’s Treasury into industry and the commons. Directed treasury credit into industry IS a feature of Fascism; direct credit is NOT A FEATURE OF private finance capital. Private finance capital will only direct credit based on what kind of debt instrument enters a private banker ledger.
Fascism is the wrong word. Fascism would tend to help labor, and would also be more sovereign as it uses Treasury Credit.
It is crony finance capitalism, which uses money power derived from private banker credit means. Crony finance capital uses rent extraction techniques in order to extract from the producers
Some of the techniques of private crony finance capital are to give onerous loans, and then later expect a harvest of real assets, especially when debtor cannot pay, as the loan money is long gone; Green mail techniques where companies are financialized, especially by stealing pensions and putting them on the private bank credit ledger; wage arbitrage techniques, such as the recent shifting of Western jobs to Asia and China; importing third world labor for internal wage arbitrage and then externalize costs by shifting them to laboring middle class.
It is time to take the private banker credit system, and shove it into the crapper. It needs to be flushed. It was fraud from the beginning. Industrial Capitalism was but a brief period, and soon came under attack by finance capital.
All countries are sovereign and should have their own money. Never let you debts extend past your law. All foreign trade is but barter.
Money should be law and wealth based, and flux in accordance with goods and services; money’s volume and channeling direction should be scientifically set by lawful targets.
Why is man so stooopid when it comes to money? If we don’t get this money problem figured out, higher civilization will be impossible.
www.sovereignmoney.eu
MEFOBILLS
Thanks for flashing out all the misinformation and ignorance framed as information. Great work in your part.
I wonder if you could comment on SDR’s?
The way I see, oversimplified to keep this post short, is the collapse of the dollar—America life standard—while US and Euro financial system will be living large and larger.
And the global pillage of diminishing resources by the US financial and NATO will go into overdrive, leading, at the best case, proxy-wars; and the worse, nuking each other.
Looking forward hearing your take. As well as from any other Hedger that would understanding SDR’s ‘hidden’ plan.
I generally agree. Despite horrible wars that sovereign nation-states fought the concept of nation states in modern form was and is a novel an sound for 99% of population and unique in history of civilization. These are imperial global power structures that are old and failing concepts of social organization.
But I am personally beyond that. As Reagan said wrongly: the government is not a solution, the government is the problem.
It is neither. Government is a utility for people initiatives.
For me money is not a solution, commodity/debt based money is the problem in itself, and needs to be gotten rid off in longer term.
The money should be understood just as general ledger for labor accounting, a credit you earn by laboring to purchase somebody else's labor directly or through commodities.
The labor toward basic human needs is a moralizing, harmonizing, egalitarian, factor in society. Since one cannot be much richer then the other just because there are only 24 working hours in a day, the wealth (labor credit) would cease to be a differentiating factor in human cooperation and competition, replaced by quality of talent, skills and education in itself measured by their contribution to society and not how they could be used to get rich.
But such idea on ZH is a pure blasphemy.
The question is what gets a country back to reality. The EU, and the EURO, were never sustainable. They were bound to collapse. There was nothing to restrain the Greek politicians from taking on debts which they could never service. The Elites ran Greece into massive debt to buy the votes of the ignorant. They made promises they could never keep.
The possible solutions are to either have a clean default, such as Iceland did in 2008, or endure a long drawn out affair. Both are painful, but the latter situation is worse. Iceland is no longer in trouble. Every other currency in the world is.
The United States will be going through a similar default, but we are not bound to the EURO. Greece can default on its debts, adopt the Drachma, inflate it to destroy the public pensions and then recover in several years. Its debts will go poof.
The US has a harder road to travel because the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. It is not clear whether the US government will accept a deflation, or a hyperinflation. A devaluation would solve nothing because the US has so many Treasury securities in foreign hands. The hint of a devaluation would cause them to be placed on the public markets.
Interesting article. It hints at the real problem but misses it. What the author calls the "aristocracy" is what Alvin Gouldner called the "new cass." Gouldner howver was more succinct and accurate in his protrayal of the new class and it's avarice.
You might own stocks, which makes you the bougoise, but while you own the means of production, you don't control the means of production, the new class does.
For more on this read... http://incapp.org/blog/?p=2598
It was clear from the beginning that EU did not acted as a Greek's helping friend in trouble as EU solidarity requires but as a collection agency for gambling EU banksters. And as we all saw EU was acting as debt collector with all the gangster methods. Greece should have defaulted so European banks involved in 2009.
The real Greece bail out would mean Eurogroup purchased all the Greek debt and retire it. Or make giveaway of cash to Greeks earmarked to pay all their debt only.
That kind of propaganda is a core of so-called QE or liquidity injection to insolvent banks or investors.
Not only Greece was insolvent but the banks and investors that lent to them as well if Greece were not to pay.
So who chooses who will be bailed out? Pure cronyism.
The truth about QE devoid of propaganda BS I found at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/liquidity-of-blood-sw...
Greece* has been an oligarchy / plutocracy for decades.
Oligarchs often like to put on a puppet show for the people called "democratic elections" as it amuses and pleases them to see people fight and argue over their favourite characters in the show.
They also like to entertain themselves with talk of "free markets", all the while ensuring that their monopoly rights are enshrined in law to oppress competition (see puppet show).
Sometimes they tire of having to put on the puppet show and just revert to good old fashioned Monarchy or a Military Junta.
Doesn't really matter what label you want to put on it, what your preferred 'ism is. At the end of the day it's all the same: a small group of powerful men colluding to control a greater number of people from whom they can extract rents. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking )
Forget the 'isms. They simply distract and cause conflict where there should be agreement. The enemy is oppressive rent-seeking behavior, a simple foe that hides behind a complex mix of brands, labels, 'isms, etc and regularly employs violence when challenged.
* substitute for any other nation you'd prefer.
.
.
Fascist Capitalism?...maybe, for those who cannot help but endlessly sh!t on capitalism.
More like GREEK CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION. "Clientelism"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11731242/Greece-...
This ‘free market’ is all a big aristocratic con. It’s just as big as the con that the present Greek government — which had promised, and whose voters a few days ago reaffirmed with a 61% to 39% vote for no more “austerity” — are now delivering, to their victims.
This is not democratic capitalism. It is not socialism. It is, instead, fascism. It is dictatorial capitalism. We have it in the United States. And it predominates also in the Eurozone.
In fact, it predominates around the world. And its grip gets tighter every year now in the United States.
Amen. The legacy of Pax Americana's original monetary sin of 1971, that was leveraged further by Reaganomics/Thatcherism into the Neo-con "outsourced/big stick against rogue states" mantra transmitted to the Bush/Clinton/GWB/Obama oligarchical aristocracy.
And in Europe to Blair/Barroso/Aznar (the Infamous 4 of Azores), and their subsequent follow-on generation of Mutti/Sarko/Cameron oligarchy running the EU show.
"There is democratic capitalism, and there is fascist capitalism."
No there isn't.
Fascism is defined by Government control of the means of production while their ownership remains nominally private.
Capitalism is the absence of government in commerce, other than in Malum in se law enforcement (don't steal, don't kill, etc).
It is impossible to have Capitalism while government controls the means of production. Such a system lacks the defining feature of Capitalism. It is not 'mixed' Capitalism and Fascism. It is simply Fascism.
It is impossible to call one a variant of the other. To attempt it is simply an oxy-moron.
Government textbooks will say that since the New Deal of the 1930's the US has had a "Mixed Capitalist System". Mixed with what, pray tell? Socialism.
But they are antonyms. One defined by government interference in commerce, the other defined by its absence.
No mixture is possible.
It is simply Socialism implemented at a pace that Americans could accept, which is to say decades slower than Europeans were prepared to accept...and then the inevitable happened...
When you concentrate power, the powerful concentrate.
This is one of the many cognitively dissonant features of all Leftists systems. They concentrate power (the opposite of equality) ...to achieve equality???? Then, unsurprisingly, some are 'more equal' than others?
Apart from the Mao's, Stalin's, and Pol Pot's you also have your garden-variety Oligarchs in such systems. In Russia they are called Siloviki... "Strong Men". In Socialist Europe they go by other names.
But they do not exist despite Socialism, Communism, Fascism... They exist BECAUSE of these systems.
You cannot concentrate power without creating them any more than you can boil water without creating steam.
Understood. However, I don't think that was the point of the article. I think the point is that the state is trying to fool the masses into thinking that capitalism is fascism and socialism is democratic and thus good / better than capitalism.
Greece is just another example in an ever going list that shows that socialism and the people buying into the common good BS ultimately leads to a big pile of crap. And the people who get screwed are the ones that try to live honestly and out of debt.
I would maintain that majority rule by the people is ultimately the issue. Just because 51% or more of the population wants something does not mean they should get it. I could sit here an give hundreds of scenarios where that ideal can end up creating policies that are unethical / immoral. Liberty is far more attractive IMO. The state should always protect liberty and not tout the common good.
Ugh. This article is exactly 1/2 right. I've been saying in multiple comments for months and EVEN listed it as a CRIME that the private sector Greek bond holdings were transferred to the public sector.
But the following is STUPID: "But this is entirely false: that “consumption” was by the aristocracy, not by the public, anywhere or at any time. After all: It’s the aristocracy that get bailed-out — not the public, anywhere. "
What kind of moron can so blatantly confound the creditors with the debtor? I mean, this is so stupid it isn't simply confusing the roles, this is confusing the actual actors.
The Greek PEOPLE borrowed the money, or voted for the politicians that borrowed the money, and they rioted when the transfer payments those loans INITIALLY supported were scaled back (yes - it's true the only things new loans do is pay back old loans - which just means the situation is unsustainable).
The Peter Schiff quote is COMPLETELY out of context. He wasn't blaming the Greek people for the situation they're in (he DOES do that, but not in that quote), he was talking about the fact that no one transferred their bank accounts out of the country earlier even though everyone could see this comming.
You should frame this and sell it on Amazon under the inspirational poster section.