Submitted by Bruno de Landevoisin via StealthFlation.org [11],
On the grave Greek question, it appears that the moment of truth is finally upon us. After nearly four months of frenetic, fruitless and often feckless high level deliberations and negotiations, both sides remain essentially at an impasse, right where they started. The technocrats in Brussels want to see their austerity driven reform program carried forward and implemented unconditionally. As for the idealogues in Athens, they have pledged to put forth their own enlightened approach to rescue their sinking society.
The Technocrats hold the purse strings, but the Ideologues hold the heart strings. For what it’s worth, that is typically a highly combustible combination, tick tock. With their recent cocksure bravado, are the Technocrats entirely misreading the desperate determination of the Idealogues? Get ready for yet another Euro Summer swoon………
Everyone agrees that Greece, under a corrupt political oligarchy, grossly abused its privileges as a Eurozone member. In fact, with the help of a few sleazy sophisticated Goldman Sachs financiers, they actually cheated on their application forms in order to join the exclusive club to begin with. The illegitimate Ionian books were cooked from the get go, and it only got worse and worse over time. The self serving political elites and their self-seeking sponsors at multinational banks and corporations ran up a massive tab, while their ill-fated nation did not have the wherewithal to pay the astronomical bills.
That is essentially what happened here. Oh, and the parties specifically involved all happened to personally get rather wealthy themselves along the way.
Check out the mess they left:
Along with the privilege of leadership comes responsibility. That clearly seems to have gone out the window here.
There can be little doubt that the predatory international banking institutions was clearly complicit, along with the disgracefully corrupt Greek politicians and high ranking government officials, as well as most of the Ionian elites at the highest levels of society in the near total abrogation of their financial responsibilities to their country. They completely failed the common man in this regard, who naturally assumed their leaders knew what the hell they were doing, and quite understandably counted on them for proper sustainable fiscal governance.
So, I have a simple question. Why should the brunt of the demanded reforms fall on those least responsible for the mess, and most vulnerable? Surely, the provincial woman on the streets of Athens pushing her Gyro cart up the steep hills of Kolonaki is far less responsible for the lamentable state of affairs her beloved country finds itself in, then those in the positions of leadership whom should have clearly known better. Yet, today she is the one being asked to bear the burden of the terribly onerous predicament her Nation is suffering through. Meanwhile, the bankers want more Euros, and no one is buying her Gyros.
Seems to me the wealthy Greek political class, the int’l financial establishment and the EU political leadership bear the lion share of the responsibility here. Yet, instead of facing up to the mess they presided over and largely created, by putting forth workable resolutions to the debt death spiral effectively consuming Greece, what I have mostly witnessed over the past four months is that same establishment circling the wagons, doing everything in their power to delegitimize the SYRIZA leadership and further cripple their already stressed banking system. I guess the best defense is a flat out offensive. Is this what passes for inspired leadership in this day and age?
Moreover, do we really need to hear these “free market” frauds opine from the peanut gallery on the difficult matter at hand:
A Greek exit from the euro is just a matter of time and wouldn’t lead to the breakup of monetary union, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Het Financieele Dagblad in an interview published Saturday. An exit could make the euro stronger, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said in an interview in the Euro-am-Sonntag newspaper.
I’m certainly no socialist, but if this is what today’s crony capitalism continues to spawn, I’m definitely no longer taking part. A romantic quote from Jimi Hendrix’s comes to mind…….
“When the power of love overcomes the love for power, only then will the world change.”
When are we going to wake up? It’s high time for honest enlightened free market capitalism! Enough of this crony capitalism crap already! The entire financialized abominNation is a national disgrace.
As for me, I would be more than happy to see the cradle of democracy put the imperial autocrats and financial kleptocrats in their place, teaching them a thing or two about enlightened self governance. Perhaps the ascent of Alexis Tsipras simply reflects the frustration of the everyday Greek citizen, completely fed up with their notoriously corrupt self serving political class oligarchy, the self seeking autocrats in Brussels and self interested banking elites that keep offering up the same poison pill to cure a lethal debt epidemic that they themselves were central to spreading around the globe in the first place.