Debtocracy
- Year:
- 2011
- 75 min
- 42 Views
Georgios Papadopoulos: Dictator
Yet once shall I attempt a comparison with doctors
We have a patient;
we've placed him in a plaster cast.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn: IMF Managing Director
Don't decide against the doctor,
sometimes the doctor gives you
a medicine you don't like,
but even if you don't like the medicine
the doctor is there to try to help you.
As has been said before,
history has this wicked habit
of repeating itself as farce.
So, from a dictator/wannabe-doctor,
we moved on to the MDs of the IMF.
Andreas Papandreou: PM of Greece
Everybody has to join in the
struggle, fully aware that
either the nation will obliterate its huge debt
or the huge debt will obliterate the nation.
Constantinos Mitsotakis:
PM of Greece 1990-1993
This year's incomes policy will be
strict and austere.
No raises will be given whatsoever.
Costas Simitis:
Greece PM, 1996-2004There is no more room for
benefits or tax cuts.
Costas Karamanlis: PM of Greece, 2004-2009
We have to cut public spending,
we have to tidy up our house.
And this cannot be achieved
with your empty promises
of handing out money and privileges
at a time of such crisis.
Giorgos Papandreou: PM of Greece
Unfortunately, our country is in the ICU.
The nation's fiscal deadlock
threatens our sovereignty
for the first time since 1974.
In the last 40 years, two political
parties, 3 families of politicians
along with certain businessmen,
led the country to bankruptcy.
They declared suspension of payments to
the people, in order to save their lenders.
After decades of continuous austerity,
the Czars of the economy
advertised Greece as
the local financial superpower.
Yannos Papantoniou
Minister for Finance 1994-2001
Our work is great. We were the first
to solve the economic problems.
N. Christodoulakis
Minister for Finance 2001-2004
Once more, our economy will prove
to be our strongest asset.
Yannos Papantoniou
Minister for Finance 1994-2001
The economy sprang forward and went
When their creation crumbled, those
people said behind our back
that, due to some genetic disorder,
we were incapable of handling
our economy without foreign aid.
Perhaps Americans may find it
difficult to understand this
but Greece lacks hability in
control of ?? and discipline.
Our government called us bums,
and our lenders PIIGS...
as was the case with all
peripheral EU countries.
And our ministers tried to convince us
that all of us had a part in this.
Brian Lenihan Ireland's Minister
of Finance 2008-2011
our political system
but let's be fair about it,
we're all part of it.
Theodoros Pangalos
Vice-president of the Greek government
The answer to the denouncement
of the country's politicians
that makes people ask us, what
did you do with the money? is:
We made you civil servants!
We all had a part in this!
So are we the prodigal children
of a neat global economy
in an all-successful Europe?
Or has the system been ailing
since its youth?
Capitalist economy in the post-war period
consists of two parts.
Costas Lapavitsas
Professor in Economics
In the first 25 years after World War II,
the growth rate was high.
Real income rose,
as did the consumption of goods.
Those were novel circumstances
in the history of capitalism.
Joe is the king because
he can buy more with his wages
then any other worker
on the blow.
David Harvey - Social scientist
There's no such thing as
a crisis free capitalism.
So, there's gonna be
a crisis somewhere.
This happy period ended
in the mid-Seventies.
From then on, we entered a period of
low growth, recurrent crises...
suppressed, if any, rises in workers' income
and high unemployment.
Mature capitalist countries
found it difficult...
to accrue wealth.
This period was marked by a
huge growth in the financial system
which was termed financialisation.
Financialisation brought on
and intensified the crises.
When the US housing bubble burst
the financial system came close
to total collapse.
As a result, it affected the real economy,
which had its own structural problems.
States took rescue measures.
They used tax-payers' money
to save the banks and restore demand.
Thus, the financial crisis went fiscal.
And those same banks which
were saved by the tax-payers
decided to bite the hand that fed them,
by gambling on state bankruptcies.
Speculation makes things worse
in Greece, too.
Only, this time, the problem
is even deeper.
It's time for the Eurozone
to pay.
King Euro proves naked, mainly
because he's a king without a state.
Samir Amin - Economist
-
There cannot be a currency
without a state.
Despite their weaknesses,
the advantage of the US dollar...
among other things, is that there is
a state called the USA.
Europe does not exist
as a political entity.
There's no legitimized political
power connecting its states.
In my opinion,
the Eurozone is not viable.
In contrast to the USA, where
the federal government
and the Federal Reserve System
intervene to ameliorate inequalities
among states, the Eurozone
accentuates inequality.
This is how the PIIGS, the poor relatives
of the EU, came into existence.
The Eurozone is divided distinctly
into central and peripheral states.
The crisis is most intense
in the peripheral states.
The central states, especially Germany,
are winners because of the Euro.
The competitiveness of EU states
came to vary a lot
and the competitiveness of peripheral
countries fell steadily and systematically behind.
This was directly due to the Euro.
ric Toussaint, president of the Committee
for the Abolition of Third World Debt
-
The crisis in the EU was a result
of the way Europe was integrated.
With Greece, it's like putting
Muhammad Ali
the World Heavyweight Champion,
in the ring with a featherweight boxer
and telling them: Start fighting
and let's see who wins.
Why are the peripheral countries
lagging behind in competitiveness?
Most of all, what causes
this divergence to keep increasing?
The myth of the "lazy periphery"
and "industrious Germany"...
with its "high productivity" is just that.
All the German governments managed
was to declare war
on their own work-force...
and freeze their salaries
for a decade.
Sahra Wagenknecht - Deputy Chairperson, Die Linke
-
In recent years, the nominal increase
in salaries was 7% (in Germany)
while in the Eurozone it was 27%.
This gap logically results in loss
of competitiveness in other countries.
When salaries go down in one country,
while they go up in all the others
it's only natural that the competitiveness
of the German economy is boosted
while the other countries
are unable to follow.
The Eurozone countries are no longer
able to devaluate their currency.
This resulted in the establishment
of a mechanism
which was bound to lead
to the results we have today.
Costas Lapavitsas - Professor in Economics:
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