Debtocracy

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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, 1996-2004

There 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

from second to first league.

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

I accept that we failed into

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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