It is a universal truth that parents unable to feed their children will steal.
Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, appears not to know this.
She blames Greeks who have not paid their taxes for that countries economic woes. And let me be clear: Greece does has a massive problem with non-payment of tax. Its shadow economy may be 27.5% of its GDP - and most likely that's rising. The annual cost of that may be €19 billion of tax lost, in normal times. I'd advocate tackling that - in normal times.
But these are not normal times. The Greek government has promised the Greek people austerity, hardship, unemployment, poverty and hunger. Of course they're not paying taxes when their children go hungry as a result. Isn't that inevitable?
You can't feed bankers but not feed the children of Greece. Not if you want anything like social stability - for bankers, let alone the Greeks.
Lagarde says she thinks the children of Africa come first. That's irrelevant to a Greek parent. She shows a complete lack of empathy for the real human condition from which she is obviously far too insulated if she does not appreciate that. Each hungry child is a crisis in its own right to its parent. That apparently is an idea beyond her comprehension.
And as a result of failed economics there are hungry children in Greece. It's time the IMF stopped playing games - and issuing threats - and addressed that reality.
The anger of he parent of the hungry child drives revolutions. I don't like revolution. People get hurt. But nor do I like oppression. The IMF is trying oppression. It won't work.
If we're to prevent unrest then the people of Greece have to believe paying their taxes is worthwhile again. But that can only happen if they think they can feed their children as a result - and that will only be true if that government can offer growth. Unless it can do that the collpase of Greece is inevitable.
The austerity programme gas found its tipping point: it can tip Greece into chaos. Or we can accept what is inevitable, which is that Greece will never repay its debts and that those who lent will have to accept the fact - and that they're at least as guilty as the Greeks because they recklessly lent this money and so always bore the risk of it going bad. If we do that greece, its democracy, its people and wider European society can be saved. And children will not need to go hungry.
There is only one choice.
The IMF is making the wrong one.
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Richard, did you see Alex Andreou’s lovely take-down of Lagarde and the IMF in the New Statesman? Well worth a read. Link is here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/05/christine-lagardes-tough-love-insult-greece
I would only add, that Lagarde is a politician through and through, and her comments should be seen in that light. She’s placating Germany.
I did indeed see it – and tweeted it on Saturday
I’m delighted he has an NS column
The “ever fragrant” Christine has shot her bolt, it would seem, dropping the mask to show the real “bankers’ side-kick” beneath the mask.
Take a look at http://gordonandsarahbrown.com/2012/04/sudan-report-investing-in-a-better-future/ and the whole Gordon & Sarah site, and ask yourselves again if the right person is running the IMF?
Lagarde is right for the bankers, but not for the real economy. With Gordon post 2008, it’s the other way round.
Obviously the international bankers thought that Christine Lagarde was well qualified to take on this role and to instill their programmes upon those countries needing financial assistance. Strauss-Kahn was left to trip himself up by pandering to his known weaknesses.
It will be interesting to see if Ms Lagarde will be going for further programming next weekend by attending the Bilderberg 2012 meeting in Chantilly, Virginia.
The treatment of Greece really makes me angry. The EU and IMF took Greece’s need for emergency funding as an opportunity to impose their ideological obsession with neoliberal economics on the country. Greece was already a relatively low tax, low spending country with workers required to work longer hours and retire later than just about anyone else in Europe (despite what the tabloids might say) and that was a large part of their problem in the first place. Now the so called Troika wants to impose even more than this as an alleged solution?
A large part of the reason for the callous comments (and implied threats) from Ms. Lagarde and others is that they are worried that a party that will stand up to them will come first in elections next month. They know that under Greece’s rather strange electoral system, so long as a pro-austerity party can come in first, a pro-austerity Government can probably be formed despite a majority voting against austerity. They see the Greek opinion polls and know that if they can scare just a small percentage of voters leaning towards Syriza they will hae another friendly Government and be able to continue their undemocratic ways.
Still I suppose we should thank Ms. Lagarde in one respect. Her failed attempts to balance the French budget in a time when the economy needed stimulus as Minister of finance is a large part of the reason her former boss is no longer President of France.
“with workers required to work longer hours and retire later than just about anyone else in Europe”
Can we have facts to back that up please? Because that contradicts vritually everything I’ve seen.
A quick google search will show you. Here are three that come out on top. Ever since the German tabloids decided to start claiming that Greeks were “lazy”, a lot of research has taken place on this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/dec/08/europe-working-hours
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2012/01/greek-german-work-hours-compared.html
Whilst the general retirement age in both Greece and Germany are basically the same (65 versus 67), it is not the whole story. Many public sector workers in Greece were retiring at 55 whereas the Germans weren’t or weren’t allowed to and this is where the whole media rubbish came from. Although the Greeks certainly tend to work longer hours than the Germans you have to factor in work efficiency and also the fact that many Greeks are self-employed and therefore tend to work longer hours.
Needless to say, this doesn’t take away from the fact the Christine Lagarde is completely unsuitable for her job at the IMF and as one commentator stated, she was unable to manage France’s budget in any way, shape or form.
Lagarde is concerned for the poor of Africa? What a joke. The IMF have probably been the leading cause for the impoverishment of the Third World. They serve only the financial elite of the world. One has to pity the country that calls in the IMF for assistance – it’s the ultimate poison pill.
Absolutely agree with you Anthony about the IMF’s attitude to the children of Africa. The neoliberal SAPs imposed on African states have certainly not helped African children, or Latin American ones for that matter. In many African countries the poor have to pay for healthcare. We have a friend with two children in the Gambia who has a thyroid problem and, unlike in the UK , the patient has to pay for the medication. She has been quoted approx £350 for the operation and post operative care. How can someone who earns £50 per month be expected to find this sum of money for what would be considered a routine operation in the UK?
Lagarde’s comments are totally insenstive and I doubt whether she has any real knowledge of the issues for which she is responsible. Indeed in the circumstances she should do the right thing and resign.