No country has suffered more as a result of austerity than Greece.
In many ways no country has suffered more than Greece from abuse by the financial services industry. But for Goldman Sachs they would never have got into the Eurozone in the first place,
So let us hope that elections on Sunday bring Greece hope in the form of a rejection of austerity and the election of Syriza.
Nothing could send a clearer signal that without renegotiation of debt nothing will change in Europe. As a result the people of Greece could do us all a considerable favour this weekend.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Yes Richard,
Goldman Sachs did nicely out of it, stripped the country of everything it had. Greece should put 2 fingers to the EU and the euro, go there own way. It may be hard at first, but they can then control their own destiny.
I think it’s much more complicated than that
Tell us more
As William Keegan noted in his book on “Mrs Thatcher’s Economic Experiment”, the neo-liberals chose exactly the right laboratory for their experiment – the supine UK – at least the English part of it, which hasn’t seen any serious threat to the status quo since the Chartist movement of the 1840’s, and perhaps the 1990 Poll Tax Riots – but which that apart, has usually, often glumly, let Government and Whitehall impose all manner of indignities and injustices upon them in Thatcher Mark 1, and yet more in today’s Thatcher Mark 2, with barely a murmur of dissent or protest. Frankly, unless something rears up and bites the English on the backside, they seem willing, phlegmatically, to endure any humiliation and deprivation heaped on them.
This is probably less true of the Celtic ring (surely no longer “a fringe”), who may yet rebel against Whitehall’s and the Government’s casual cruelty, but the Neo-Cons and Neo-libs surely chose the wrong country in choosing Greece to experiment on. This is a country with a long history of upheaval and resistance: two dictatorships, two expulsions of the monarchy, a Civil War and several restorations of democracy in just the 20th century, this is not a society to mess with.
And now they seem not only about to boot out the failed “austerity” experiment (the pre-cursor of which, “trickle down economics” was called “voodoo economics” by George Bush Snr, at least in the primaries, before he became Reagan’s running mate); they seem also about to teach us, as they ancestors did, the real meaning of real democracy, as this Guardian article suggests: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/23/greece-solidarity-movement-cooperatives-syriza.
Let us hope and pray a) that Syrizaxwins and b) that Suriza succeeds and c) that their “democracy disease” proves eminently catching, and sweeps across Europe.
Agreed Andrew
Here’s hoping Richard, that Syrzia get elected and start the fight back against the destructive idiocy of austerity. And well done GS for colluding with dishonest Greek politicians to enable Greece to enter the Eurozone. Still, no doubt a nice fat fee was pocketed by GS.
Richard I so agree with you! Greece are doing what the UK should do although we have not yet hit rock bottom like they have.
Would that, I wonder, be the same Goldman Sachs that is instructing its employees in Whitehall to remain in the EU? There could be no better reason for leaving and taking to the hills.
It would be nice to see a chain reaction that corrects the illusion that it is not ‘big government’ that caused the 2008 crash but big finance.
Fingers crossed.
C’mon Mr. M. – it wasn’t just GS that got Greece into the Euro – Greek politicians got Greece in as well and the Greek people voted for Euro membership.
They couldn’t have done it without help
Greece suffered from a corrupt socialist government
They also suffered from a failure of people to pay taxes
The worst tax cheaters were “accountants, dentists, lawyers, doctors”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_Greece
Greece has suffered from corruption
Your first claim is far too specific
It looks like we may get our wish, Richard, if the exit polls are anything to go by.
At some point, the Left is going to have to take the difficult step of renouncing the EU (if not the theory, then definitely the practice).
The Greens have a particular difficulty with this; they’re pro-EU but many of their proposed policies, however excellent, are impossible under current EU laws.
Anyone who thinks that any of the Greens policies are “excellent” should watch Andrew Neil interviewing Natalie Bennett yesterday on the Sunday politics. Car crash TV.
I have a feeling you are not an objective observer
Any more than I suspect Neil was an objective questioner
“They couldn’t have done it without help”. What a patronising, undemocratic comment, which you couldn’t begin to explain.
I do nit need to explain it
The meaning is clear
And it was not democratic: one of the main objects of what is happening in Greece is the restoration of democratic control
The restoration of democratic control by 35% of voters who have voted how you wanted . When they voted for the previous government was this under Ratio?
You too are ignoring corruption when in office
Why is that?
“They couldn’t have done without help”. Yes they could! Because they are a sovereign democratic people, fully aware of what they are and we’re voting for. To suggest otherwise gives you and your ‘expertise’ away.
I am amused, but not in the slightest but surprised, that corruption does not feature as a possibility to you
LOL you do have a sense of humour!
Perhaps in a land far, far away…a people will find themselves as destitute as the Greeks have become. They elected a govt. that took backhanders from foreign oligarchs, that blew bubbles in the property market to enrich themselves and their friends, that sanctioned the needy and refused to come to their aid in defiance of the human rights they claimed to support, that refused to deal with revolving-door corruption in business and govt, that refused to collect taxes while blowing up the national debt, that looked the other way as their friends in finance stole ordinary people’s money, that changed pension rules that eventually allowed even more to be stolen….
The people were destitute and they knew what had happened but they had no voice and no power to effect anything because power was so concentrated and so hostile to them that they could do nothing to help themselves.Their country had become corrupt before their eyes and they could do nothing to stop it. They were a sovereign democratic people, fully aware of what they were and what they were voting for but they had no power but the power to vote in those already corrupted. A coalition of left parties had formed in that country, the UK, around the year 2017, but no-one was sure if they would ever amount to anything…
As always, you are an intellectual coward .Richard.
I can be accused of many things
This is not one of them
But it’s true I am intolerant of right wing trolling
Although that’s a strength, not a weakness
What everyone seems to forget is that which ever country you live in we do not have control over who comes to power. We are forced to vote for the lesser of 2- 5 evils. There are no really good politicians they are all in the pockets of multi-nationals and we have no say or control about what goes on. The people of Greece had no control over the decisions their leaders made, any more than we do. Why do you think we will not have a majority party out of the shambles of leaders we have before us, un yet whatever happens we will be told we had a democratic choice. I wish we had a Syriza type candidate who would tell Big Farma and all the other corrupt heads to F—
off!