5
4
4
What follows here is a synopsis of an article by Mike Whitney.
"We are facing destruction. Our country, our home, has become ripe for burning. The centre of Athens is in flames."
-- Costis Hatzidakis, conservative
parliamentarian
On Sunday,
the Greek parliament approved a new round of austerity measures that will
further deepen the 5-year depression and sever the last fraying threads of
social cohesion. In order to secure a
130 billion euro loan, Greek political leaders agreed to comply with a
"Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) that will not only intensify the sacrifices
of ordinary working people, but also effectively
hand the control of the nation's economy over to foreign banks and corporations.
The
Memorandum is as coldly calculating and mercenary as anything ever written. And while most of the attention has been
focused on the deep cuts to supplementary pensions, the minimum wage, and
private sector wages; there's much more to this onerous warrant than meets the
eye.
Greece will
have to prove that it's reached various benchmarks before it receives any of
the money allotted in the bailout. The
Memorandum outlines, in great detail, what those benchmarks are-- everything
from reduced spending on life-saving drugs to allowing "retailers to sell
restricted product categories such as baby food." That's right; according to the authors of this
fuliginous memo, the only way Greece is going to be able to lift itself out of
the doldrums is by greatly increasing the risk that their kids will be sickened
by banned baby food!
The MOU also
calls for a 10% cut to government workers wages, cuts to "social security funds
and hospitals," and more privatizing of publicly-owned assets -- all of which will only further shrink GDP!
Instead of
providing fiscal aid so Greece can meet its budget targets and can get back on
its feet again, the "troika" (the European Commission, European Central Bank,
and International Monetary Fund) is using
the crisis to snatch vital state assets and deliver them to its corporate
friends. In other words, the MOU
is opening new avenues for exploitation and plunder. And there's more:
"The
Government (of Greece) will neither propose nor implement measures which may
infringe the rules on the free movement of capital. Neither the State nor other public bodies
will conclude shareholder agreements with the intention or effect of hindering
the free movement of capital or influence the management or control of
companies."
In other
words, the interests of corporations and
banks will take precedent over those of the people, i.e. Capital Rules! This proclamation limits the role of
government to rubber stamping the predatory actions of cutthroat speculators whose
only interest is fattening the bottom line for their shareholders.
There's also
a long section on "Growth-Enhancing Structural Reforms." But this section never does explain how the
economy is supposed to expand when austerity measures are reducing the amount of consumer spending and business investment. Instead,
for the sake of short-term corporate gain, the stated plan is to eviscerate trade barriers and slash workers'
wages. Here's a sample:
"Given that
the outcome of the social dialogue to promote employment and competitiveness
fell short of expectations, the
Government will take measures to foster a rapid adjustment of labour
costs to fight unemployment and restore cost-competitiveness, ensure the
effectiveness of recent labour market reforms, align labour conditions in
former state-owned enterprises to those in the rest of the private sector and
make working-hours arrangements more flexible. This strategy should aim at reducing
nominal unit labour costs in the business economy by 15% in 2012-14."
Here we're
talking about policies that have already resulted
in a severe two-year recession and record-high unemployment. (Greek unemployment is now at a peak of 20.6
percent.) And now the EU is
prescribing the very same policies that have
failed throughout, i.e. policies that have reduced spending, shrunk government
revenues, increased joblessness, and deepened the slump! Is this insanity, or corporate greed with the
complicity of EU officials, or a mixture of the two?
The
Memorandum also contains an illuminating section on "Business environment,"
which covers everything from perks for industry to unrestricted free trade. The
whole memo reads like this, just one corporate handout after another. In essence, the MOU is a corporate "wish
list" -- a mix of punitive belt tightening policies for working people and
perks for big oil, big gas, electric, aviation, railroads, communications etc.
None of this has anything to do with helping
Greece
It's simply corporate pillaging gone haywire. Greece is a big pinata that's just been
cracked open; and like greedy children, everyone is pushing
and shoving to grab their fistful of candy.
1 | 2
