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Greece: The Epicenter of Global Pillage
Greece is being ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed. Other countries are next.
by Stephen Lendman
Predatory bankers make serial killers look good by comparison. Their business model creates crises to facilitate grand theft, financial terrorism, and debt entrapment.
They steal all material wealth and then some. They systematically rob investors and strip mine economies for self-enrichment.
They demand they get paid first. They hold nations hostage to assure it. They turn crises into catastrophes.
They leave mass impoverishment, high unemployment, neo-serfdom, and human wreckage in their wake.
Their Federal Reserve/ECB/IMF/World Bank/political class lackeys do their bidding.
They're more dangerous than standing armies. They wage war by other means. They cause "demographic shrinkage, shortened life spans, emigration and capital flight," explains Michael Hudson.
They're a malignancy ravaging societies and humanity. Greece is the epicenter of what's metastasizing globally. The latest bailout deal highlights out-of-control pillage.
On February 20, New York Times writer Stephen Castle headlined, "Europe Agrees on New Bailout to Help Greece Avoid Default," saying:
On Tuesday morning, Luxembourg president/Euro Group head Jean-Claude Juncker announced:
"We have reached a far-reaching agreement on Greece's new program and private-sector involvement. The new program provides a comprehensive blueprint for putting the public finances and the economy of Greece back on a sustainable footing."
In fact, it assures human misery and economic destruction, not restoration. It's a deal only bankers can love. It demands Greece reduce its debt from 160% to about 120% of GDP by 2020, but how incurring more debt achieves it wasn't explained.
It also demands sacking 150,000 public workers by 2015, slashing private sector wages 20%, lowering monthly minimum wages from 750 to 600 euros, cutting unemployment benefits from 460 to 360 euros, and reducing pensions 15% en route to eliminating them altogether.
Media reports said bondholders agreed to a 53.5% face value haircut - the equivalent of losing 75% overall. In fact, only 30% of toxic assets are involved. Most held aren't touched. Greece must make good on them, no matter the impossible burden.
