[Peace-discuss] Fw: The People of Greece and the Rest of Us

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Subject: The People of Greece and the Rest of Us


> Left Margin
> The People of Greece and the Rest of Us
> 
> By Carl Bloice - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board 
> 
> Black Commentator May 12, 2010
> 
> http://www.blackcommentator.com//375/375_lm_people_of_greece.php
> 
> If you rely - as we usually must - on the major mass media
> to get a picture of what's going on in the world you
> probably think the economic crisis in Greece came about
> because the irresponsible Greeks are insisting on retiring
> at 50, are unwilling to give up the "bonuses" to which they
> have become accustomed, and are insisting that their
> European neighbors foot the bill. However, most of what we
> read or hear is either distorted out of proportion or simply
> isn't true. The economic crisis in the European Union wasn't
> caused by Greek working people and the threats they face
> these days are far greater than are being portrayed.
> 
> The Greek worker living high on the hog, getting paid for
> doing little and retiring into the lap of luxury is as real
> as the proverbial "welfare queen" driving her Cadillac
> downtown to pick up her check. Yeah, there are moochers and
> con artists in every society but that's not the real issue
> here. The working people of Greece confront the same
> problems most of the rest of us do. The world of capitalism
> has become dysfunctional and those still profiting from it
> have come up with a way to deal with it, by putting the cost
> right on our shoulders. And, as with the unemployed single
> mother, the scapegoating is tinged with racial/ethnic
> stereotyping. The same goes for the Italians, Spanish and
> Portuguese - the southerners lining up for dole from the
> frugal, hardworking people in the North.
> 
> The working people of Greece did not create the mess their
> economy is in any more than their counterparts in the rest
> of Europe are responsible for the now continent-wide
> economic crisis.
> 
> "Want to know exactly why public anger in Greece is running
> at such explosive levels?" asked Tony Bonsignore last week
> in the British financial investment advice service Citywire
> . "Then take a look at the austerity measures currently
> being debated by the Greek parliament.
> 
> "The BBC reports that as part of the IMF/ EU bailout Greek
> leaders are proposing the following measures:
> 
>    * Public sector pay to be frozen till 2014;
> 
>    * Public sector salary bonuses - equivalent to two
>    months' extra pay - to be scrapped or capped;
> 
>    * Public sector allowances to be cut by 20 percent;
> 
>    * State pensions to be frozen or cut, with the
>    contribution period up from 37 to 40 years; The average
>    retirement age raised from 61 to 63, and early
>    retirement restricted;
> 
>    * VAT [value added tax] to be increased from 19 percent
>    to 23 percent;
> 
>    * Taxes on fuel, alcohol and tobacco raised to 10
>    percent;
> 
>    * A new one-off tax on profits to be introduced, plus
>    new gambling, property and green taxes."
> 
> "On their own any one of these measures would probably be
> enough to prompt significant political disquiet; taken
> together they represent a catastrophic setback to the
> financial aspirations of the average Greek," wrote
> Bonsignore, formerly a reporter and editor for Financial
> Times. "It certainly wasn't what the Greek population voted
> for when they entered the EU in 1981 and adopted the single
> currency two decades later."
> 
> Writing from Athens, John Lichfield of The Independent (UK)
> observed, "Whether pain can ever be spread evenly in a
> system so endemically corrupt and perverse as the Levantine
> political and economic system of Greece is open to question.
> How can anyone trust a system in which large sections of the
> wealthiest members of society - from ship owners to lawyers
> and doctors - have traditionally, and quite legally, evaded
> almost all direct taxes?
> 
> "The problem is that correcting the injustices in the tax
> system will take years to harvest its fruit. The deeper,
> immediate, further austerity measures VAT [value added tax]
> increases and pension and public spending cuts - imposed on
> Athens last weekend will produce an immediate cut in the
> state deficit. But they will fall mostly on modestly-off
> Greeks, in the private and state sectors, who do pay into
> the system and feel they have already made several blood
> sacrifices already."
> 
> The significant difference between Greece, Spain, Italy and
> Ireland is that they are economically less affluent
> countries than others to the north. Therefore there are
> major imbalances in trade on the continent. One result is
> that they are relatively uncompetitive compared with the
> others, especially export powerhouse Germany. The other
> result is that the countries sometime referred to as "the
> periphery of the continent" were doubly undermined by the
> current economic crisis that - you will recall - originated
> in the United States.
> 
> Poverty was increasing in Greece before the present crisis
> hit. The Greek unemployment rate was 9.5 percent last year;
> it rose to 11.3 per cent in January. As a consequence of
> steps now being undertaken, it will rise further. The
> Financial Times says the EU - IMF-imposed measures will
> deliver "a brutal amount of pain" to the country. As
> economist Paul Krugman has said, the "severe austerity" now
> demanded of Greece "will have a strong depressing effect on
> an already depressed economy."
> 
> In some ways the economic situation in Britain is of greater
> consequence than that in Greece. The other day someone
> described that country as a heart patient in urgent need of
> a transplant. They just had an election in the UK and, on
> its eve, Andrew Wander wrote in Aljazeera, "Analysts say
> that this election will mark the dawn of an era of austerity
> unlike anything seen in the country for a generation, with
> higher taxes and drastic cuts in public spending needed to
> fund efforts to balance the nation's books." He went on, "If
> Britain is not seen to be dealing with its mountain of debt,
> the country could lose its triple-A credit rating and with
> it the trust of the financial markets whose investment in
> government bonds keeps treasury coffers full.
> 
> "If that happens, the results could be even more harmful
> than a recession sparked by spending cuts; demand for UK
> bonds could collapse and the UK could end up facing a Greek-
> style cash flow crisis."
> 
> Wander reported that Mark Littlewood, the director of the
> Institute of Economic Affairs, "believes that British public
> sector strikes are `quite likely' as the cuts kick in, and
> he is not alone in predicting political problems for the
> next government." Furthermore, "Mervyn King, the governor of
> the Bank of England, is said to believe that whoever wins
> this election will be out of power for a generation because
> of how tough the austerity measures will need to be."
> 
> "Innocent Greeks are facing years of austerity," Ruth
> Sunderland, business editor of the Observer (UK) wrote this
> last Sunday. "People will have their pay slashed, lose their
> jobs and be forced to wait for years longer to draw the
> pensions they were promised. Dreams and aspirations will be
> ground into the dust.
> 
> "In London and New York, the plight of Greek families fails
> to stir the faintest compassion in the cold-eyed speculators
> who have been feasting on their distress before moving on to
> their next prey in Spain, Portugal or Italy. And despite the
> revision of views on Black Wednesday, there is no guarantee
> that this bout of speculation will turn out to be for
> Greece's benefit in the end.
> 
> "In the UK, we have good reason to be afraid of the jackals
> stalking global markets. Our situation is a long way from
> being as dire as that of Greece, but the election result has
> left the markets nervous about more political turmoil and
> whether there will be credible plans to reduce our deficit.
> If and when the speculators turn their attentions our way,
> we can be sure they will act mercilessly, with no regard for
> the human misery of lost jobs, home repossessions or
> emptied-out pension plans."
> 
> Quiet as it's kept, there is a much bigger picture here and
> it contains some sinister implications. Poul Nyrup
> Rasmussen, president of the party of European Socialists
> (PES), which coordinates Europe's socialist, social
> democrat, progressive and labor parties, says the EU's
> conservative majority is, in fact, punishing Greece,
> subjecting it to "the nation-state equivalent of
> waterboarding" and is out to "dismantle core social
> standards." Writing in the Britain's Guardian May 7,
> Rasmussen said the continent's conservatives are "trying to
> use these kinds of austerity measures to force through
> social cutbacks across Europe."
> 
> "This is but a cynical attempt to roll back fundamental
> social standards. It does not even make financial sense as
> it would force thousands into the grey economy - one of the
> structural causes of the crisis in the first place - or even
> worse, would force them into abject poverty," Rasmussen
> wrote.
> 
> In most of the rest of the world the prescribed method for
> dealing with the system's crisis is referred to it by its
> proper name: austerity. The media in our country seems to
> have an aversion to using the term. But that's what it is
> when, in order to deal with the economic malfunctioning, you
> cut education budgets and fire teachers, enact special taxes
> that hit working people hardest, reduce services for the
> indigent and threaten to reduce or eliminate retirement and
> medical programs for seniors. It comes down to who, in a
> pinch, is going to be required to lower their living
> standards, and which individuals and families are expected
> to lead more austere lives. There is a political crisis in
> most of the industrialized capitalist world because thing
> are getting tough for the lower end of the economic ladder
> while vast fortunes are being amassed at the top.
> 
> There is nothing even remotely equal about the sacrifices
> people are being asked to make at the present moment. The
> financial arrangements being worked out for Greece don't
> involve aid for Greek workers and the middle classes being
> squeezed by the economic crisis; its purpose is to rescue
> the banks - the local ones and the other European banks that
> hold Greek debt. This will seem familiar to anyone who has
> looked on as troubled financial institutions on Wall Street
> have been bailed out and are again raking in profits while
> the unemployment rate rises and more and more people are
> evicted from their homes.
> 
> "In truth, the very foundations of the global neo- liberal
> system, which emerged from the Reagan-Thatcher inspired
> capitalist economic blitzkrieg of the last 25 years, is now
> discredited," wrote John Palmer in the Guardian May 7. "The
> EU as a whole also needs a new economic philosophy based on
> green and sustainable growth and which encourages social
> cohesion and not short-term economic growth, reduces
> excessive dependence on the financial and carbon energy
> sectors, and which actively promotes greater social
> equality. The time to strike out in a new direction is now -
> before it is too late. Where Europe leads, the world may
> well now want to follow."
> 
> Try telling that to Thomas Friedman. The New York Times
> columnist - of late earth fame who will never have to worry
> about where his next meal is coming from or whether he will
> have a roof over his head - is quick to endorse the idea
> that the task in our country is, as he put it Sunday, to
> "cut public sector pay, freeze benefits, slash jobs, abolish
> a range of welfare entitlements and take the ax to programs
> such as school building and road maintenance." And all the
> while, we can be sure new billionaires will arise, poverty
> increase and economic inequality grow. Now that's something
> to look forward to.
> 
> [BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is
> a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National
> Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence
> for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a
> healthcare union.]
> 
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