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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJohn Perkins on How Greece Has Fallen Victim to "Economic Hit Men"
From the lips of a man who knows the game.
What was your reaction when you first heard about the crisis in Greece and the measures that were to be implemented in the country?
In the case of Greece, my reaction was that "Greece is being hit." There's no question about it. Sure, Greece made mistakes, your leaders made some mistakes, but the people didn't really make the mistakes, and now the people are being asked to pay for the mistakes made by their leaders, often in cahoots with the big banks. So, people make tremendous amounts of money off of these so-called "mistakes," and now, the people who didn't make the mistakes are being asked to pay the price. That's consistent around the world: We've seen it in Latin America. We've seen it in Asia. We've seen it in so many places around the world.
This leads directly to the next question I had: From my observation, at least in Greece, the crisis has been accompanied by an increase in self-blame or self-loathing; there's this sentiment in Greece that many people have that the country failed, that the people failed . . . there's hardly even protest in Greece anymore, and of course there's a huge "brain drain" - there's a lot of people that are leaving the country. Does this all seem familiar to you when comparing to other countries in which you've had personal experience?
Sure, that's part of the game: convince people that they're wrong, that they're inferior. The corporatocracy is incredibly good at that, whether it is back during the Vietnam War, convincing the world that the North Vietnamese were evil; today it's the Muslims. It's a policy of them versus us: We are good. We are right. We do everything right. You're wrong. And in this case, all of this energy has been directed at the Greek people to say "you're lazy; you didn't do the right thing; you didn't follow the right policies," when in actuality, an awful lot of the blame needs to be laid on the financial community that encouraged Greece to go down this route. And I would say that we have something very similar going on in the United States, where people here are being led to believe that because their house is being foreclosed that they were stupid, that they bought the wrong houses; they overspent themselves.
The fact of the matter is their bankers told them to do this, and around the world, we've come to trust bankers - or we used to. In the United States, we never believed that a banker would tell us to buy a $500,000 house if in fact we could really only afford a $300,000 house. We thought it was in the bank's interest not to foreclose. But that changed a few years ago, and bankers told people who they knew could only afford a $300,000 house to buy a $500,000 house.
"Tighten your belt, in a few years that house will be worth a million dollars; you'll make a lot of money" . . . in fact, the value of the house went down; the market dropped out; the banks foreclosed on these houses, repackaged them, and sold them again. Double whammy. The people were told, "you were stupid; you were greedy; why did you buy such an expensive house?" But in actuality, the bankers told them to do this, and we've grown up to believe that we can trust our bankers. Something very similar on a larger scale happened in so many countries around the world, including Greece.
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geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)to their friends via Greece's corrupt patronage system, failed to collect any taxes on Greece's 1%, and then lied to the EU about their finances.
Anyone making an excuse for the corrupt bastards in the ND and PASOK parties is peddling horseshit.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)BLACK: The same people getting bailed out that have been getting bailed out from the beginning of the Greek crisis, and that is foreign banks. So this money just moves in sort of an elaborate circle from the Troika, which is the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF, through the Greek government, through the Greek banks, and then they pay the foreign creditors. And they pay them just enough that they don’t have to recognize a loss for accounting purposes.
As Michael will explain, of late the big investors tend to be American hedge funds, as opposed to what used to be primarily French banks.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/01/wall-street-and-the-greek-financial-crisis/
hunter
(38,312 posts)... so they bluff and bully and threaten one another as everyone else suffers.
Yet win or lose none of them are going to starve.
The ordinary people they trample and suffocate and starve simply don't matter to them.
If these sociopaths had any common sense they'd have kept the ATM's working and the banks open for all the people who ultimately support their absurdly lavish lifestyles.
Economies are pretty easy to manage. You pump fresh oxygenated money into the bottom of the pond, and skim any scum off the top.
The scum at the top of our supposedly "free market" economies are blocking the sunlight and impeding circulation, turning the lower levels of the pond, those places where most of us live, into anaerobic hells.
You can smell the sulfur.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the US in any way.
There's no one in any position of influence that's looking good here.
appalachiablue
(41,132 posts)
moondust
(19,981 posts)sheds some light on last night's suggestion that lenders may bear a lot of responsibility for what's happening to Greece, perhaps even making a killing floating risky loans to Greece and not being held accountable. "Double whammy."
As for failing to collect taxes on the 1%, maybe the Greek 1% are following the example of American and other 1%ers and stashing their money in Switzerland and offshore tax havens beyond the reach of the tax man.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Competition is so overrated, just pivot toward Feudalism already.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)A cursory review of anything written by Naomi Klein, Matt Taibbbi, Greg Palast or Nomi Prins establishes that beyond all doubt. Then they will hard-sell more loans that can be used to buy the junk securities they have for sale. Apologists for the banksters are working from, let us say, a limited knowledge base.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Yes, let's say that. But we both know what a more accurate description would be.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)the better part of valor. :
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geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)The Greek governments that hired Goldman to do this knew exactly whom they were hiring and what they were hiring them to do.
Greece wasn't the victim of economic hit men. Greece's government were the ones who hired the hitmen.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)And some people have a semi-developed amount of respect for human rights and democracy.
mmonk
(52,589 posts)the confessions of one these former economic hit men. That's the cult of personality politicians hold over many. That is, until they have to pay for it.
