OldFatGuy: This is the new norm around the globe for so called "democracies" as elected officials now represent the interests of the few over the interests of the many.
I agree - though I'll reserve total judgement until the dust settles on what is final. However to reaffirm your point on this issue, from among the
many proposals:
2. VAT reform
The new VAT system will: (i) unify the rates at a standard 23 percent rate, which will include restaurants and catering, and a reduced 13 percent rate for basic food, energy, hotels, and water (excluding sewage), and a super-reduced rate of 6 percent for pharmaceuticals, books, and theater...[almost universal increases]
3. Fiscal Structural Measures
Raise the corporate tax rate from 26% to 28% [i.e. No Austerity for Corporate Interests)
Announce international public tender for the acquisition of television licenses...
4. Pension reform
[lots of cutbacks, i.e. less demand in the economy]
8. Labour market
...legislation on a new system of collective bargaining should be ready by Q4 2015 [i.e. deny collective bargaining]
9. Product Market
Take irreversible steps (including announcement of date for submission of binding offers) to privatize the electricity transmission company, ADMIE...
On electricity markets, the authorities will reform the capacity payments system and other electricity market rules to avoid that some plants are forced to operate below their variable cost...[i.e. serve profit over people]
10. Privatization
To facilitate the completion of the tenders, the authorities will complete all government pending actions including those needed for the regional airports, TRAINOSE, Egnatia, the ports of Pireaus and Thessaloniki and Hellinikon (precise list in Technical Memorandum).
The government will transfer the state's shares in OTE [the phone company] to the HRADF.
Take irreversible steps for the sale of the regional airports at the current terms with the winning bidder already selected.
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Trilarion: If there are different possible ways they should let the debtor decide which to follow. If there is only one way... there is only one way.
Except there are other ways, as was supported by
and [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/opinion/paul-krugman-greece-over-the-brink.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman]others. It's simply the case that the bankers have Greece over a barrel and will exploit every inch they can as a warning to other nations.
I hadn't focused on reading your posts before, as you were mostly engaging with Telika. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt until you quoted me and followed by posting this:
Trilarion: In the end [the IMF] just know empirically and from best practise approaches, what works and what not, and as unideologically as possible negotiate a viable path for the future.
^ I find this absurdly naive and unquestioning. The IMF much like the other large financial institutions push Laissez-faire capitalism - the Greek proposals being a perfectly fine example of this in action (see highlights above). Even Stiglitz, former top brass at the World Bank
criticizes the IMF as serving the interests and ideology of Western finance.
xSinghx: ...Also your characterization of Greek debt as simply irresponsible spending, is exactly as the establishment would want you to do, since it ignores all of the maleficence on the part of the banks. This is
gangster capitalism, a war of economics in which the public is hostage and the prize if not
are the public goods that can be privatized (i.e. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnt1pdZAXs]class warfare). ...
Trilarion: Sure the banks gave them the credit (speculating on a EU bailout in case something goes wrong) and that's why the banks should have contributed more to the haircut of 2012 ... much, much more.
Well at least you're not totally blind.
Trilarion: But apart from that you really cannot make the banks reponsible for the irresponsible behavior of the Greek governments of the last 20 years. The banks haven't lured Greece into a debt trap, the Greeks have done that themselves by spending money which was not their own, the banks only supported that behavior.
Greece was like the addicted drinker and the banks like the alcohol shops. Call me an old school moralist by I rather think it is the fault of the guy who cannot control his consumption than the fault of the shop selling the booze.
Your morals need some questioning. Telika has already pointed out the double standards of your bartender among EU nations but really this was gone over 10 pages prior by both of us:
Telika: there has been a strong populist campaign against greece, simplifying the economic issue, putting all its responsability on some "greek mentality" thing
xSinghx: It seems many aren't exactly hip to the game of capitalism. Money buys influence in politics, those parties then reward capital interests with government spending and deregulation before crisis occurs to which political cover is given for the necessity of bailing out said capitalist interests while at the same time providing a popular narrative and support for cutting social spending. (Win/Win for the capitalist.) Two wars and a housing collapse here in the US may be a different scenario but the narrative is nearly the identical.
Trilarion: I just don't buy the story that the banks bought everyone in Greece to earn some billions of interest and then trusting on the inevitable bailout of the EU. This seems too strange. xSinghx just made that up and it is too far fetched.
I don't buy that straw man either because that's not what I said. Read my quote above more carefully. If you need more detail on how this works,
indulge yourself.
Trilarion: RACISM! (;))
The expression is clearly racist (in the extended cultural definition...
Sigh. This joke is in poor taste as it lightens the actions of others in this thread that have very much acted in a racist fashion. It's also the easy thing to do, to be thoughtless or act without empathy towards others.
