Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Economic Slash and Burn, Greece’s Deadly Austerity Measures

Economics / Economic Austerity May 07, 2010 - 05:03 AM GMT

By: Global_Research

Economics

Binoy Kampmark writes: The Greek government, and its citizens, are feeling the economic pinch. A brutal reaction to protestors who fear the winding back of the country’s social system has stunned visitors and the public alike. A general strike has been in progress that has crippled schools, hospitals, airline flights and ferries. Protestors have swarmed around the central square in front of Parliament.


On Wednesday, an assortment of violent groups began to dominate the protesting camp and began hurling rocks and casting gasoline bombs that set fire, according to the police, to the Marfin Egnatia Bank that left three workers dead due to smoke inhalation. It might well have been worse, given that twenty workers had been trapped. Many were not sure who these black clad individuals were. Anarchists, came the common view, were starting to take over proceedings and dictate the tune.

International aid is often premised on shackling recipient states with strict programmes of brutal measures. Shape up the system on receiving the cash, or search elsewhere. The begging hand can’t, chants this aid chorus, be so particular. The regime of the International Monetary Fund is renown for its Stoic measures and brutal imperatives on monetary policy. Experts have been mulling over the prospects that the IMF might well have shed its neoliberal skin to become a rather different, more perspicacious animal. An IMF Staff Position Note from February 2010 by Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard and co-authors Giovanni Dell’Ariccia and Paolo Mauro promises to found ‘the contours of a new macroeconomic policy framework.’ However, the Fund’s emphasis remains clear in the Note: ‘to achieve a stable output gap and stable inflation.’

This would suggest that the IMF is still only concerned about short-term issues of stability.

In a sense, one cannot entirely blame them, given the staggering hopelessness of the Greek state in managing its finances. A degree of toughness might well be in order. Government inefficiency and ineptitude inevitably reaps the whirlwind when it comes to paying back its dues. The Greek public is understandably terrified, after being regaled with promises of wealth membership of the Eurozone was going to give. As Dimitris Papageorgiou, a bank worker at the Bank of Greece told the Wall Street Journal (Mar 12), ‘Who is at fault? It’s the foreign speculators and the useless policies of the previous governments.’

As the bloody drama was unfolding outside the Greek Parliament, various hands signed the papers that cut pensions and initiated tax hikes on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol. Civil service entitlements have been cut and pensions in the public sector frozen. The cuts are meant to trim a ballooning debt and save about $US45 billion over three years. But they have propelled the worst riots in years. And that, given the famous Greek record on street protest, is saying something. Not since 1991, where five people died in riots directed against the education bill, has Greece seen this.

The Prime Minister George A. Papandreou has stepped up the government offensive against the protestors who have, he claimed, lost their moral initiative. ‘A demonstration is one thing, murder quite another,’ he told a stunned Parliament, who observed a minutes silence for the victims.

European markets have reacted negatively to the bloody turn of events. The Euro is edging further downwards. More chaos is promised. As Greece mourns, the country awaits the next dark chapter to unfold.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures in politics and law at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Global Research Articles by Binoy Kampmark

© Copyright Binoy Kampmark , Global Research, 2010

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in