{"article":{"id":272207,"heading":"Greece: Approving Its Own Death Sentence","author":"Stephen Lendman","created":"2015-07-18 09:28:36","modified":"2015-07-18 09:28:36","last_modified":"Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:28:36","article":"<p>Greece: Approving Its Own Death Sentence <br><br> by Stephen Lendman <br><br> Two earlier bailouts failed. Repeating what didn't work expecting a different result is the clearest definition of political and economic insanity - creating even greater debt peonage impossible to resolve without defaulting or demanding creditors take major haircuts. <br><br> Even then, recovery and restoring economic growth won't happen while trapped under Eurozone straightjacket rules - preventing Greece from controlling its own monetary and fiscal policy, as well as its currency able to devalue to stimulate exports. <br><br> Fascists running things pretending to be social democrats care only about their own self-interest - what best serves them at the expense of millions of suffering Greeks and a death sentence for its economy. <br><br> Legitimate governance is absent. Puppets running things serve themselves and their Troika masters in Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington.  <br><br> They have a lien on an entire nation and its people. Its painful watching democracy's birthplace being raped, pillaged and economically destroyed for profit - its own government permitting it.  <br><br> It's worse knowing the harrowing toll on ordinary people - suffering hugely under corrupt, uncaring officials, disgracing themselves in the process. <br><br> Greece is a laboratory, its people lab rats, monied interests seeing how far toward thirdworldization they can push things - all the way their goal, then on to more targeted developed countries, already suffering under neoliberal harshness heading toward harder than ever hard times for ordinary people. <br><br> The aim is thirdworldizing Europe, America and as many other developed and developing nations as possible - making them all look like Guatemala, Haiti or Bangledesh, their populations impoverished, their workers transformed into serfs earning sub-poverty wages with no benefits. <br><br> Bailouts on loan shark of last resort terms assure greater unemployment, poverty, deprivation and economic decline toward oblivion. <br><br> A previous article explained Greeks have a choice - rebel, leave or starve. Neoliberal harshness is toxic poison - transferring wealth from ordinary people to super-rich ones already with too much. <br><br> At the same time, suffocating economies as part of the wealth transfer process - preventing sustainable growth and development. <br><br> The new normal is imposing deplorable conditions on societies - raping and pillaging them for profit at the expense of human pain and deprivation. <br><br> Governance by domestic or foreign creditors is financial tyranny - entrapment under a slow-motion humanity destroying system, inflicting enormous pain and suffering longterm for profit. <br><br> Greece is in a \"death spiral,\" says economist James Galbraith. At best, it's \"limp(ing) along in stagnation&hellip;\"  <br><br> A possible worst scenario is \"an economic death spiral - contraction leading to banking failure&hellip;leading to (more) contraction first in Greece\" then elsewhere in Europe. A no-win situation. A sinkhole of failure. <br><br> Insolvent Greek banks are headed for collapse - sustained temporarily by Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) until the ECB decides against throwing more good money after bad into a black hole of failure, letting them close down, \"this time for good,\" says Galbraith. <br><br> Depositors will lose whatever they have left, besides what's taken if bail-ins are imposed, forcing haircuts on private accounts. <br><br> The end game involves repudiating Troika mandates, defaulting on all odious debt, exiting euro bondage, becoming independent, regaining monetary and fiscal control, restoring the drachma, enduring a period of hard times, then beginning a slow process of stabilization and recovery under worse economic conditions than already. <br><br> An alternative is return to rule of the generals - military instead of financial dictatorship, a dire future either way until rebellion forces change. <br><br> Greece is a model for what people elsewhere will face without sustained resistance to prevent it. <br><br> Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net\" rel=\"nofollow\">lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net<\/a>.  <br><br> His new book as editor and contributor is titled \"Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.\" <br><br> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanIII.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanIII.html<\/a> <br><br> Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.  <br><br> Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. <br><br> It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. <\/p>\n","contact":"lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net","link":"sjlendman.blogspot.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Greece","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2015\/07\/272207.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}