The Greek people can hardly complain when this greek government (right-wing)
tries to accept the capitlistic approach of the IMF/EU. They had the chance only
a few months ago to elect a party (Syriza) into Government that wanted to put
Greek people first and they decided against it. They will now have to pay the
price. Just as the Greeks led the way with Democracy over 2500 years ago,
they should now be taking the first steps of overhauling systems put in place to
ensure the continuation of Capitalism, by letting the "rule of the people"
rather than the "rule of the creditors" such as Germany and other countries of
the European Union decide. Although the measures, such as extending the working
week, supposedly only apply to Greeks in a dysfunctional economy - the aim is
clearly also to remind those at home, e.g. fellow Germans back home or in the UK
for that matter, that work is the only way to save yourself. Instead, Greece
should take advantage of this symptom of global financial mismanagement by those
in 'power', and set it's own agenda for the "good of the people". Well, half
of so called Europeans (the term is BS) (by "you" I mean non-Greeks) wanted for
people to vote Syriza and the rest, especially the creditor countries, were
"pushing" for the same old governments, by literally starting a campaign (or
propaganda) of fear. So, damned if we did and damn if we didn't. You don't care
now, others would not care if it was the other way around. Big whoop....I say :
Greece will have to exit the Euro and return to the Drachma - with all the
extreme pain this will lead to (making the current situation look like a
picnic), but long-term, it will have to reform its labour laws and skills base,
in order to compete with the likes of China, Germany and Eastern Europe
(regardless of its currency). Borrowing to maintain a good standard of living is
no longer an option.
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Greece has a German Governor - Horst Reichenbach - there is no "troika"
The Greek people can hardly complain when this greek government (right-wing)
tries to accept the capitlistic approach of the IMF/EU. They had the chance only
a few months ago to elect a party (Syriza) into Government that wanted to put
Greek people first and they decided against it. They will now have to pay the
price. Just as the Greeks led the way with Democracy over 2500 years ago,
they should now be taking the first steps of overhauling systems put in place to
ensure the continuation of Capitalism, by letting the "rule of the people"
rather than the "rule of the creditors" such as Germany and other countries of
the European Union decide. Although the measures, such as extending the working
week, supposedly only apply to Greeks in a dysfunctional economy - the aim is
clearly also to remind those at home, e.g. fellow Germans back home or in the UK
for that matter, that work is the only way to save yourself. Instead, Greece
should take advantage of this symptom of global financial mismanagement by those
in 'power', and set it's own agenda for the "good of the people". Well, half
of so called Europeans (the term is BS) (by "you" I mean non-Greeks) wanted for
people to vote Syriza and the rest, especially the creditor countries, were
"pushing" for the same old governments, by literally starting a campaign (or
propaganda) of fear. So, damned if we did and damn if we didn't. You don't care
now, others would not care if it was the other way around. Big whoop....I say :
Greece will have to exit the Euro and return to the Drachma - with all the
extreme pain this will lead to (making the current situation look like a
picnic), but long-term, it will have to reform its labour laws and skills base,
in order to compete with the likes of China, Germany and Eastern Europe
(regardless of its currency). Borrowing to maintain a good standard of living is
no longer an option.
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European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is expected to flesh out his plans on Thursday for a bond-buying programme he announced in August, although few economists polled by Reuters expect he will reveal its innermost workings. Economists in the Reuters poll were divided, though, over whether the bank will cut its main refinancing rate from 0.75 percent to a new record low of 0.5 percent this week. An October rate cut instead looked equally likely. Heaping further pressure on policymakers and likely adding to expectations for a cut, the PMI for the region's dominant services sector fell to 47.2 from July's 47.9, below a flash 47.5. It has only been above 50 once in the past year. New business has declined for a year, despite firms cutting prices for the ninth straight month, with the sub index coming in at 44.7 - just above 44.5 in July but revised down from a flash 45.0. As the downturn intensifies, firms reduced their workforce again in August, with the composite employment index registering 47.5, above July's reading of 47.2. The index has been below 50 since the turn of the year. "Sharp declines in new orders at manufacturers and service providers, plus further job losses, mean that there is little prospect of a sustained improvement in economic conditions over the near-term".
How many times do I need to explain that this relentless drive for increasing “competiveness” that is supposed to be *the solution * to debt is simply a downward spiral for wages and effective demand. Whether you decrease wages, social wages or increase the productivity of labor (produce more output with same or less wages) to increase competitiveness, the net effect is that you damage the ratio of wages to economic output, you damage effective demand and the health of the economy. And then you have an economy which becomes addicted to injections of unsustainable debt which are absolutely needed to achieve a reasonable level of activity - otherwise unemployment grows at unacceptable levels. This is the problem of the global economy today and the neo liberal "competitive's" still tell us streamline, produce more with less wages, cut wages, cut government spending, give more profits to capital and the problem will be solved. No it won't. You simply slowly kill global demand - the downturn has reached the Finnish economy now.
The troika (the European commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund) demands (leaked email) increased hours of work for Greece) six day week etc, yet Greeks already work the most hours in Europe on average (OECD figures), the problem instead is productivity. Increasing work hours will not change this. It may even make the disparity worse. So why make such demands? It is like an abusive parent who has lost the plot and can only think of crude reward and punishment as methods of childcare. Are there real gains to be made from such an approach? If, across Europe, workers entitlements were removed, as is being proposed (the troika apparently wants to dismantle the labor inspectorate in Greece too) the general idea is that this will boost 'profitability'. If, however, the most profitable labor is not in the nation with the longest hours worked, this still makes no sense. Skilled, and so more expensive, labor is cheaper in relation to productivity (as Marx notes). The problem, then, is that investment into productive activity is not happening by those who have the wealth. The expansion of capital has stalled, or at least fallen below the level necessary to service debts, and the blame is falling on the real wealth creators, the working class, and not the pseudo wealth creators, the investors (the bourgeoisie). The pseudo wealth creators (e.g. dealers in fictitious capital) have looked around at who to blame for the crisis, and can only conclude that it is either themselves, for not investing wisely or at all in production, or those who they exploit, and they come, naturally, to the latter conclusion.
The falling rate of profit cannot be stopped by cutting workers benefits and rights, it may make a small difference one way or the other, but this is not the source of the global problem; however, treating it as the source of the problem produces a political effect (more than an economic one), it becomes the increasing authoritarian way the economic measures (the 'punishments') are imposed. And Greece is the ideal place where the 'logic' can play out due to its specific conditions: the corruption of the state apparatus which makes it something like the corrupted state of the final years of the Soviet Union; socialism can be blamed here, which is politically useful to the ruling class in a situation where socialism may be increasingly proposed as the genuine answer.
This stupidity has to be fought or we are going to slowly slide, by default, to a destination that nobody sensible wants. - Or, is it that the adherents to troikan austerity have already made this calculation and are merely acting protectionist in fear of the same logic being imposed on them, on the northern economies? If so, such an attitude will not prevent it. I can only conclude from this that the motor of the politics of the crisis is the fear and protectionism of the wealthy, translated and disguised in troikan politics as the programs of cuts. The cuts are not rational, they are emotional and political, and they divert attention from the real problems, they are a manifestation of class hatred, of the battle between classes, and the effort of bourgeois democracy to keep this struggle hidden under the rhetoric of the very universality (democratic capitalism means rights and freedoms) that its measures are undermining, - so contradiction, and the result of this contradiction will be strife, conflict.
"Europe's nations should be guided towards the super-state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation." Jean Monnet, Founder of the European Movement. Former Cognac salesman and bureaucrat at the League of Nations. 30 April 1952
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