And, finally, as a last nail on the coffin of the European Union (EU), as anything more than the Fourth Reich under a namby-pamby name with a flag of yellow stars on a blue field instead of a swastika on a red, Tariq Ali reports in the London Review of Books that the Greek debt is, in large part, a German debt. The dashing and handsome former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis—what’s with the Greeks and not voting for ugly politicians?—yes, Varoufakis said that, street riots notwithstanding, which usually invites military intervention, coups are a thing of the Greek past because banks have replaced tanks.
He was right and wrong.
Right because banks toppled democracy in Greece; specifically the German and French banks holding a lotta Greek debt.
But he is wrong because, in the past 10 years, French and German arms industries bribed Greek governments to buy their weapons before they become obsolete in the age of drone warfare. Greece is awash in tanks.
In 2009 Greece spent €8 billion, or 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, on defense. The Greek defense minister went to jail; the French and German companies paid small fines.
The German-paid Western media, like Bloomberg, has railed at Greek tax evasion. And yet, the biggest tax evader is the giant German construction company that runs Athens airport, which has not paid value-added tax (VAT) for 20 years. It owes €500 million in VAT arrears alone. It has refused to remit €1 to the Greek social-security system. Indeed, the aptly named Hoch thieves corporation has a total debt to the Greek government of over €1 billion. Talk about deadbeats…oh, sorry, we’re only talking about Greeks, not Germans, who never paid a foreign debt in their entire 200-year existence.
Ali thinks that Alexis Tsipras was never serious about the referendum and was surprised by the resounding “No” vote. I don’t think so. Tsipras was not aiming for just a bailout. He was aiming at showing the EU and the euro zone for what it really is and thereby lay down the foundation, not just for a “Grexit,” but “Euroexit.”
To survive and thrive, Greece—like Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy—needs the rest of Europe to defect from the EU, so it can do business one-on-one with other independent European economies on a level playing field, instead of one against many on field tilted toward the fattest player—Germany. This is the essence of antitrust legislation. Some players are too big to play and should either be broken up or isolated.
As China keeps telling us, bilateral is better than multilateral. Bilateral is dialogue, and something may come of it. Multilateral—like The Hague—is just spitting in the wind.
At the moment, China is funding the transformation of Ecuador into a major energy supplier to the world. To be sure, the New York Times piece reporting this cautions that Chinese loans and investments come with strings.
Well, Western loans and investments don’t come with strings—they are entirely made up of strings and are served to borrowing countries as a ball of string, which, when strung out, is all string and nothing else inside. Look at any Western loan. Western loans and, worse yet, assistance are entirely composed of “conditionalities,” the chief of which is that the loans or assistance must mostly be paid out as salaries to Western advisers or for purchases of overpriced Western equipment.
2 comments
of course all lenders aim to profit or get something on top of the amount owed, and for debtor – well they too wants something that they themselves can’t provide at the moment due to lack of fund.
“As China keeps telling us, bilateral is better than multilateral.” If you are already occupying unilaterally (with arm might behind you) a territory we are disputing, you have lost your credibility? What’s the point of talking with you? Am I a masochist?