At the end of years of disagreement the International Monetary Fund and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis agree that Greece’s debt is “unsustainable” and that “austerity” does not help. Point is that Varoufakis shouted it from February to beginning of July 2015, while the IMF came to this conclusion just recently.
Thursday evening, spokesperson of the IMF, Gerry Rice tweeted:
IMF’s Gerry Rice: “No more austerity for Greece.” pic.twitter.com/pRExHQg3lH
— Gerry Rice (@IMFSpokesperson) February 9, 2017
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that everyday life in Greece is unsustainable and that the country’s European creditors are going after the “little people” rather than “corrupt oligarchs”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the 55-year old economist said that the country has been put on a fiscal path which makes everyday life “unsustainable” in Greece.
“The German finance minister agrees that no Greek government, however reformist it might be, can sustain the current debt obligations of Greece,” he said.
Wednesday evening, Wolfgang Schaueble told German broadcaster ARD that Greece must reform or quit the euro.
“A country in desperate need of reform has been made unreformable by unsustainable macroeconomic policies,” Mr Varoufakis said.
He said that “instead of attacking the worst cases of corruption, for six years now the creditors have been after the little people, the small pharmacists, the very poor pensioners instead of going for the oligarchies”.
On the other hand, earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Greece’s debts are on an “explosive” path, despite years of economic reform. The IMF insists that Greece’s debt could become sustainable with lower primary surplus and further cuts in pensions with parallel lowering the tax base this taxing the poor.
How this is not austerity for the Greek people is a miracle to me.
KTG’s article put Twitter on fire, Yanis Varoufakis commented:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://twitter.com/keeptalkingGR”>@keeptalkingGR</a> They always agreed with me behind the scenes. But at the same time they kept quite in the Eurogroup. Cowardice galore.</p>— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) <a href=”https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/829980957004427264″>February 10, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
PS question remains: what to do next.
Although Varoufakis is right and has always been right, there can be no solution to the Greek drama unless the country stops being governed by treacherous Quislings on Wolfie’s payroll.
I would be careful about this. Seems to me this is just another communication exercise in damage control. Reuters is reporting today that the Euro zone lenders and the IMF have reached agreed between themselves to present a common stance to Greece and that they will ask the country to take 1.8 billion euros new measures til 2018 & another 1.8 billion after 2018 to include further cuts in pensions and parallel lowering of the tax base. How is this not austerity? You can put lipstick on a pig and on a slug, but they still look like Schaeuble and Dijsselbloem.
KTg reported last week about Schaeuble-Thomsen agreement to maintain pressure on Greece + measures. Im talking about the IMF’s wording here
I’m fully aware of the Schaeuble-Thomsen agreement of last week. But it was an agreement “in principle.” We now now what these principles are: 1.8 billion euros in new measures until 2018 & another 1.8 billion after 2018 that will include further cuts in pensions and parallel lowering of the tax base. How is this different from anything that what was proposed before? The wording is immaterial. Focusing on the wording and not on the actual measures is like grasping at shadows and missing the substance. The IMF will no longer refer to the program for Greece using the word “austerity.” So what? They’ll use words like “debt sustainability” instead. But whether it’s called “austerity” or “debt sustainability” for the average Greek the substance remains the same: more taxes, more cuts, less services, and a further loss of sovereignty (as if it could lose any more). Unfortunately, at this point I can’t see what could save Greece except a massive turn to the left of the EU, which I don’t think is in the cards.
Or a massive turn to the Right, which would probably be more constructive.
As Margaret Thatcher once said: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”
I think it would be difficult to get further Left than the EU parliament is anyway, unless you’re going for the Mao Zedung model, with all that implies.
Ermm, NO to all that. Let’s get a few thing straight. The EU Parliament is not Left; it is a mix of politicians from all political grouping, with far too many fascists in it, in fact. So you can stop that nonsensical claim. Secondly, you quote one of the most destructive people in UK politics in recent decades — and one of the most ignorant about economics. It is lsrgely her legacy that has resulted in the poor in the UK being so oppressed that they have turned to the far right in desperation, blaming Poles and other EU workers for their low wages and poor jobs. Thirdly, a shift to fascism is whst is happening now — in the UK and the USA in particular. There are also hints in northern Europe of such a trend. I cannot imagine anyone being so stupid as to think that fascism is going to do any country, or any decent person, anything other than extreme harm. This is not a hypothetical argument: it is the history of the world. Try reading some.
Yes, cause Marxism ended well for a lot of people. Not. Millions died in gulags or in front of firing squads because they “didn’t get with the programme”. More so than fascism I would say (I know you will go now on your usual rants). Remember, also fascism had it social programmes and if you look at the social programmes of Le Pen and Wilders then you will see they entail a lot of spending and little on providing the funds for that.
Some of Marxism other brilliant plans apart from centralizing the economy and everything else in society and life: agricultural policies that starved million in Ukraine (for political reasons). Pseudo agricultural science that said that individuals of the same species don’t compete for nutrients and resources. Result: millions starved to death in China.
Any collectivist system whether that is left, right or religious (and they are usually very conservative) is wrong.
You are a fascist. Plain and simple. I knew that your lies about statistics were intentional: this is the game of the far right, to deny facts and make up lies.
~
And my comment above is merely stating that the EP is not left at all. Of course, to Nazis everything must look very left.
The lowest common denominator. Name calling from loony left when you don’t agree . Fascist racist and nazis on rotation. Perhaps expand that mini mind as well as your vocabulary
Fascism is not a name: it is a belief system. Presumably you too support it. And there are plenty more words in my vocabulary, I can assure you. I find your comment laughable.
Again your usual games of name calling. You simply cannot deny that Marxism killed millions of people for wanting to be free.
And you are a Marxist yourself. You fit right in there with the Weather Underground crowd, SJW, etc. etc., well known for their intolerance, militancy, violence and calling everybody that does not agree with you a fascist in order to demonize them. Such hollow phrases void of any intellectual content.
You were the one fixing the statistics youself and lying about it for your own narrative and then you call yourself an expert.
More far right garbage from you? For your information, I do not consider many people in Greece or the UK today to be “free”. Only the stinking rich and some politicians have much freedom — as in the old communist bloc countries.
And as I keep telling you on this topic: it is about whether the European Parliament is full of Lefties or not. Your determination to ignore the topic and push your far right agenda is well known to us here.
I don’t ignore the topic at all. I respond to the poster by saying that the EP is not just left wing. Scroll down below. I just responded to your babbling. And comparing the UK and Greece to “old communist bloc countries” shows that you really don’t have any comprehension of what the latter countries were all about. I don’t see anybody in the UK and Greece sending people in these countries to the gulags or to “re-education centers”.
What is well known here is your intolerance, rudeness, militancy, name calling, and distortion of the facts.
You don’t see anything at all, other than your own arrogant opinions. I repeat for the hard of thinking: there is no freedom for the poor in the Uk and Greece. Just stop your right wing trolling.
Blahblah, fascist, blahblah, right wing, blahblah, neonazi, blahblah, . You sound like a broken record that can’t come up with sound argumentation so you just resort to name calling.
SJW pseudo intellectual blahblah with the usual intolerance.
Anti-fascism is the new fascism.
This last saying is exactly Anti-Antifa bullshit-lingo, and totally outdated – 5 years old. So now you come here chewing bubble gums the real Nazis don’t use any more?
btw “Communism” of the Bolshevists was just social-democratic shit, real revolution destroys the state complete as the state and all states are the enemy of the people as it helps power to exist, and power makes every body crazy
Well said joe. Someone’s not getting Christmas card this year. Or is that a pagan holiday and haram
I see that the fascists are congratulating each other…
You all don’t understand that there is no god but you and all other gods are the enemy
Austerity is the classical liberal method of recentralizing economic planning. I’m not sure how Mao Zedong comes into it, I have not seen proletarian nationalist marches in europe, quite the opposite. There has been a deep schism between reality and ideology, but then again the EU has always had that, especially since the euro. The Tatcher quote is also revealing how ignorant she was on economic matters, conflating money and private property is amateur economics, she should have read an accounting textbook instead of her Hayekian and Friedmanite magical thinkers. Look at the UK’s private sector indebtedness over a 50 year period. The “self regulation” doublethink of the Tories has been most profitable for the upper echelons of its constituency. Now the the post-war created EU is doing the same thing by force, by the Germans, through a apparently genuine leftist party, for supposed economic reasons. You simply can’t make this shit up.
The CDU (Merkel’s party) is right wing — centre right, if you like. The economic problems of the EU come from the neoliberal right — and have nothing to do with left politics.
One would need Diogenes’ lantern to find a true leftist in today’s EU Parliament and then some. For the majority of the so-called leftist politicians there, being a “leftist” is nothing more than a label even as they pursue and promote neoliberal policies worthy of the most right wing parties.
Agreed. But Yankees of the rednecked variety are still obsessed with Reds under their Beds — and consider all of the EU to be some sort of communist threat to the world, what with our socialist healthservices, free higher education (everyone knows that you should be stinking rich to go to university) and even unemployment benefits for people out of work!
The “Better dead than Red” refrain is not the exclusive property of the Yankees. The Golden Donkeys among others also see a Red scare in any program that’s slightly left of Adolf. Nor is the definition of what constitute a “red” limited to the EU. You hear people tell you with absolute certainty that the Bern (Sanders that is) is a fifth column commie spy planted in Vermont by Trotsky himself. The Bern…really? He would qualify with difficulty as a lukewarm socialist in Europe.
Well, she did not exactly use these words but something similar in response to questions of some journalist when she became head of the conservative party. She said regarding bringing down Labour:
“I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money”.
Rogue capitalists of course runs out of future generations’ money. Labour also got on board that programme with Tony Blair. The traditional Left came forth out of the unions and the labour movements. The New Left came out of college and never experienced the poverty their parents had known.
The EP leftish? Mwah, there are different factions but to me they seem to be a bunch of yes men and yes women cashing in on those nice salaries and per diems. Remember, the MEPs cannot not initiate new laws, only the EC can do that and only a few commissionars actually. And only if that fits the agenda of Junckers. And the EC is in the pockets of big businesses and lobbyists.
The real danger are big collectivists systems, whether they are left, right or religious.
now,what do you think you are doing KTG?
You are standing against the ND-PASOK-POTAMI dogma that Varoufakis caused damage to Greece.
Please do not treat Varoufakis favorably lest the idiots revolt, none of whom has ever dared post an article.
last evening there was a very interesting -useful-impartial discussion by 3 economists in Kontra channel.Here is the link for those interested to listen. It is in plain language and easy to understand even for adonis