One year after the Greek Referendum. One year after controversial Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was shown the way out. One year after a very painful Greek experience. And the book of Varoufakis’ former advisor, US economic James Galbraith who drafter the “Plan B for Grexit” is being presented to Greek audience.
In his book “Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe”, Galbraith reveals in every detail Varoufakis’ plan for moving Greece to a parallel banking system last year – a plan that was not meant to be implemented:
- declaring of a state of emergency
- immediate nationalization of the Bank of Greece and the other banks that would remain close “for unspecific time until the transformation in new currency.
- transformation of euro bank deposits into a New Drachma
- payments of salaries and pensions would be in IOUs.
- emergency measures to keep the public order
According to Galbraith, during the transition phase, the ministries of Defense and the Interior would have been responsible for public order, fuel supplies would be controlled, while employees at important public institutions (schools, hospitals, police) would be mobilized.
Galraith was the coordinator of the team drafting the Plan under “conditions of high secrecy involving secure communications and the depositing of cell phones in hotel refrigerators.”
Varoufakis had established his team of 5 international advisors for the Plan X as he called it in March 2015. The plan was supposed to be implemented in case negotiations with creditors would completely collapse.
Galbraith does not hide his disappointment that the plan was not implemented, and writes that “even though there was a high-level meeting about the plan, the prime minister did not ask to be briefed, so work on the endeavor ended with the submission of an extensive memo in May.”
The book is dedicated to Yanis Varoufakis and his wife.
Basically the book reveals nothing we did not know, apart from some more additional details. Varoufakis himself had spoken about his Plan X in January.
So what’s the point? the book edition in Greek detonates like a “Bomb” – as Greek media write – on the Anniversary of Referendum and stirs for one more time the political landscape here.
The opposition feels confirmed claiming this SYRIZa government has been dangerous all the time. Ex FinMin Evaggelos Venizelos (PASOK) commented that the book “reveals what we escaped from, the society would turn into hell, we’d have issues with violence, problems with basic freedoms.”
Main opposition New Democracy verbally attacked SYRIZA – for one more time.
What’s the point? The Plan was rejected by the PM. So, what’s the point?
As a friend recently commented “it’s the PR that counts.”
PS This afternoon there is a protest on the OXI Anniversary of the Referendum. At Syntagma Square. The slogan is “Fraud Referendum”.
The referendum fraud was approved as non fraud by 19.5% who voted Syriza in September, 19.5% must be the democratic majority in the perfect crime called democracy
Hahaha!!!
What’s the point? The point is that all those neo-communist theories which are propogated on this site lead to disaster.
Face it, you can only spend as much as you earn, be it in Euro or drachma. All those financial tricks proposed on this site won’t work, cause magic doesn’t exist!
You can’t spend/shop yourselfs rich!!!
If economics were determined by such a crass and ignorant idea as “you can only spend as much as you earn”, we would still be living in caves and rubbing sticks together to make fire. You may be foolish enough to believe the propaganda of idiots such as Schaeuble, but that is your problem. If he tells you that the Earth is flat, and the Sun orbits the Earth no doubt you would fall for that nonsense too.
Better trolling please. Go to the bottom of the class.
Yeah, that’s right, bottom of the class, whatever that is.
And yes, that’s right, too, you can only spend as much as you earn, if you can’t cover your expenditures and interest rates you go bankrupt, just like Greece did, yet those commies want to make you believe you just have to spend more and money will magically multiply and everybody gets rich.
Wake up and grow up, Greece, it’s time to act responsibly.
Try reading standard economics theory. Try reading the history of economics. Try listening to people who actually know what they are talking about, instead of miserable old tax-collectors in wheelchairs who think they are smarter than Keynes or any of the world’s great thinkers.
Yes, great keynesian economic theory.
In theory Greece should be prosperous right now with all that spending you did, instead all you really have is record debt and a failing economy.
But ok, schaeuble has it all wrong
Keynes did not factor in corruption of Greek proportions, that is why Greece is not rich.
As 2 billion came from German companies it’s more German corruption that made the overpriced tanks, the yellow submarines and the Olympic Games so expensive.
If you think that standard economic theory tells governments to spend money, then you are even more of a right wing idiot than you appear. Keynesian demand management was not relevant for Greece when it joined the eurozone: an investment and taxation strategy was needed. Keynesian demand management is relevant for both Germany and Greece now, but the half-wits currently in power think that they know better.
~
In essence, idiots and cretins cannot make good decisions because…well, they are idiots and cretins. Like you. The mistake the world has made is allowing such people into politics, when all they are suitable for is 9-5 jobs stacking supermarket shelves. (Even that, Schaeuble cannot do)
That’s right, investment and taxation, yet only spending was done.
Matter of fact is that the same people who propagated government waste before want to continue business as usual.
That’s why it’s actually good Greece has so little money, that way every cent spent now will be well scrutinized.
No one needs a degree in economics to realise the simple fact that an economy can NEVER recover if the impoverishment of the people continues. The only thing required to realise this is a working brain, but I’m afraid that’s what’s missing in the heads of some commentators here (as well as in the heads of leading politicians).
I also wonder about the continuous babble about “communism”… To criticize the current realities and search for alternatives has nothing to do with communism or any other ideology, it is just plain common sense. But well… you can also try to explain this to a piece of bread, the effect would be the same.
Yeah well, Mr Toast, you should know that once upon a time all people on this planet were poor materially, and that some, to different degrees, came out of this poverness by improved technology and productivity, which means work and consumer goods and not by some fairytale central bank or government that just gave out money.
That’s what the communists never understood, they neglected the economy and thus the soviet union went bankrupt.
And people on this website seem to think that, too. Just raise wages and build infrastructure and magically the economy will flourish and people will earn 4000,- a month
It seems you don’t want to understand… We’re not talking about the age of cavemen but of a modern economy crisis. If a country like Greece is hit by such a crisis in a disastrous way which leads to mass unemploment, the decline of infrastructure, loss of any kind of social security etc., how do you think shall the economy recover? People who don’t have any money don’t buy anything. That’s very bad for business. Companies who don’t sell anything will go bankrupt. That’s very bad for the national economy. Companies who go bankrupt will fire their employees and so on, and that’s what we see in Greece today.
Imagine Germany without the Marshall plan – do you really think the country would have recovered in such a way, do you really believe there would have been a Wirtschaftswunder without American money? And was the Marshall plan a communist idea? Rather the opposite.
To search for an alternative way when the present state of capitalism has clearly failed has nothing to do with communism. There isn’t only black and white, the cold war is over. And I’m not saying Greece is innocent, of course there is a long tradition of political corruption (which was always an advantage for foreign companies) and the leading politicians did never really care to turn the country in a modern state. But can you blame 11 million Greek citizens for this? Have you ever been in Greece, did you ever talk to the people? My Greek friends work hard for their money and they belong to the lucky ones who still get along, although things get tougher. And yes, they pay their taxes and they are fed up with getting nothing in return from the state. And by the way, no one demands that everyone should earn 4.000 Euro per month. But how would you feel if you work fulltime for a few hundred Euro and live in a city as expensive as Frankfurt a.M.? This is what happens in Greece and there is no social security, no Hartz IV.
To continue on the current way leads to nothing, you don’t have to be a leftist (or communist as you prefer to say) to realise this.
Bravo!!
Anti-“Communism” remains from last century, discovered internet the last years but they must be very, very old as this sounds like civil-war and concentration camp islands of the fifties when everybody was a commie.
Responsibility? You mean the visionary Morgenthau plan? What about these 80 million hooligans over-population that only exists through imperialism? Be responsible and stop getting resources from corrupt dictatorships, pay 100.000 bucks for a cell-phone, what’s fair with blood-diamonds must be fair with blood-phones too and don’t breed so much, your economic power can’t feed 80 million if it wouldn’t play foul all the time.
And as soon we do it, you will be the first moaning about how evil white peoples boycott starving poor africans. For us it,s easy to swich to another Tantalum source but what will happen with Congo niggers when they lose their only income.
If one holocaust follows another you won’t find no more slaves for your German-Russian decadency and in a few years nobody needs you any more, swine can do better lackey-jobs at touch-screens then.
“Congo niggers”?? I’m afraid you’re hopelessly lost, this is not the website of the KKK. Really man, go and get your medications…
Ermm, actually I cannot believe that he/she/it wrote that! I doubt that there is any medication powerful enough to deal with it. Maybe LSD would work.
In the projects there this lives they’ve LSD in their drinking waters but don’t recognize it
Then why, pray tell, are German Banks lending hundreds of billions to companies, countries, overextended shipping companies and the like. All backed by the tax monies of Germany?
What Galbraith says in the book is nothing short of what a country under siege and attack by Germany and its allies should do. This is exactly what I would have done after the first two meetings with the troika, i.e. in March 2015. First, I would close the banks and nationalise them under a state of national emergency. I would arrange for round the clock army patrols and checks for all and I would have closed access to all forestry areas after sunset – we have seen the forest fires scenario played before…
The country was – still is – at war and war measures should have applied.
Two factors killed the plan: Varoufakis’s naivety not to realise early enough that Alexis and his buddies had a different agenda and were playing him, and, above all, the fact that the game had already been sold, otherwise the January 2015 elections would not have been allowed to happen. Had a change of government been deemed as really dangerous, all that was needed back then was to “persuade” some more MPs to vote for the Government’s candidate as the new president of the republic. Experience has repeatedly shown that Greek crisis MPs can be “persuaded” pretty easily….
Yeah, great, army patrols (which are probably prohibited, internal use of the army) and denying citizens access to their money which is disownment.
Your simplicity of thinking reveals your interlectual level and reminds of the sledgehammer politics of dictatorships which only function through the complete disregard of law and the constitution.
No problem if illegal, you know, Greece gots an army of conscripts who refuse orders which are against the constitution, like defending the fence in Evros against refugees but pl don’t tell your boss, nobody likes headlines like “refugee crisis because Greek soldiers refuse order”
“Schnitzler”… Are you sure you’re name isn’t rather “Schnitzel”? The way you reason, you sound like you’re low on meat (a pea brain pounded wafer thin) and high on breading (a high volume of neoliberal rhetoric). Keep it up Herr Schnitzel.
Reason, don’t rant.
Your insults just reveal your lack of arguements
Let me summarize your arguments for you Schnitzel: “Better dead than red” and “Live within your means.” That’s about the size of it.
Live within your means????
Sooo funny reading that from you when it’s people like you who demand higher wages than the economy can support and more government spending than the country can afford
Every time you open your mouth, you sound more and more like a Schnitzel.
Try to get this few facts through the bratwurst haze through which you view the world: 1) government debt is NOT like private debt 2) The government is NOT a household 3) Blame for debts gone bad should be shared equally between debtor and lender 4) The Greeks cannot pay back what they owe, given that the policies enacted to help them pay back what they owe have resulted in the collapse of nearly a third of their economy 5) Everyone becoming “more competitive” simultaneously in the same currency union is an impossibility 6) Creating a creditor’s paradise of positive real interest rates, low inflation, open markets, beaten-down unions, and a retreating state does not magically create wealth for everyone or do you think the growing inequalities between the haves and the have nots we are witnessing in Europe are also something we should be proud of?
To your points 1-6, just look at REST of the eu and you’ll see that there are tons of examples where exactly those systems work, a least to varying degrees which shows that it’s not a question of viability but of implementation.
Your problem is that you skrewed things up so badly that you are only at the beginning of even trying to get things in order.
Just marvel at countries like Latvia, the Czech Republic, etc. They have just as much as you do, yet they DON’T COMPLAIN!!!
no wonder after 50 years under communism regime.
haha, very true. The incredibly intellectual and educated person above (Greek word beginning Mal…) failed to grasp this!
Within your means also means to stay in your country of dead eyes, means start drilling for oil in your garden and stop exploiting the planet and supporting dictators for resources, if wanna eat be a farmer and do real work, not taking mommy’s money to invest or sitting at a table in an office as this is no real work, only pussies drive engines, get on your bike and pedal. Every time ISIS beheads your car drivers knee-jerk to Mekka for sinking gas prices, within your means would also mean to be honest and rename your gas-stations into ISIS or arrest your car-drivers for supporting terrorism at the gas-stations, 45 million prisoners would boost your prison-industry a lot and the rest one can put there also for criminal waste and mass-murder for smartphones.
Greeks were denied access to “their money” when the Nazis stole it in 1940, and more recently when the Bank of Greece was taken out of political control and linked with the European Central Bank. The key point of regaining control of the Greek economy has been to regain control of the Bank of Greece (minus its assets, stolen by the Troika) and this was a priority of the plan. Tsipras opted for the safe strategy of kow-towing to the Great Powers, as he lacked the courage to go it alone. He also lacked experience of doing anything at all in his career, so not really surprising.
~
Oh, and German asshole: everything the Troika and Germany are doing is illegal. So cut the crap about “disregard of the law”: all of the EU has morphed into a criminal enterprise, with Greece actually conforming to the law better than most.
HAH!!! Really mature, ktg, you let him call me asshole, yet when I curse back you won’t publish my comment along with a logical arguement I made.
Really unbias!!!
Thumbs up!!!
comments with swear will be completed deleted – already started this since yesterday.
Yes, sorry about that KTG. It’s just that there is no other word for people like this…
but think of me having to read 5-10 comments in a row full of swearing exchange. apart form the fact that swearing is: boring
Hi… Just read your comment after I posted mine. Sorry for making you more work with this, but I tried to explain to this gentleman what I meant (if this is possible at all…).
…inventing new also?
To some extent, this is a gender thing. Males get some satisfaction from swearing, which not many women do. Please forgive us… (and we will try to tolerate the female faults — not that there are any, of course!)
of course there are not any female faults. this is not a football playground
I hate football though:-)
After this Weinersteiner-dude who has sex with pigs played foul France is leading 1:0 against Germoney-Reich; even two Turks they’ve bought in can’t help.
FRA beat GER 2-0
Pimped by 2 Turks and 1 Albanian but Mamma Morkel can sleep well now, as German intelligence figured less attractive for too many future citizens
It was much easier or what happened to the tradition that the government supports a member of the opposition for presidency? Manolis Glezos properly felt too old but he would have been the perfect candidate.