APNewsBreak: Greek creditors recommend loan payout

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EUROPE_FINANCIAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-20-06-51-33

BERLIN (AP) -- Greece is getting its hands on the next batch of bailout loans, according to a draft of a debt inspectors' report obtained by The Associated Press.

Although the inspectors said Greece has missed its targets to get borrowing down and that the pace of reforms were insufficient, they said Athens will get euro8 billion ($11 billion) of bailout loans so the country can avoid bankruptcy.

The inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund also said Greece's debt dynamics remain "extremely worrying."

Greece has been relying on a euro110 billion ($152 billion) package of rescue loans since May last year.

[Ken Burch]

1. Given that hundreds of thousands of Greeks were put out of work for no reason

(and that few if any of them will get jobs again, and that more will be put of of work in the future)
that the wages and pensions of hundreds of thousands of others have been massively cut(and will never be restored to their previous level, and that more people will have their wages and pensions cut in the future)and that the social welfare state in Greece has now been massively reduced (with few if any of the cuts to ever be restored with many more to come in the future),will any good at all come to the people of Greece from this "payout"? Clearly, PASOK(the "socialist" party that leads the Greek government)has forever lost the right to call itself socialist or social democratic, and equally clearly, that party should now do the decent thing and dissolve itself.

Basically, everything that was of any value in Greece, everything that made it, in any sense, a civilized society, is now gone. It will never again be anything but a playground for the foreign rich. The Greek people will never have any dignity again. It wasn't worth saving the Greek economy if it has to be a permanently right-wing economy. No one who isn't a millionaire now in Greece will ever have anything to live for, really.

The Greek government should have told the bankers to fuck off, and mobilized the workers to build a new economy that wasn't at the mercy of any foreign financial overlords.

[xchrom]

2. i'm waiting to hear news that they sell off their first island. nt

[Ken Burch]

3. Not out of the realm of possibility, actually.

Clearly, the picturesque ones will be turned exclusively into vacation fortresses for international ceo's.

Now Greece, "the birthplace of democracy" won't even be a democracy anymore. Elections from here on in will simply be a discussion of which big, right-wing party will best administer the permanent austerity regime. Obviously, if it's just going to be privatization and wage cuts and layoffs from here on in(as it will)we can assume nothing progressive at all will survive in Greece. Humane values and cuts never go together.

There was no excuse for making the Greek people suffer for a fiscal crisis that was caused almost entirely by foreign financial criminals.

[xchrom]

4. I totally think you're right. Nt

[peacebird]

6. Will the Greek people submit to more "austerity", or will the Greek govt be overthrown?

[dkf]

9. Doesn't matter who is running the Govt. They've already ceded their sovereignty for the bailout.

It's either go with austerity or go it alone.

[dkf]

5. They need to find an equilibrium of what their economy can support.

I think they should go it alone too...Default and start from scratch. They will have so many people out of work that they need to see the level of assistance they can provide based on the taxes they collect.

[badtoworse]

7. You mean actually live within their means

What a novel idea.

[dkf]

8. It's tough.

[Ken Burch]

10. The problem isn't the PASOK government not "living within their means"

(btw, this is a progressive site and "living within their means" is s right-wing corporate dominance meme). The problem is that the previous conservative government of Greece lied about the financial situation and that government's supporters in the internattional finance trade went into collapse, thus causing a massive decline in revunues to the Greek treasury.

I'm guessing you'll be blaming "lavish" social programs, pensions people can actually survive on, and the nefarious power of Greek unions before you accept the fact that international capitalism caused the mess that capitalism is now using as a justification to impose massive and unjust sacrifices on the Greek people.

Keep drinking the Fox News koolaid---it can help wash away the taste of "free market" bullshit.