And what a generous offer those crafty Germans have come up with.
Seventy years after loosing the Vermacht on the hapless Greeks, the Germans want to take the country over again, but this time with an army of smart guys in suits.
According to the Financial Times, this latest bandaid for the never-ending euro-crisis would involve giving Greece new loans to pay off the old loans, thereby saving the banks who are too big to fail and the careers of the many bankers who are too smart to make mistakes.
The Greek "crisis" did not spring up overnight. Greek debt accumulated over many years as foreign banks routinely approved decisions to continue buying Greek debt. Such decisions are taken by well educated and very well remunerated bankers, who in a sane world would now be held to some measure of accountability for their decisions.
But in the too-big-to-fail world of international banking the smart guys never make mistakes, and the Greeks can continue to poke new holes in their belts as they cut back further and further to ensure that the bankers come out with their profits intact.
The new money will allow the Greeks to save the German banks, at least for the time being, but, as one would expect in a deal offered by the Germans, it comes with rather nasty conditions attached. Most onerously, it would oblige the government to pay it's debt obligations first before any normal government expenditures.
In other words, paying interest to German banks would take priority over domestic spending on frills like education, health care, pensions for the elderly, and whatever is left of the already strained social safety net.
What's in this for the Greeks? The right to borrow even more money down the road, to increase their indebtedness to the same too-big-to-fail banksters who have them in the corner already.
Good for the Greeks for saying no. It's time the smart guys in suits are held accountable for their mistakes.
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