Debtocracy Page #3

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Manolis Glezos - historical figure of the Greek Left

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From the time of the Revolution of 1821,

our country

started borrowing.

And it's been borrowing ever since.

With one exception.

During an extraordinarily "happy" period,

Greece managed to become a lender.

During the German Occupation,

Greece lent to Germany.

The Germans forced Greece to become

a lender instead of a borrower.

After the German Occupation ended,

the country resumed its traditional role;

that of a borrower.

And national debt as we know it,

started to rise in the 1980s.

The high levels of national

borrowing in Greece

relate to Greece's

social and class structure

and the form the Greek economy has assumed

over the last few decades.

It has to do with the Greek state's

systematic inability

to implement an effective and fair

system of taxation.

(History of Greek sovereign debt)

Andreas Papandreou created

the necessary welfare state

without increasing corporate

and high income taxes.

He saved jobs by nationalizing

loss-making private companies.

Primarily though, he saved

the companies' owners.

Public deficit and sovereign debt

increased dramatically.

Mitsotakis government continued to borrow.

The Maastricht treaty imposed world markets

as the only mechanism for deficit control,

prohibiting other means of money creation.

Debt skyrocketed with the highest

increase rate in Greek history.

Kostas Simitis was luckier.

Creative accounting,

the fall of European interest rates

and economic growth were on his side.

This way, he was able

to conceal the bomb

that he placed on sovereign debt.

During his premiership,the percentage of

debt seemed to decrease slightly.

Kostas Karamanlis decreased

capital taxation by 10%.

The economic free fall accelerated

and debt exploded once more.

Most countries in a similar situation

were visited by the IMF.

But none paid as dearly

as Argentina

Greece's mirror image

on the other side of the Atlantic.

Argentina fell into the debt trap

at the same time as Greece

in 1824, with the first British loans.

But the noose tightened

towards the end of the 20th century.

Argentina locked the rate

of its peso against the US dollar.

This made it impossible for them,

to exercise a monetary policy.

Argentina experienced

its own Eurozone.

Only, instead of Berlin, they were up

against Washington DC.

M. Camdessus - IMF Managing Director, 1987-2000:

At the same time, the IMF

turned the country into...

yet another experimental laboratory

for Neoliberalism.

(Excerpt from the documentary film The Take)

Avi Lewis - Film-maker / Journalist:

Gerard Dumenil - Economist

After Argentina's economic

collapse in 2001...

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