Greeks Need to Resist Banksters Expropriation of their National Assets

This story broke from FT.com last night. There is now pressure for Greece to privatize assets. Of course if decent prices are obtained, this action would be acceptable, but that's rarely how this works in practice. These privatizations typically end up as  nothing more than a method for capitalists and their bankster cronies to get assets on the cheap, restructure the institutions and put more wealth into the hands of oligarchs. On general principle, the popular uprisings in Europe should oppose this type of looting.

"European leaders are negotiating a deal that would lead to unprecedented outside intervention in the Greek economy, including international involvement in tax collection and privatization of state assets, in exchange for new bail-out loans for Athens."

Unfortunately, since Greeks probably don't understand the ramifications of this, polls in Greece (if they are to be trusted) show 80 percent favor some form of privatization. Note that 83 percent want Prime Minister George Papandreou to run the scheme,  even though a poll published on May 18 showed 77 percent have no faith in Mr. Papandreou as a Prime Minister to handle the Greek financial financial crisis. The understated term "crisis" should actually be called national destruction.

The reason for this dichotomy may be that at least superficially Papandreou is anti-bankster and a Socialist, so perhaps the Greeks feel he will drive a harder bargain in privatizations. Or correspondingly, he would be in a good position to sell them out. Instinctively, I sense the latter, Papandreou behaves like a lapdog to the troika (European Commission, the ECB and IMF) .  There are even allegations from Parliamentary opponents that he and the government were playing in the Greek CDS  market, selling the stake cheap to a Geneva based hedge fund, and then taking a stake in that fund. Stunning if true. If false, it shows how nasty the politics has become. How Greece would drive a hard bargain without threatening a default to the bankster troika is beyond me.  

The dynamite-strapped drill that is being put in people's heads is that default and bank failure is not an option. This is simply not true historically. Economic history is rife with these default examples (including 19th century U.S.). Within a few years, lending flowed right back to those affected. While this reality is not an option, options are being considered. Somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 indignados hit the streets in Athens Sunday.

Ireland, on the other hand, has another take on this, primarily because at this stage they aren't as far down the debt trap as Greece. Also, from the Der Spiegel: " To ensure its national survival, Ireland should reject the European rescue effort and, instead, accept the failure of its banks as a necessary evil, Morgan Kelly recently said. The renowned professor of economics at University College Dublin knows who would be especially hard-hit by such a step: the ECB. "The ECB can then learn the basic economic truth that if you lend €160 billion to insolvent banks backed by an insolvent state, you are no longer a creditor: you are the owner" Kelly wrote in the Irish Times earlier this month."

For the resistance in any bankster-infected, debt trapped country, it is important to recognize that this is where the rubber meets the road. You will be impacted by austerity and a lower standard of living. There is no way around it. That's what happens when you stand by and let your nation become insolvent, and this is what is playing out in Greece. In due course, this will be played out elsewhere including various states in the U.S. -- and the U.S. itself. Reality is not an option. Protesting against cuts in benefits may be what gets you out on the street, but these tawdry privatizations on the cheap is really where you need to draw the line.  The same applies to still solvent countries like Germany. Don't let your nation be dragged into the tar pit by permitting this bankster bailout funding.