LOOTING GREECE A New Financial Imperialism Emerges

$19.00$24.95


Back Cover

Looting Greece examines how and why the Syriza party ended up agreeing to a deal much worse than its political predecessors in 2010 and 2012. Placing the Greek events of 2015 in broader historical perspective, the book argues a radical new neoliberal initiative in Europe has emerged.

“In this brilliant book, Rasmus shows that the EU is a finely honed device for looting its poorest members of their wealth and their democracy.” PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

 

 

 

Description

SYNOPSIS

Looting Greece examines how and why the Syriza party, which took power in January 2015 promising to end eliminate debt, end austerity, and return Greece to economic growth, ended up agreeing to a deal much worse than its political predecessors in 2010 and 2012.

Greece’s debt crisis is primarily non-Greek in origin, and largely the consequence of the creation of the Euro and its monetary system. It is also non-governmental in origin, as Greek private debt was transferred into public debt after the crash of 2008-09 and the series of Troika debt restructuring deals that followed.

In the new 2015 debt deal, pensions are reduced even more than before, retirement ages raised, temporary pension restorations of early 2015 for the poorest rolled back, workers’ right to strike and collectively bargain further limited, mass layoffs now made legally possible, more government workers and teachers may be laid off and have their wages cut, taxes are raised on households, farmers and small businesses across the board, and social safety nets further shredded.

To additionally pay for the $98 billion in new loans from the Troika―more than $85 billion of which will go to pay previous debts to the Troika and European bankers―sales of Greek public assets are expedited and the list of projects to be ‘privatized’ even further expanded.

How the Euro Troika bureaucrats effectively subdued and conquered Greece economically, in the process destroying its democracy, is traced in a series of articles written from February through August 2015 as the Troika and Syriza negotiated over debt and austerity. Why the Troika set out to destroy Syriza and how Syriza ended up destroying itself are discussed, as well as how the respective strategies and tactics of both parties resulted in a final agreement in August 2015, which was not only worse in austerity terms compared to previous deals, but established new arrangements for ensuring debt repayment that are unique to recent debt deal restructuring.

Placing the Greek events of 2015 in broader historical perspective, the book argues a radical new neoliberal initiative in Europe has emerged: in the 2015 debt deal the Troika will now directly manage Greece’s economy―running its banks, writing Greece’s budget, vetting and replacing government ministers, exercising veto rights over Greece’s parliament and Executive agencies, dictating its taxes, and implanting ‘Troika Commissars’ to watch over and approve day to day decisions of Greek government at all levels.

Looting Greece explains how a new kind of financial imperialism is emerging in Greece, Europe’s periphery, and soon elsewhere.

Book Details

Publish Date

2016

Page Count

312

ISBN

978-0986085345

Ebook ISBN

978-0-9860853-5-2

Author

Jack Rasmus

Options

eBook, Paperback

Author

Jack Rasmus

Reviews

3 reviews for LOOTING GREECE A New Financial Imperialism Emerges

  1. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

    “In this brilliant book, Rasmus shows that the EU is a finely honed device for looting its poorest members of their wealth and their democracy.”
    PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

  2. Aaron Amaral

    “in writing such an analytically clear, historical account of the European and Greek debt crises, Jack Rasmus also has made a valuable contribution… Rasmus does a good job of showing that this trade deficit was caused neither by higher wages to the Greek working class nor by escalation in Greek consumer spending. Rather the debt was driven up by European Union and ECB policy, in the interest of European capital… Looting Greece is a thoughtful post-mortem on the experiment of Syriza as a government of the left in Greece. Bittersweet, but worthy of the experience.”
    Aaron Amaral, New Politics

  3. Bob Jessop

    “an analytically clear, historical account of the European and Greek debt crises. It emphasizes the centre and periphery relations between the North and South of Europe in the European Monetary Union (EMU) institutional framework, which reminds us of the interwar gold standard regime. It is an interesting contribution.”
    Bob Jessop, Capital & Class

Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.