The Greek DEBT is paid (in other words Written Off)

The Greek DEBT is paid (in other words Written Off)

“Everybody realises that Greece cannot repay its debts” Soros said last week in an interview in Spiegel. “No” says the government, the “debt is viable” we will pay it. But only this give us an extension until… 2064!

As they told us how far the fairytale goes let us summarise: Apparently everything that is being suffered by the Greek people so as to reduce the debt we are in reality experiencing the following:

In 2009 the public debt was 129% of GDP, but in 2014 (in accordance with the  budget) after four years of ceaseless barbarity, after two MoU, after endless laws and measures of brigandry, after taxes, thefts and ‘haircuts’ the debt is to explode to 177.5% of GDP.

In other words 50 points more as a percentage of GDP than when they allegedly started to reduce it!

 Chart showing the debt after four years of the MoU and the Troika

This downward spiral is not about to stop. It won’t be stopped by the Memorandums. The Memorandums and the Troika don’t reduce the debt. They never had this aim. They ‘feed’ the debt.

The govt’s allege they take out loans (create MoU) as the country has debts. Lies! The plutocracy gets the loans. The always increasing loans are burdened on the people.

This isn’t a Greek peculiarity as according to Stiglitz via this process, the indebted countries gave to their creditors for the repayment of older debts in the period between 1984-2000 the astromomic amount of $4.6trillion

Characteristic example which comes from the 1980’s decade and is shown by accounts from the World Bank: In the beginning of 1980 the debt which 109 “indebted” countries had was $430billion dollars. Despite the fact that until 1986 they had paid interest of $336billion dollars at the end of the same year and they had ended up owing more than $880billion. During a six year period they owed a number double what they had originally borrowed, whilst at the same time they had paid back in interest 4/5 of the original debt.

As such, in every previous accounting of debts we had “interest collecting mechanisms which were paid over and over at least 20 times”

Development of Debt in the Eurozone as a % of GDP

As shown by yesterday’s Eurostat report, the politics of the reduction of the debt has led to an increase in the debt of all the states, members of the Eurozone.

The politics of austerity, with MoU and Troikas or without, utilises the debt as an excuse for new reductions in wages, for new reductions in pensions, for new increases in taxes, for a general sellout, for the abolition of every understanding of workers rights. Continuing (with or without MoU) the same politics, the politics of the MoU, they don’t minimise the debt. They increase it, they multiply it.

The above aren’t a result of some ‘mistake’. In the case of Greece there has been no ‘mistake’…

The debts and deficits (or the surpluses) are part of the public wealth which is produced by the sweat of many. They are, in other words, part of the complete public wealth which a selected few take constantly. The loans which provoke the debts (they never went) to wages and pensions of workers, as ridiculously asserted “that we all ate together”. They return almost in totality to the creditors and usurors! They never go (they never went) to Health and Education. They go to the banksters, the shipowners and the capitalists who use it for their businesses and recapitalisations. The loans never went to the non existent Welfare State. They go to cover the gaping holes of tax avoidance, tax breaks, subsidies towards the oligarchy. They are going for a massive party which is otherwise known as the Olympiad, otherwise known as submarines which permanently bend and is constantly known as NATOist armaments.

The overindebtedness constitutes (usual for capitalism) tactic of the oligarchy via which capital secures sources for its own liquidity, and consequently continues to add its own borrowings on the people.

That’s where the loans went. That’s where they originate from. That is what the Greek people pay. They pay for it indefinitely.

 

The above facts and relative graphs which show the costs and the imposition of interest, for the maturity of bonds debts etc were in the budget of 2013 (page 133)

Proof:

1.      From Maastricht onwards, in other words in the last 20 years, the Greek people has paid to domestic and foreign usurers and profikteers the astronomic amount of E772.9b

2.      Only in 2000 and forward after the entrance of Greece into the Eurozone the Greek people had paid interest for long term loans the amazing amount of E400 billion. In the same period for the maturity debt interest of bonds we have paid E240b. In total E640billion

On the one hand, the state and governments are borrowing astronomic amounts with which the activity of the capitalists is secured. On the other side the people are paying for the activity of the capitalists and the state over and over again. With interest!

It is clear what is happening:

The Greek people so as to make ‘viable the debt’ a debt which was provoked and ‘eaten’ by others have paid in the last 20 years interest in the region around One Trillion Euros and now for the viability of the debt must live without wages and pensions, without work, without rights so until 2020 will have paid the same as much. Even when this is paid – in 2020 – they will ‘owe’ even more (if the scenario of Mr Stournaras for a 50 year bond) will be paying this until 2064. Then they will tell him they owe that much more.

Therefore from the previous if something originates as a debt from the people is the following:

The actual ‘debt’ of the people is identical with its existence, to be organised to resist and write off the debt which has been paid not only twice but thrice and they ask for it to be paid by our children and our grandchildren and that this already paid debt will never finish!

If something originates as a political conclusion is that this endless horror will never cease with an extension of the debt nor with haircuts nor with accounting tricks as to which is the good and which is the bad debt, which is odious and which not. The whole of the debt is odious and primarily it is already PAID. From a peoples that didn’t benefit but paid it!

It’s up to the people therefore to impose the political decisions which will ensure the paid debt is written off.

Postscript:

If our view is ‘dogmatic’ we will then quote a paragraph from an article (of the non-dogmatic) ‘Kathimerini’ of the last Sunday:

“Two famous economists who were associated in particular with the crisis in the Eurozone, the Belgian professor of the LSE Paul De Grawe and the Chinese lecturer of the University College of London Ms Yuemei Ji in a joint work, studied the facts and ended with this conclusion:

“An inheritance of poverty will be the non-viability of debts (…) Amongst the cases which they use to defend their conclusion is Italy Portugal Spain and naturally as you have understood our country. If we assume that Greece pays interest not greater that the rhythm of annual economic growth for the debt to be reduced to 90% of GDP they will require between 22 to 50 years depending on the annual budget surpluses. They will require 50 years for the budget surplus to be 2% annually, for 30 years for it to be 3% and for 22 years for it to be 4%. This will mean the imposition of extreme austerity for 22 years or heavy austerity for 30 years (but nevertheless austerity) or less extreme austerity for half a century for 50 years…”

Nikos Bogiopoulos