Greece at the Feet of the Market God

“Why were the banks, rather than Greece, bailed out in 2010? Why was Greece asked to change its ways and accused of reckless borrowing, rather than the banks accused of reckless lending?” Chris Arnade, The Atlantic

I’ve been thinking about Greece for the last week, trying to wrap my brain around what has happened to that country at the hands of European bankers and their government enforcers. Greece has debts it can’t possibly repay, not now, not five or ten years from now, and the solution imposed by European banking interests is more austerity, more cuts to pensions, and wholesale selloffs of public assets. If it sounds like a familiar solution that’s because it is the standard formula for making sure financial interests – we can call them elites – get their due, no matter what. Similar action was taken in the United States, in the once thriving manufacturing city of Detroit, Michigan.

Why is it that bankers can make reckless loans they know can’t be repaid and suffer no negative consequence when that is exactly what happens? We get moralizing about lazy and slothful Greeks and the moral hazard of cancelling their debts. The lazy and slothful must be taught a lesson no matter how painful the learning is to the young and the elderly, the hungry and the homeless. We, the prudent and productive, reserve the right to dictate how you will set your shaky house in order. The first essential lesson is that you must worship at the altar of the infallible Market God. You will look to the Market God for answers to all the critical questions of life itself, it boils down to measuring, quantifying, and slapping price stickers on all human activity. Got it?

The financial elites have rigged systems all over the globe to socialize losses and privatize gains. This is why the world’s richest people and corporations get richer while more and more people get poorer. It’s a sadistic arrangement that feeds on itself and now pervades every aspect of our lives. It’s the reason medical care in the United States is a privilege, not a right; it’s why major corporations exploit prison labor; it’s why the wealthy and politically-connected legally avoid paying their fair share of taxes; it’s why “democracy” is a façade, a charade we go through periodically to legitimize a system that enslaves and impoverishes us.

The Greek people overwhelmingly rejected austerity. European financial interests ignored the will of the people. Elites ignoring the will of the masses is the story of our time.