Draconian measaures on Greece by the EU. ( Archived) (381)

The Greek people voted against austerity but that is what the financial masters have told them they must have.
The Greek government has been instructed to pass austerity legislation forthwith.


I rather expect our referendum (Britain) about the common market will receive a similar fate and will be skewed to the political decision of the government.

Why bother with these referendum if they are only going to be ignored anyway???

And the sell off continues.

The Tories took office without a mandate, but with no lack of confidence. Their agenda, which had emerged since 2008, was to represent the crisis of global capitalism as a crisis of public sector spending. Having already privatised the Tote and announced the sell-off of Northern Rock, with other nationalised banks to follow, they have indicated that Royal Mail will be sold off, along with probation services, roads, large sectors of education and the NHS. Even sections of the police, traditionally an ally of the right, will be privatised. Outsourcing will be extended into every possible area.

But, as in the 1980s, the aim is not primarily to reduce public-sector borrowing. The Tories know that ongoing economic crisis is not just a fiscal or financial problem. The private sector is utterly stagnant. Globally, there are trillions of pounds being retained by corporations who see no viable avenue for profitable investment. US companies are holding on to $1.7 trillion, eurozone firms sit on 2 trillion euros, and British firms have £750bn doing nothing. Accumulation-by-dispossession is one way to get that money into circulation as capital. And while the Conservatives are not as ideologically confident as in the 1980s, the scale of their proposed privatisations suggests they expect to over-ride any opposition.

In historical context, privatisation seems to answer a number of dilemmas for the Tories. By spreading market incentives, it erodes the public sector basis for Labourist politics. By opening the public sector to profit, it gets a lot of capital into circulation. And by reducing the power of public sector workers, it suppresses wage pressures, thus in theory making investment more appealing. Above all, perhaps, in shifting the democratic to market-based principles of allocation, it favours those who are strongest in their control of the market, and who also happen to represent the social basis of Conservatism.

The IMF has come out and said that the new deal is highly unsustainable, that growth projections for Greece in the deal are unrealistic, and that they will not be party to a new deal unless Eurozone finance ministers and leaders look at the debt sustainability issue.
The split between the beliefs of the IMF and the other Troika partners was talked about quite a bit during Ireland's bailout too. Most commentary highlighted that the IMF was the institution that was easier to talk with and was open to suggestions. The EC/ECB were extremely difficult.(I was surprised when Tspiras actually wanted the IMF out)
It is clear that the EC/ECB have mishandled Greece since the start. It has become a national political issue in each country. And it is for this reason that the EU is doomed. There remains very little citizen backed legitimacy for these institutions.

And Britain and British taxpayers will not be too happy if the EU fund(EFSM) is used to bail-out a euro-zone country which seems likely. Brexit becomes very likely if that happens. Why should British sterling taxpayers bail out countries who are using a nonsense currency, the Euro?