Public Opinion

"...public opinion deserves to be respected as well as despised" G.W.F. Hegel, 'Philosophy of Right'

Greece: bleeding to death? « Previous | |Next »

October 12, 2011

Officials from the 'troika' – the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank – have indicated that Greece has done enough slashing and burning to receive its next €8 billion payment under its bailout loan in November. The Greek government has raised property taxes levied through electricity bills, unprecedented lay-offs in the public sector, unveiled plans to cut the salaries of 30,000 public servants by 40 per cent and cuts and to their pensions. This secures the funds Greece needs to cover public payments.

The fiscal medicine being meted out to the over-borrowed nation requires even yet more belt-tightening next year and that means more austerity and pain for the Greek people. At this point the fiscal medicine is akin to the ancient medical practice of bleeding white a sick man with leeches. Almost all patients died, but nobody questioned the doctor's authority. The German and French banks are happy: Greece is ready to pay the money they owe the banks even if that means not paying the pensions they owe to their own citizens!

How much will the Greek people take of this bad medicine before they revolt, rather than protest?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:37 PM | Permalink

| Comments (5)

Comments

Apparently Tony Abbott is bleedin' all over the place also today.

Sorry, off topic, but I couldn't resist.

Posted by: fred | October 12, 2011 4:00 PM

It's not completely off topic. As the Coalition kept on pointing out the emissions trading scheme after an initial fixed-price period was done during difficult global economic conditions--a possible a re-run of global financial crisis-style conditions as a result of the current European economic upheaval .

Pushing through the reform has damaged Gillard but she is still standing.

Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson | October 12, 2011 4:26 PM

Re: the link 'still standing".

Blimey that was a classic piece of anti-Gillard propaganda by Annabelle Crabby wasn't it?

I normally avoid her stuff like the plague.
That article is one of the reasons why.

Posted by: fred | October 12, 2011 6:33 PM

The message coming out of Europe and adopted by the OWS movement... "No. We will not pay for your crisis"

How long can you continue to punish the victims?

Posted by: mars08 | October 12, 2011 11:17 PM

It's not meant heal people, by the use of antibiotics, leeches or anything else.
It is about the visible tip of global (ised) capital's polite ransacking of Western society, so it
IS true that leeches are involved, but these are of the two-legged variety.
Probably the one thing "fair" about this is, that it begins to put most of the rest of us into the same category as those in third world places, although we are as yet really only figuratively flayed alive, unlike round the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, where the reality is a dog's death through disease, war or malnutrition.

Posted by: paul walter | October 13, 2011 9:15 AM