Via ekathimerini / Zero Hedge :
About 160,000 jobs will be lost this year in the commerce sector, according to the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) as the constant decline in disposable income has led to a sharp drop in turnover and a steep rise in the number of enterprises shutting down.
The jobs to be lost concern 60,000 employers and 100,000 employees in the sector, ESEE expects. Given the data for a 6.2 percent fall in household consumption in 2011 and the Eurostat forecast for a further decline by 4.3 percent this year, ESEE warns that soon Greece will be in a condition of absolute poverty.
Vad som gör detta sorgligt är att det går omkring kostymklädda herrar under beteckningen IMF-delegater och leker Allan med budgeten för Grekland. De leker så mycket så de plötsligt inser att de gått för långt och då kan det låta så här från Poul Thomsen som är ansvarig för IMF-delegationen som förhandlar i Grekland:
I share the frustration of many Greek officials that much of the criticism from abroad overlooks the fact that Greece has done a lot, at a great cost to the population. While much still needs to be done, Greece has already come quite a long way. Failing to recognise this will not help mobilise support for the programme.
In this regard, I think that officials – myself included – need perhaps to be more sensitive to ensuring that we send a balanced signal when we say that the programme is off-track
Buhu! När man läser detta ska man ha i åtanke att IMF är en organisation som har en väl dokumenterad erfarenhet av vad deras sparpaket orsakar, inte minst deras räder i Afrika. Vill man kan man läsa en artikel från The Guardian/Observer från 2001 där Joseph Stiglitz beskriver hur IMF jobbar i ett fyrstegsprogram:
Each nation’s economy is analysed, says Stiglitz, then the Bank hands every minister the same four-step programme.
Step One is privatisation. Stiglitz said that rather than objecting to the sell-offs of state industries, some politicians – using the World Bank’s demands to silence local critics – happily flogged their electricity and water companies. ‘You could see their eyes widen’ at the possibility of commissions for shaving a few billion off the sale price.
After privatisation, Step Two is capital market liberalisation. In theory this allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money often simply flows out.
Stiglitz calls this the ‘hot money’ cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation’s reserves can drain in days.
And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation’s own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.
‘The result was predictable,’ said Stiglitz. Higher interest rates demolish property values, savage industrial production and drain national treasuries.
At this point, according to Stiglitz, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: market-based pricing – a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls ‘the IMF riot’.
The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, ‘down and out, [the IMF] squeezes the last drop of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,’ – as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots.
…
The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and tear gas) cause new flights of capital and government bankruptcies This economic arson has its bright side – for foreigners, who can then pick off remaining assets at fire sale prices.
A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers but the clear winners seem to be the western banks and US Treasury.
Now we arrive at Step Four: free trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank, which Stiglitz likens to the Opium Wars. ‘That too was about ”opening markets”,’ he said. As in the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American and Africa while barricading our own markets against the Third World ‘s agriculture.
In the Opium Wars, the West used military blockades. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade, which is just as effective and sometimes just as deadly.
Stiglitz has two concerns about the IMF/World Bank plans. First, he says, because the plans are devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology, never open for discourse or dissent, they ‘undermine democracy’. Second, they don’t work. Under the guiding hand of IMF structural ‘assistance’ Africa’s income dropped by 23%.
Did any nation avoid this fate? Yes, said Stiglitz, Botswana. Their trick? ‘They told the IMF to go packing.’
Stiglitz proposes radical land reform: an attack on the 50% crop rents charged by the propertied oligarchies worldwide.
Why didn’t the World Bank and IMF follow his advice?
‘If you challenge [land ownership], that would be a change in the power of the elites. That’s not high on their agenda.’
Nu väntar vi bara på att Portugal ska genomlida 4-stegsprogrammet. Sedan får vi hoppas att europas folk kan komma på ett eget en-stegsprogram för att göra sig av med IMF en gång för alla annars blir det ett globalt 4-stegsprogram.
Gonatt!
Källor:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_01/02/2012_425579
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/greece-warns-it-will-soon-be-condition-absolute-poverty
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2001/apr/29/business.mbas
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