Joshua Tells About 1 Sam. Tells About Ruth Tells About Judges Tells About.
150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print
Click here to load reader
-
Upload
deliriousheterotopias -
Category
Documents
-
view
5 -
download
2
description
Transcript of 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print
![Page 1: 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print](https://reader038.fdocuments.net/reader038/viewer/2022100508/55cf8eef550346703b972a4e/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
APRIL 29, 2015
Is Default or Exit Inevitable?
Greek Debt Crisisby JACK RASMUS
This past week, April 24, European finance ministers met in Riga, Latvia. High on the
agenda was the topic of Greek debt negotiations. Two months after the February 28
interim agreement between Greece and the EU ‘troika’—the IMF, European
Commission, and European Central Bank—in which both sides agreed to continue
negotiating—little has changed. In fact, led by its de facto spokesperson, hardline
German finance minister, Walter Schaubel, the Troika’s position has continued to
harden since February 28.
Schaubel and other northern Europe finance minister have continued to insist for the
past two months that there will be no changes in pre-2014 terms and conditions of debt
payments. The Troika and Schaubel have repeatedly demanded as well, that Greece
provide more details to show how it will continue to pay its debt and how it will
maintain previous austerity measures.
In reply, Greece and Syriza point to the various measures they have agreed to since
February 28, as well as what they agree in principle to implement in the future:
pension reforms that limit early retirement but don’t cut pensions ‘across the board’,
selective privatizations that avoid cutting necessary social services but not general
privatizations, tax reform that make the wealthy pay their fair share, and so on.
While Schaubel and the Troika demand Greece abide by the previous debt agreement,
they themselves refuse to do the same. They refuse to release to Greece the US$8
billion in loans due to Greece under the old terms of the agreement. Or to release to
Greece the US$2 billion in interest earned on Greek bonds earned since 2010. In other
words, Greece must adhere to the letter of the debt agreement but the Troika does not
have to.
Schaubel and other hardliners have become especially incensed with measures
introduced since February 28 by the Syriza-led government, which include the
moderating of some of the worst prior austerity measures. Those austerity-reversing
measures include Syriza’s restoration of minimal pensions for the lowest wage earners,
adjustments to the minimum wage for the working poor, rehiring of critical
government workers to provide much needed social services, reversal of some of the
previously planned privatization of public works, as well as the new Greek
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis ... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/29/greek-debt-crisis/print
1 de 5 29.04.2015 13:25
![Page 2: 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print](https://reader038.fdocuments.net/reader038/viewer/2022100508/55cf8eef550346703b972a4e/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
government’s reaffirming the rights of workers and unions in Greece to collectively
bargain—i.e. all measures that the Greek people once had, that were taken away as part
of the loans by northern bankers before 2014, and which Syriza has restored since
February.
The Ghost of ‘Labor Market Reform’ at the Negotiating Table
These measures are particularly annoying to the northern Europe finance ministers
and their bankers, since other European governments have introduced, or have plans
to introduce, many of the very same ‘labor market reforms’ in their countries.
Deepening labor market reforms everywhere throughout the Eurozone is a prime
objective of business interests and their center-right politicians and governments. They
see ‘labor market reforms’ as the key to lower costs of European exports and a main
way to boost their stagnant economies. Thus to allow Greece to restore—what they
themselves are trying to take away elsewhere from other European workers—provides
a strong argument for unions and popular parties elsewhere in Europe to oppose their
own ‘labor market reforms’. Greece and Syriza are in effect ‘sticking a thumb in the eye’
of key plans by European corporate interests by actually reversing labor market
‘reforms’ that were previously in place. More than Greece has always been at stake in
the debt negotiations.
With Syriza’s selective reforms moderating some of the worst austerity measures,
Schauble and other northern European finance ministers and the bankers became
increasingly impatient in recent weeks, even more demanding, and have begun
adopting an increasingly hardline and aggressive tone against Greece and its ministers.
At the April 25 Riga European finance ministers meeting, for example, according to the
business press, the finance ministers were openly hostile to, and ‘ganged up’ on, Greek
finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, repeatedly berating him for not agreeing to their
terms.
European Central Bank (ECB) chairman, Mario Draghi, also joined the attack last
week, warning Greece that “time is running out”, and that he may take actions to put
more pressure on Greek banks by limiting Greek banks’ access to ECB loans needed to
ensure availability of Euros for everyday Greek economic use. Draghi was thus, in
effect, threatening to ‘pull the plug’ on Greek banks and send Greece’s economy into a
tailspin. Just the mention of such a threat by Draghi will no doubt accelerate capital
flight from Greek banks, already a growing problem, thus putting even more pressure
on the Syriza government to concede.
Not to be left behind, the other Troika member, the IMF, also turned up the heat on
Greece last week. The chairman of the big Swiss bank, UBS, reported that the IMF
meeting he attended last week discussed a Greek default. There is now a consensus in
the IMF “that a Greek default would be systemically controllable”. There is apparently
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis ... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/29/greek-debt-crisis/print
2 de 5 29.04.2015 13:25
![Page 3: 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print](https://reader038.fdocuments.net/reader038/viewer/2022100508/55cf8eef550346703b972a4e/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
a ‘Plan B’ in the works to allow Greece to default. With the Eurozone having just
introduced a massive US$60 billion a month ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) money
injection by the ECB, the IMF view no doubt is that, in the event of a Greek default, the
US$60 billion a month provided by the ECB would be sufficient to bail out the losses of
northern European bankers—even if Greek banks and the Greek economy were allowed
to crash. Schaubel and the finance minister hard-liners have also been suggesting that
such a Plan B may be in the works.
Plan ‘B’ and Its Consequences
So what’s up? Is the Troika playing ‘chicken’ with Greece? Is Schaubel playing the ‘hard
cop’ in negotiations, with Angela Merkle the ‘soft cop’, now reportedly meeting with
Greek president, Tsipras, on the side? Or is the Troika seriously considering allowing
Greece to default on its payments, thus cutting Greece off from future short term loans
and funding? (And how about a ‘Plan C’? Would the Troika allow the even more serious
alternative of Greece exiting the Euro?)
Playing ‘chicken’ in negotiations over the debt terms may represent a grand strategic
error on the part of Eurozone finance ministers and technocrats. A default may end up
far more messy than they think. The Eurozone may not be economically in a much
stronger position to absorb a Greek default today than it was in 2010 or 2012, despite
the argument to the contrary raised in various Euro-technocrat quarters recently that is
designed to justify letting a default happen. Schaubel, Draghi and others may be
overestimating Europe’s resources and ability to deal effectively with and contain a
Greek default.
Others have been raising this warning as well, especially with regard to a Greek exit
from the Euro. Sensing that Schaubel and company may be about to lose control of the
situation concerning Greek debt negotiations, Jason Furman, chairman of the Obama
Council of Economic Advisers, recently noted in a press interview while in Berlin that a
Greek exit “would be taking a very large and unnecessary risk with the global
economy”.
But even a Greek default might well prove far more destabilizing than assumed.
Schaubel’s assessment, voiced at a meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations in New
York in April, that ‘the markets’ have already priced in the possibility of default, and
thus a Greek default could be contained, may be wishful thinking indeed. It has been
estimated that more than US$250 billion in assets would be eventually affected by a
default, and no one knows the connections linking these assets—i.e. what are the
possible contagion effects. The memory of the Lehman Brothers default in 2008 is
obviously stronger in the USA than it is today in Europe—hence the Furman public
warning. Privately, US officials are even more concerned than Furman, according to
the business press.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis ... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/29/greek-debt-crisis/print
3 de 5 29.04.2015 13:25
![Page 4: 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print](https://reader038.fdocuments.net/reader038/viewer/2022100508/55cf8eef550346703b972a4e/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
What then are the potential parallels between Lehman Brothers and a Greek default?
Or, even more so, with a Greek exit? In both cases, default and exit, no one knows for
sure with Greece. Any more than they knew with Lehman at the time. Neither the path
nor the magnitude of the contagion effects is clear. The spider web of financial
connections in today’s global financial system is still not well understood. Estimating
the potential psychology of investor responses is almost impossible. And what would be
the political consequences? If Greece left the Euro, would that be a sufficient signal and
excuse for others to do so as well? What would be the economic impact of not just
Greece but another one or two ‘exits’?
Is the Eurozone economy in so much ‘better shape’ today? In terms of stockholders
perhaps. The various Euro stock markets are up by 20-30 percent or more in 2015 as a
consequence of QE. But certainly not the rest of the non-financial, ‘real’ economy in the
Eurozone. It is still largely stagnant at best. Unemployment remains at double digit
levels. Business investment is poor. Bank lending flat. Nor is the Euro banking system
less fragile today than before, contrary to the general view. Meanwhile, something like
half of all government bonds in the Eurozone are now offering negative interest rates?
No one knows how that ‘known unknown’ will respond to a Greek default; or what the
consequence of still more widespread and even more negative government interest
rates might be on the real Euro economy in the wake of a Greek default or exit? Or how
about the effects of default or exit on the Euro currency, and in turn global currency
instability, if Greece defaulted or exited?
The global economy is not growing robustly. China is clearly slowing. Japan’s QE
experiment has failed, boosting stock values but not the real economy. Emerging
markets everywhere are struggling with commodities and oil price collapse, with
currency instability, capital outflow and the effects of eventual U.S. interest rate hikes.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy this week will likely show another quarterly GDP
collapse to near 0-1% growth, the fourth GDP ‘collapse’ since 2009. This is not a global,
or Eurozone, economic environment where a major shock like a Greek default or exit
may have few contagion effects. In fact, quite the contrary.
Despite all this, arrogant German, Dutch, and other technocrats and bankers intent on
retaining the old order of austerity and debt payments in Greece continue blindly to
insist on more of the same, when it is clear that the Greek people and, hopefully its
government, will refuse to continue with ‘business as usual’. The techno-banksters may
just over-estimate their hard ball tactics and get swept up in the ‘Plan B’
themselves—even when they may not initially have planned for that. They pushed
Greece and Syriza to the brink last February 28. Syriza had enough sense to not bring
the crisis to a test at that time. They have bought time. They still have until the end of
June, when the February 28 agreement to extend runs out.
No doubt Schaubel and EC ministers, the ECB and the IMF, think they can push
Greece to the wall again, and another concession will be made. But perhaps not.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis ... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/29/greek-debt-crisis/print
4 de 5 29.04.2015 13:25
![Page 5: 150429_CounterPunch- Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis » Print](https://reader038.fdocuments.net/reader038/viewer/2022100508/55cf8eef550346703b972a4e/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Tsipras has been meeting with Russia. Perhaps also with China. Perhaps Greece has its
own ‘Plan B’. Time will tell. In the interim, the hardliners will become even more
hardline, more obstinate, more demanding. They think they have marginalized and
contained Greek finance minister, Varoufakis. However, they themselves may have
been marginalized. The real negotiations on the Greek debt and the future of austerity
has moved—from Schaubel and company to direct back door negotiations that have
opened last week between Angela Merkle and Alex Tsipras.
Much will depend on the state of the Eurozone economy in late June, as well as on how
well Greece can deal with the increasing economic pressure the Troika will continue to
impose in the interim. The European Commission will continue to withhold funds. The
ECB will continue to put pressure on the Greek banks. And the IMF will continue to
leak details of ‘Plan B’. Greece should plan to raise the stakes in the interim as well
perhaps. After all, there will be no concessions nor any agreement on anything until the
end of June.
Jack Rasmus is author of the forthcoming book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global
Economy’, published by Clarity Press, 2015; and the previous works, ‘Epic Recession:
Prelude to Global Depression’, Pluto Press 2010, and ‘Obama’s Economy: Recovery
for the Few’, Pluto Press, 2012. He blogs at jackrasmus.com.
This piece first appeared at TeleSUR.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Greek Debt Crisis ... http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/29/greek-debt-crisis/print
5 de 5 29.04.2015 13:25