Following Up on Greece

I cross-posted yesterday's The 1%'s European Coup over at DailyKos, where it generated quite a bit of commentary.  In reading some of those comments this morning, I came across a number that took issue with my characterization of exactly what happened to Greece.  I addressed these points in a lengthy comment of my own, but it occurred to me to cross-post that additional argument/data here as well.


I originally had left out this information because I thought yesterday's post was getting long enough as it is, but I do think that this additional data supports my contention that Greece's debt problems arose because its wealthiest citizens simply refused to pay their taxes.  The comment I posted up over at DailyKos and the additional supporting information are both below the fold.

The 1%’s European Coup

The last thing the world needs at a time like this is democracy.  That is what got us into this mess in the first place.  People wanting stuff, and voting for people who said they’d give ‘em that stuff, without showing they’re working. 

            --Comedian Andy Zaltzman to John Oliver

            The Bugle, Ep. 173a

           

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Harold Meyerson wrote about “The Growing Tension Between Capitalism and Democracy.”  Meyerson pointed out that

Over the past year . . . capitalism has fairly rolled over democracy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Europe, where financial institutions and large investors have gone to war under the banner of austerity, and governments of nations with not-very-productive or overextended economies have found that they could not satisfy those demands and still cling to power. The elected governments of Greece and Italy have been deposed; financial technocrats are now at the helm of both nations. . . .  It’s as though the markets throughout Europe have had enough with this democratic sovereignty nonsense.  (emphasis added)

Essentially, Meyerson is arguing that the entwined financial system of the Eurozone now gives “financial technocrats” more power to dictate any particular Eurozone country’s fiscal policies than that country’s own citizens have. 

But as much as Meyerson’s description should be enough already to give one pause, I think framing the situation in this way actually understates the significance of what we are witnessing:  a European political and economic coup by the global 1%.

Nationalizing the Banks Looks Better and Better

If Germany would just write them a check, that would solve the problem.  But the German taxpayer is asking, ‘why are we using our hard-earned tax dollars to prop up these profligate countries?’  Seventy percent of the German electorate is against bailouts.  It’s not like the United States where there’s a commonality of purpose and a vision of national unity.

                                                --Desmond Lachman,

                                                in an interview w/Ezra Klein

Oh, that comment made me laugh so hard that I spit out some of my morning tea.  A “commonality of purpose and a vision of national unity?”  In a country where:  (i) a sizeable percentage of the population – including one GOP presidential frontrunner – casually tosses around the notion of states seceding from the union whenever they’re unhappy with the federal government; (ii) the states themselves (in the words of former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm) compete to attract business away from each other in a race to the bottom in terms of workers’ wages, benefits, rights, and working conditions, and, of course, low, low corporate tax rates; and (iii) the only animating force in the Republican party is a visceral hatred for anybody who isn’t them?  That’s the country referred to as being bound by a sense of purpose and national unity?

Oy vey.