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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Country That Refuses to Bow Down to Western Bankers
http://www.alternet.org/economy/country-refuses-bow-down-western-bankersECONOMY
The Country That Refuses to Bow Down to Western Bankers
The powers that be are getting nervous as other countries consider following Greece's lead.
By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet January 29, 2015
Mario Seccareccia, a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, has been outspoken in his warnings that austerity policies have the potential to smash economies and spread human misery. In his work supported by the Institute for Economic Thinking and elsewhere, he has challenged deficit hawks and emphasized the need for strong government investment in things like jobs, education, healthcare, and infrastructure if economies are to prosper. In the following interview, he talks about why what happened to Greece was entirely predictable, why the Greeks were right to reject austerity in the recent election, and what challenges the country faces in forging a sustainable path forward with the left-wing Syriza party at the helm.
Lynn Parramore: You have long been warning of problems in the Eurozone. What do the Greek elections mean to the debate about austerity and how it impacts economies?
Mario Seccareccia: I actually began warning about problems in the Eurozone even before they launched the Euro in 1999! A couple of years after the adoption, in 1992, of the Maastricht Treaty, which was the initial step in the creation the European Economic and Monetary Union or the Eurozone, I happened to be in Paris for the launch of a book that I had co-edited in French titled Les Pièges de lAustérité (The Austerity Traps) that had been published in November 1993.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)Some of us at the book launch warned of problems that could arise from a European supranational currency and a central bank which was not accountable to any national authority and which would push countries merely to become hostages to the whims of the financial markets.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)These are deliberately manufactured crises, orchestrated by thieves, and standing up to the predators is the only solution.
malaise
(267,845 posts)deutsey
(20,166 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)You can't give in to financial terrorists.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Now THIS is Bi-Partisanship!
calimary
(80,700 posts)That's the asshole who screamed bloody murder that the whole house was on fire and we HAD to bail them out immediately or else! FUCK him.
This is bi-polar. And that's the best I can think of to say about it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)safeinOhio
(32,532 posts)to Iceland and how they are doing after rejecting austerity and charging bankers with crimes.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)You can bet if things were bad there it would be plastered all over the place.
Hotler
(11,354 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)appalachiablue
(41,056 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)in the back of the throat of the Mediterranean. Only Turkey is more strategically located.
The Western countries and NATO have to protect their access to that part of the Mediterranean. Russia lies in wait behind the Black Sea and is already attacking the portion of Ukraine that allows it to enter the Black Sea easily.
Greece has nothing to worry about really in my opinion.
aspirant
(3,533 posts)then Portugal, Spain, Italy saying NO WAY, NO PAY to these criminal banksters, who's next?
Oil plummeting, countries laughing at these filthy banksters, corporations trying to create their own global judicial systems, Obama/Dimon getting bailouts in Cromnibus passed, is their any doubt what's going to happen next?