Can bankers really topple democratic govts? "Greece, Spain,..." (UK Mail)

[WinkyDink]

Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.
In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286480/EU-chief-warns-democracy-disappear-Greece-Spain-Portugal.html#ixzz0qx5PT4LX
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WHY DON'T GOVERNMENTS NATIONALIZE THE BANKS? HOW CAN WE ACCEPT BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY THEM, WHEN GOVTS HAVE THE MILITARY MIGHT?

[NoNothing]

1. What would that accomplish, exactly?

Banks aren't really the bad guys here. The problem with banks is that they don't want to buy government bonds from those countries, because they aren't confident those bonds will be repaid. Nationalizing the banks would solve nothing: so the government owns the banks now. What are they going to do, loan money to themselves?

EDIT: And, it's mostly not domestic banks that are not buying their bonds. What is Greece supposed to do, nationalize the German banks? It would be WWIII.

[WinkyDink]

2. I don't know; I'm just flailing. I simply find it hard to grasp that democracy exists from noblesse

oblige, when once we'd cut off their heads.

WHO OWNS THE COUNTRIES? IS MY ESSENTIAL QUESTION.

[NoNothing]

4. The countries own themselves

But they have also borrowed a lot of money from other people in other countries. Money that is expected by those other people to be paid back with interest. And now, it looks like they may not be able to do that, and those people don't want to loan them their money any more.

Countries own themselves, but they don't own everything on Earth.

EDIT: And this is not really a failure of democracy, any more than it is a failure of democracy that we can't legislate pi to be 3.0. There is only so much wealth in the world - countries cannot simply vote themselves to be wealthier than they *actually are.*

[Catherina]

3. Bankers can topple you out of your home. Same with governments n/t

[blindpig]

5. It ain't 'Democracy' which is gonna collapse, it is Capitalism.

They have built their house of cards and they expect the rest of the world to clean up the mess. More and more people are saying 'fuck that shit'. We are in the same boat as the Greeks, we'd better start acting like them.

[lostnfound]

6. Any attempts to nationalize are punished by the IMF and big capital. nt

[malaise]

7. They've been doing it for decades

Nothing new here.