Greece In Shock As Bankster Cuts Take Hold

Tuesday, October 25, 2011
By Paul Martin

Patrick Cockburn
IndependentUK

Up close, the most striking feature of the reforms being forced on Greece by its international creditors is their destructiveness and futility. The pay cuts, tax rises, cuts and job losses agreed to by parliament in Athens last week will serve only to send the economy into a steeper tailspin, even if it extracted a much-needed €8bn in bailout money from the EU leaders. “Nothing but a lost war could be worse than this situation,” one left-wing ex-minister tells me. “What is worse, no party or political group in Greece is offering real solutions to our crisis.”

On the right, there are similar lamentations. Asked if there is the possibility of a revolution in response to current disasters, Simos Kedikoglou, an MP from the opposition New Democracy party, says, “I wish there could be a revolution.” He argues that a revolution might at least have a sense of purpose and direction but “we are in a state of shock, and the danger, rather, is that we will have a social eruption, because people have lost hope”.

The mass rallies and 48-hour general strike that paralysed Greece last week were a sign of how far Greeks feel the reforms insisted upon by the Troika – the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission – are a recipe for a permanent collapse in living standards. The marches were bigger than before and socially more diverse. Smartly dressed women working for new technology companies and retired bank officials mixed uneasily with garbage and dock workers, but all had a similar complaint: their incomes are being cut past the point where they can make ends meet.

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