[lbo-talk] Article on Greece

123hop at comcast.net 123hop at comcast.net
Sun Jun 19 21:17:45 PDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Grimes" <c123grimes at att.net>

I don't understand this entire problem.Banks made shitty loans (via bonds) to Greece which they doctored to lookmore valuable than they knew they were, just like the US mortage market.Other banks made millions (billions) betting against these loans. Stillother banks bought this garbage. Now the banks holding garbage want Greeceto undergo austerity and sell off the public infrastructure and institutionsthe state controls to cover the interest payments. Why would Greece do that?

It depends who you mean by "Greece"?

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Imperialism used to work by going into third world countries and stripping them of all their natural resources. Gold, silver, sugar, wood, etc.

But after the various wars of independence, it got a little more complicated. Now they go in and pay off the native rulers to join the globalization game. This can be done by a process like the following:

-- money is loaned to build an export market...or whatever -- money is either paid back from profits from export market or -- money is paid back through asset stripping and austerity measures

What is now being bought and sold is not so much the natural resources, but the labor power of the natives -- one way or another. The fact that the loan should not have been made in the first place doesn't matter. The basic rule is that there should be no risk involved in the loan. No matter which way it goes, the lender must win. In that way, it is like the mortgage market.

Note that although the export market profit strategy looks promising, it is a rigged race to the bottom type of game and must be played very intelligently and ruthlessly for the natives to win. Maybe China managed it; it remains to be seen.

Joanna



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