Banks want money. Debts are assets, but only when they are repaid, or at least repayable. That is why international banking hates Greece. They don’t want to come to an agreed to reduce debt, because it would stop being an asset. They need to see the money coming in, they need to destroy an economy in order to prevent other countries from daring to ask questions.
Surely its their money? If I had 100 million pounds and I leant people a billion, by creating money to lend out, would I be justified in chasing down these debts because its “my money”? Surely 1) it would be seen as bloody stupid on my behalf to lend money to people who haven’t got any to pay back, and 2) if I lend more than I actually have, what the Hell is going on?
But they need their money “back”! Those they lent this level of debt to obviously did not, and will not, and do not, have the money to pay it back – or else they would not have needed such a massive sum!
Syriza have shown that they understand international finance better than bankers do. They understand that Greece is not, and never will be, in a position to pay what they owe. They understand that austerity demands cuts to pay, to pensions and to benefits, but it does not tackle international corporations, and does not look to the dysfunction of a crony capitalism economy. What the ECB demands is cuts to what the state can affect and what the state can affect is not a fucked-up economy, made worse by international banks, but just benefits, pensions and pay. Bankers think this is fine, they can get money this way, but Syriza has fought to show that demands on the ordinary person do not, cannot and should never be the way to repay national debt.
But banks want money. One cannot even say they want “their” money. They want money they made up so as loan to people who did not have the ability to repay and they are ruthless and uncaring. As far as bankers are concerned, the people of Greece can be plunged into poverty, have their lives ruined, thier futures eradicated, as long as the banks get the money they want.
Global international finance is absolutely screwed. It no longer has a relationship to realities and is chasing money in a collapsing system, determined to hoover up as much as it can in a world where its logic no longer works.
Winds of Change
29th June 2015