Money or Your Life – CounterPunch.org

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Money or Your Life. Alphonse Daumier’s caricature of the Europeans ready to kill Greece unable to pay back the money it borrowed primarily from England, February 15, 1850. Public Domain

In 2009, Greece had a deficit of 6 percent of GDP. But concocted statistics made the deficit 12.5 percent of GDP. This higher deficit became a weapon in the hands of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. He dumped the country to the merciless austerity of the International Monetary Fund, an agency of the US Treasury Department. Zoe Georgantas, professor of economics and an insider to the machinations of the Greek Statistical Authority under IMF control, observed the malicious of the IMF-European Union influence in Greece. On March 14, 2024, she assured me that no other country has ever gone through the humiliations Greece had to endure. The insults were in the technical language of the the memoranda Greece signed with the Troika (IMF, EU, and European Central Bank). Georgantas denounced the persons behind the foreign influence. In 2020, she blew the whistle on the IMF man who, in 2009, was in charge of the Greek Statistical Authority. She said that the IMF man falsified the public debt and deficit data of Greece. Georgantas insisted this falsification “brought Greece to its knees.” It did not matter that the Greek Justice Minister and the Greek Supreme Court investigated the statistical crime and insisted that a grave injustice had been done against Greece. They demanded that hundreds of billions of euros be returned to Greece.

The machinery of the debt crime

The Eurostat (European Statistical Service) and the EU Commission seized the opportunity offered to them by the Papandreou administration of October 2009 and loaded Greece with unnecessary loans upon loans, which they justified by additional statistical manipulations against the Greek people in order to benefit the Franco-German Banks that already had gone bankrupt.

A New York Times editorial of 2017 criticized the mendacity and hubris of the Troika lenders in refusing to compromise their ruthless austerity demands for Greece. The editorial pointed out the tragedy: “For nearly a decade, Greece has struggled under suffocating debt, which now totals more than 300 billion euros ($338 billion), or nearly double its annual economic output. Waves of austerity measures to satisfy creditors have inflicted great suffering: More than a quarter of Greeks are unemployed, and vital services, like health care and transportation, are running as bare-bones operations. The economy is in recession, and there is virtually no way Greece can dig itself out of such a deep hole.” No one paid any attention.

In 2021, Georgantas explained further what happened during this perpetual debt crisis. “The last three elected Greek governments of [Antonis] Samaras, [Alexis] Tsipras, and [Kyriakos] Mitsotakis,” she wrote, “suffered unacceptable blackmail for the continuation of the shameful and humiliating debt repayment practices dictated by Brussels. Such extortions are the continuation of the sale and divestment of public property in exchange for a bowl of lentils. The Germans are the main beneficiaries of this humiliation. In addition, Greece is forced to compromise its security in its relations with Turkey, which wants to dismember our country. Another consequence of EU-IMF influence is the continuation of the foreign control of our Statistical-Service. The only solution today [2021]… can come from a united front of the government and the opposition to denounce all over the world the EU-IMF blackmail. The Greeks then will stand by their side…. I think that Greece today is in such a deep pit that it is impossible to get out of it. Debt is constantly swelling, while production is falling… our producers, in any sector, agricultural, industrial, or services, cannot produce without investment. The financing is given to useless activities for Greece, apparently at the behest of corrupt Brussels.”

Zoe Georgantas speaks with wisdom. She highlights the murky world of illegal schemes and illegal bailout measures. This knowledge comes from her own bitter experience, seeing the corruption of bringing in an IMF man to head the Greek Statistical Authority. Then she witnessed the activities of this man and lived the pauperization of her country. Being an economist, she added crucial details of the Greek debt tragedy. “The Greek recession,” she said, “started in November 2009 as an unexpected shock following the October announcement by Greek authorities of the revision of the nation’s projected 2009 public deficit from 6% of GDP to 12.5% of GDP. That news stunned the markets thus triggering a non-stop rise of borrowing costs for Greece… the country was subjected to extraordinary austerity rescue packages, and it was placed under the joint custody of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF…. exceptional austerity programs brought about a sharp contraction of GDP, which had a negative effect on the debt dynamics, leading to a vicious cycle of rating downgrades, further rises in spreads and further worsening of public debt, and, eventually, a deepening of recession, which evolved into a long depression, comparable only with the US Great Depression of 1929-30, which notably had a much shorter duration.”

Consequences

The Greek debt in 2009 was 200 billion euros, but deep EU-IMF corruption ballooned it to 400 billion euros – in 2021. The virtuous anger of Georgantas cut through useless details and caught the wings or truth. She offered a reasonable and honorable way out of the tragedy, but the politicians were tied to the lenders and pretended they were too busy to listen. Like the crusaders of 1204 who shredded Medieval Greece and opened and paved the road of conquest by Mongol Moslem Turks in 1453, the politicians of the European Union and those of the International Monetary Fund of the United States have been cannibalizing the Greek state. They sold state assets. Railroads went to an Italian state company; harbors to China, telephones and airports to Germany, and exclusive and beautiful real estate properties to anyone with lots of money.

War

In late 2022, the EU-IMF agents reached the northeastern town of Alexandroupolis. Russia’s war in the Ukraine convinced President Joe Biden to teach Russia a lesson by becoming the arms supplier to Ukraine. And what better way to ship American weapons to Ukraine than the port of Alexandroupolis? This town is near the border with Turkey and close to the Black Sea. Americans had already a military base in Alexandroupolis from which they keep supplying the Ukrainians with a stream of lethal weapons against Russia. In the midst of this war, a few companies with ties to Russia and the United States are competing for the port of Alexandroupolis. This outrageous imperialism blends nicely with the domestic war IMF-EU are waging against Greece. I am almost certain that the EU-IMF stranglehold on Greece includes the priceless archaeological treasures of the country. This hostile behavior in front of the world did more than punish Greece. It brought out in the light the hidden dishonesty of the West: on the one hand crediting ancient Greece for the foundations of its own civilization, and on the other, showing its real character by humiliating modern Greece in order to save its own banks.

Souls in storage

The debt waterboarding of Greece by European and American bankers / politicians is a violent step in preparing the country for another Turkish domination, nay occupation. Turkey, never letting its hostility towards Greece wane, saw the Greek debt crisis as a golden opportunity for more mischief. What if we flood Greece with Moslems, Turkish leaders asked themselves, They did. Turkish president Erdogan expanded the ceaseless dumping of thousands of migrants (from Africa and the Middle East, including his own agents) across the narrow stretch of the Aegean to the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos. And probably because of orders of the Obama administration, the Greek authorities did nothing to protect their borders. After all, a black man, Obama, was the President of the United States. Could the white leaders of Greece afford being called racists for refusing dark-skinned refugees? Besides those refugees, at least some of them, became refugees as a result of America’s wars in the Middle East. Add to this morass, America’s delusion about Turkey, and you have an imperial if convenient riddle. Official America still thinks of Turkey as its first NATO line of defense and offense against Russia.

No one really knowns how many illegal Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians, Africans, and Turks were in Greece in 2023. A Greek friend called them “souls in storage.” The number of those souls must be in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps more. That’s the impression I get from visiting the country and talking to several Greeks. The refugees are primarily Moslems. That alone, and Turkey, make the illegal Moslems a life and death threat to Greece. Turkey forced most of these refugees to Greek islands. No doubt, Turkey planted enough of its agents among the refugees. Greece was on fire in 2023 – and August 2024. We do know humans are behind some of those destructive fires. But we don’t know if illegal Moslem immigrants started the fires.

Illegal foreigners are spread in guarded camps all over the country — and in the center of Athens. These Moslem foreigners are funded by EU, and the locals resent that interference. They suffer from a lower standard of living and the loss of the educated citizens to Western Europe and America.

State decline

The decline of Greece turned to an asset for foreigners, tourists. Those with lots of money buy the best Greek homes and exclusive properties. Even Moslem Turks with some connection to the EU buy property in the Aegean islands. The Greek state remains indifferent to the danger of such potentially explosive reality – allowing citizens of Turkey, which already is disputing Greek sovereignty in the Aegean, to own houses in the Greek islands.

There are some foreign and Greek reporters who grossly underestimate the number of Moslems Turkey has trafficked to Greece. They are often making outrageous demands that Greece quickly assimilates these illegal Moslems. In other words, satisfy the strategic objective of Erdogan to conquer Greece by flooding the country with Moslems. Legitimizing this abhorrent misuse and violence against desperate people by Turkey increases the harm. This does not mean no one should help these refugees. The United Nations, EU, and America should try returning them to their country of origin and give asylum to those who legitimately must have it. Dumping them to Greece, however, is illegal, violent, and unacceptable. The country has its own Greek Moslem minority in Thrace. But, in addition, Greece has neither the resources nor the potential of integrating them without losing its own identity and civilization.

Foreign influence and Ethnonihilism

This shameful disregard for the integrity of Greek history and the rise of Greeks who hate their country, that is, the emergence of the political phenomenon of ethnonihilism, mirror American and German influence. America deluded by global hegemony sees its German colony and Turkish ally as fortresses against Russia. Germans read American priorities and then act like Americans. Turks are manipulating America in exactly the same way they manipulated European states for centuries. American, German, and Turkish strategies irradiate Greek leaders to the point they become Ephialtes, traitors fighting against the interest of their own country. This official weakening of Hellenic culture is destructive because Greece is facing a perennial enemy, Turkey.

The American influence in Greece, especially among the rulers of the country, and even more so on the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is compromising the integrity and security of Greece. Biden administration officials would not reach this conclusion. On the contrary, they would argue, Greece is safe in NATO. But Biden has been deceiving the American people on the war he is fighting in Ukraine against nuclear-armed superpower Russia. Sacrificing Greece to Turkey’s ambition means nothing to Biden. He is thoroughly an imperialist. He could not see the difference between Hawaii and Greece. His private army, the CIA, does his bidding in the Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Israel – the world over. “In effect,” Jeffrey Sachs says, “the CIA is a secret army of the U.S., capable of creating mayhem across the world with no accountability whatsoever.” Biden must be aware of what his secret army does. He needs to learn to work within the UN Charter. Cowboy politics and regime change no longer fit this extremely complex and vulnerable age. Multilateralism has come of age and would serve the interests of Biden and America. However, we need to have in mind that American foreign policy is not what it appears to be. “American foreign policy,” says Jeffrey Sachs, “is not at all about the interests of the American people. It is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for themselves, staff, and family members. In short, US foreign policy has been hacked by big money.” Especially the money of billionaires.

Money or your life

That selfish power of money recognizes neither friends nor civilization. The Washington insiders certainly benefit more from Turkey. They sell more guns to the Turks. And as long as they are caught in the global hegemony nightmare, one cannot dismiss the potential they could allow Turkey to dismember Greece, in other words, prepare the ground for the Turks to do to Greece what they did to Cyprus in 1974.

Greek voters must understand that no one respects a state that has no self-respect by willfully and repeatedly risking its national interests and security. Greece needs a new government devoted to Hellenic interests. End the crime of debt. With more than 30 million tourists entering the country every year, use those billions to stop borrowing. Become self-reliant. Start defending the country from Turkey and climate chaos. Make certain that Turkey understands the Aegean is Greek and not for sale. Tell the European Union to create a common defense for all Europe. Extend your relations with China and India. Ask these two countries to invest in Greece so that the country can protect itself from any Turkish threat or attack. In the Ukraine, a Hellenic government should declare its neutrality in the war, and offer its services as an intermediary between Ukraine, Russia, and NATO. The Greeks had centuries of intimate contact with both Russians and Ukrainians. Their first epic, Argonautika, was about the expedition of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece in Kolchis, the Greeks’ Far East, today’s Georgia.

1. Zoe Georgantas, Website, May 29, 2020. ↑

2. Zoe Georgantas, “Consequences of domination-dependence on the formation of our problematic economic thinking,” presentation in a Two Day Conference in Honor of 1821, July 2-3, 2021 (in Greek). ↑

3. Zoe Georgantas and Nicholas Logothetis, “Public Deficit, Debt and Stock-Flow Adjustment: Statistical and Econometric Investigation, 1960-2017,” Hellenic Statistical Institute, Proceedings of the 33rd Panhellenic Statistical Conference, 2021. ↑

4. Niki Kitsantonis and Anatoly Kormanaev, “Sleepy Greek Port Becomes U.S. Arms Hub, as Ukraine War Reshapes Region,” New York Times, August 18, 2022. ↑

5. Jeffrey D. Sachs, “The Real History of the War in Ukraine: A Chronology of Events and Case for Diplomacy,” The Kennedy Beacon, July 17, 2023. ↑

6. Jeremy Scahill, “A Half Century of Joe Biden’s Stances on War, Militarism and the CIA,” The Intercept, April 20, 2021; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUjOeXy0KNM, see also “Israel’s endgame,” The Intercept, November 4, 2023. ↑

7. Jeffrey D. Sachs, “How the CIA Destabilizes the World,” Common Dreams, February 12, 2024. ↑

8. Jeffrey D. Sachs and Guillaume Lafortune, “Adhering to the UN Charter: Barbados First and the US Last,” Common Dreams, November 13, 2023. ↑

9. Jeffrey D. Sachs, “US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption,” Common Dreams, December 26, 2023. ↑

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