turn this non-economic crisis into a political crisis by following through on its threat to exclude Greece from the eurozone. Current conditions are such that much larger numbers of Greeks may now support this position than was the case last January.
At stake is much more than Greece itself. What the attendees at Delphi want is to rescue not only the Greek economy, but all Europe – by replacing the euro and the ECB with a less austerity-based monetary ideology. If they are driven out of the eurozone, they will be able to create a real central bank (via the Treasury) to monetise deficit spending to revive the economy.
It is clear that what is needed is to replace the IMF with an institution able to assess the ability to pay debts, and to write down bad debts accordingly. Such an institution would replace Chicago School austerity and fiscal policy with a more progressive monetary and tax policy. If the ECB follows through on its threat to wreck the Greek banking system, Syriza has put itself in a position to replace the oligarchs’ banks with a public option.
The Institutions evidently hoped that the government will face a no confidence vote if it is excluded from the eurozone. The reality is that it would have suffered a no confidence defeat if it had capitulated. The IMF and ECB won’t admit their 2010 mistake in not writing down the Greek debts, which stemmed largely from the falsified Goldman-Sachs-Papademos ploy that got usinto the eurozone in the first place.”
In sum, followers of recent news reports should bear in mind that despite all the statements of good faith that Greece “wants to pay its debts”, the reality is that there is no money to do so – except to the extent that the IMF may “extend and pretend” the charade by advancing Greece the IMF’s own money to pay.
As matters have turned out, Tsipras and Varoufakis have not paid foreign debts with Greek money. They have not balanced the Greek budget by cutting back pensions, nor have they sold off the crown jewels of publicly owned infrastructure that European banks hoped to finance to their clients.
Instead of selling out, Tsipras has given Greeks enough time to pull out their savings from the banks and convert them into euro notes (domestic circulation of which has risen by 13 billion euros), or into ‘hard’ assets such as cars (or even boats) with a resale value.
Excerpted from: ‘On the Delphi Declaration’.
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org