Up for sale are 39 airports, 850 ports, railways, motorways, sewage works, a couple of energy companies, banks, defence groups, thousands of acres of land for development, casinos and Greece’s national lottery. George Christodoulakis, Greece’s special secretary for asset restructuring and privatisations, said the sell-off would raise €50bn (£44bn) to help pay back the country’s €110bn bailout debt...The striking thing isn’t simply the distress of the rabbit being hunted, it’s the complacency of the other rabbits as one of their own is being taken down. With banks in the US licking their chops at the prospect of “privatizing” state and municipal assets, the example of Greece is more germane than many of us would like to believe.
What the author implies and what I have been saying all along is that this isn't a rescue of Greece, but a robbery. It is extremely unlikely that the austerity plan agreed upon will enable Greeks to pay off the debt, and the lenders know it. (Remember, banks don't actually lend their money, so they have nothing to lose.) As Demetri Kofinas points out in several of the videos posted on this blog, if what international capital was concerned about being able to redeem their bonds, they are going about it the wrong way. The first round of austerity measures cut Greece's public employees' paychecks by thirty percent, now they are getting cut some more (ITV is reporting another 30 percent). Taxes and fees are being raised. This will have the effect of slowing the Greek economy down to a crawl because nobody will have any discretionary money to spend. Government revenues dry up, resulting in an inability to pay its debt. THe Troika plan is a recipe for a default, and they know it. What is happening is class war, and theft. The Troika isn't trying to stave off a default, they are trying to hasten it, after they loot everything worth having from the yard sale they've imposed upon the Greeks.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/look-what-you-can-buy-in-the-greek-liquidation-sale.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail
