Asset Stripping Greece could lead to a return of the Colonels!
I do not often find myself in disagreement with John Redwood MP, and on matters economic, If I do, I generally hold my silence, bowing to his greater experience and formidable analytical abilities. His Diary Entry discussing the debate for this afternoon in the House of Commons, on UK money for the EU bail outs, proffers three steps to remove ourselves from the present mess. I could not be in greater disagreement when he comes to support the next best step as being the privatisation of the assets of the periperal countries, which is presently being everywhere proposed as a cure-all for the eurozone debtor countries.
Were we only setting out to help Greece as if we had no part in causing the predicament in which that country now finds itself, Mr Redwood's proposals might make sense, especially in an environment where the present EU status quo might conceivably feasibly be foreseen as continuing. Unhappily it cannot!
We are far from being in such a happy position, however, although more correctly speaking it is the Euro Group of countries that are not, Britain being outside the Eurozone, and in a roughly similar situation to Greece itself ( that matter being best left for another posting on another day) is somewhat slightly less culpable over Greece.
The ECB and the Euro Group are directly responsible for the mess and asset stripping as now proposed, thereby rewarding the guiltiest, can only result in a return of something like the former government of the Greek Colonels, also risking moving on to a Franco replacement in Spain and perhaps even a Salazar in Portugal.
The steps towards the economic ruination of the peripheral states in the EU, when viewed against the recent history of the common currency, can only be seen as both inevitable and therefore deliberate. If the assets of these states are sequestered and end up in the hands of the stronger Euro Zone nations, the people of such robbed nations will hardly be likely to allow that situation to continue for very long.
Privatisation, as it is now being euphemistically phrased, is a means whereby worthless paper, which should never have been issued in the first place, can be used to aquire assets of substance. The people of any nation, under new governments outside of the EU, would be entirely correct to regain title to such privatised assets without offering any compensation, given the means by which they had been stolen in the first place! The ECB and the EU Banks aquiring these distressed properties will thereby end up no better off, merely have returned a worse fascism even than their own to our Continent.
Irish Times report on Greek Asset sales is here.
Were we only setting out to help Greece as if we had no part in causing the predicament in which that country now finds itself, Mr Redwood's proposals might make sense, especially in an environment where the present EU status quo might conceivably feasibly be foreseen as continuing. Unhappily it cannot!
We are far from being in such a happy position, however, although more correctly speaking it is the Euro Group of countries that are not, Britain being outside the Eurozone, and in a roughly similar situation to Greece itself ( that matter being best left for another posting on another day) is somewhat slightly less culpable over Greece.
The ECB and the Euro Group are directly responsible for the mess and asset stripping as now proposed, thereby rewarding the guiltiest, can only result in a return of something like the former government of the Greek Colonels, also risking moving on to a Franco replacement in Spain and perhaps even a Salazar in Portugal.
The steps towards the economic ruination of the peripheral states in the EU, when viewed against the recent history of the common currency, can only be seen as both inevitable and therefore deliberate. If the assets of these states are sequestered and end up in the hands of the stronger Euro Zone nations, the people of such robbed nations will hardly be likely to allow that situation to continue for very long.
Privatisation, as it is now being euphemistically phrased, is a means whereby worthless paper, which should never have been issued in the first place, can be used to aquire assets of substance. The people of any nation, under new governments outside of the EU, would be entirely correct to regain title to such privatised assets without offering any compensation, given the means by which they had been stolen in the first place! The ECB and the EU Banks aquiring these distressed properties will thereby end up no better off, merely have returned a worse fascism even than their own to our Continent.
Irish Times report on Greek Asset sales is here.
Labels: Greek privatisations
posted by Martin at 8:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home