Squeezing Greece won’t help German people

The Greek debt crisis is not a conflict between Germany and Greece.   It is the European Union acting as a debt collection agency for central bankers.

German working people get no benefit from the demand that the government of Greece impoverish the people of Greece so as to pay interest to the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

They in fact will suffer in the long run, because the more wages and living conditions are driven down in other countries, the harder it will be to maintain them in Germany.

Some five years ago, I wrote a post about how Germany was a good role model for the USA, because its leaders were committed to industrial productivity and a high-wage economy.   Unfortunately, the German leaders instead have taken the USA as a role model, and followed our downward path of financialization.

I believe that people who borrow money have a moral obligation to pay it back—if they can.  I believe that there are other moral obligations that take precedence, such as the welfare of those who depend on you.  That’s why the United States and other nations substituted bankruptcy laws for debtors’ prisons.

The Greek debt problem would have solved itself if Greece had its own currency instead of the Euro.  As Greece’s balance of trade worsened, its currency would be devalued and its products and services (including the tourist industry) would become cheaper in terms of dollars and euros.

The great fear of the “troika”–the ECB, IMP and the leaders of the European Union–is that Greece will stop using the euro, and that some of the other 17 countries that use the euro will follow suit.  That might be a problem for bond-holders.  I don’t see it as a problem for ordinary people in Germany, the USA or any other country.

LINKS 

It’s the class conflict, stupid! by David Ruccio on occasional links and commentary.

Europe: Shaking the Temple by Conn Hallinan for Dispatches from the Edge.  (Hat tip to Bill Harvey)

From Minsk to Brussels, it’s all about Germany by Pepe Escobar for RT Op-Edge.

 

Tags: Banks, European Central Bank, European Union, Eurozone, Germany, Greece, Greece and Germany, Greek debt crisis