Former Greek Finance Minister on SYRIZA Capitulation to Troika

      

Former Greek Finance Minister on SYRIZA Capitulation to Troika

by Stephen Lendman

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faked his progressive credentials. He was a Judas all along - pretending opposition to austerity to get elected, planning betrayal straightaway in office.

Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis maintains a web site - posting his “comments for the post-2008 world.”

On August 18, he headlined “Bailout deal allows Greek oligarchs to maintain grip,” saying:

Terms lawmakers agreed to lets oligarchs dominating Greek economic sectors “generate huge profits and continue to avoid paying taxes” - at the expense of greater economic wreckage and harm to millions of ordinary households thrown under the bus.

The agreed on memorandum of understanding “enslave(s) ordinary workers and families by imposing tough(er) welfare cuts (than already) while letting foreign companies grab domestic assets cheaply through privatizations” amounting to government-sanctioned grand theft, Varoufakis explained.

As finance minister, he opposed greater austerity - saying imposing it since 2010 created catastrophic economic decline, unemployment and poverty.

He accused Tsipras of wanting to become a “new De Gaulle, or Mitterrand more likely” - deciding pre-referendum to ignore its results strongly against more austerity.

He planned unconditional capitulation to Troika demands - ludicrously claiming better SYRIZA than “local stooges of the troika who would implement the same terms of surrender with enthusiasm.”

He duplicitously betrayed the principles he claimed to stand for. “This mutation I have already witnessed,” said Varoufakis. “Those in our party/government who underwent it, then turned against those who refused to mutate, the result being a split in the party that our people, the courageous voters who voted No, did not deserve.”

Separately, Varoufakis proposed “a new approach to Eurozone sovereign debt,” saying:

The ECB should undertake a debt-conversion program for any Eurozone nation wishing to participate - “servic(ing) (not purchasing) a portion of every maturing government bond corresponding to the percentage of the member state’s public debt that is allowed by the Maastricht rules.”

Bonds would be issued to fund redemptions - “guaranteed solely by the ECB, but repaid, in full, by” participating member states.

“The obvious solution to the euro crisis would be a federal solution. But federation has been made less, not more, likely by a crisis that tragically set one proud nation against another.”

The “obvious” solution Varoufakis ignored is dissolving a euro system doomed to eventually fail - a predatory union forcing member states to sacrifice their fiscal and monetary sovereignty to a Brussels-based greater authority, exploiting weaker nations to benefit monied interests dominating stronger ones.

At the same time, weak debtor nations like Greece should renounce their odious debt entirely - letting predatory creditors take the hindmost. 

Varoufakis failed to explain what matters most. All nations should retain sovereign independent control of their monetary, fiscal and political affairs - surrendering them to no other country or greater authority. 

Capitulation amounts to selling their soul and the people they serve, benefitting public officials and special interests at the expense of the greater good for all - equitably and fairly without deviation.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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