Well, he did it:
With enough votes to
send 149 delegates into the
„Helenic Parliament“, Alexis
Tsipras, fell only two seats short of an absolute majority.
No problem: His Left Radical Party
„Syriza“, headed by Tsipras, simply forges an alliance with the
far right wing populist party, „Independent Greeks“.
The two parties are almost at extreme
opposites of the political spectrum and agree virtually only on these demands:
Cancel part of the National Debt, refinance the rest and stop the austerity program.
In order to win over the majority of
Greek voters, Tsipras made promises, which, as everybody knows
including himself, he cannot possibly keep.
- Substantial Increases in Minimum Wages,
- Free Food and Free Electricity to all who cannot afford to pay for these commodities, are only the beginning of this „Social Paradise on Earth“ which Alexis will create in Greece, at least so he promised prior to the election.
- The creation of 30,000 new jobs, and Zeus only knows what other wonderful gifts are in the grab bag of Alexis Tsipras.
„The time for Capitalism has gone and
a new order will come to Greece and to Europe.“ so he says.
This new order, it seems to me, will
be: „To those who need, from those who have.“
Does this sound familiar ? It should,
because all the countries who espoused this philosophy, had to first
of all establish brutal dictatorships and then have either gone
bankrupt or have just in time changed this mantra.
It is of some interest to note that
Alexis Tsipras named his youngest son „Ernesto“, in homage of
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Argentine Marxist and Fidel Castro's
Co-Revolutionary.
(In Castro's Cuba it was Ernesto's job
to decide who should be accused of being an enemy of the revolution
and therefore must be executed.)
How will Tsipras pay for all this
promised largess ?
By collecting all the evaded taxes of
the rich and suspending payments, until final re-negotiations of the
loans which Greece had obtained from the rest of the European taxpayers.
The repayment of this debt, which
amounts to about 320,000,000,000.00 Euros, at lower interest rates
and longer amortisation periods should be done in proportion to
„future economic growth“.
Can you not just imagine the financial
juggling of Greece's GDP showing absolutely no growth and therefore
absolutely no repayment of just debts?
In fact, Greece, in the very near
future will require additional loans from the EU or it will face
inevitable state bankruptcy.
No wonder, then, that the new
government has already announced, contrary to the avowed platform of
its coalition partner, to remain within the European Union and to
keep the Euro as its currency.
In order to bring Greece back onto its
feet we need, so says Mr. Tsipras, do some very simple things:
„We need to eliminate corruption and
tax evasion, we need to establish a fair taxation system and we need
to make Europe understand that we cannot repay the loans... cannot
service the debt...
We, so says Alexis Tsipras, must write
off a large part of these previously granted loans and renegotiate
the terms of the remaining amount. ( ...and I always believed that
the Lender is the one who may and in some cases has to „write off a
loan“. The borrower does not have the right to „write off“ a
debt. He can only „renege“ on an agreement to pay back the
borrowed amount.
And this is what the two Greeks are
planning to do.
But that's not all: The lenders of the
earlier mentioned 320 Billions Euros placed some conditions on these
loans: Greece had to promise to embark on a savings program. A
„household budget“ was asked for to make repayment a possibility
and to bring the Greek economy onto a firm basis.
All this was to be achieved through a
semblance of fiscal responsibility.
The two parties, forming the coalition
government, agree that this savings program must be stopped at once,
as it was „strangling their economy.“
But wait, wait a cotton picking minute:
Greece will need more borrowed money in the near future to stave off
bankruptcy. Which lender will rush in to lend them more, when they
cannot handle the current load ?
Will they have to abandon the Euro, which they cannot manipulate, as
their currency, and return to the
Drachma ? Sounds possible: First the market will establish a value of
the Drachma, and once this is done the printing presses in Athens
will start to rumble 24 hours a day and 'voilas' we repay the 320
Billion of Euros with our new currency, showing the crumbling Acropolis as the
backdrop.
Except, of course, that the following
hyper-inflation will truly play havoc with Greece.
There are dark clouds looming from
Olympus.
Bertstravels
can hear the thunder.
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