Reading this recent article about the situation in Greece is really a wake up call. Greece just had its national sovereignty usurped by the European Central Bank. The people of Greece gave up their democracy for early retirement, health care benefits, pensions, vacation bonuses, allowances and who knows what else in trinkets and niceties.
And what is the real kicker here? That the Greek government in the name of helping to “manage the economy” and save the consumers from the evil of Capitalism became the biggest facilitators of greedy Capitalism by taking bribes and funneling business to the big companies that paid them. The consumer who forfeited his/her rights in hopes that the government would take care of them gets royally screwed in the end. A great quote from this article in Der Spiegel says it all
"Anyone who pays bribes to get a government contract can pad his margin with a few extra million," says one investigator. "The excessive prices are of course shouldered by taxpayers."
Here is how it works fellow Americans: The government takes control of a market in the name of protecting it’s citizens from greedy corporate interests. Something like…um…health care – just as an example. Citizens are now paying for the services via a series of taxes and have totally lost control over where the money gets spent or how much gets spent on what.
Now that control of the market is in the hands of a relatively small number of politicians the big corporations move in to bribe those politicians with hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to gain access to hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars. Funds that used to be controlled by the hundreds of millions of consumers and had to be competed for now just requires the bribing of maybe a maximum of 60 Senators, a couple hundred Representatives and one President.
But wait – the plot sickens…
Now consumers are being forced to overpay for some service and the real damage gets done. With the politicians deciding how much the populace should pay for something and who they should pay it to they ALSO decide whether or not the citizens should borrow money to pay for it. This now adds debt interest to the cost of services.
Guess what - banks make a lot of money off of lending money. How much interest do you think a bank can make off of a couple hundred billion dollars? As a banker, wouldn’t it be nice if instead of having to convince a hundred million people to buy beyond their means and borrow from you to do it you just had to deal with a few hundred? Even if you had to give them each a million dollars so they would take out a hundred billion dollar loan on behalf of the people of an entire country it would easily be worth it.
Another great quote from Der Spiegel:
“According to statements made by company executives involved in the payoffs, up to 2 percent of the revenues from the Siemens Hellas telecommunications division were paid to the two main political parties, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, better known as PASOK, and the conservative New Democracy.”
In Greece now the austerity measures have to do with cutting back the retirement age, vacation bonuses etc. For what? To pay the debt that has been basically accrued by politicians giving money to corporations on behalf of their citizens for bribes.
Americans – lets not make the same mistakes.
