Why debt is an excuse in the case of Greece – Tax Research UK

Last Updated: January 29, 2015By Tags: , , , , ,
[If anybody knows who did this cartoon and where it was first published, please let us know, so we can provide an accurate attribution.]

[If anybody knows who did this cartoon and where it was first published, please let us know, so we can provide an accurate attribution.]

There’s a massive outcry about Greek debt and how and why it must be repaid otherwise the world as we know it will collapse, writes Ivan Horrocks in a guest post on Tax Research UK.

It is, quite simply, a device to wreck the Syriza government as quickly as possible, and to make sure that what happens can be laid at the feet of that government, and not blamed on the ECB, IMF, EC, or any other EU country, or – and this is most important – global capital (by which I primarily mean multi-national corporations, the 1% and their agents and supporters).

For the first time in Europe for a very long time a progressive political party that is not either beholden to and/or implicitly supportive of the neoliberal project has got into power… with a clear mandate for pursuit of an entirely un-neoliberal agenda.

Over the next three months Syriza will be subjected to the most concerted (and often secret) attacks any government in Europe has known for decades – probably since the birth of labour movements in the inter-war period.

Forewarned is forearmed, and it is to be hoped Syriza has the skill to turn any such attacks back on themselves and reveal the culprits for who they really are. This is an opportunity – and it is to be hoped that Mr Tsipras grasps it with both hands.

Yesterday evening, the BBC ran a documentary to mark the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death, in which Jeremy Paxman uttered a fervent desire that we have not seen the last of Churchill’s calibre of human being – because we may need such people again, soon.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” and all that. Well, the hour has come for Greece. Is Mr Tsipras its man?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
bringing you the best of the blogs.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

latest video

news via inbox

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

6 Comments

  1. Stephen Bee January 29, 2015 at 2:41 am - Reply

    If, as people are ever more coming to realise, money (debt) can be created out of thin air//why the f..can’t that same debt disappear in the banks computers as quickly as it was formed?? It’s all illusion, smoke and mirrors . with a cogency not based on reality

  2. Chris January 29, 2015 at 5:11 am - Reply

    Why is deficit and national debt used as an excuse for killing the poor here in UK under the guise of austerity? From babes yet born to grannies.

    More grannies will go with the flat rate pension con coming from 2016 retiring people. See why under my petition, in my WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT section, at:
    https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

    SYRIZA has in only a few days reversed the public sector job losses and rehired.

    SYRIZA has returned the lost pension to the poorest current claimant pensioners and the uninsured farming pensioners and helped get back cheap or free medicine for life sustaining medication.

    SYRIZA raised the minimum wage (which had in fact fallen to more like 300 E) from the formal 500 E to the 700 E it was.

    The crisis did not come from public spending by Labour, when the Tories have spent more in 5 years than Labour did in 13 years. The OECD said investment against child poverty was going well til 2010. Now child poverty is spiralling ever greater. We know kids are bin dipping for food on the way to school.

    In 2008 major companies went bust and caused the international banking crisis and so the finance crisis.

    Spending on welfare admin has increased by billions in the UK, whilst money to the starving is ever reducing by the billions.
    So the Tories and Lib Dems are causing MORE DEFICIT NOT LESS.

    So why is Labour constantly carping on about deficit reduction and keeping Tory spending cuts and being even harder on welfare reform thant he Tories?

    The Nazis were the ones of forced labour as a condition of benefit, after forcing people into unemployment.

    Is that not what Jobcentres today do? All 750 of them, when in the past there were only 100.

    Because I did not find a job from the Jobcentre (called a Labour Exchange in the dark ages) back in 1977 but from the newspaper.

    Shut all Jobcentres, sack the welfare admin private contracts and pay welfare automatic, without conditionality, and pay off national debt at the same time.

    Anybody?

  3. Sasson Hann January 29, 2015 at 8:49 am - Reply

    I think the only way to combat this is for Syriza to make such ‘attacks’ completely public. Alistair Darling did this if people remember; it was made public that he was ‘threatened’ if tried to bring the banks into line after the crash. I always wondered why there wasn’t more made of that in the media; it’s almost like it was standard and expected practice.

    With such an overwhelming power against Darling, similar to people preceding him, then it’s no wonder that governments still haven’t reformed the banking sector.

  4. concernedkev January 29, 2015 at 9:43 am - Reply

    If they are wise enough to learn from history they should keep a watchful eye on the Generals and their masters. Germany seems destined yet again to be at the centre of European conflict.

  5. Smiling Carcass January 29, 2015 at 10:13 am - Reply

    This might be the origin of the cartoon-

    http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Greek%20debt_81772

  6. Tony Dean January 29, 2015 at 10:53 am - Reply

    Mike the cartoon appears to be by:- [email protected]

Leave A Comment