 but has in fact even re-employed some public-sector workers sacked by the previous administration – has taken to raiding local authority funds in order to scrape together the cash to pay the IMF when repayments were due in April, topping up by borrowing from an IMF reserve loan fund to repay the IMF! It looks very much like the government, to keep its anti-austerity pledges, is simply dumping on local authorities an obligation to sack people instead of the government doing it!
Moreover, the reserve fund had only some €695m in it, and €650m are said to have been withdrawn – so this is not a trick that can be pulled again.
Dijisselbloem is a partisan of removing ECB support and letting the banks settle their debts at the expense of depositors, who are, technically speaking, unsecured creditors of the bank. This is how money belonging to Cypriot depositors was effectively confiscated to pay their banks’ secured debts (although in the event, after massive protests rocked Cyprus, the banksters were persuaded to leave the first €100,000 of each depositor’s money untouched).
Were this to happen, even if, as in the case of Cyprus, small depositors were protected, it would amount to a confiscation of the capital of innumerable Greek businesses, leading to mass lay-offs of workers, innumerable bankruptcies and yet another precipitous decline in Greek GDP – which has, under the burden of debt repayments, already been shrinking vertiginously (ie, by a quarter in the last five years alone).
In the face of all this economic chaos, Greece’s creditors, especially northern European banks, are continuing to take a very hard line – insisting on full repayment of debts through the imposition of deeper and deeper austerity and yet more sales of sovereign assets. They reject all talk of any ‘haircut’ and would undoubtedly oppose any debt restructuring unless a huge proportion of Greek economic output were handed over to them, leaving the Greek people with their cupboards bare.
“Keynes believed that the reparations were well beyond what Germany could possibly pay, and predicted that the fruitless demands would lead to crisis in Germany and repercussions throughout Europe.
“Greece has endured five years of righteously fuelled austerity policies. The sole goal has been high fiscal surpluses to improve its debt-to-GDP ratio.
What needs to be understood in the first place is that the whole idea of Greek ‘profligacy’ having caused the economic crisis in Greece – and that therefore Greece deserves to be punished (even if Keynes would have advised it should be forgiven) – is totally misconceived.
“The anxiety began in the summer, when the long lines disappeared: the kilometre-long lines of trucks waiting to get into the container terminals outside Los Angeles, one of the most critical bottlenecks of globalisation in recent years, or the long queues of container ships jostling for spots at the entrance to Hong Kong harbour, often waiting for days for a berth.
Apart from tourism, Greece’s only other major business is agriculture, its major export market being Russia. But this is another lifeline that has been cut off as a result of Russian sanctions against the EU, which in turn were a response to the sanctions the EU so unfairly put on Russia as punishment for its non-existent ‘aggression’ in the Ukraine. However, by that time Greece was already in deep trouble.
Because Greece was in the euro, it could not simply leave inflation to take care of the government overspending that resulted from loss of shipping income. Instead, it had to resort to a combination of borrowing and cuts in government spending, with the traditional militancy of the Greek people and the continuing influence of the Communist Party seriously limiting the scope for cuts.
The effect of borrowing, however, as anyone who has maxed out on their credit cards will tell you, is exponentially to increase the cost of every purchase – and to be saddled with massive debt instalments long after it has ceased to be possible to buy anything more.
Those wedded to the capitalist system, like the Greek economist Jason Manolopoulos (of whom more below), are inclined to blame the Greek people’s defence of their living standards for Greece’s problems (although these living standards were always rather modest as compared to those of, say, Germany).
The truth, however, is that vast amounts of this borrowed money was used to prop up the economies of the lenders to a far greater extent than it assisted Greece, and yet more went into the pockets of profiteers, who spirited out of Greece and invested it in banks abroad or in London property – certainly not in creating businesses and job opportunities in Greece. Apparently, according to estate agents Knight Frank and Rutley, in April 2010, Greek buyers accounted for about 6 percent of all property purchases above £2m in London.
In terms of its population or the size of its economy, Greece ranks second in the world, after the UAE, for military expenditure.
Moreover, German and French multinationals have been caught out bribing Greek officials to authorise much-overpriced contracts. The focus is on how much the corruption of Greek officials is costing the Greek economy, but the real issue is how much of the money lent to Greece by French and German banks, who today are so unforgiving regarding repayment, is actually finding its way back to France and Germany in an illegitimate manner.
The German company Siemens has been caught out using bribes to secure a €500m OTE (Greek national telecoms) contract alone, the firm allegedly paid €35m in bribes in the late 1990s. Huawei tendered for this contract at half this price but failed to secure it.
However, most of the money sucked out of Greece by the imperialist coterie has come in the form of ‘low price, high interest’. Lending to Greece has, as Manolopoulos rightly points out, been the equivalent of the subprime mortgage scandal in the US.
One of the effects of the crisis of overproduction is that capital finds it difficult to find ways to secure an acceptable rate of return on investment, so there is an excess of funds available to lend to others at interest. With such an oversupply of loan capital, interest rates tend to be low, even negative, but rates of return increase if the degree of risk increases.
With the subprime mortgages, very risky loans were made, but punters thought that they were protected by the security of the mortgaged properties. Unfortunately, it turned out that the ‘value’ of much of this property was created only by speculation – the other resort of idle capital – which collapsed when the oversupply of subprime housing became manifest.
Contradictions between US imperialism and European imperialism are also coming into play in the Greek context.
As is well known, the Syriza prime minister Alexis Tsipras has visited Moscow, where, according to official reports, he did not ask Russia for any financial help and nor was it offered. It is, after all, quite understandable that Russia has no interest in pouring money into Greek debt repayments for the benefit of European imperialist banks – as indeed it made clear two years ago when refusing to shore up Cyprus.
What could have been discussed, however, is what support Moscow might give Athens if it defaults, refusing to pay any more debts to the European financiers, and/or if Greece exits the euro and maybe even the EU. Should this happen, it would be followed by financial turmoil throughout the capitalist world, but particularly in Europe, and Greece too would face further difficulties.
The only reason why Nuland could conceivably want to discuss ‘energy issues’ and Ukraine with Tsipras is because Russia is building a Turk-Stream pipeline that could potentially go through Greek territory, by-passing the Ukraine and earning Greece billions of dollars in transit fees.
With US imperialism having spent a small fortune to secure control over the Ukraine by placing there a puppet fascist government loyal to its interests, it is naturally determined to ensure that Russia should not be able to bypass Ukraine completely in delivering energy supplies to Europe. It is obviously desirable, from US imperialism’s point of view, to persuade the EU not to drive Greece straight into Russia’s arms – although there has been no suggestion that the US might help out with Greece’s liquidity problems if the EU continues to refuse to do so.
The Greek explosion cannot be held off much longer. When it comes it is bound to be as traumatic as the Lehman Brothers collapse. Many impoverished European governments have guaranteed Greek loans and there is bound to be a domino effect that will leave Europe as a whole reeling – which will in turn have repercussions throughout the world.
Imperialist desperation will multiply, as will the drive to war that this engenders. Communists had better get ready.
Grexit is inevitable, despite the capitulation of Greece’s government to the austerity demands of the European bankers.
<?php

namespace App\Http\Actions\Printer;

use App\Models\Printer;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use PerfectOblivion\Actions\Action;
use App\Services\Printer\UpdatePrinterService;
use App\Http\Responders\Printer\UpdatePrinterResponder;

class UpdatePrinter extends Action
{
    /** @var \App\Http\Responders\Printer\UpdatePrinterResponder */
    private $responder;

    /**
     * Construct a new UpdatePrinter action.
     *
     * @param  \App\Http\Responders\Printer\UpdatePrinterResponder  $responder
     */