![\"Greece](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.occasionalplanet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Greece-debt.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom Truth and Satire:<\/a><\/p>\n Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can\u2019t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given. It sounds quite reasonable, right?<\/p>\n Except that it is a big fat lie \u2026 not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades.<\/p>\n Greece did not fail on its own. It was made to fail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Consider a\u00a0recent article in the New York Times<\/em> by Neil Irwin. The title says it all: \u201cNow Europe Must Decide Whether to Make an Example of Greece.\u201d<\/a> Those lazy Greeks,\u201d Irwin\u2019s title suggests, \u201cneed to be taught a lesson. \u201c<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an excerpt, my emphasis:<\/p>\n The choice for leaders of Germany, France and the rest of Europe will look something like this:<\/p>\n If they tolerate<\/strong> the Greek government\u2019s demands, they will be setting a bad example<\/strong> for every other country that might wish to challenge the strictures of the European Union<\/a>,<\/strong> telling voters in Portugal and Spain and Italy that if they make enough fuss<\/strong>, and elect extremist parties<\/strong> they too will get a much sweeter deal. It would send the signal that a country can borrow all it likes, walk away from those debts and make the rest of Europe pay the bill, as long as it is intransigent enough.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notice Irwin\u2019s use of the word, \u201ctolerate,\u201d as if the Greek government is a bratty, demanding child. He says a challenge to power cannot be allowed\u2014have to nip that in the bud before it spreads to other \u201clazy\u201d countries. Irwin calls anti-establishment, left political parties, like Greece\u2019s Syriza, extremist. Syriza is \u201cextreme, \u201d I guess, because it chooses the needs of ordinary people over making banks and hedge funds whole. Finally, he characterizes the Greek people as insufferable deadbeats. \u201cBad Greeks!\u201d Irwin is saying, \u201cThey\u2019re getting what they deserve for spending way beyond their means.\u201c Being an unrepentant bank groupie, I\u2019m sure he believes that. In 2013, Irwin wrote The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire<\/em>, a book on how three central bankers dealt with the 2008 financial meltdown. One Amazon reviewer described it as \u201cPathetic drooling over something that is essentially an anti-democratic institution. The book is littered with fawning details of how some central banker was travelling in a limousine when he received a call about markets being on fire. Or how Draghi was eating smoked goat cheese (or whatever is it that elites eat) when the Greece crisis erupted and then he had to do something on his mahogany table.\u201d<\/p>\n The book earned the endorsement of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an organization whose sole mission is to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, and lower taxes on the wealthy. If you didn\u2019t get it from reading Irwin\u2019s article, his book tells you where he stands psychologically and politically. He is typical of the sycophants who populate mainstream media.<\/p>\n My point in critiquing Irwin\u2019s article is to encourage readers, especially those who call themselves \u201cprogressive,\u201d to pay attention to the underlying perspective of those who speak or write in mainstream news outlets. What are their values? With whose interests do they identify?<\/p>\n Given the serial mendacity of the NYT<\/em>, it\u2019s important to look elsewhere to understand world events, and, in this case, what caused the crisis in Greece. Look for writers and journalists who identify with the struggles of the majority population, and who have a clear-eyed view of the rampant corruption in government, banks, and the private sector around the world. Look for writers who, at minimum, are not in awe of the wealthy and the powerful.<\/p>\n For starters, you might try Conn Hallinan\u2019s \u201cEurope\u2019s Debt: Lies & Myths<\/a>. Hallinan does a great job of countering Irwin\u2019s myths by placing Greece\u2019s plight in historical context. Here\u2019s an excerpt, my emphasis:<\/p>\n Myths are dangerous<\/strong> precisely because they rely more on cultural memory and prejudice than facts, and behind the current crisis between Greece and the European Union (EU) lays a fable that bears little relationship to why Athens and a number of other countries in the 28-member organization find themselves in deep distress.<\/p>\n The tale is a variation of Aesop\u2019s allegory of the industrious ant and the lazy, fun-loving grasshopper, with the \u201cnorthern countries\u201d\u2014Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Finland\u2014playing the role of the ant, and Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland the part of the grasshopper.<\/p>\n The ants are sober and virtuous\u2014lead by the frugal Swanbian house frau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2014the grasshoppers are spendthrift, corrupt lay-abouts who have spent themselves into trouble and now must pay the piper.<\/strong><\/p>\n The problem is that this myth bears almost no relationship to the actual roots of the crisis or what the solutions might be<\/strong>. And it perpetuates a fable that the debt is the fault of individual countries rather than a serious crisis<\/a> at the very heart of the EU. And as for lazy: Greeks work 600 hours more a year than Germans<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>According to economist Mark Blyth<\/a>, author of Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea,<\/em> Greek public spending through the 2000s is \u201creally on track and quite average in comparison to everyone else\u2019s,\u201d and the so-called flood of \u201cpublic sector jobs\u201d consisted of \u201c 14,000 over two years.\u201d All the talk of the profligate Greek government is \u201ca lot of nonsense\u201d and just \u201cpolitical cover for the fact that what we\u2019ve done is bail out some of the richest people in European society and put the cost on some of the poorest.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n There was a \u201cscore\u201d in Greece. However, it had nothing to do with free spending; it was a scheme<\/a> dreamed up by Greek politicians, bankers, and the American finance corporation, Goldman Sachs.<\/p>\n Greece\u2019s application for EU membership in 1999 was rejected because its budget deficit in relation to its GDP was over 3 percent, the cutoff line for joining. That\u2019s where Goldman Sachs came in. For a fee<\/a> rumored to be $200 million (some say three times that), the multinational giant essentially cooked the books to make Greece look like it cleared the bar. Then Greece\u2019s political and economic establishment hid the scheme until the 2008 crash shattered the illusion.<\/p>\n It was the busy little ants, not the fiddling grasshoppers that brought on the European debt crisis.<\/p>\n
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\n<\/em>Irwin\u2019s \u201cgood vs. bad, white hat\/black hat\u201d narrative satisfies the embarrassingly uninformed and gullible American public, and protects the people, banks and institutions that caused the biggest global wealth heist in history.<\/p>\n
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\nIn Greece\u2019s case corruption was at the heart of the crisis, but not the popular version about armies of public workers and tax dodging oligarchs. There are rich tax dodgers aplenty in Greece, but Germany, Sweden, and many other European countries spend more of their GDP on services<\/a> than does Athens. Greece spends 44.6 percent of its GDP on its citizens, less than the EU average and below Germany\u2019s 46 percent and Sweden\u2019s 55 percent.<\/p>\n