The ink has hardly dried on the first savage cut in wages and salaries in the private sector in Greece, and we have our friend and savior Christine Lagarde declare that wages and salaries in Greece must be slashed even more savagely!
Yes, well, you see she knows this stuff. At least she thinks so. But that’s the way it is now, isn’t it? Just as with the whole horrendous banking horror story still playing out with the monsters unleashed roaming the world and gobbling us up!
In the name of Freedom of the Market! everything was deregulated to the point where these wizards could do anything they fancied to make a quick buck leading us to the godawful bubble that burst in our (not their) faces and caused the catastrophe of the world economy we (not they) are currently struggling with.
Now, though the mantra and the creed of the banking/financial sector was that there should be no government intervention! When the bubble did eventually burst, the cry went up, Save us governments otherwise the whole system will come crashing down! We are too big to fail!
So since all governments were already in the banks’ pockets they agreed. And as a result profit was privatised but cost was socialised. The taxpayers have been called on to foot the bill for the banks excesses. So much for no government intervention.
Now here, with Mme Lagarde we have a slightly different version of the same story. In this super human effort of the IMF and the troika to push the now emaciated fat lady that used to be through the key hole (that is the Greek economy) it has been ordained that pay in the private sector must reach rock bottom. The so called Greek government has been instructed to legislate accordingly.
Needless to say what the so called Greek government is instructed to do, it dutifully does. So? Mme Lagarde, close to no wages in Greece? Yes! Of course! The cost of labour in Greece must be aligned to the cost of labour in Croatia and Bulgaria! How else will you good for nothing lay abouts become competitive!
Well, okay. Maybe you are right. But then shouldn’t the cost of living, prices for goods and services also be lowered down to the levels of Portugal, Croatia etc? I mean, with lower and lower incomes how are we going to live in Greece if prices keep going up?
Nonsense! Comes the answer. We can’t legislate to fix prices! That would be going against the market! Prices and the cost of living will be regulated by the invisible hand of the market! Dummies you should know that! Ok. But then why don’t we just let wages and salaries be regulated by the market too? On no! You can’t leave that to chance! It has to be enshrined in the constitutions of all member states that wages and prices will be set at below subsistence level!
So there you have it. Banks must be totally free to run amok with profits till they bust the system, but then we the taxpayers foot the bill while they carry on as before. Similarly, wages and salaries must be kept to below a bare minimum by law, but prices can go up. We mustn’t intervene with that! Oh no.
So Mme Christine Lagarde in her expensive Hermes scarves and chic attire and all the perks of an exorbitantly well paid job tells us Greek workers must no longer be given anything but a pittance, if that! Our own Minister of Labour tells us, isn’t it better to have a slashed salary than no salary at all? Sort of something better than nothing? (By the way, he’s another one calling himself a socialist!!!)
You can’t argue with them. They know what is right. Only the image of Christine Lagarde and her luxurious life style telling us to go hungry isn’t very nice. Though I’m sure if somebody told this nice lady that hey, they’re going hungry in Greece thanks to your policies, she would surely answer like a former Queen of her own country a couple of centuries or so ago, What? They have no bread? Well let them eat cake then!
For the same reason. That she doesn’t know any better than Marie Antoinette did. If you are shrouded under so many Hermes scarves, you really can’t see what is going on below!
I think it is fitting to let Leonard Cohen have the last word here.
You may have noticed the bouzouki influence in the orchestration. Leonard Cohen has (or had) a house on the Greek island of Hydra and has spent a lot of time there. I think this detail is apt.