Well, we all know very well by now what Einstein’s definition of stupidity was. Doing exactly the same thing over again and expecting it will have different results this time.
Whish is EXACTLY what prime Minister Antonis Samaras is doing with the zeal of a neophyte. Well he did tell The Frau that no one is free of sin! We don’t know if he submitted to flagellation for this sin when the Frau summoned him to an unexpected one on one meeting after his confession to sin. It does not seem unlikely.
Anyhow, he has now set about mimicking the abysmally failed George Papandreou down to a tee. First of all, he has been unable to resist the hollow triumphalism his predecessor used to relish in. Till the yoghourts started to fly. So after grovelling at The Frau’s feet even more than Papandreou, he has returned in triumph declaring that he has saved Greece from the Drachma! Just like Papandreou kept saving us from bankruptcy. (Samaras can’t even do that any more because we are bankrupt and likely to remain so if he has his way.)
So first, the irresistible urge to take on the mantel of saviour just as he is ruining the country and its future. Just like Papandreou. Next, through his public admission of sin he has taken it upon himself to implement the whole disastrous Papademos-Venizelos agreement with the troika. Slash another 11,5 billion… no actually 13,5 billion… well, er… it seems more likely to be 15 billion… okay lets make it an even 20 billion… off GDP over the next two years.
Yes. That’s it. Now, he doesn’t even tell us what he expects to happen to the Greek economy once he’s done that. All he’s done is reiterate the Papandreou mantra. We MUST pass these abominable measures through, otherwise we won’t get our fix!! Desperation! Fix being the next installment of the loan to pay the banks. Just the way Papandreou used to.
Then we get the weary mantra: We won’t be able to pay public employee salaries and pensions! Another complete crib from Papandreou’s text book. Again, he fails to point out that all this will only lead to even greater recession, to even greater unemployment and through the consequent mathematical certainty to failure to meet those “targets” set by the troika for the deficit and debt. Which will ultimately result in there being no pensions or public employee salaries at all.
So more cuts will be demanded by the troika (who only set these targets because they know damn well there is no way they can be met… or they should do!) which will lead where? If we are extremely lucky back to the Drachma! But I repeat, ONLY if we are lucky!
So just as Papandreou never saved Greece from bankruptcy, but instead did all he could to achieve that result, so Samaras is not only not going to save us from the Drachma but is taking us straight there with his policy of grovelling to the troika which is what Papandreou did before him!
Added to this he uses the same defence as Papandreou. There is nothing else we can do! We have to implement the troika’s destructive policy because otherwise they won’t give us out fix! In other words “There is no alternative”. Hmmm. We have heard that somewhere before, haven’t we? It is always used when governments decide to ruin everything worth preserving in a civilized polity.
But of course there are alternatives. And of course there are solutions. There will be pain, but pain with results at the end of the road. Unlike the Papandreou tried and failed formula which Samaras is mimicking, as I said before, with the zeal of a neophyte.
Poor Tony.