I have said it before and I will say it again, but I am far from the only one saying it. So we can’t all be daft or devious. At the moment two of those sharing my opinion are Alexis Tsipras leader of the left wing SYRIZA party, currently coming first in the opinion polls, and the other, Stuart Thomson, manager of the Ignis Strategic Bond fund, quoted as saying about the current bond buy back scheme “This is just another milepost on Greece’s road to Hell, which is of course, paved with good intentions“.
Now these two gentlemen are literally poles apart in their politics and economics, but in full agreement about one fact. The way Greece is being raped and abused, not least by its own so called governments and technocrats, apart from all the self serving, callous Eurocrats and other Eurozone country leaders (the ones who order the others about that is.) who are pushing the hapless god forsaken country straight to hell.
The latest part of this horrific road Greece is being willfully pushed down is of course the ridiculously conceived, totally unplanned and woefully executed bond buy back. It is a fudge. A very bad fudge which will leave the Greek economy in an even worse state than before. It is a subterfuge. All the powers that be from Juncker to Merkel to Samaras and now the Governor of the Bank of Greece are using it to lie preposterously to the Greek people.
Don’t worry! They keep telling us. The worst is over! All this will bring about growth some time around the end of next year. Everything will go fine! Provided…!
That’s it. Provided you stick with this fabulous plan, based on forecasts and targets that are never ever even remotely right, that have created a vicious death spiral in recession, more austerity more recession, which does not provide one single miserable little cent for growth of any kind, with a brand new taxation law that is designed to turn Greece into a complete and utter waste land. And more.
Yet all the powers that be are upbeat about it. Even though they all know very well that it is one more nail in the coffin of Greece, one more leap down the road taking us straight to hell. And they are all so pleased with themselves for having solved the problem. Well, at least they are honest when they think they have solved the problem.
That is they think they have collectively solved their own problem, which in a nutshell is the same for all of them. How to cling onto power and keep enjoying their unearned and ill deserved salaries and perks at the expense of the poor, the impoverished, the broken people of Europe, starting with Greece.
They have done an extraordinarily good job of destroying Greece under the pretext of trying to help her, but I doubt whether any of this will be good either for them or the rest of Europe not in the long run, nor even the medium run, but in the very short run.
Something is going to blow. And soon.